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Sierra Madre declares ‘urbanized’ bears a safety threat

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

Bear encounters have become such a big issue in Sierra Madre that city officials have declared them a threat to public safety.Now, city councilmembers are asking state wildlife officials to review bear management policies.While bears have been seen on video going through trash or even going for a swim in the foothill community, residents say they have become more aggressive. Sierra Madre residents on edge over increasing number of bear encounters, attacks On Tuesday, the City Council declared them a public threat and accused the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and state Fish and Game Commission of mismanagement.Fish and Wildlife officials attribute the increase of bear and human encounters to the steady rise of the black bear population in the nearby mountains. Extreme drought conditions have also led to bears venturing into more densely populated areas looking for food and water.Bear encounters growing in Sierra Madre, leaving residents concerned. (Sandy Duvall)Bear e...

San Mateo elderly care facility fined, at risk of losing license after poisoning deaths of two residents

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

The San Mateo senior-living facility where two residents died after accidentally being served dishwashing fluid is now facing a hefty fine and the threat of losing its elderly care residency license, according to reports filed by the California Department of Social Services.Trudy Maxwell and Peter Schroder Jr., both 93 and residents of Atria Park of San Mateo, died last year after they allegedly drank toxic dishwashing fluid mistakenly served as cranberry juice. The facility employee that is accused of pouring the fluid into a beverage container, 35-year-old Alisia Rivera Mendoza of East Palo Alto, was charged April 11 with two counts of felony involuntary manslaughter and three counts of felony elder abuse.A 94-year-old man at an Atria-run home in Walnut Creek died last year after he mistakenly drank toxic cleaning fluid that had been left in an unlocked storage container. A 54-year-old employee was charged with one count of elder abuse in that case.Now, the facility itself is faci...

Feds drop case against Antioch man arrested by cop who sent racist texts

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

OAKLAND – The fallout from an ongoing FBI investigation into Antioch police, which deepened this month when racist texts among officers surfaced, has resulted in the government tossing out a criminal case against a man who maintained he was racially profiled.Dreshawn Jackson, 27, became the latest defendant to have a case dismissed, as the federal and state courts continue a review of charges that relied upon the word of Antioch officers under criminal investigation.In Jackson’s case, he was arrested for being a felon in possession of a gun in 2018 by Antioch Officer Eric Rombough, who is not only one of at least a dozen Antioch and Pittsburg cops under FBI criminal investigation, but sent several racist text messages to fellow officers.Last week, the U.S. District Court of Northern California dismissed its case against Jackson, who spent more than a year in jail, and withdrew his earlier guilty plea. It left the Antioch man, who denied giving Rombough a confession, feeling exultant...

Correction: San Jose community land trust

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

A story on Tuesday, April 24, about community land trusts and housing incorrectly stated the amount of funding raised by the South Bay Community Land Trust, from whom some of the funding was received and how some of the funding was used. The trust received $500,000 from private donors to cover the down payment on the property and another $250,000 in public funds from San Jose and Santa Clara County to cover staffing and operational costs.

$2.3B awarded in sex abuse lawsuit that named Mormon church

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A woman who was molested for years by her stepfather has been awarded $2.28 billion by a California jury in a lawsuit that also implicated her mother and the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which both parents were active, her attorneys announced.The panel in Riverside County Superior Court awarded damages Tuesday to a woman described in court papers only as Jane Doe, who said she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather from age 5 until she was 14, according to an announcement by the law firm of Gary A. Dordick. The lawsuit alleged that beginning in the 1980s, the stepfather sexually abused the girl. The assaults took place at their Lake Elsinore home and at events, meetings, and property of the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the lawsuit said. “These ongoing acts of abuse brought Plaintiff to the brink of suicide,” according to the lawsuit. In addition to the stepfather, the negligence and sexual abuse suit also name...

One of the most notorious I-95 bottlenecks will soon get an extra lane

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

Drivers who inch through a twice-daily bottleneck on Interstate 95 near Occoquan, Virginia, will soon get some relief, with the addition of an extra travel lane.Thursday marked the ribbon-cutting for the I-95 Southbound Auxiliary Lane project, which converts a mile-and-a-half of the existing shoulder to a travel lane. The project will provide a new lane of travel, between Va. Route 123 and Prince William Parkway.The Virginia Department of Transportation estimates southbound I-95 averages approximately 80,000 vehicles a day in the area.“This piece of road has been tormenting people on both sides of the Occoquan for almost two decades,” said State Sen. Scott Surovell, whose district encompasses portions of Fairfax, Prince William and Stafford counties.While Surovell joked he’s been called “Senator Bottleneck,” he says the backups on I-95 are debilitating.“It backs up in the morning; backs up at night; backs up Monday through Friday; backs up Saturda...

US sanctions Mexican resort timeshare fraud linked to cartel

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Thursday against members or associates of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel who apparently went into a side business of timeshare fraud that allegedly targeted elderly Americans. Ryan Donner, a real estate broker in the Pacific coast resort city of Puerto Vallarta, said the fraud was infrequent but very sophisticated. The Jalisco cartel is better known for producing millions of doses of deadly fentanyl and smuggling them into the United States disguised to look like Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone. Such pills cause about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.But cartel members and associates apparently decided to branch out into scamming millions of dollars from people looking to sell their timeshares in Mexico. The scam focused on Puerto Vallarta, in Jalisco state, an area dominated by the cartel, known by its initials as the CJNG. The gang inspires so much fear in Mexico it is often simply referre...

Indiana bill could make book banning in schools easier

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana lawmakers on Thursday gave their final approval to a bill that could make it easier to ban books from public school libraries.The bill would require school libraries to publicly post a list of books they offer and provide a complaints process for community members. Schools and librarians could also no longer argue, as a legal defense, that the texts in their libraries have “educational” value. The law would still allow them to argue the text has literary, artistic, political or scientific value.“That’s how I would describe educational, by the way,” GOP Rep. Martin Carbaugh said before the House voted 70-27 in favor of it.Those who supported the legislation expressed concern that sexually inappropriate or “pornographic” materials are available to children in school libraries. Critics, however, said the legislation could open the door to banning books simply because some people don’t like the topics, as well as criminal prosecutions of educators for providi...

Supporters of Israel’s judicial overhaul rally in Jerusalem

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis who support a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to overhaul the judiciary flocked to Jerusalem on Thursday to rally for the proposal, which has prompted some of the biggest protests in Israel’s history. After 16 weeks of protests against the overhaul that brought parts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to a standstill, Thursday marked a rare mobilization of massive public support for the divisive plan. Crowds of Israelis transformed a major Jerusalem thoroughfare into a sea of blue and white national flags. Some protesters stomped on a carpet displaying the faces of Israel’s Supreme Court president and former attorney general. “We will not give up,” ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the rally. “We have the people, they have the media,” he said, referring to the government’s critics that he accuses of exerting undue influence over the news media. The masses snaki...

Rihanna, Martin Scorsese hype Paramount movies at CinemaCon

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:16:24 GMT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Paramount Pictures, still riding high on the success of “Top Gun: Maverick’s” nearly $1.5 billion in worldwide ticket sales, brought a slew of stars from Rihanna to Martin Scorsese to CinemaCon for its presentation to theater owners Thursday. Paramount has fewer releases than the other big studios, but they have several big, IP-driven titles like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” (Aug. 4) “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” (June 9) and “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie” (Sept. 29). It is also handling the theatrical release of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which debuts at Cannes next month and opens in theaters on Oct. 6. And, of course, Paramount has “Mission: Impossible.”The studio showed an extended clip of a comedic and exciting chase sequence with Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell from the seventh installment in the series, “Dead Reckoning Part I.” The film will now open in theaters two days earlier than planned, now on Wednesday, Ju...