» Military Aircraft Crashes in California Desert, Injuring 1 Less than 48 hours after a Marine Corps aircraft crashed in Imperial County, killing all five Marines on board, another military helicopter crashed in the same county on Thursday evening. One of the aircrew sustained a non-life threatening injury. [Los Angeles Times]
» Woodland Hills Woman Wins CA’s Biggest Lottery Jackpot A woman won the state’s largest lottery jackpot, a whopping $426 million, with a ticket purchased at a gas station in Woodland Hills. [KTLA]
» Irwindale-based Huy Fong Foods Inc. Halts Production of Sriracha Due to Pepper Shortage “Unfortunately, we can confirm that there is an unprecedented shortage of our products,” the company said in a statement. “We are still endeavoring to resolve this issue that has been caused by several spiraling events, including unexpected crop failure from the spring chili harvest.” [Bloomberg]
» ‘I was slipping in people’s blood:’ Capital Police Officer on Jan. 6 Attack U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was injured in the January 6, 2021 riot, testified Thursday night about the insurrection, calling it a “war scene.” [CNN]
» Grammys Adds 5 New Categories for 2023, Including Songwriter of the Year The Recording Academy announced Thursday that it is adding a special song for social change award and five new categories, including songwriter of the year, which will be recognized at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in 2023. [Associated Press]
TOP STORIES FROM L.A. MAG
» Poll: Angelenos Are Losing Faith in LAPD But Don’t Want Fewer Cops Almost 40 percent of L.A. voters disapprove of the job the police department is doing, according to a new poll by UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times
» How The Media Fumbled the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard Verdict Many pundits were quick to conclude the opposite of what everyone who watched the defamation trial had decided. So social influencers picked up the slack
» Walmart Cancels Chaokoh Coconut Milk Due to Forced Monkey Labor People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has accused the Thai brand of using and abusing chained monkeys for the coconut harvest
» Dee Wallace Celebrates ‘E.T.’ for Blockbuster’s 40th Birthday (Exclusive) Perhaps the greatest of all Spielberg moms, and one of the world’s top scream queens, Dee Wallace looks back at the magic four decades later
ONE MORE THING
Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Elvis’ May Be the Music Biopic to End All Biopics
All the way from Australia, Elvis surfs in on a wave of audacity, which will surprise no one familiar with the movies of writer-director Baz Luhrmann. Elvis Presley was the most mythic self-made American since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s romantic antihero Jay Gatsby, the subject of Luhrmann’s last movie, except Presley was real: a Southern high school weirdo in eyeliner and bolero pants turned truck driver turned musical messiah who did nothing much but change the world. Only the Beatles a decade later would exceed Presley’s impact, unifying and transforming a generation and Western culture.
In the seven decades since Presley first hit, his reputation has survived its original controversies only to court new ones about the way he mashed up Black church hymns and white-trash honky-tonk, Tin Pan Alley and backstreet ballads. What Presley, more than anyone, made clear was how much everyone around the world loves American music however they otherwise feel about America.
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