Tag Archives: California

In Missouri, J&J faces biggest trial yet alleging talc caused cancer

FILE PHOTO: A Johnson & Johnson building is shown in Irvine, California, U.S., January 24, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

By Tina Bellon

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A lawsuit by 22 ovarian cancer patients against Johnson & Johnson went to trial on Wednesday in Missouri state court, marking the largest case the company has faced over allegations its talc-based products contain cancer-causing asbestos.

The women and their families suing in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis say decades-long use of J&J’s Baby Powder and other cosmetic talc products caused their disease. They allege the company knew its talc was contaminated with asbestos since at least the 1970s but failed to warn consumers about the risks.

J&J denies both that its talc products cause cancer and that they ever contained asbestos.

J&J is battling some 9,000 cases brought by users of its Baby Powder and Shower to Shower talc products, the latter of which was sold to Valeant Pharmaceuticals in 2012.

The majority of those lawsuits claim talc caused ovarian cancer in women who used it for feminine hygiene. A smaller number of cases allege talc contaminated by asbestos in the mining process caused mesothelioma, a tissue cancer closely linked to asbestos exposure.

The cases that went to trial on Wednesday effectively combine those claims by alleging the women’s ovarian cancer was caused by asbestos in J&J talc products.

J&J lawyer Peter Bicks told the jury on Wednesday that the causes for ovarian cancer are often unknown, according to an online broadcast of the trial by Courtroom View Network.

He said gene mutations and a family history of cancer played an important role and that asbestos was not known to cause ovarian cancer.

Bicks added that testing done by independent laboratories, universities, government agencies, talc suppliers and J&J itself has shown that there is no asbestos in the company’s talc.

But plaintiff’s lawyer Mark Lanier said asbestos and talc, which are closely linked minerals, are intermingled in the mining process, making it impossible to remove the carcinogenic substance. Lanier said there was “no doubt” that talc caused his clients’ ovarian cancer.

“This case is as simple as asbestos breathed in or put inside of you,” Lanier told the jury.

J&J has lost two talc mesothelioma jury trials in the past weeks. Those cases are currently under appeal.

Juries in California and Missouri have also issued verdicts in ovarian cancer cases totaling more than $720 million in damages. Those decisions have either been tossed out or are still under appeal.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Voters remove California judge criticized over rape sentencing

FILE PHOTO: Brock Turner, the former Stanford swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, leaves the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose, California, U.S. September 2, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Californians voted in a special election to unseat a state judge who drew worldwide condemnation for giving a six-month jail sentence to a Stanford University swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, a former prosecutor appointed to the bench in 2003 by then-Governor Gray Davis next month will become the first sitting judge recalled in more than 80 years in the state.

In Tuesday’s election, 60 percent of the more than 176,058 voters who cast ballots approved a petition to recall Persky, according to unofficial results posted online by the county registrar. The registrar is expected to certify the results on July 5, spokesman Steven Spivak said.

“There is no such thing as an elected official who (is)independent of the electorate. That is not a thing,” Michele Dauber, a Stanford law professor who organized the recall petition, wrote in a Twitter message on Wednesday.

Persky came under fire in June 2016 for sentencing Brock Turner, then 20, to six months in the county jail and three years probation for three counts of sexual assault, a penalty widely denounced as too lenient.

Uproar over the sentencing was fueled in part by an open letter from the victim, who remains anonymous, recounting her ordeal in graphic terms. The letter was posted online and went viral, resonating with people around the world.

Turner’s sentence, which predated the #MeToo movement of women speaking out publicly against sexual harassment and abuse, was held up as a symbol of how the U.S. justice system fails to take sex crimes seriously enough.

The recall vote sparked came at a time that has seen hundreds of women publicly accusing powerful men in business, government and entertainment of sexual misconduct and harassment.

Persky is not planning to issue a statement about the election, according to LaDoris Cordell, a retired female judge who served with Persky on the Santa Clara County Superior Court and who led much of the opposition to the recall.

Persky had won re-election since his appointment, and his current six-year term would have expired in January 2023.

Persky, himself a former lacrosse player at Stanford in Palo Alto, California, said at a news conference last month that sentencing guidelines and probation department recommendations had limited his options in sentencing the former student. He has asserted that his recall would undermine the independence of the judiciary.

Under California law, voters can petition for elections to remove state officials from office for any reason.

“We ask judges to follow the rule of law and not the rule of public opinion,” Persky told the news conference.

Two women ran to succeed him in a separate, nonpartisan race. Under state law, Persky would leave office when the winner, Cindy Seeley Hendrickson, takes the oath of office. That must occur within 10 days of the July 5 vote certification, a Santa Clara County Superior Court spokesman Benjamin Rada said.

Prosecutors had asked that Turner be given six years in prison. He had faced up to 14 years behind bars, and under normal sentencing guidelines would have been likely to receive at least two years in prison.

Turner was released for good behavior in September 2016 after serving just three months of his six-month term and has since appealed his conviction. He returned to his parents’ home near Dayton, Ohio, where he was required to register as a sex offender, the Dayton Daily News reported at the time.

California’s judicial oversight commission received thousands of complaints about the sentencing but concluded in its report that Persky was unbiased and acted in accordance with a probation report recommending the lighter sentence in the county jail, rather than a state prison.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Peter Szekely in New York; editing by Paul Tait, Peter Graff and Jonathan Oatis)

Police detain suspect in shooting at Southern California school

Police vehicles are seen on the road near Highland High School, in Palmdale, California, U.S., May 11, 2018 in this picture grab obtained from social media video. MELENDEZ N JUNIOR/via REUTERS

(Reuters) – A 14-year-old student at a California high school shot and wounded a fellow student on Friday morning before being detained by police, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

The victim, a 14-year-old boy, was hit in the arm and was in stable condition at a hospital. The suspect, also a boy, was detained off campus by officers, who recovered a rifle, according to the department.

Deputies responded to Highland High School in Palmdale, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles, at around 7 a.m. (1400 GMT) after receiving multiple reports of an armed person on campus.

The initial reports of a possible school shooting drew immediate attention from major news outlets and cable TV networks. It underscored the national debate over gun control and gun rights that was reignited by the mass shooting of 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Police were also called to a nearby elementary school after reports of gunfire but found no evidence of any crime.

Palmdale, a city of about 160,000 people, boasts that it is the “aerospace capital of the United States.” It is home to a U.S. Air Force aircraft manufacturing plant that includes production facilities operated by Boeing Co, Lockheed Martin Corp and Northrop Grumman Corp.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax, Jonathan Allen, Peter Szekely and Bernie Woodall; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Genealogy websites help California police find Golden State Killer suspect

By Fred Greaves

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California investigators tracked down the man they suspect is the Golden State Killer by comparing crime scene DNA to information on genealogy websites consumers use to trace their ancestry, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested on Tuesday outside the Sacramento-area home where he has lived for at least two decades, not far from the site of the first of eight murders he is charged with committing 40 years ago.

DeAngelo, described by neighbors as an oddball and loner known to fly into occasional fits of solitary rage, is suspected of 12 slayings in all. He also is accused of committing 45 rapes and scores of home invasions in a crime spree that spanned 10 years and 10 California counties during the 1970s and 1980s.

Announcing his arrest on Wednesday, authorities said DeAngelo’s name had never surfaced as a suspect prior to last week, when a DNA match was made.

Officials initially did not disclose how their investigation led to DeAngelo, whose DNA had never previously been collected.

But on Thursday, Steve Grippi, chief deputy district attorney for Sacramento County, said detectives narrowed their search by using genetic information available through commercial genealogy websites furnishing personal family histories to consumers who send DNA samples in for analysis.

Confirming details first reported by the Sacramento Bee newspaper, Grippi said investigators compared DNA samples left by the perpetrator at a crime scene to genetic profiles on the ancestry sites, looking for similarities.

He did not address whether the websites volunteered the information or were subject to a search warrant or subpoena.

Detectives followed the family trees of close matches, seeking blood relatives who fit a rough profile of the killer. The process produced a lead a week ago, pointing to DeAngelo based on his age and whereabouts at the time of the attacks, Grippi said.

Investigators found DeAngelo, placed him under surveillance and obtained his DNA from a discarded object, finding a match to a crime scene sample. A second, more decisive sample was collected from him days later and came back positive on Monday.

Authorities have not disclosed the relative whose DNA helped solve the case. DeAngelo is known to have at least two adult children.

DeAngelo is scheduled to make his first court appearance in Sacramento on Friday, facing two counts of murder.

On Thursday, sheriff’s detectives and FBI agents spent hours combing through his modest single-story house in Citrus Heights, a Sacramento suburb, and probing the backyard with poles for signs of digging. Red marker flags were visible in an embankment at the rear of the yard, enclosed by a tall wooden fence.

“Those are fairly standard search techniques,” said Lieutenant Paul Belli, a homicide detective for the sheriff’s department. “There’s no reason to believe there are bodies buried back there.”

Among the items of evidence collected from the house were computers and firearms, he said.

Investigators also sought articles of clothing that might help tie the suspect to particular crimes, such as ski masks or gloves worn during the attacks, or jewelry, driver’s licenses and other personal effects taken from victims, apparently as keepsakes or trophies, Belli said.

Belli said he doubted additional victims would emerge because exhaustive DNA database searches had turned up no further matches.

Neighbor Paul Sanchietti, 58, said he was left “bone-chilled” by news that DeAngelo, who lived four houses away, had been arrested as a suspected serial killer.

In the 20 years they lived as neighbors, Sanchietti said he could recount speaking just a few words with DeAngelo on two occasions, once when they pushed a stalled car out of the middle of the street.

“It just felt like he wanted to be left alone,” Sanchietti said of his neighbor, who he said had a reputation in the community for loud, angry outbursts.

“He would be outside in his driveway working on his car or something, and he would go into these rally loud tirades, Sanchietti told Reuters, adding that he nevertheless was unaware of DeAngelo ever running afoul of law enforcement.

(Reporting in Sacramento by Fred Greaves. Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Michael Perry)

Migrant ‘caravan’ that angers Trump nears U.S.-Mexico border

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, rest at a temporary shelter, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

By Edgard Garrido

HERMOSILLO, Mexico (Reuters) – Hundreds of Central American migrants traveling in a “caravan” were in limbo in the northern Mexican city of Hermosillo on Monday on the final stretch of a journey to the United States where President Donald Trump ordered officials to repel them.

About 600 men, women and children from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras had been waiting on Monday in Hermosillo, Sonora to board a train or take buses for the remaining 432 miles miles to the border with California.

Traveling together for safety, their numbers were down from a peak of about 1,500 people since they began their journey on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala almost a month ago, as smaller groups broke away.

Many women and children in the group were planning to seek asylum in the United States after they reach Tijuana, said Rodrigo Abeja, a coordinator from immigrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras that has been organizing similar caravans for several years.

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, receive shoes at a temporary shelter, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, receive shoes at a temporary shelter, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Moving from town to town, the impoverished and bedraggled travelers became a lightning rod for U.S.-Mexico relations after Trump launched a succession of tweets in early April, telling Mexican authorities to stop them.

On Monday he again lashed out, threatening that failure to stop the caravan could stall the already tense renegotiation of NAFTA.

“I have instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security not to let these large Caravans of people into our Country,” Trump tweeted Monday morning. “It’s a disgrace. We are the only Country in the World so Naive! WALL”

Following Trump’s Tweets, the group was considering applying for asylum status in Mexico, a Reuters witness traveling with them said.

Trump’s concern with the caravan coincides with recent U.S. border patrol data showing a sharp rise in the number of immigrants found illegally crossing the border, a setback after immigration from Central America evaporated in the months following his election.

While it is not clear what will happen when the group arrives at the border, or if it will disperse before it gets there, there are signs the U.S. is preparing legal defenses. Following Trump’s messages, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he had ordered officials to ensure that sufficient prosecutors and immigration judges were available at the border “to adjudicate any cases that may arise from this ‘caravan.'”

Some migrants told Reuters they would stay in Mexico. Others said they would find other ways to cross. At least 200 were likely to claim asylum if they made it over the border, according to migrants and caravan organizers.

Marie Vincent, a U.S.-based immigration attorney who met the caravan on a stop along the way, said many of the immigrants had a strong case for U.S. asylum either because they faced political persecution, lethal threats from gangs, or violence because of gender or sexual identity.

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, gesture during a demonstration against the U.S President Donald Trump's immigration policies, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Central American migrants, moving in a caravan through Mexico, gesture during a demonstration against the U.S President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, in Hermosillo, Sonora state, Mexico April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Vincent said one of those with a persuasive case was the survivor of a flawed witness protection program in Honduras who had been “stabbed and shot at more times than he could count.”

Faced with another death threat, he escaped to Guatemala and then to Mexico from a hospital bed with the tubes still stuck in his body — one of them hanging from his stomach, she said.

Some of the group had been dissuaded from seeking asylum by warnings about detention conditions they might endure in the United States, she said.

Although Honduras and El Salvador rank among countries with the highest homicide rates in the world, rejection rates for asylum claims from those countries are very steep.

(Additional reporting and writing by Delphine Schrank in Mexico City; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Scott Malone)

California not taking part in enhanced U.S. border security operation

FILE PHOTO: Members of the Texas National Guard watch the Mexico-U.S. border from an outpost along the Rio Grande in Roma, Texas, U.S., April 11, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The state of California has opted not to take part in the Trump administration’s effort to send National Guard troops to the country’s southern border with Mexico, a Defense Department official said on Monday.

Robert Salesses, a deputy assistant secretary at the Defense Department, said at a media briefing that California has declined a request to commit more than 200 troops to the effort. Salesses said talks with California are ongoing.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis authorized up to 4,000 National Guard personnel to help the Department of Homeland Security secure the border in four southwestern U.S. states.

Currently, 900 National Guard troops have been deployed in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, officials said Monday.

Lieutenant Colonel Tom Keegan, a spokesman for the California National Guard, said in a statement that “state officials have not rejected anything” since California Governor Jerry Brown responded last week with a proposed agreement.

Keegan added: “The federal government has not yet responded. The next step is for the federal government to respond by signing the Memorandum of Agreement.” Brown’s office referred questions to Keegan.

Tyler Houlton, a spokesman for Homeland Security, said Brown “shares our interest in securing our southern border. DHS and our federal partners are committed to working with the governor to mobilize the California National Guard to assist DHS’s frontline personnel in our vital missions.”

Salesses said the federal government had asked California to provide 237 National Guard troops to two sectors near the Mexican border. “They will not perform those missions,” Salesses said, adding talks are continuing with the California National Guard.

He said the tasks sought were primarily operational support, including motor transport maintenance, radio communications, heavy equipment operations, administrative responsibilities and operating remote surveillance cameras.

Ronald Vitiello, acting deputy commissioner at U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, said Monday California may be willing to take part in other missions but Brown had determined that some tasks sought for assistance were “unsupportable.”

Trump has been unable to get the U.S. Congress or Mexico to fund his proposed wall along the border. National Guard troops will not construct any sections of a proposed border wall, officials said Monday.

National Guard troops are not taking part in direct border security and are not performing law enforcement work.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has sharply rebuked Trump over the plan.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)

Four Marine helicopter crew presumed dead after California crash

FILE PHOTO: A United States Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion Helicopter sits at North Island Naval Air Station Coronado, California, April 12, 2015. REUTERS/Louis Nastro/File Photo

(Reuters) – A U.S. Marine helicopter crashed during a training mission in southern California Tuesday afternoon and all four crew members are believed to have died, a Marine spokeswoman announced.

No details about the nature of the training mission were released other than it was routine and held in the desert in El Centro, Ca., about 100 miles east of San Diego.

The helicopter was a Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing based at the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Ca., according to a statement from the Marines.

It is the largest and heaviest “heavy-lift” helicopter in the U.S. military.

The accident is under investigation and no other information was available.

The wreck is the deadliest Marine accident since a cargo plane crash in the Mississippi Delta that killed 16 Marines in July, 2017.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; editing by Jason Neely)

YouTube attacker was vegan activist who accused tech firm of discrimination

Police officers are seen at Youtube headquarters following an active shooter situation in San Bruno, California, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

By Paresh Dave

SAN BRUNO, Calif. (Reuters) – The woman identified by police as the attacker who wounded three people at YouTube’s headquarters in California was a vegan blogger who accused the video-sharing service of discriminating against her, according to her online profile.

Nasim Najafi Aghdam appears in a handout photo provided by the San Bruno Police Department, April 4, 2018. San Bruno Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

Nasim Najafi Aghdam appears in a handout photo provided by the San Bruno Police Department, April 4, 2018. San Bruno Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

Police said 39-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam from San Diego was behind Tuesday’s shooting at YouTube’s offices in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco, where the company owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google employs nearly 2,000 people.

A man was in critical condition and two women were seriously wounded in the attack, which ended when Aghdam shot and killed herself.

Californian media reported that Aghdam’s family had warned the authorities that she may target YouTube prior to the shooting. Her father Ismail Aghdam told The Mercury News that he had told police that she might be going to YouTube’s headquarters because she “hated” the company.

Police said they were still investigating possible motives but Aghdam’s online activities show that she believed YouTube was deliberately obstructing her videos from being viewed.

“YouTube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views,” she wrote on YouTube according to a screenshot of her account. Her channel was deleted on Tuesday.

Writing in Persian on her Instagram account, Aghdam said she was born in Iranian city of Urmiah but that she was not planning to return to Iran.

“I think I am doing a great job. I have never fallen in love and have never got married. I have no physical and psychological diseases,” she wrote.

“But I live on a planet that is full of injustice and diseases.”

Her family in Southern California recently reported her missing because she had not been answering her phone for two days, police said.

At one point early Tuesday, Mountain View, California, police found her sleeping in her car and called her family to say everything was under control, hours before she walked onto the company grounds with a hand gun and opened fire.

The United States is in the grips of a fierce national debate around tighter curbs on gun ownership after the killing of 17 people in a mass shooting at a Florida high school in February. Authorities there failed to act on two warnings about the attacker prior to the shooting, prompting a public outcry.

Aghdam ran a website called NasimeSabz.com, which translates as “Green Breeze” from Persian, on which she posted about Persian culture, veganism and long, rambling passages railing against corporations and governments.

“BE AWARE! Dictatorships exist in all countries. But with different tactics,” she wrote. “They care only for short term profits and anything to to reach their goals even by fooling simple-minded people.”

Complaints about alleged censorship on YouTube are not unique. The video service has long faced a challenge in balancing its mission of fostering free speech with the need to both promote an appropriate and lawful environment for users.

In some cases involving videos with sensitive content, YouTube has allowed the videos to stay online but cut off the ability for their publishers to share in advertising revenue.

Criticisms from video makers that YouTube is too restrictive about which users can participate in revenue sharing swelled last year as the company imposed new restrictions.

YouTube spokeswoman Jessica Mason could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in ANKARA; Writing by Rich McKay; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Autopsy results for Stephon Clark to be announced: lawyer

Mourners embrace before the funeral services for police shooting victim, Stephon Clark at Bayside Of South Sacramento Church, in Sacramento, California, March 29, 2018. Jeff Chiu/Pool via Reuters

(Reuters) – Autopsy results will be announced on Friday for Stephon Clark, a black man who was unarmed when he was shot and killed by police in Sacramento, California in his grandparent’s back yard, his family’s attorney said.

Clark’s death was the most recent of in a string of fatal shootings of black men by police that have triggered protests across the United States and renewed a national debate about bias in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Clark was shot on the night of March 18 in his grandparents’ backyard by police responding to a report that someone was breaking windows. Police said the officers who shot at Clark 20 times feared he was holding a firearm, but that he was later found to have been holding a cellphone.

The attorney representing Clark’s family Ben Crump and his legal team will announce on Friday morning the results of an independent autopsy that was conducted on the remains of the 22-year-old father of two, Crump said in a statement.

The shooting has sparked largely peaceful demonstrations in California’s capital city. On several occasions over the last two weeks, protesters have marched along city streets, held demonstrations and twice blocked fans from reaching games played by the Sacramento Kings NBA basketball team at the Golden 1 Center.

On Thursday, at least 60 protesters gathered outside the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, holding signs such as “Prosecute” and “Justice for Stephon Clark.”

At the funeral service for Clark earlier in the day, veteran civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton addressed a congregation of hundreds.

“We’re going to make (U.S. President) Donald Trump and the whole world deal with the issue of police misconduct,” he said.

The service at a church in California’s capital city came a day after White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters the shooting was a “local matter.” Sharpton criticized that comment and praised protesters who have blocked traffic in the city, saying they were non-violent.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has said state investigators will oversee the investigation and review the Police Department’s procedures and practices.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

‘Four’easter’ pounds U.S. East as Californians wary of mudslides

A woman holds an umbrella as she walks toward the Washington Monument during a snowstorm in Washington, U.S., March 21, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. East’s fourth major snowstorm this month brought heavy snow on Wednesday, snarling flights and commuter travel, closing schools and triggering emergency declarations in several states.

The storm will have passed over the Northeast by dawn Thursday. By then, it will have dumped 8 inches of snow on Philadelphia, 12 inches on New York City, and 17 inches over northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, said Weather Prediction Center meteorologist Marc Chenard.

The storm faded as it reached New England, which received less snow than had been forecast, Chenard said.

The wintry blast on the second day of spring was dubbed “four’easter” by some media outlets because it struck after three previous storms this month. Those nor’easters left nine dead and more than 2 million homes and businesses without power.

While he offered no guarantees, Chenard told Reuters: “At this point, I would say there is a good chance this is the last” Northeast snowstorm for March.

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo declared local emergencies for New York City and five nearby counties.

Schools in the largest U.S. school district in New York City will reopen on Thursday after being shut on Wednesday, city officials said.

“Don’t go out unless you absolutely have to go out,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said on Twitter on Wednesday. Murphy on Tuesday declared a state of emergency as crews cleared roadways and transit bus service was suspended statewide.

Murphy said at least one death was caused by the storm in a traffic crash, NJ.com reported, and the New York Daily News reported that a woman was killed on Long Island in another traffic accident.

Delaware Governor John Carney also declared a state of emergency for Wednesday.

Throughout the East Coast, many other buses and trains, including some Greyhound bus and Amtrak rail routes, that millions of people rely on to commute to and from work and school also canceled service on Wednesday.

With many commuters staying home, New York City’s normally bustling Times Square was sedate.

“We’re not going to let the snow get in the way of our snow day,” said Cheryl Mandelbaum, 30, an elementary school teacher who was taking pictures with a friend, another teacher who had the day off.

Several inches of snowfall in Washington and its suburbs forced the closure of federal government offices, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The office also said federal agencies told workers to arrive two hours later than usual on Thursday, work remotely or take the day off.

Washington schools were also closed, and children in Philadelphia, parts of New Jersey and Pittsburgh also enjoyed a snow day. In Boston, students were told to trudge to school.

The National Weather Service said that farther inland, snow also blanketed parts of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.

Airlines scrapped 4,444 flights within, into and out of the United States, according to flight tracking website FlightAware, and 3,206 U.S. flights were delayed.

As the storm ends for the Northeast on Thursday morning, parts of coastal California will be poised for possible mudslides.

About 25,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, Santa Barbara officials said on Wednesday night. The evacuations are called mainly in hillside areas burned by winter wildfires and where in January 21 people were killed in mudslides.

No one had been hurt by Wednesday night, said Kelly Hoover of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, who added that heavy rains were expected from 5 to 11 a.m. on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Alana Wise and Scott DiSavino in New York, Bernadette Baum in Montclair, New Jersey, Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Keith Coffman in Denver, Eric Walsh in Washington and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Additional reporting and writing by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Himani Sarkar)