A firefighting helicopter flies over the Getty Fire as it burns in the hills west of the 405 freeway in the hills of West Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 28, 2019.REUTERS/Gene Blevins
A fast-moving wildfire on Monday destroyed at least five multimillion-dollar homes in one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Los Angeles and forced celebrities to flee in the middle of the night.
ADVERTISING
Among neighbourhoods under evacuation orders was the posh area of Brentwood, a section on the west side of the city that became world famous in 1994 when former football star O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife and a waiter there.
Today Brentwood is home to basketball superstar LeBron James, A-list Hollywood actors, wealthy producers and media company executives.
James, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, said he and his family had to drive around in the early morning hours looking for a place to stay after fleeing the home he shares with his wife and three children.
"Had to emergency evacuate my house and I’ve been driving around with my family trying to get rooms," James wrote on Twitter around 4 a.m. He later added that he found a place to take them in. "Crazy night man!," he said.
ADVERTISING
James bought a $23 million, eight-bedroom home in Brentwood in late 2017, according to media reports.
On the northern edge of Brentwood, a cluster of several multimillion-dollar homes were reduced to smoldering debris along a street festooned with Halloween decorations.
A fake bloody arm, part of the holiday decorations, had turned into melted plastic at one dwelling, and a giant skull replica remained in the front of another. Heavy smoke and ash filled the air as water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers buzzed overhead.
Dark fate
Actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also said he was among the thousands who had to evacuate overnight.
"If you are in an evacuation zone, don’t screw around. Get out," Schwarzenegger wrote on Twitter.
A red-carpet premiere for Schwarzenegger's new movie, "Terminator: Dark Fate," that had been scheduled for Monday night was cancelled due to fires in the area.
The "Terminator" premiere had been scheduled to take place in Hollywood, several miles from the fire zone. Food intended for the premiere party was being donated to local American Red Cross shelters that were housing fire evacuees, Paramount Pictures said.
"Agents of SHIELD" actor Clark Gregg and "Sons of Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter also said on Twitter that they had been forced to leave their homes.
The streets of Brentwood became familiar to TV viewers when Simpson stood trial on charges of stabbing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman. Prosecutors alleged Simpson killed the pair at her Brentwood home and then fled to his nearby mansion.
Simpson was acquitted of murder but later found liable for the deaths in a civil case. He told the Associated Press in June he now lives in Las Vegas.
Monday's fire erupted in the hills above where Simpson had lived and was near the Getty Center, a museum for the art collection of late oil magnate J. Paul Getty that includes works by Rembrandt and Van Gogh, according to the museum's website.
The Getty fire has forced schools to close in several areas, including the public school district encompassing Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades and the University of California Los Angles (UCLA).
A Chicago judge has said charges that US actor Jussie Smollett staged a hoax hate crime against himself are "utterly outrageous" and "despicable" if true.
The 36-year-old African-American actor is accused of filing a fake police report claiming he was the victim of a homophobic and racist assault.
Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke, who is also black, said the "most vile" part of the incident was the use of a noose.
Police say he staged the attack because he was "dissatisfied with his salary".
The star's lawyers issued a strongly-worded statement after the hearing, calling it an "organised law enforcement spectacle" and describing Mr Smollett as "a young man of impeccable character".
Image copyrightEPAImage captionJussie Smollett emerged from the Cook County Court complex after posting 10% of a $100,000 bond in Chicago
What happened in court?
"That symbol conjures up such evil in this country's history," Judge Lyke said of a rope that Mr Smollett claimed the attackers had hung round his neck, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The judge's comments at Thursday's court appearance alluded to the racist lynchings of thousands of black Americans in the post-American Civil War era.
Mr Smollett, who stars on the TV series Empire, is suspected of paying two brothers to stage the attack on himself.
ADVERTISEMENT
The siblings are co-operating with the investigation, police say.
Media captionChicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson: "Smollett dragged city's reputation through mud"
Chicago officials say Mr Smollett also sent a racist letter to himself at a Fox studio before staging the attack.
Judge Lyke set Mr Smollett's bail at $100,000 (£76,000), which requires him to submit a bond of $10,000 and surrender his passport.
Mr Smollett denies the charge of felony disorderly conduct. His lawyers said they would "mount an aggressive defence".
Jack Prior, one of the actor's attorneys, told the court the accusations were "inconsistent with Mr Smollett's character" and that the actor "wants nothing more than to clear his name".
If convicted, he could be sentenced to three years in prison and made to pay for the cost of the police investigation.
In a news conference earlier on Thursday, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson lashed out at the "shameful" scheme.
"Why would anyone, especially an African-American man, use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations?" he said.
"How could someone look at the hatred and suffering associated with that symbol and see an opportunity to manipulate that symbol to further his own public profile?"
Supt Johnson accused Mr Smollett of taking "advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career".
Image copyrightCHICAGO POLICEImage captionCCTV image released earlier by Chicago police
He said Mr Smollett had betrayed the city of Chicago, and said "this publicity stunt was a scar that Chicago didn't earn and certainly didn't deserve".
The "hoax", he said, "received national attention for weeks", and may deter future hate crime victims from coming forward for fear that their allegations may be met with scepticism.
He called upon the actor "to apologise to this city that he smeared".
"Celebrities, news commentators, and even presidential candidates weighed in on something that was choreographed by an actor," said Supt Johnson, with palpable anger.
"I'm left hanging my head and asking why," he added, describing Mr Smollett's actions as a "slap in the face" to Chicagoans.
What did Smollett's lawyers say?
They dismissed Thursday's proceedings as "an organised law enforcement spectacle that has no place in the American legal system".
A statement from the actor's legal team added: "The presumption of innocence, a bedrock in the search for justice, was trampled upon at the expense of Mr Smollett and notably, on the eve of a mayoral election.
"Mr Smollett is a young man of impeccable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence and feels betrayed by a system that apparently wants to skip due process and proceed directly to sentencing."
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionRallies were held after Mr Smollett first announced the alleged "attack"
How did the case unfold?
The openly gay actor said he had gone out to buy food late at night on 29 January from a Subway sandwich shop in Chicago city centre when two white men hurled racial and homophobic insults at him.
He said they also punched him, poured a chemical substance over him and put a rope around his neck.
Mr Smollett also claimed the men had told him "this is Maga country", referring to President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan.
In an interview last week with ABC's morning TV show, Mr Smollett tearfully said he had been "forever changed" by the alleged incident.
Image copyrightGABRIEL OLSENImage captionMr Smollett has been a vocal social activist for years
But suspicions mounted as police were unable to find any video footage of the incident from over 50 surveillance cameras they reviewed. There were also no witnesses.
Investigators managed to track and identify two men who appeared on video footage near where the actor said he had been attacked through a ride-sharing app.
The men - Ola and Abel Osundairo - had left the US for Nigeria following the alleged attack and were held for nearly 48 hours after they returned last week.
They were released without charges after providing information that "shifted the trajectory of the investigation", police said.
One of the brothers is Mr Smollett's personal trainer and both have worked as extras on Empire, a hit Fox show that depicts the lives of a music mogul and his family in Chicago.
Police say they have a cheque that Mr Smollett signed and that he had agreed to pay $3,500 for the brothers' participation.
Supt Johnson said that Mr Smollett had told at least one of the brothers that he was "dissatisfied" with his salary from Fox.
According to the Huffington Post, Mr Smollett was being paid $65,000 per episode for his starring role in Empire, which has about 18 episodes per season.
Image copyrightFOX VIA GETTY IMAGESImage captionJussie Smollett (left) pictured in an episode of Empire
Investigators said on Thursday that some minor scrapes on Mr Smollett's face were probably self-inflicted.
Supt Johnson said Mr Smollett first "attempted to gain attention by sending a false letter that relied on racial, homophobic and political language" to himself at Fox studios.
Police had confirmed in early February that white powder - later identified as aspirin - was in the letter.
During another news conference on Thursday, police said Mr Smollett had also claimed that three days before the attack he received an unidentified phone call from a man who uttered a homophobic slur then hung up.
He told police that incident happened near a surveillance camera. It was the same camera that police say Mr Smollett would later point out to the Osundairo brothers in preparation for the alleged hoax attack.
On Wednesday, CBS Chicago obtained footage which appeared to show two people buying materials, including balaclavas, that had allegedly been worn by the actor's attackers.
Mr Smollett turned himself in early on Thursday.
Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television, which make Empire, issued a statement on Thursday saying they were "evaluating the situation" and "considering our options."
In the aftermath of the attack, Democratic White House hopefuls Cory Booker and Kamala Harris both called the incident a "modern-day lynching".
Ms Harris, a California senator, on Thursday said she was "sad, frustrated, and disappointed".
![[Photos] Farmer Calls The Police After Digging Out Something Weird](https://images.outbrainimg.com/transform/v3/eyJpdSI6IjUyMGE2ZGFkNGJkYTkyOTQ3ZWVjYTczNTU4MzJkZTA1OGJlMjBlYzVjYjJlZDI2ZGYzOTA5MDFhM2U0MTkyNGMiLCJ3IjoyMzAsImgiOjE1MCwiZCI6MS41LCJjcyI6MCwiZiI6NH0.webp "[Photos] Farmer Calls The Police After Digging Out Something Weird")
![[Pics] Couple Makes a Bet: No Eating out, No Cheat Meals, No Alcohol. 1 Year After, This Is What They Look Like](https://images.outbrainimg.com/transform/v3/eyJpdSI6ImVjNjAwMGFlMGZlOWI4MzU4NmM4NzlmYTFjMDkyMzZiYzEyZDFkZWI4OTExZGFiZjY4ODFhOWZhZjc2NDY2OGUiLCJ3IjoyMzAsImgiOjE1MCwiZCI6MS41LCJjcyI6MCwiZiI6NH0.webp "[Pics] Couple Makes a Bet: No Eating out, No Cheat Meals, No Alcohol. 1 Year After, This Is What They Look Like")
