On eve of anti-Trump protests, downtown LA curfew turns nightlife hub into ghost town

LOS ANGELES — On a game night in Los Angeles, 10-year-old Boomtown Brewery in the Arts District can host 500 fans just five minutes walking distance from the Dodger Stadium shuttle at Union Station.

With the Dodgers hosting their archrival San Francisco Giants over the weekend, one might expect the cavernous brew hall with giant projection screens to be packed with revelers.

But ever since Tuesday, the only long line was the stretch of unused parking meters that formed a perimeter around the brewery.

That's because an indefinite 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew imposed on downtown Los Angeles following days of immigration enforcement demonstrations has turned this nightlife hub into a practical ghost town.

—Los Angeles Times

NYPD ramps up security at NYC Jewish sites after Israel launches offensive against Iran

NEW YORK — The NYPD has dispatched officers to patrol yeshivas, synagogues, and other Jewish sites throughout the five boroughs following Israel’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in the Middle East, the department said Friday.

“The NYPD is tracking the situation in the Middle East,” the NYPD said on X. “Out of an abundance of caution, we’re deploying additional resources to Jewish, Israeli & other sites throughout NYC. We’re coordinating with our federal partners & we’ll continue to monitor for any potential impact to NYC.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Thursday that he has ordered his military to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear and missile sites to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only. “It could be a year. It could be within a few months,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed as he vowed to pursue the attack for as long as necessary to “remove this threat.”

—New York Daily News

Want to save the gorillas? Dallas Zoo invites the public to recycle old electronics

DALLAS – At the Dallas Zoo, gorillas play together, lounge in the grass, and curiously watch visitors pass by.

Just steps away, a new conservation campaign invites guests to help protect these endangered animals — simply by recycling their old electronics.

The Dallas Zoo is calling on the North Texas community to support endangered gorillas through its “Gorillas on the Line” campaign. The Zoo has set a goal to collect more than 2,000 electronic devices.

Through Sept.1, guests can drop off used phones, tablets, smartwatches and other handheld devices at the membership booth near the Zoo’s main entrance. Devices can be in any condition — including cracked or outdated — and include cell phones, tablets, smartwatches, MP3 players, chargers and handheld gaming systems.

—The Dallas Morning News

Floods kill 78 people in South Africa after record rainfall

Floods killed at least 78 people after record rainfall in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape province.

On June 9, a winter storm dropped 129 millimeters (5.1 inches) of rain on the town of Mthatha, close to Nelson Mandela’s burial site, nearly doubling the previous record, according to preliminary data from the South African Weather Service. Elliot weather station recorded 160 millimeters, about four times the previous high in 1997.

The storm was part of a wider weather system that also brought snow to parts of the Eastern Cape and the neighboring KwaZulu-Natal province. The resulting floods proved deadly as houses near rivers were engulfed and vehicles swept off bridges.

The floods are the latest in a series of adverse weather events to hit South Africa. Last year Cape Town had record rainfall in July and tens of thousands of homes were damaged. In 2022 at least 459 people died when torrential rains hit the port city of Durban.

—Bloomberg News