mourning

Thomas Johnson’s daughter texted him Tuesday afternoon with difficult news: Netflix Inc. planned to get rid of its DVD-by-mail business later this year. “I went, ‘Noooo,’ ” said Mr. Johnson, a 66-year-old retiree in St. Charles, Mo., who has received Netflix’s red-and-white DVD envelopes in his mailbox for more than a decade. Thomas Johnson’s daughter texted him Tuesday afternoon with difficult news: Netflix Inc. planned to get rid of its DVD-by-mail business later this year.…

DALLAS —  The Dallas sky is still half-dark when the black Escalade rolls into the gated community to pick up 03 Greedo. It’s shortly before 8 a.m. on March 16 — the Watts rapper’s first full day as a free man, after nearly a half-decade trapped in the Texas penitentiary system.A dozen hours from now, Greedo, who once described his sound as “emo music for gangbangers,” will perform at Billboard’s SXSW party in Austin, heralding a messianically awaited return.“The last time I saw you, we was living,” Greedo, 35, says…

The Victorians, as the comedian Cariad Lloyd points out in her touching new book, were deadly serious about death. Bereaved families tied black bows to their doors. People wore armbands and veils after losing a loved one – a public show of internal pain. And memento mori – including photographs of corpses – were hung in homes as gruesome reminders that we all die. There’s a theory that the first world war shattered these customs – the loss was too monumental and so the culture around dying became much more private,…

The shooting death of a beloved, high-ranking Catholic official rocked both his devoted parishioners and those in the Los Angeles immigrant rights community whom he had served for decades. Auxiliary Bishop David G. O'Connell, 69, was killed Saturday afternoon in the Catholic archdiocese-owned home in Hacienda Heights where he lived alone. On Sunday the street in front of the sprawling ranch house was crowded with homicide detectives and crime scene technicians alongside parishioners who came to grieve the religious…

Dave Hollis, former president of worldwide theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios, has died. He was 47.The longtime film executive died at his home near Austin, Texas, on Saturday night after he had been recently hospitalized “for some heart issues,” a spokesperson for Hollis’ family confirmed Monday to the Los Angeles Times. The exact cause of death has yet to be determined.Dave Hollis’ ex-wife, “Girl, Wash Your Face” author Rachel Hollis, said Tuesday in a statement posted on Instagram that their family is…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Grief is a universal emotion. It's something we all feel, no matter where we come from or what we've been through. Grief comes for us all and as humans who form close relationships with other people, it's hard to avoid. Studies of grieving brains—be it scans of the brain regions which process…

Help us make Essential California serve you better. Take this survey.Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Monday, Jan. 23. A weekend of celebration for many Asian Americans was fractured by gun violence in Monterey Park.Shortly after 10 p.m. Saturday, a man with a firearm entered a ballroom dance studio and started shooting. Ten people were killed and 10 others were wounded. Authorities have not publicly identified the victims, only describing the people killed as five men and five…

Hello, it’s Monday, Dec. 19, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:TOP STORIES Remembering L.A.'s P-22For a decade, he was perhaps L.A.’s wildest and most elusive resident. So when word spread that the mountain lion P-22 was gone, his city swelled with sadness and admiration. In a tearful news conference, wildlife biologists described multiple chronic illnesses that may have contributed to the mountain lion’s recent uncharacteristic behavior. The big cat of Griffith Park was “compassionately euthanized”…

The DC fandom remains in mourning, lamenting the loss of what many believed was the perfect Superman casting in Henry Cavill.  Sadly, James Gunn and Peter Safran, co-chairs of the rebranded DCU, announced last week that they would be taking the Man of Steel in an entirely new direction. Gunn is currently penning a Superman script that will rewind the clock on Clark Kent and tell a story of his early days in Metropolis. With the need for a younger actor, Cavill was handed his walking papers only weeks after returning to…

The Shaquille O'Neal Foundation & Icy Hot unveil the latest "Comebaq Court," refurbished athletic spaces helping underserved communities get back in the game, in collaboration with Alonzo Mourning at Overtown Youth Center in Miami, Flori on November 30, 2022. Rob Kim | Getty ImagesNBA champions Shaquille O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning are reuniting to give fans reason to cheer again in Miami.The former Heat centers, who brought Miami a 2006 NBA Championship, are teaming up to refurbish a basketball court as part of a $20…