Laura J. Nelson 🦅
@laura_nelson
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@latimes reporter. Kansan, yogi, green thumb 🌱 DM for Signal, or laura.nelson@latimes(.)com
Los Angeles
Joined October 2008
New today in the @latimes (link below): An hour-by-hour account of the first 24 hours of the Palisades and Eaton fires, told through the eyes of people who lived it. Grateful to everyone who recounted some truly harrowing and heroic moments — they made this story possible.
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I am sitting next to a French-speaking family at Whole Foods, and their son (maybe 8 or 9?) asked what I was doing on my laptop. I said: "I'm working on my lunch break." And he said, in an adorable French accent: "Ah! I did not know that people could work on their lunch breaks!".
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I’m at the tropical storm. I’m at the earthquake. I’m at the combination tropical storm and earthquake
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"Please scream inside your heart" basically sums up 2020.
Japan’s theme parks have banned screaming on roller coasters because it spreads coronavirus. “Please scream inside your heart.”
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So, about that $5.7 billion in Tesla stock that Elon Musk gave to charity last year. it went to his own charity, Bloomberg reports:
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Did I follow this car into the Whole Foods parking lot so I could take this picture? Yes, yes, I did.
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@Steven_Strauss I wish I’d had the presence of mind to say that or literally anything else clever (let alone respond in French, which I speak) but the force of the burn was so powerful that I just laughed weakly.
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I was just trying to write, "I'm a reporter at the L.A. Times," but my email's auto-complete had other, darker ideas
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I’ve never seen the skies so clear in Los Angeles for so many days. So beautiful that it’s almost painful to look at.
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why does 55 degrees in L.A. feel colder than 55 degrees anywhere else.
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Bank of America will charge low-income customers $12 per month for their checking accounts unless they have a $1,500 account balance or monthly direct deposits of at least $250:
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This story about Daniel Radcliffe moonlighting in the @NewYorker fact-checking department is very soothing.
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Today I learned that New Jersey's state transit agency relies on a donut shop employee to unlock the doors of a train station in the morning. It quite literally runs on Dunkin'.
@stevek8n9 Hi Steve, like previously stated, Dunkin Donuts is responsible for opening the doors in the morning at Hamilton station. NJT has spoken to the vendor multiple times. If you would like to file a formal complaint, use the link below. -TB
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I laughed harder at this than I probably should have
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did. did boston write this.
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A woman just showed up 20 minutes late to breakfast at this cafe and apologized by saying: “I didn’t realize Uber was on strike this morning.” . “So how did you get here?” her friend asked. “Uber,” she said, looking confused. “You crossed the picket line?”. “The what?”.
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This study was commissioned by a life insurance company, and you'd never guess what they think you should be spending the money on instead.
The average adult in the USA spends $1,497 a month on nonessential items. All told, that's roughly $18,000 a year on things we can all do without.
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Meanwhile, in transportation news about the Oscars: A @metrolosangeles rider spotted Ed Begley Jr. taking the Red Line to the Dolby Theater. (Via Tim de la Motte on Instagram, h/t @metrolosangeles)
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Just learned that San Francisco has an “adopt-a-drain” program and in exchange for keeping the drain clear of debris, you get to NAME IT
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A summer Friday in California: The transit agencies for Los Angeles and San Francisco are having a limerick battle about weed.
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@Nicole_Cliffe The lesson I learned, besides being kind to strangers, is that you can pay it forward with your AAA membership! As long as you stay with someone until the truck gets there, your membership will cover their tow, tire change, emergency gas refill, etc.
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I would read an entire story on the evolution of the Californian dialect’s use of “yeah, no, yeah” and “no, yeah, no” — not to be confused with, “yeah, no” or “no, yeah.”.
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This is one of the best reader emails of all time, hands down.
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I literally once watched a journalist eat a hamburger and french fries during a press conference and then wipe his hands on the carpet
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repeat after me: Los Angeles has a subway. Los Angeles has a subway.
"For years, New Yorkers like me have mocked and reviled Los Angeles because of its messy residential sprawl and its out-of-control car culture," writes @amywilentz. But it also doesn’t have virus vectors like subways and lots of residential elevators.
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How a 22-year-old L.A. native became Biden’s inauguration poet. Great story on Amanda Gorman by @julia_p_barajas:.
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With timelines slipping, Silicon Valley types say driverless cars would be ready sooner if pedestrians would "behave less erratically" -- a suggestion that has, uh, not been received kindly.
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So, to recap the day in media news:.- ESPN lays off 150 people.- Buzzfeed has 100 layoffs coming after missing revenue targets .- LA Weekly’s new secret owners fire practically the whole staff.
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Everybody seems the same age on Twitter until you mention UB40, and then it's like those whistles that only people of certain ages can hear.
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so there's this little thing called earthquakes.
Is This Bookshelf Headboard Aspirational or Does it Stress You Out?
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The rest of us should take the day off because we’ll never top this.
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So. the person hired to write about Soon-Yi Previn — who is Mia Farrow’s daughter and Woody Allen’s wife — has been friends with him for more than 40 years?
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Scenes from the @latimes newsroom: We are all supposed to take a phishing/cyber-security training, and several people ignored it because they thought the email about the training was, itself, a phishing attempt.
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supporting your local newspaper is honestly so important.
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People say journalists are in it for the thrills, but upon further review, it appears I'm in it for the fits of stomach-turning nausea that I messed something up.
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Another huge story developing right now: The judge overseeing a wide-reaching lawsuit over homelessness in Los Angeles has ordered the city + county to offer some form of housing to everyone living on Skid Row by October. By @boreskes, with more to come:
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“A Gallup poll found 58 percent blamed the Kent students for their own deaths. Only 11 percent blamed the National Guard.”.
Got to the section of Nixonland about Kent State the day after the right wing cheered on the murderer of two protesters
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Amtrak Train 501 was running along a new, $181-million route primarily funded by the federal government.
The train accident that just occurred in DuPont, WA shows more than ever why our soon to be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly. Seven trillion dollars spent in the Middle East while our roads, bridges, tunnels, railways (and more) crumble! Not for long!.
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writes WHO, I'm sorry?.
Restaurants are safe. we MUST let them reopen, writes Boisdale founder RANALD MACDONALD
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The @latimes has dropped the paywall for our coverage of Kobe’s death and legacy. If you value this kind of work, please consider supporting it with a subscription.
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Statement from the Minneapolis bus drivers’ union: “We have a saying: 'NOT ONE MORE' when dealing with driver assaults… We say 'NOT ONE MORE' execution of a black life by the hands of the police. NOT ONE MORE! JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD.”
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The shutdown comes to Joshua Tree, where, with no federal employees to keep an eye on things, people are littering, lighting illegal fires, and “stringing Christmas lights from delicate Joshua trees that they are supposed to leave untouched.”
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Go to your room and think about what you’ve just done.
Enough with the WFH sweatpants. Dress like the adult you're getting paid to be
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Also, Marisa Tomei gave me a cookie and thanked me for voting.
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L.A.'s famous mountain lion, P-22, was euthanized this morning.
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Anyone who has been tracking the absolute dominance of SUVs and trucks in the American vehicle market over the last decade or so should have seen this level of outrage over high gas prices coming from a mile away.
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A young man of color was found dead early Monday morning in the West Hollywood apartment of Democratic donor Ed Buck, the second person found dead there since 2017:
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Any reporter who’s had a true story trashed by an elected official has probably dreamed of a front page like this:
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The West Coast right now feels a bit like someone is playing Sim City and turned on all the disasters on simultaneously.
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Just in: California says anyone 50 or older will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccines starting April 1. Vaccines will open to everyone age 16+ April 15.
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Good news from Ridgecrest and Trona, the California Mojave Desert towns rocked by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake last night. Per Kern County Fire Chief David Witt, there are no deaths, no major injuries and no major building collapses.
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Then we rounded a corner and met this horse trotting through the burn area. All of Mulholland Highway was pretty surreal.
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This is very difficult to read: Kate Spade's older sister tells the @kcstar that she urged the designer to seek in-patient treatment for mental illness, but that Kate was concerned that hospitalization would harm the image of her "happy-go-lucky" brand.
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If Los Angeles County's stay-at-home order were lifted and people resumed their normal habits, 95.6% of residents would be infected with the coronavirus by Aug. 1, this story says:
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Yesterday at a spin class in West Hollywood, the instructor told us to use the exercise to push away all the obstacles that we encountered during the week, and then offered the example: “It was cloudy.”.
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Did you know? Los Angeles County covers 4,751 square miles, and we vote on paper. After the polls close, many of the ballots are *flown by helicopter* to elections HQ. (It’s very Bladerunner!).
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We had a termite guy come out to the apartment this morning. After he confirmed that our stucco walls and exposed beams are basically a buffet for termites, he said he took the job because it had way better stability and pay than his old job. in. digital media.
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I have deleted.the pitches.that were in.my inbox. and which.you were probably.hoping.would get coverage. Forgive me.they were irrelevant.so repetitive .and so not what I cover.
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@Nicole_Cliffe my first summer in L.A., my transmission went out on the 134 Freeway. No smartphones yet, and I had no idea where I was or what to do. A dad with three kids (all in car seats) saw me crying, pulled over, called AAA and stayed with me to calm me down until the tow truck got there.
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West Virginia, the only state to reject a vaccination partnership with Walgreens and CVS, has administered the most COVID-19 vaccinations per capita of any state in the country.
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I guess this is where I point out that it is illegal to ride scooters on the sidewalk, as evidenced by the hundreds of tickets LAPD has written this year:
Who’s ready to scoot into the weekend? 🛴 .#ThatDonutTho #tgif #fridayfeeling #mood #friday #police #bird #scooter #LA @LASchools
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"Police activity" is an early candidate for understatement of the year.
GOLD LINE: buses replace trains between Pico/Aliso and Maravilla due to police activity. Line 30 may also serve as alt option.
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There are people in my inbox who have hit the paywall on the @latimes, and can't read my Q&A on the LAX Uber-Lyft system. Instead of subscribing, they're asking me to use my work time to answer their questions individually. Real talk: How do you think reporters get paid? Magic?.
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Trying to imagine what Los Angeles would feel like if major boulevards looked like this
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How lovely: Yo-Yo Ma got his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and then played a concert for the clinic during his 15-minute observation period
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So to recap, in the last week, California has experienced:.• a pandemic .• raging wildfires.• toxic, apocalyptic air quality.• and now an earthquake.
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A @wsj bombshell: Google is collecting and analyzing health records from tens of millions of Americans in 21 states through an agreement with the country's second-largest healthcare system, the story says. Patients and doctors haven't been informed.
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Well, today’s the day — LAX banned Uber, Lyft, and taxi pickups at the curb at 3 a.m. this morning. Here’s how the new system works.
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“No, you don’t understand. I’m not going to make it. I was the best mother I could be.” . @corinaknoll.
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Elon Musk takes his new Tesla Cybertruck out for a drive to Nobu in Malibu -- and runs over a "right turn only" sign while. making a left turn:
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Talk about a leak to the media.
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@mucha_carlos @Steven_Strauss Yes! I am guessing he wanted to practice his English - he was very cute.
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"Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: 'My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.'"
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He's spent a decade in the heart of Los Angeles, posing for dramatic photos near the Hollywood sign and sparking his fair share of media frenzies. Griffith Park's mountain lion needed his own celebrity profile, so I wrote it. (Best assignment ever!).
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If you don’t know anyone who rides transit in Los Angeles, that says more about your life here than it does about the city.
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I also wanted to get close enough to see if they were X’ing out the names of the candidates who’ve dropped out. (Answer: No.).
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These photos of Cokie Roberts, Linda Wertheimer and Nina Totenberg four decades apart gave me a lump in my throat. Young women working in journalism today stand on the shoulders of giants.
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PSA: The @USPS has said that ballots mailed back after today are not guaranteed to arrive by Election Day. In some states, ballots that arrive after Nov. 3 won't be counted. So mail yours today — or hand-deliver it to your election office, or use an official ballot drop box. 🗳️.
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NEW: A look at U.S. Postal Service cuts and chaos in California. According to workers at one L.A. mail facility that has seen cutbacks, perishable food has rotted in packages and baby chicks have died in boxes. By me and @mayalau:
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I don’t really believe in the aphorism that journalists should never have a quiet taxi or Uber ride — sometimes you just want to sit quietly! — but I am an avid student of the eavesdropping-in-cafes school.
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After three prop gun accidents on the Rust set, including two on Saturday involving Alec Baldwin’s stunt double, one worker texted the production manager: “We’ve now had 3 accidental discharges. This is super unsafe.” @MegJamesLAT @AmyKinLA
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Hi -- so, some news! I'm very excited to share that I've moved into a new job at the @latimes as an investigative and enterprise reporter.
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Twitter in 2017: You turn away for an hour and when you come back, everyone is talking about nuclear war.
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I am 29 and have covered half of the deadliest mass shootings in America. I have a friend who was present for one and missed another by an hour. I wonder whether our generation will spend our entire lives confronting violence that was once unimaginable but now is just routine.
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And people wonder why so many media outlets are unionizing?
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This really sucks. Not feeling eloquent right now. As the economy falters, ad sales are tanking. If you find the @latimes essential, if you learn new things about L.A. or California or the world through our work, please support us with a subscription.
The @latimes has just announced furloughs and other pay cuts for non-union employees. Our statement:
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