Authorities asked the public to be on the lookout for 13-year-old Emma Pangelinan, who was last seen Sunday afternoon, Jan. 21, in Mission Viejo.
Pangelinan’s family, who last saw her at about 3:30 p.m., said she may be riding her bright blue bicycle, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Spokeswoman Carrie Braun said the Mission Viejo girl is considered at-risk because of her young age.
Several people who said they are friends and acquaintances of the girl reported on Facebook that she was last seen at Florence Joyner Olympiad Park on Alicia Parkway and Olympiad Road.
Braun said bloodhounds were used Sunday after she was reported missing to try to track her down.
Anyone who has information about Pangelinan’s whereabouts is asked to call the Orange County Sheriff’s Department at 714-647-7000.
The Register’s Orange County girls basketball top 10 for Jan. 22.
O.C. TOP 10 (Records entering Monday, Jan. 22)
1.Mater Dei 16-3
The Monarchs expanded the gap last week between themselves and O.C. by beating Brea Olinda by 24 points and Rosary by 20. CIF-SS Open Division contenders, be concerned.
2. Brea Olinda 16-3
The prideful Ladycats didn’t enjoy Saturday’s outcome at Mater Dei but the showdown could help them improve in the long run.
3. Orangewood Academy 13-7
The Spartans are surging after beating Rosary and Fairmont Prep last week. They play the Huskies again Saturday night.
4. Rosary 12-10
The Royals look to bounce back this week in the Trinity League with road games at JSerra and Santa Margarita.
5. Fairmont Prep 12-7
Point guard Izzy Om scored 11 points in a loss at Orangewood Academy on Saturday. Fairmont Prep now plays host to Orangewood this Saturday. “Our girls will be ready,” Huskies coach David Esparza said.
6. Los Alamitos 16-5
The Griffins and exciting sophomore Asia Avinger lost to Centennial of Corona (20-1) on Saturday but their O.C. stock is holding strong.
7. Aliso Niguel 11-6
The Wolverines couldn’t hold their lead in the fourth quarter against Tesoro last week but play at the Titans on Feb. 5. Tesoro has won six consecutive games and could be headed to the top 10.
8. Troy 10-8
The Warriors, winners of 25 consecutive league titles and 214 straight Freeway games, play at Sonora in a showdown Tuesday at 6 p.m.
9. Sonora 19-2
The Raiders and Concordia signee Lainie James have defeated Sunny Hills and Buena Park by 19 and 12 points, respectively. Troy beat Sunny Hills by 9 but handled Buena Park by 43.
10. JSerra 17-4
The Lions play host to three O.C.-ranked teams this week: Rosary, Orange Lutheran and Troy.
This photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife shows a king cobra hidden in a potato chip can that was found in the mail in Los Angeles. Rodrigo Franco, 34, has been sentenced to five months in federal prison for smuggling three live king cobra snakes coiled up in potato chip cans. He admitted to smuggling another 20 of the venomous snakes. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife via AP)
By FRED SHUSTER City News Service
LOS ANGELES — A Monterey Park man was sentenced today to five months in federal prison and two years of supervised release for smuggling three highly venomous king cobras coiled up in potato chip canisters.
In a plea agreement, Rodrigo Franco, 34, admitted smuggling another 20 cobras, as well as sending protected turtles to Hong Kong. Prosecutors agreed to seek a sentence of no more than 18 months in exchange for the plea. Franco’s defense attorney asked that he be given only five years probation.
Franco was also ordered to pay a $4,500 fine.
“Reptiles are my passion,” Franco, an ex-auto mechanic, wrote to Judge George H. Wu, who sentenced Franco in Los Angeles federal court.
In early March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspected a package sent from Hong Kong and discovered three live black-and-yellow king cobra snakes — protected and highly poisonous reptiles — each 2 feet long.
Prosecutors said a king cobra can kill an adult within 30 minutes if anti-venom is not available. At the time of the offense, “there was no known king cobra anti-venom in Los Angeles,” and a customs officer’s hand came within inches of one of the snakes — described as “passive” and perhaps ailing — when she opened one of the canisters, according to court papers.
In addition to the three snakes, the parcel being sent through the mail contained three albino Chinese soft-shelled turtles.
On the same date, Franco also mailed six protected turtles — desert box turtles, three-toed box turtles and ornate box turtles — from the United States to Hong Kong, but that shipment also was intercepted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Because of the danger associated with the cobras, the snakes were seized from the package that had come from Hong Kong. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service made a controlled delivery of the soft-shelled turtles to Franco’s home. Immediately after the package — with turtles removed — was delivered, federal agents executed a search warrant at the residence.
While searching the home, agents found the package that originated in Hong Kong in a children’s bedroom, in which they also discovered a tank containing a live baby crocodile and tanks containing alligator snapping turtles, a common snapping turtle, and five diamond back terrapins — all of which are protected species, according to investigators.
During a subsequent interview with authorities, Franco admitted that he had previously received 20 king cobras in two prior shipments — but he said all of those snakes had died in transit, federal prosecutors said.
During the ensuing investigation, authorities obtained evidence from Franco’s phone, which contained messages in which he and someone in Asia allegedly discussed shipping turtles and snakes between the United States and Asia. The messages indicate that Franco had previously received live cobras from his contact in Asia and was going to give five of the snakes to a relative of his contact, according to prosecutors.
Cobras and other reptiles are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international agreement designed to save threatened species from endangerment and illegal trade. King cobras sell for about $2,000 each on the black market, officials said.
The Laguna Woods Village corporate members meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 30 will be in closed session and will not discuss the pickleball court contract.
After recent elections for the boards and the influx of new board members, the United and Golden Rain Foundation attorneys will be going over the bylaws and amendments to the boards, United President Juanita Skillman said.
“It’s an educational session by our attorneys and that’s why it’s closed,” Skillman said. “The attorneys from GRF and United are going to give background on the Trust.”
The corporate members meeting was sparked by GRF’s decision to allocate $498,955 toward six pickleball courts. The contract — which was canceled in December — came in just under the initial allotment of $500,000, the threshold that according to the bylaws triggers a vote by the 27 corporate members representing the three housing mutuals.
The contract has been a source of controversy between those who favor building new pickleball courts and those who favor renovating and expanding the existing courts, which are used by both pickleball and paddle tennis. A Nov. 7 decision by GRF to award the pickleball project for an amount not to exceed $498,955 has come under fire by some who questioned the way the process was handled.
Before it was canceled, the contract was expected to be discussed at an open session of next week’s corporate members meeting. Now, they will not be discussing pickleball at all, Village Management Services Community Manager Lori Moss said.
Skillman said that she does not know when pickleball will come back to the table for a vote.
“I think we’ve gotten a lot of input from residents, pros and cons. We’ve been keeping track,” Skillman said.
Having wound down her ready-to-wear line a few seasons ago to focus on “new couture” and accessories, conquering the frontiers of sartorial expression without sliding into sci-fi costume territory has been a delicate balancing act for Iris van Herpen.
This season, presenting a serene, more wearable collection, she pulled it off.
Despite the labor-intensive nature of the clothes — albeit often involving machines, with the opening Foliage dress requiring 260 hours of 3-D printing and endless other high-tech processes — there was an immateriality to the collection.
The designer stuck to classic couture shapes of the grand and billowing or mini and intricate variety. But the structures looked ultra fragile, with van Herpen focusing on silk-tulle bases covered in geometric formations of laser-cut fabrics, as well as her signature exoskeleton structures.
She used as her starting point the aerial photography of Thierry Bornier and Andy Yeung, among others, along with the organic floating paper sculptures of Dutch artist Peter Gentenaar, with a selection of them suspended from the ceiling of the show venue, the Mineralogy and Geology Gallery in Paris.
The final dress — a springy affair in a whirl of wire-boned velvet, silk organza and mylar — resembled a living version of one of
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Humberto Leon and Carol Lim have carved out a bit of a niche with their performance-based shows and collaborations with edgy directors, so perhaps it was only natural that they should graduate to becoming filmmakers themselves.
The duo’s coed fall collection for Kenzo was presented on a movie set, where actors busied themselves in areas decked out like a kitchen, living room, bathroom or dining room. It appeared like an amusing, if somewhat distracting, backdrop to the clothes until the interval between the men’s and women’s segments.
What unfolded then was a live-action featurette, shown on big screens, about a young man who dyes his hair blonde, much to his mother’s dismay, and finds perfect friendship with a girl. It won’t surprise anyone to learn that it was based on a true story.
“There was a simple story that we had told people about, which was my mom freaking out when I dyed my hair blonde. And Carol and I happened to have met that year, so it was a fun, silly story that we blew up into this wild mini six-minute film,” Leon explained backstage.
The duo channeled their passion for cinema into a collection that was rife with strong characters: boys in
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It promised to be a cool show, judging by the crowd — young, focused, oblivious to the rain. Dressed in streetwear, naturally.
Further evidence: eight sets of drums, scattered around the room.
Earplugs were passed out in the front row, but Casey Spooner, wearing a weather-proof Sankuanz coat, declined. “I like it loud!”
Masanori Morikawa sent out a clever lineup of high-waisted trousers, bell-bottoms and coats — of all kinds; this designer is tuned-in. The drums pounded (precision ensured by a click track delivering the tempo through earpieces), segueing into lighter percussions at times, as men and women models weaved around the room, following a spiraled runway track.
Red roses, real ones, were offered as a fresh and sexy accessory, attached to chained chokers, fixed to belts or carried nonchalantly. Their images appeared on a purple and white letterman-style jacket, as well as a T-shirt, also sexy, which was paired with a long, lush coat in furry brown velvet.
An aesthete of the wabi-sabi vein, Morikawa celebrated the imperfect by twisting the classics. Adding an extra panel to an ivory double-breasted suit with pinstripes — should we call it triple-breasted? — the buttons were nudged to the side. A bright, blue baseball cap completed the
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Founder Ben Taverniti has been spending more time in Europe recently, to the point where he has opened studios in Milan, and as of two months ago, Paris, where he studied.
To mark this return and to stick to the expectations of a maturing streetwear market, the key looks of the brand — drop-crotch trousers, layered hoodie-T-shirts, destructured leather jackets, bomber jackets — have been revisited in chicer materials. Nylon became silk taffeta; French terry got a cashmere blend, and boiled wools are now cashmere.
A duvet-filled silk dupioni bomber jacket, ultra-long curve leg denim jeans, a moleskin blouson with its straight neck made of a folded-down shirt collar, inside out trousers with the lining , more double layering with trousers and silk boxer shorts two-in-ones were among the standouts in this luxe Unravel outing. Nodding to the unisex demand for these products, sizes were extended to allow seamless crossovers between men and women.
Branding wise, eagle-eyed fans will have noticed the addition of “Ben Taverniti” to the name. Although writ large upon the walls or mentioned on labels, Taverniti indicated this was only a reflection of necessary trademark updates — Unravel’s signature “unsignature” of discreet labeling and pictogram based identification remain the
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Martine Rose is marking a decade in design with a collection of key pieces from past collections that looked fresh again.
“We drew from my archive because there were some early pieces that I really loved. It’s like a crazy mix and it’s really fun.” The designer, who also consults for the Balenciaga men’s collection, described this season’s man as “everyman,” and she’s dressing him in tailored clothing and denim, sexy garments and more formal pieces.
The British men’s wear designer skipped her London Fashion Week Men’s runway outing earlier this month to show her fall range in a look book format. Rose has always been about curating a wardrobe rather than creating looks. This season’s collection included a fall 2014 fur coat; fall 2018 beer towel sweaters and ring shirts from fall 2016.
She revamped the long faux-fur coat — an ode to ravers — as a more a glamorous piece that was worn over a blue checked shirt and snakeskin printed trousers. She also played with beer towels in a nod to Jamaican dance halls where men would wipe their sweat from dancing. She putting her logo on them in the form of a patchwork done on trousers and paired with
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MILAN — Silvio Albini, president of the Italy-based fabric manufacturing company Albini Group has died in Bergamo at age 61.
The cause of death was an unspecified sudden illness.
The Albini Group was founded in 1876 by Zaffiro Borgomanero in Bergamo, Italy. Albini was part of the fifth generation of the founding family. The company owns the brands Albini 1876, Thomas Mason, David & John Anderson and Albiate 1830. Together they produce over 20,000 fabric variations and export to over 80 countries, including the U.S.
The Albini Group feted its 140th anniversary in 2016 with a special event held at Milan’s Palazzo Clerici.
Albini also served as president of the Milano Unica trade show for eight seasons in a row, before passing the baton to his successor and current president Ercole Botto Poala, who was appointed in September 2015.
In the same year, Albini received the Cavaliere del Lavoro, or Knight of Labour, title, which is one of the highest recognitions bestowed by the president of the Italian Republic.
According to media reports, funeral services will be held on Wednesday at the Duomo cathedral in Bergamo.
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