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Explosion at BBQ restaurant in China kills 31 people

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — China's president ordered a national safety campaign on Thursday after a massive cooking gas explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the northwest killed 31 people and injured seven others on the eve of a long holiday weekend.The blast tore through the restaurant at around 8:40 p.m. Wednesday on a busy street in Yinchuan, the capital of the traditionally Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, as people gathered ahead of the Dragon Boat Festival, the official Xinhua News Agency said.The explosion left many people unconscious and they needed to be carried out of the shop, according to the online news site The Paper, which quoted a member of the search and rescue team. Victims included elderly people and high school students, it said.An hour before the explosion, employees noticed the smell of cooking gas and discovered that a gas tank valve was broken, according to Xinhua. The blast occurred while an employee was replacing the valve. Is your gas stove hurting your...

These Bay Area cities and counties getting $46 million to clear homeless camps, add shelters

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

As frustration mounts over sprawling homeless camps in nearly every corner of the Bay Area, the state is stepping in with millions in cash to help house people living on city sidewalks, parks and floodplains, and add more shelter beds across the region.Eight local cities and counties are set to receive a share of more than $46 million to move potentially a thousand people out of encampments and into shelter or housing. The awards are part of a $350 million statewide effort Gov. Gavin Newsom launched last year to get more homeless people indoors.“We’re doubling down on our investment to ensure that thousands of individuals in communities up and down the state move out of encampments and into housing where they can get the services and help they need,” Newsom said in a statement.Much of the funding will go toward creating private-room shelters and supportive housing, which is a critical step toward putting a dent in the Bay Area’s homeless population of roughly...

How will the Warriors approach the 2023 NBA Draft and free agency beyond that?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — In November 2020, the Warriors drafted James Wiseman with the No. 2 overall draft pick, their highest pick since they took Mike Dunleavy Jr. third overall out of Duke in 2002.Three years later, though, Wiseman is no longer with the team, and Dunleavy, despite once being made scapegoat for Warriors fans’ frustrations after years of futility, is the team’s new general manager.The Warriors have gambled in the last three drafts, taking some high-upside teenage players with the hopes to groom them to one day take the baton from the dynastic trio as it ages out.But with Stephen Curry still a top-five NBA star at the age of 35, the Warriors should be looking to maximize the here and now. And the process of retooling their roster to be a championship contender once again starts with the No. 19 pick in Thursday’s draft.Last season, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody were expected to step into larger roles having been two lottery picks who had a champions...

Editorial: CSU four-year graduation rates improve, but not enough

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

Amidst all the troubling data about the effect of the pandemic on education, there is some good news.The California State University system continues to increase the portion of students graduating after four years. The rate is still unacceptable, but at least the numbers are trending in the right direction.Shockingly, of the students who entered CSU as freshmen in 2010, only 19% had graduated by 2014. The good news is that, eight years later, 35% of the class that started in 2018 graduated by 2022.The biggest improvement among the system’s 23 campuses was seen at San Jose State, while the rates at Cal State East Bay and San Francisco State lag the average.The steady improvement is positive, but it’s not enough. CSU — which has about 460,000 students and is the largest university system in the nation — trails far behind the national average for graduation within four years, estimated at 44% in 2019, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.CSU must do a much...

Meet Wes Anderson’s scene-stealing ‘Asteroid City’ triplets, Ella, Gracie and Willan Faris

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

Ella, Gracie and Willan Faris landed in Spain two years ago to make their feature film debuts in Wes Anderson‘s “Asteroid City,” and like any first-timers, they were excited to meet their costars.Woody from the “Toy Story” franchise. Gru in the “Despicable Me” movies. And Marvel’s Black Widow, even though the triplets haven’t seen any of her superhero flicks yet.“Dad doesn’t let us,” explained Ella, who, like her sisters, turned 8 this month.Faris triplets: Willan, from left, Ella, and Gracie, at home n Orange County on Monday, June 19, 2023, star in Wes Anderson’s new film, “Asteroid City,” which was shot in Spain in the summer of 2021 and opens on Friday, June 23. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Orange County triplets Gracie, Willan and Ella Faris, second from left to right, were 6 years old and just out of kindergarten in 2021 when they spent two months in Spain on director Wes Anderson’s new film, “Asteroid City,” which opens Fr...

Over 1,000 sea lions, dolphins are getting sick and dying as toxic bloom off California coast expands

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

A toxic algae bloom that has crept down the coast of California from San Luis Obispo County has been sickening and killing hundreds of sea lions and dolphins. Animals began washing up along the coastline earlier this month in alarming numbers.The massive bloom produced by a species of marine plankton fueled with a toxin called domoic acid has struck the hardest off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties – staff at the Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute have struggled to keep up, officials said Monday – but affected animals have been seen as far south as Los Angeles and Orange County.The impacted animals – mostly sea lions and dolphins, but also whales and other marine mammals – are feeding on smaller fish, such as squid, sardines and anchovies, that have eat the poisonous plankton. The toxins can cause seizures and severe brain inflammation and often leads to death by causing irreversible brain damage.Ruth Dover, co-founder and managing director of the Channel Islands cente...

‘One of the most violent’: California man who shocked officer during Capitol riot gets more than 12 years

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

A Panorama City man who advocating violence before the Capitol insurrection and used an electroshock weapon on a police officer in the midst of the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday, June 21, to 12 years and seven months in federal prison.Daniel Joseph Rodriguez, 40, was sentenced after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson described him as a “one-man army of hate, attacking police and destroying property (and showing) up in D.C. spoiling for a fight.”It was the harshest sentence yet for a Jan. 6 defendant with a strong Southern California tie.Rodriguez had accepted a plea deal and admitted to felony conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, tampering with documents or an official proceeding, and inflicting bodily injury on officers using a dangerous weapon.A day before the 2021 Capitol riot, he told his followers: “There will be blood. Welcome to the revolution.” Prosecutors described him as “one of the most violent” of the hundreds of insurrect...

The U.S. Open returns to Riviera in Los Angeles in 2031 after an 83-year absence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

By DOUG FERGUSON | AP Golf WriterLOS ANGELES — Los Angeles had to wait 75 years to get another U.S. Open and now it’s becoming a regular stop. The USGA is bringing the U.S. Open to Riviera Country Club in 2031.The announcement Wednesday comes three days after Wyndham Clark won the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, just over 5 miles away and across the 405 freeway from Riviera.The fabled course off Sunset Boulevard is the longtime host of what now is the Genesis Invitational, long considered a favorite by top PGA Tour players. Riviera held the first U.S. Open in California in 1948 when Ben Hogan won with a record score of 276.Hogan also won the Los Angeles Open in 1947 and 1948, and Riviera soon became known as “Hogan’s Alley.”The club now takes on a greater profile. It will host the U.S. Women’s Open in 2026 on the centennial anniversary of Riviera, and then it has the golf competition in the 2028 Olympics.And then, 83 years later, it finally gets another U.S. Open.“We are so g...

Barabak: Texas vs. California: Migrant dumping and the ‘race to the bottom’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

Name-calling. Mean tweets. A governor’s quick-draw veto pen.What does any of that have to do with the latest batch of migrants swept up in a red state and deposited in California?The shipment arrived last week courtesy of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Forty-two people — and let’s not forget they’re people — arrived in downtown Los Angeles, presumably famished as well as frightened after a 23-hour bus ride with starvation rations.It’s all politics, of course.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who spent Monday in California hustling cash for his presidential bid, advanced his visit by dumping two planeloads of asylum-seekers earlier this month in Sacramento.They were lied to — promised jobs and attorneys to hasten their bid for legal status — but at least DeSantis got what he wanted: Several days of national news coverage to boost his enervated campaign and a chance to stick it to his blood enemy, Gov. Gavin Newsom.Abbott isn’t running for president.At least not in 2024.But he is caught up in an in...

CHP investigating 5 highway shootings in 7 days in East Bay

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:31 GMT

(KRON) – The California Highway Patrol Oakland Area office is investigating a series of highway shootings that have recently occurred within the past week. There have been five highway shootings spanning over the course of seven days.On June 14, the passenger of a white Ford Crown Victoria fired two shots at fourteen landscaping employees who were contracted by Caltrans on Interstate 80 in Berkeley. The suspects were described as Black male adults with short hair, CHP said. Suspect arrested in Pier 39 shooting identified On June 18, a freeway shooting incident took place on eastbound I-80 in Albany around 7:40 p.m. The victim did not sustain any injuries, however, their vehicle sustained damage. The suspect is described as a Hispanic male who wore a green fitted hat and sunglasses. He is around 35 to 40 years old and his vehicle was described as a newer model silver BMW convertible, CHP said.At 8:40 a.m. on June 19, a shooting on I-880 in Oakland resulted in the victim's vehicle s...