No, Los Angeles residents, it wasn’t your hangovers playing tricks on you. The Hollywood sign really did read “HOLLYWeeD” for a few hours on New Year’s Day.
Police were investigating Sunday after a prankster used giant tarps to turn two of the iconic sign’s white Os into Es sometime overnight.
The vandal, dressed in all black, was recorded by security cameras and could face a misdemeanor trespassing charge, said Sgt. Robert Payan.
The person scaled a protective fence surrounding the sign above Griffith Park and then clambered up each giant letter to drape the coverings, Payan said.
The prank may be a nod to California voters’ approval in November of Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana, beginning in 2018.
Hikers and tourists in the hills spent the morning snapping photos of themselves in front of the altered sign before park rangers began removing the tarps.
“It’s kind of cool being here at the moment,” Bruce Quinn told KABC-TV. “I thought we came to see the Hollywood sign, not the’ Hollyweed’ sign. But hey it’s OK with me! ”
While attention-grabbing, the prank was not exactly original. Forty-one years ago to the day — Jan. 1, 1976 — a college student similarly altered the sign, using curtains to make it read “HOLLYWEED. “

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Thirty-five Russian diplomats expelled from the United States by President Barack Obama have left the country, Russian news agencies report.
An embassy official said the plane had taken off with all the affected personnel and their families aboard.
Mr Obama ordered the expulsion in response to alleged hacking of the US Democratic Party and Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election.
President-elect Trump has promised a revelation about the allegations.
A spokesperson for the Russian embassy in the US, quoted by the TASS news agency, confirmed the departure of the plane from Washington on New Year’s Day.
The aircraft was part of the Rossiya airline’s special flight detachment group – the carrier for the president of Russia and other government officials.
Mr Obama’s order had given the affected diplomats just 72 hours to leave the country.
Russian president Vladimir Putin had been expected to respond in kind, with the expulsion of US diplomats from its territory.
However, he later said he would not “stoop” to “irresponsible diplomacy” , but rather attempt to repair relations once Donald Trump takes office.
Mr Trump praised the decision as “very smart”.
He has previously said Americans “ought to get on with our lives” rather than sanction Russia.
But on New Year’s Eve, he said he would reveal details “people don’t know” about the incident in the coming days.
“I know a lot about hacking,” he told reporters, “and hacking is a very hard thing to prove, so it could be somebody else. ”
He also said that he knows “things that other people don’t know. And so they cannot be sure of the situation. ”
But he refused to provide details, saying he would make an announcement on “Tuesday or Wednesday”.
The president-elect also suggested that computers could not be trusted with sensitive information, and recommended using pen and paper.
“You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way,” he said.
“Because I’ll tell you what – no computer is safe. “

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Police in the state of São Paulo said the shooter, identified as 46-year-old Sidnei Ramis de Araújo, is believed to have been angry over a split with his wife, Isamara Filier, 41, and their son João Victor.
Three other people remain hospitalized, police said, while four people survived the attack unharmed, including one party attendee who managed to flee to a bathroom and phone the police when the shooting began.
Survivors, according to a police spokesman, said that just before midnight, the shooter jumped over a fence surrounding the house, burst through a door and began firing even as he berated Filier for taking their son.
Araújo possibly sought to take advantage of the commotion of New Year’s Eve to disguise the shooting, police said.
One neighbor told local television that he and his family heard shots, but had thought they might be fireworks until one of the wounded ran to their property, bleeding and pleading for help.
Despite high rates of crime and violence in Brazil, including significant problems with assaults against women, the attack alarmed Latin America’s biggest country on a holiday associated with family gatherings.
Gun deaths are common in heists, holdups and in confrontations among police, drug gangs and other criminals in Brazil, but targeted mass shootings are rare.
Police said Araújo, reported by local media to be a laboratory technician, used a 9 mm pistol and carried two additional clips, extra ammunition, a knife and unspecified but unused explosives.
Investigators are analyzing the explosives in addition to a cell phone and audio recorder found in a car he parked outside the home to determine whether Araújo left any sort of message about his attack.
Police said they did not yet know if Araújo had a history of violence, or whether he had been known to physically harm or threaten his former wife before the attack.
Campinas, an industrial and university city of over 1 million residents, is located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of the city of São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest metropolis.
(Reporting by Paulo Prada; Editing by Ruth Pitchford and Alan Crosby)

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