The giant sequoia

Sequoia National Park is closed due to massive fires burning nearby that have resulted in the loss of more than 100 structures and thousands of evacuations. The nation’s second national park would be celebrating its 130th anniversary Sept. 25.

Jurassic park?

The oldest known redwood fossils date back more than 200 million years to the Jurassic period and the trees once spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The last giant sequoias are on about 48,000 acres, in about 73 groves scattered along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The northernmost sequoias grow in Tahoe National Forest, and the southernmost groves are in the Sequoia National Forest, northeast of Bakersfield.

Giant sequoias live a very long time and grow quickly...

A protester in Hollywood was struck Thursday night by an SUV speeding by a crowd of marchers on the second night of protests related to the killing of Breonna Taylor by Louisville Metropolitan Police Department officers.

Shortly before 9 p.m., a black SUV sped by the crowd, striking a protester before speeding away again. The Los Angeles Fire Department responded and took one person to a hospital, according to the LAFD’s Nicholas Prange.

The protest began at 7 p.m. and by 7:30 p.m., at least 200 people were sitting and standing in the grass outside the entrance to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, located at 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., in Hollywood.

Vehicles could be heard driving by the protest honking in support, and a series of speakers addressed the crowd.

Demonstrators chanted “Black l...

Jamal Murray spent Thursday night hanging letters on the Lakers. Add it all up and he probably won five simultaneous “horse” games.

The problem for Murray, and Denver, is that you have to play “rhinoceros,” or something even more multi-syllabic, to beat the Lakers.

The letters were too plentiful and the limbs too long, especially the arm belonging to LeBron James, who turned away Murray’s drive on the final play that really mattered.

“LeBron asked for the assignment,” coach Frank Vogel said. “Naturally I granted it.”

The Lakers won Western Conference Final Game 4, 114-108, and took the same 3-1 series lead over Denver that Utah and the Clippers also held. Again, this might be a case of a different animal.

Murray made three anatomically impossible shots in the lane, one ...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. >> Either the Lakers are poised to do what no team has done yet in these playoffs, or the Denver Nuggets are positioned right where they want to be.

After a Game 4 dogfight Thursday, which saw Anthony Davis and LeBron James wrestle for 60 combined points and hold off an awe-inspiring assault from Jamal Murray, the Lakers won 114-108 and now hold a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals. It’s proven to be the most difficult series lead to hold against these Nuggets who have come back from that deficit twice already.

The Lakers were able to win thanks much in part to their stars’ aggression. Davis was 10 for 15 from the field, while James was 7 for 18. The game-changer was their ability to get to the free throw line, which accounted for 24 of their points.

The...

LOS ANGELES >> Bubble up.

The Dodgers, like playoff-bound teams across MLB, went into quarantine Wednesday night in hopes for a postseason uninterrupted by positive coronavirus tests. The Dodgers players and coaching staff were expected to move into a Los Angeles hotel for the duration of the regular season and next week’s Wild Card Series, then move to a resort in Dallas for the remaining rounds of the postseason (if they advance).

The MLB ‘bubble’ will not be as stringent as the NBA version which limited players to an Orlando campus and punished players for breaking quarantine. MLB players will, however, be expected to limit their activities to the hotel and the ballpark with families allowed to join them.

If the Dodgers advance through a seven-game World Series, they would spend...

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I’m worried about Simon Le Bon. Not the Duran Duran frontman, but my houseplant (a stunning calathea ornata beauty star I named after the singer) that has spider mites. I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve gotten REALLY into houseplants during the pandemic. I also name them after rock stars so they have a built-in soundtrack. (Didn’t we all do that elementary school science fair experiment where you played music to plants to help them grow?)

Anyway, Simon has spider mites and they’ve also spread to some of my other calatheas, including Mick (Jagger, a peacock calathea) and Elton (John, a rattlesnake calathea), and I wish I could find some music...

THOUSAND OAKS — To know how well he fits with the Rams, Robert Woods doesn’t have to look back any farther than last week.

That’s when the Rams showed their appreciation by signing Woods to a new contract that makes him one of the NFL’s 10 best-paid wide receivers and keeps him with the team well into his 30s.

But to really grasp how good he has it these days, he must look all the way back to Buffalo.

That’s where Woods began his professional career, a multi-talented receiver, ballcarrier and run-blocker frustrated in a plodding Bills offense, an L.A. native and USC alum adjusting to the bourgeois world of an upstate New York town.

“I was just going to The Cheesecake Factory. That was our spot,” Woods said of Buffalo’s gourmet high points.

The subject of Buffalo came up t...

More than 70 citations have been issued over the past month to various businesses and organizations — most notably churches and gyms — for violating health restrictions imposed to control spread of COVID-19, but Los Angeles County’s health officer said Thursday, Sept. 24 that no closures have been ordered.

Dr. Muntu Davis said, however, that failures to adhere to the restrictions, particularly those barring many indoor business operations and worship services, can exacerbate virus spread.

“Not just for us in terms of public health but others who are watching and monitoring the spread of this virus and trying to do everything we can to control it, it is concerning when we don’t have compliance with the measures that are needed in order to slow the spread of this within our county,” ...