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23 Nov, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Serena Shi’s taste for luxury seemed insatiable.

She spent $133,000 on clothes at Valentino. Her two Mercedes-Benzes — a sports car and an SUV — cost $294,000.

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latimes.com/california/sto…
Shi’s bills at a Beverly Hills “lifestyle design” business that advises clients on wardrobe, cosmetics and high-end shopping hit nearly $800,000.

A travel concierge service that caters to the jet set charged her $2.2 million for trips around the world.
latimes.com/california/sto…
Those trappings of the high life were gone when Shi, 37, shuffled into a federal courtroom in Los Angeles one recent afternoon wearing a beige jail jumpsuit with clanking chains dangling from her wrist and ankle shackles. latimes.com/california/sto…
Shi admitted that she’d duped scores of investors in China into making $23 million in down payments on condos in California.

They thought they were buying units in a trendy resort that Shi was supposedly building on a 47-acre patch of desert in Coachella.latimes.com/california/sto…
Shi collected $23 million. The project never broke ground.

Shi, who ran a Beijing real estate firm with an office in Beverly Hills, confessed to siphoning money to cover lavish personal expenses an FBI agent detailed in a court filing.

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latimes.com/california/sto…

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Los Angeles Times Profile picture
23 Nov
In a historic vote, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Monday created a majority-Latino district for the first time while also giving power to Asian voters.

Thread 👇 latimes.com/california/sto…
The lines for the supervisors’ districts, redone once a decade after the national census, have long been drawn in a way that makes it hard for Latinos to be elected, despite the ethnic group’s rapid growth.

latimes.com/california/sto…
It has been 15 years since there was a Latino representative on the five-member board, which oversees a roughly $7.7-billion budget.

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23 Nov
35-year-old jazz-R&B composer Jon Batiste has earned the most #Grammys nominations of any act this year. latimes.com/entertainment-…
With 11 nominations across seven categories that span genre, composition and medium, the Jan. 30 ceremony could end up being Batiste’s very own variety show. latimes.com/entertainment-…
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23 Nov
Thanks to the advent of interconnected, “smart” products and services, your holiday gift may pose a threat to a friend or loved one’s privacy.

@jcahealey explains: latimes.com/business/techn…
Interactive toys and gadgets often collect a boatload of data about their users and their surroundings.

Device manufacturers may convert the information into dollars by selling it to advertisers or data brokers. latimes.com/business/techn…
Even manufacturers that pledge never to share what they collect can’t guarantee that hackers won’t grab the data anyway. latimes.com/business/techn…
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Los Angeles Times Profile picture
23 Nov
Organized retail theft is nothing new. Over the last few years, rings have targeted Rolex watches and Apple products at multiple locations.

But a weekend in which high-end stores were hit by seemingly sophisticated rings has generated national attention. latimes.com/california/sto…
On Friday night, thieves smashed a Louis Vuitton storefront window in San Francisco and ransacked the store.

On Saturday night, some 80 people raided a Nordstrom in nearby Walnut Creek. Two employees were assaulted, one of them pepper sprayed. latimes.com/california/sto…
And just after midnight Sunday, criminals smashed storefront windows at a Louis Vuitton and Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, police said.

Late Monday, another group attempted to break into the Nordstrom at the Grove shopping center. latimes.com/california/sto…
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23 Nov
The COVID-19 surge still affecting Central California is so dire that health officials are pleading with state officials to make it easier to transfer hospital patients to areas like Los Angeles County.

latimes.com/california/sto…
Vaccination rates are still relatively low, and in Fresno County, the region’s most populous county, the COVID-19 hospitalization rate is quadruple what is being seen in L.A. & Orange counties, & more than quintuple that of the San Francisco Bay Area.

latimes.com/california/sto…
Hospitals are consistently operating above capacity, and ERs are so packed that ambulances are stuck waiting outside hospitals to drop off patients, said Dale Dotson, operations coordinator for the Central California Emergency Medical Services Agency.

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23 Nov
After investigating its own COVID-19 testing lab for much of the year, the California Department of Public Health closed its case without issuing sanctions.

latimes.com/california/sto…
Documents show California inspectors raised alarms earlier this year about whether staff were properly trained, how the lab was reporting its own processing errors and whether protocols that reduce the chances of contamination were being followed latimes.com/california/sto…
The Newsom administration promised a full report in March on “significant deficiencies” found during inspections, but it was not released until Monday — weeks after the state renewed its $1.7-billion, no-bid contract to keep the testing site going.

latimes.com/california/sto…
Read 4 tweets

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