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Friday, 31 January 2020
Putin Frees Israeli Backpacker, Helping Embattled Netanyahu
Harvard professor slams Trump's lawyer for incorrectly citing him numerous times during Trump's impeachment trial: 'It's a joke'
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San Francisco airport official resigns in wake of FBI report
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U.S. envoy warns Palestinians against raising opposition to U.S. peace plan at U.N.
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U.S. declares coronavirus public health emergency after imposing quarantines
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Estranged husband accused of killing Jennifer Dulos dies
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GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander: 'There is no need for more evidence' to prove Trump's actions were 'inappropriate'
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'Let's Find Out Who's Telling The Truth': Schiff Makes Argument For Witnesses | NBC News - NBC News
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Liberal 'View' co-hosts call for Trump to hand over DNA after rape allegation: 'Clinton had to' - Fox News
- Liberal 'View' co-hosts call for Trump to hand over DNA after rape allegation: 'Clinton had to' Fox News
- Rape Accuser E. Jean Carroll Seeks Trump DNA | The View The View
- E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped, her seeks his DNA to test against sample from her dress NBCNews.com
- Lawyers for E Jean Carroll want a DNA sample — but Trump is no Bill Clinton The Independent
- Woman who has accused Trump of sexual assault is seeking his DNA CNN
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State Dept. issues highest advisory: 'Do not travel to China' amid coronavirus outbreak - USA TODAY
- State Dept. issues highest advisory: 'Do not travel to China' amid coronavirus outbreak USA TODAY
- First case of person-to-person transmission of Wuhan virus in the US confirmed CNN
- CDC confirms first human-to-human transmission of coronavirus in US CNBC
- Dr. Peter Hotez: What coronavirus means for the U.S., China and the world Fox News
- Coronavirus: Which countries have evacuated their citizens? BBC News
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Marie Yovanovitch, diplomat at center of impeachment drama, retires - CNN
- Marie Yovanovitch, diplomat at center of impeachment drama, retires CNN
- Former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Key Figure In Impeachment Trial, Retires NPR
- Key impeachment witness Marie Yovanovitch retires from State Department - Business Insider Business Insider
- US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch retires from the State Department Daily Mail
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WATCH LIVE: Trump delivers remarks at the White House Summit on Human Trafficking - Washington Post
- WATCH LIVE: Trump delivers remarks at the White House Summit on Human Trafficking Washington Post
- White House Holds Trafficking ‘Summit,’ but Critics Dismiss Lack of Dialogue The New York Times
- Trump Signs Executive Order, Touts 'Unprecedented Pressure' On Human Traffickers | NBC News NBC News
- Trump says he cares about migrant trafficking. His policy tells a different story. The Washington Post
- Trump to sign executive order combating human trafficking | TheHill The Hill
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Man Faces a Proposed $13 Million Fine for Racist Robocalls, U.S. Says - The New York Times
- Man Faces a Proposed $13 Million Fine for Racist Robocalls, U.S. Says The New York Times
- US neo-Nazi faces $12.9m fine for sending racist robocalls The Guardian
- FCC proposes $13M fine for neo-Nazi behind racist robocalls made after Mollie Tibbetts' death Fox News
- FCC proposes $13 million fine against man behind robocalls attacking Abrams, Gillum | TheHill The Hill
- Racist robocalls attacking Stacey Abrams lead to proposed fines Atlanta Journal Constitution
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A U.S. Plane Crashed in Afghanistan. Why So Many Believed a CIA Chief Was On It.
The wreckage of a U.S. military plane that crashed and burned on a snowy mountain peak in Afghanistan on Monday was still fresh when Iranian state TV ran a story claiming a top CIA officer was among the dead. Like all good propaganda, the story was mostly false, but with a scintilla of truth. Two American service members had been killed when the U.S. Air Force jet slammed into the side of the mountain, but U.S. officials insist there was no CIA onboard.
A combination of bad weather and Taliban gunfire kept U.S. and Afghan forces from reaching the site for more than a day. By the time the U.S. military put out a brief statement saying that the downed plane carried two U.S. Air Force pilots, the dubious story had spread around the globe.
After a couple of fringy Iranian and pro-Kremlin news outlets reported that Michael D’Andrea, head of the CIA’s Iran Mission Center, was onboard the E-11A communications jet, the story was picked up in The Daily Mail, a major British tabloid, and a second British newspaper, The Independent, carried the news of D’Andrea’s alleged demise to London, albeit with some skepticism. While the Pentagon confirmed to TIME on Friday that there were only two Air Force officers on the plane, none of the official public statements say they were the only passengers. And the CIA has refused to comment on whether D’Andrea or any other CIA personnel were onboard.
The U.S. military says it could not have gotten the news out sooner. But the Iranian version of events that circulated in the information vacuum had people inside and outside the U.S. wondering who to believe. The Trump Administration’s now-familiar pattern of slow, incomplete and sometimes disingenuous responses to events has ground down public and internal trust of its messaging and created an opportunity for adversaries like Iran and Russia to spread disinformation and sow confusion among allies and U.S. officials. The wrong information can spread about an event whether it happened on a remote Afghan mountainside or a maximum-security American compound. “If false reports are not authoritatively or convincingly disproven, they can take on a life of their own,” James Cunningham, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan told TIME. “Once that happens, it’s very hard to undo that.”
Critics and some U.S. officials say the growing dearth of trust in America’s word is symptomatic of an Administration led by a President who calls journalists “the enemy of the people”, frequently labels factual or unflattering news coverage as “fake news”, and has himself made more than 12,000 false or misleading statements during his tenure, according to a count by The Washington Post. A trust gap has formed between journalists and Administration spokespeople who often see challenging questions as political attacks, and treat offending outlets with disdain.
Overall, there are fewer on-record press briefings in the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and other agencies in this Administration, says a former senior Trump Administration official. He says that’s due in part to the top-down nature of the Administration and in part to subordinates’ efforts to protect the President. There is an internal battle afoot with some senior Administration officials arguing for more public briefings, and while the White House Press Secretary hasn’t briefed from the podium since March 2019, the Pentagon and State Department have resumed holding more frequent press conferences to win back that global public trust. But it’s an uphill battle against the megaphone of the Twitter presidency —and the active disinformation campaigns being waged overseas against the U.S. “No one believes us anymore,” one frustrated senior U.S. official said.
FOR THOSE COUNTRIES that similarly see the free press as an enemy, the Trump Administration’s approach to the media works just fine, and the case of Iran and the downed U.S. jet shows how. The U.S. Bombardier E-11A, which was providing troop communications in a remote part of Ghazni, crashed early Monday in an area that’s under Taliban control. Video of the smoldering aircraft was almost immediately posted to social media by eyewitnesses, and the Taliban was quick to claim responsibility for shooting it and other aircraft down. “Many senior officers were killed,” Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan emailed TIME on Monday.
Roughly three hours later, U.S. Forces Afghanistan spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett issued a brief statement denying the militants’ claims, but it did not provide many details. “While the cause of crash is under investigation, there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire,” Leggett said in the statement. “The Taliban claims that additional aircraft have crashed are false.”
Multiple U.S. military and Administration officials told TIME that the delay in getting the details of the crash out was due to the fact that the plane went down in Taliban territory and that bad weather prevented them from flying directly to the site. The officials also said it wasn’t immediately clear whether there were any survivors; if there were, they didn’t want to signal to the Taliban to go looking for their troops. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
In the meantime, the Iran story that a high-level CIA officer was on board took off. It wasn’t until late Wednesday afternoon – more than 48 hours after the crash – that the U.S. was able to release the names of two Air Force personnel who were killed on the jet: Lt. Col. Paul K. Voss, 46, of Yigo, Guam; and Capt. Ryan S. Phaneuf, 30, of Hudson, New Hampshire.
The lag time in releasing information gave time for the Iranian disinformation about D’Andrea to circulate, even reaching senior foreign officials in Washington, D.C., who told TIME they were uncertain which account to believe. As of Friday, the CIA has declined to comment, and no Trump Administration official would deny the CIA rumor on record, citing concerns that publicly commenting on the report only spreads the lie further. “That’s not how your fight disinformation,” one frustrated senior U.S. official tells TIME. “On the record should be our default standard.”
The CIA’s reticence has frustrated some of D’Andrea’s colleagues, two of whom tell TIME it’s “business as usual” for the senior official. If someone as senior as D’Andrea were killed, he’d likely be buried with full honors in Arlington Cemetery, within 24 hours of his demise because he’s an observant Muslim, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
David Lapan, a retired Marine Colonel who served as a senior spokesperson for multiple administrations, including Trump’s, says it’s not unusual for it to take hours before the military can report the facts of an incident, but that the current atmosphere of mistrust in information coming out of the Administration make unavoidable delays ripe for both misinterpretation and exploitation by adversaries.
This particular case could have been handled differently, Lapan says. The three-hour lag between the video of a U.S. aircraft smoldering on social media and a U.S. statement “is too long,” he says. “We should get out and acknowledge what we can. That delay — on top of this distrust that now exists — made the situation worse.”
The crash follows close on the heels of other recent events that have sparked fake news from adversaries and left U.S. officials worried or confused over what version of events to believe.
After the Jan. 8th Iranian ballistic missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq, President Donald Trump first reported on Twitter there were no U.S. injuries, while Iranian sources were reporting dozens of Americans were dead and injured in the attack. The Pentagon has since acknowledged that were more than 60 cases of mild to severe traumatic brain injury among the troops who were buffeted by massive shock waves that broke glass windows 1,000 yards from the missiles’ impact.
It can take hours, days or more for symptoms of traumatic brain injury to manifest, and the Pentagon’s own rules classify an officially reportable injury as loss of life, limb, eye or life-threatening injury, something Administration officials say they are now reviewing. Trump was briefed along those rules and wasn’t trying to mislead the public, the military and Administration officials said.
But when later challenged on his initial account, the President dismissed the injuries as “headaches” adding, “I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries that I’ve seen” — a comment that U.S. military officials privately called demoralizing and insulting. Senior diplomats said that shifting narrative of whether American troops were hurt on U.S. bases that day was yet another notch in their dwindling trust in public statements from Trump and his officials.
Something similar happened just weeks later, when unidentified attackers launched an aerial assault on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The absence of information about the attack from the Embassy was followed by conflicting information from senior Administration officials, a frustrated U.S. official tells TIME.
The aerial bombardment on the U.S. compound was first acknowledged by Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, and then mentioned in a State Department statement describing a phone call from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the Iraqi leader, in which Pompeo condemned “continued assaults by Iran’s armed groups against U.S. facilities in Iraq, including yesterday’s rocket attacks against our Embassy, which resulted in one injury.”
U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Frank Mackenzie has since told reporters that it was in fact mortars that were used. In this case, identifying the weapon helps identify the attacker: rockets are almost exclusively used by Iranian-trained Iraqi armed groups, but simpler mortars are commonly available throughout Iraq and could have been fired by any number of disgruntled actors.
In the confusion, fake news also took root, with stories being published in local media that the U.S. Embassy was being evacuated, and the people were dead and seriously injured, the official said. “It just makes people question what’s true.” The U.S. Embassy itself still hasn’t put out a public account of the attack and a State Department official, speaking anonymously as a condition of offering comment, told TIME they would not offer further details of the Baghdad embassy attack due to security concerns.
THE PENTAGON SAYS it’s doing everything it can to stop disinformation about U.S. military personnel and interests overseas from spreading. “We live in a time of widespread misinformation from the U.S.’s adversaries, and the Department of Defense is constantly working to counter it,” Alyssa Farah, Department of Defense Press Secretary told TIME. She said the Defense Department regularly engages with the press in on- and off-record briefings as part of that effort.
But the Pentagon is only one agency in what is sometimes a discordant cacophony of messaging, and at others, silence. The recent string of problematic messaging has frustrated veterans of the fight on terrorism who want to react to state-sponsored propaganda with the same speed they learned to counter messaging by al Qaeda in Iraq under the Bush and Obama Administrations.
Now-retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in his memoir My Share of the Task that a key part of defeating militants in both countries is getting your version of events out first — lest, for instance, an adversary paint an overnight U.S. Delta Force raid on militants as a slaughter of innocent civilians, a rumor that would make it harder to win the trust and cooperation of the local population.
Bret Schafer, of the Washington-DC-based Alliance for Securing Democracy which tracks Russian disinformation, said the U.S. regularly fails at getting its own version of events out first. He said he first heard of this week’s plane crash in Afghanistan from anti-American social media accounts. “By leaving gaps in the information space, you are on your back feet,” he said.
Getting in front of the story is also important to how people back home digest news of the events. If adversaries plant stories that end up reinforcing Americans’ skepticism of own government or media, they’ve won, says Schafer. “The Iranians or Russians don’t have to prove their theory,” he said. “There just have to be enough versions of the story out there so we can’t know what’s happening and we can’t trust anything.”
—With reporting by W.J. Hennigan and John Walcott/Washington
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Kobe Bryant helicopter firm was not allowed to fly in fog
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Could you handle the most remote campsite on earth?
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Hillary Clinton Slams Bernie Sanders for Not Working to Unite Democrats in 2016
By BY SHANE GOLDMACHER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RM2iF6
Plans for Alabama’s Deadly Prisons ‘Won’t Fix the Horrors’
By BY KATIE BENNER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3aZLFgP
Brexit Has Arrived. But Boris Johnson’s Reign Is Just Beginning.
By BY RICHARD SEYMOUR from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2RNUGC1
Senators say they’ve settled on a schedule that would end the trial on Wednesday.
By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI AND MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UbLc5b
Battle Lines Quickly Form Over Radical Property Tax Proposal
By BY EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS, MATTHEW HAAG AND JEFFERY C. MAYS from NYT New York https://ift.tt/2tgjTeQ
Thursday, 30 January 2020
More American Troops Sustain Brain Injuries From Iran Missile Strike in Iraq
By BY THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF from NYT World https://ift.tt/2t90lce
No hot meals, blankets, magazines as airlines step up fight on virus
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U.S. says first shipments of medicine to Iran delivered via Swiss humanitarian channel
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‘You know your client is guilty’: Trump impeachment lawyer’s defence accused of being ‘descent into madness’
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Iraq says anti-IS operations with U.S. coalition resume
Iraq's military said on Thursday it was resuming operations with the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State which had mostly halted after bases hosting U.S. troops came under rocket attacks and a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian commander. U.S.-Iranian tension threatens to derail the fight against the Sunni extremist group, which seeks a resurgence in northern Iraq three years after its military defeat at the hands of the coalition, Iraqi forces and Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim militias.
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The Latest: Putin tells officials to prepare for new virus
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McConnell: Republicans don't have the votes to block witnesses in impeachment trial, reports say
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Roberts reportedly blocked Rand Paul's questions mentioning alleged whistleblower's name
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Ancient skulls unearthed in Mexico reveal surprising diversity of early humans
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Hunter Biden ex-wife spotted dining with Michelle Obama at Georgetown restaurant - Washington Examiner
- Hunter Biden ex-wife spotted dining with Michelle Obama at Georgetown restaurant Washington Examiner
- Rival campaigns say Trump Ukraine hits are a warning to Biden NBC News
- Democratic senator on Manchin comments: 'Hunter Biden is not on trial' | TheHill The Hill
- Aiming at Trump, Biden says a president's character matters ABC News
- Daniel Turner: Biden is running out of time to turn his campaign around Fox News
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Bernie Sanders praised George Wallace as 'sensitive' in 1972 - Washington Examiner
- Bernie Sanders praised George Wallace as 'sensitive' in 1972 Washington Examiner
- What I learned watching Bernie and Biden for hours on end POLITICO
- The 2020 Democratic candidates, ranked CNN
- What are Democratic primary voters thinking? The Washington Post
- Can Bernie Sanders tackle the question of electability? Washington Examiner
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China's deadly coronavirus could be good for US jobs, manufacturing, says Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross - CNBC
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How Does The Iowa Caucus Work? - NPR
- How Does The Iowa Caucus Work? NPR
- Candidates look to court Latino voters ahead of Iowa caucuses CBS News
- Iowa Democrats fear losing first-in-the-nation status POLITICO
- What Trump could do to the Iowa caucus CNN
- Dr. Kent Ingle: Iowa Democratic caucuses will show which candidates are best at spinning their extreme agenda Fox News
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Fox News Breaking News Alert
PROGRAMMING ALERT: Sen. Rand Paul talks impeachment fight on 'The Story,' 7 pm ET
01/30/20 3:52 PM
¿Hará el papa Francisco un milagro con la deuda de Argentina?
By BY MARCELO J. GARCÍA from NYT en Español https://ift.tt/2RIDCgw
Alexander asks about the differences in bipartisanship under Nixon and Trump.
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Day 9 of Trump’s Trial: Tedium and Tea-Leaf Reading
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Fred Silverman, 82, Is Dead; a TV Force When Three Networks Ruled
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Fotis Dulos, Accused of Killing Jennifer Dulos, Is Dead
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Wednesday, 29 January 2020
As Coronavirus Explodes in China, Countries Struggle to Control Its Spread
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Prince Andrew Does Nothing to Help the Jeffrey Epstein Investigation. Meanwhile, the Royal Family Burns.
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Coronavirus Spreads, and the World Pays for China’s Dictatorship
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US military's Special Operations Command says its newest recruits may have an 'unhealthy sense of entitlement'
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6 Takeaways From Senators’ Questions to Impeachment Lawyers
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Dylann Roof appeals death sentence for massacre at South Carolina black church
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China wants Danish daily to apologize for virus cartoon
China demanded Monday that a major Danish newspaper, which angered Muslims worldwide by publishing drawings of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, apologizes for a cartoon on the new virus outbreak in China.
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Day 8 of Trump’s Trial: Ask Me Anything
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Biden's final Iowa drive sweeps through rival territory
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A frantic campaign schedule catches up with one senator.
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Bolton, who may hold impeachment bombshell, has a history of settling scores
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Biden Plans a Counterattack at Trump as Impeachment Tensions Rise
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'It's hysteria': Asian students at Arizona State University say they're being treated differently after a case of the Wuhan coronavirus was confirmed there
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Legal Pads, Photographs and a Podcast: How Senators Are Documenting Impeachment
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A woman who had embryos frozen before cancer treatment is barred from using them since she got divorced
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Bashing Bolton, a Senate candidate, Jeff Sessions, plays up his loyalty.
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The 3 kinds of Republicans that Bolton's testimony would reveal
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Trump lawyer Dershowitz: 'If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest' it can't result in impeachment
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‘I Thought I Was Going to Die.’ 6 People Hospitalized Fleeing High-Rise Fire in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES — Firefighters made a dramatic ladder rescue of a man about to jump from a burning Los Angeles high-rise apartment building Wednesday and helicopters plucked 15 people from the roof as other terrified residents fled through smoke-choked stairwells to safety.
Six people were hospitalized, two in critical condition, including the would-be jumper, in the fire that occurred in a building where a similar blaze broke out seven years ago, authorities said.
Residents described a frightening flight to safety, as they tried to move down crowded stairwells that forced some to turn back and go to the roof. Firefighters were coming up the stairs as people with children, pets and the some elderly tenants moved slowly downward.
A panicked Cecilee Mathieson tried to push past in her rush from her 25th floor penthouse. When she reached the floor on fire, she could see the orange glow under the door.
“I really thought I was going to die today,” Mathieson said hours later.
Firefighters had been at an office building fire two blocks away when the blaze broke out on Wilshire Boulevard on the edge of the tony Brentwood section of the city, allowing a rapid response.
Gavyn Straus was swimming in the pool in the courtyard when he saw black smoke waft by. As the smoke grew rapidly, Straus knew it was no kitchen fire and he ran into the building dripping wet to alert staff.
A woman at the front desk was calling police, so he hopped on an elevator with a maintenance man to alert residents on the 8th floor, where they thought the fire was coming from. A man who had been sleeping answered the first door they pounded on and they realized they were above the blaze and ran for the stairs.
They were overwhelmed with smoke when they opened the door to the burning floor below.
“It was a black wall,” Straus said hours later as he stood barefoot on the sidewalk, still wearing his surf trunks with only a towel draped over his shoulders and goggles around his neck. “Someone ran out from that side and they were completely covered in black char and they could barely breathe.”
The person said their friend was still inside, but Straus said he couldn’t help because he couldn’t see anything and it was too hot.
Instead, he ran to the 21st floor, where he lives, to alert friends and other tenants he knew. No alarm had yet been sounded and he was surprised to hear laughter coming through the doors as people ate breakfast unaware of the danger below.
“Get out, there’s fire. Get out,” he yelled.
Dr. Tom Grogan, an orthopedic surgeon who works in the building next door, was arriving at his office when he saw flames shooting from the building. His office manager called 911 and Grogan, who had seen the building burn in 2013, watched as firefighters struggled to get water to the fire on the 6th floor.
A resident of the building with burns on his arms was hanging from a window as if he was going to jump. Firefighters inflated an airbag below but managed to get a ladder to him to save him.
“It was scary to watch,” Grogan said.
More than 330 firefighters responded and it took about 90 minutes to knock down the blaze, Deputy Fire Chief Armando Hogan said. Arson investigators are looking into whether it was deliberately set.
“It is suspicious right now,” Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said.
Two 30-year-old men who were in the apartment where the fire began were in critical condition, and one was described as grave. Fire crews had to crawl on their bellies using bottled oxygen to reach the apartment where the blaze began. Five others were treated at the scene.
The fire left windows blown out and heavy black smoke or burn marks on three sides of building. Residents who fled in whatever they wearing or could quickly get into — some in pajamas and exercise clothes — gathered on nearby street corners and looked up as helicopters hovered and hoisted rooftop evacuees and small white dog to safety.
A fire at the Barrington Plaza high-rise in 2013 injured several people and displaced more than 100. The complex has 240 units that range in rent from $2,350 to $3,695 per month, according to Zillow.
Fire officials said the building was not equipped with sprinklers. It was built in 1961 before regulations required fire-suppression systems in buildings taller than 75 feet (22.8 meters) feet.
The building owners did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
___
Associated Press writers John Antczak, John Rogers and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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