Leon

After a week and a half of silence, Kevin de León emerged Wednesday afternoon to let the world know he is really, truly, honestly sorry for what he said, and didn’t say, on the racist recording that has rocked Los Angeles.The embattled councilmember appeared on KCBS-TV to repeat again and again that he “failed” to stop one colleague, Nury Martinez, from taking bigoted shots at a range of Angelenos, and another, Gil Cedillo, from plotting to take over seats held by Black politicians.“I failed in that moment in time to…

When Ruben Östlund screened an early version of his bitter new comedy Triangle of Sadness for Michael Haneke, the Austrian director offered a suggestion: “Cut to Abigail as soon as you can.” Abigail, played by the pocket-sized 53-year-old Dolly de Leon, is a Filipino “toilet manager”, a domestic who mops up after oligarchs, arms dealers and models during a cruise on a luxury megayacht. When the boat is buffeted by a violent storm and ambushed by pirates, a handful of passengers and crew members make it to a desert island…

Black real estate developers behind the proposed $1.6-billion Angels Landing project in downtown Los Angeles said that they refuse to continue working with City Councilman Kevin De León, in light of the secretly taped racist conversation he took part in, saying they now fear he holds a racial bias against them and has been stalling city approvals.In a letter to then-acting Council President Mitch O’Farrell Friday, two of the country’s most prominent Black builders, Victor MacFarlane and R. Donahue Peebles, called for De…

Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin De León said in a television interview airing Wednesday night that he “will not resign,” according to a partial transcript of the interview released by Noticiero Univision.“I’m so sorry. I am excessively sorry, and that is why I apologize to all my people, to my entire community, for the damage caused by the painful words that were carried out that day last year,” De León said in the interview with Noticiero Univision anchor León Krauze, according to the transcript. The interview was…

Acting Los Angeles City Council President Mitch O’Farrell said Monday that he will remove Councilmembers Kevin de Leónand Gil Cedillo from an array of committee assignments.With Cedillo and De León refusing to step down, O’Farrell said he is taking them off of committees that deal with real estate development, homelessness, housing and other issues.The announcement was only the latest example of fallout surrounding the racist comments heard in a conversation that was secretly recorded between Cedillo, De León,…

Nearly 20 minutes into the secretly recorded conversation that would cost Nury Martinez her L.A. City Council seat, she remarked to fellow Councilmember Kevin de León that it was recently his anniversary. Seven years ago, he had been sworn in as the leader of the California Senate.The ceremony at Walt Disney Concert Hall was a career landmark, celebrating the first time in more than a century that a Latino led the state’s upper chamber. It ushered in four years when De León was one of California’s most powerful…

Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez should resign from the council.There is no way she can fairly represent her constituents after leaked audio captured her deplorable and racially divisive comments, her political machinations to maintain power at the expense of communities, and her use of racist, homophobic tropes to describe her colleague, and worse, his young son. She should leave elected office immediately.On Monday, when it became apparent that her colleagues were ready to oust her as council president,…

CoinDesk: Court filing: Celsius ex-CEO Alex Mashinsky, ex-CSO Daniel Leon, and CTO Nuke Goldstein withdrew ~$56M between May and June 2022 before the lender's bankruptcy — Ex-CEO Alex Mashinsky, ex-CSO Daniel Leon and CTO Nuke Goldstein pulled bitcoin, ether, USDC and CEL holdings from their custody accounts in May … CoinDesk: Court filing: Celsius ex-CEO Alex Mashinsky, ex-CSO Daniel Leon, and CTO Nuke Goldstein withdrew ~$56M between May and June 2022 before the lender's bankruptcy …

Photo: Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto (Getty Images) If you ever find yourself mailing bundles of cash across the country to a stranger, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “Is this a scam?” because we assure you it’s almost certainly a scam. And Gizmodo has the documents to prove it.We’ve looked at plenty of heartbreaking scams over the years on platforms like Tinder, Venmo, and Airbnb. Today, we’re taking a look at obvious scams on PayPal—all filed as consumer complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and…

Leon Vitali, who has died aged 74, occupied a unique position in the life and cinema of Stanley Kubrick. He was assistant, facilitator, casting adviser, archivist, intermediary and dogsbody. “A sort of gatekeeper” was how Vitali put it in 2018. It could be difficult to tell where one man ended and the other began: Kubrick sometimes signed letters with Vitali’s name, while Vitali had permission to tell intransigent colleagues: “What you say to me, you say to Stanley.” The men even shared the same birthday, two decades…