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Elias: California’s Lara gave away the farm to insurance companies

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

Until a consumer advocacy group used the Public Records Act to unearth previously secret files, just what the insurance industry won when it blackmailed millions of Californians last summer and this fall was uncertain.Related ArticlesLocal News | Elias: Transgender students California’s latest state-local conflict Local News | Elias: Here are the signs Newsom is setting self up for ’28 presidential run Local News | Elias: California towns’ battle for local control still very much in play Now it’s clear the companies won immense new freedoms from longstanding regulations that have saved California insurance customers billions of dollars since 1988, when voters passed Proposition 103 — and despite this, some firms are still not back in the market here.Here’s how the blackmail worked: Companies like State Farm, Allstate and Farmers stopped selling new property policies anywhere in California, claiming intolerable losses ...

Warriors may have plenty of depth and not enough space to optimize it

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Kerr has a great problem.Too many guys that deserve fair playing time — to open and close games, to play big minutes or extended stretches — and no clear-cut formula to maximize it all just yet.The gray area between their nine wins and 10 losses has often come down to those in-game decisions: Toss faith at struggling veterans such as Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins or go by merit and play the hottest hand off the bench?No period captured that quandary more than the last 72 hours. Thursday morning, Kerr repented for pulling a hot-handed Moses Moody late in the fourth quarter when none of his teammates could get a bucket in an eventual meltdown loss to the Sacramento Kings.Thursday night, after a collective-effort 120-114 win over the Los Angeles Clippers, Kerr saw enough from rookie Brandin Podziemski to lock up his job as a closer in specific late-game situations. One play on Thursday stood out in particular.Just 33 seconds remaining and the ...

Bay Area trumpet player gives up career on Wall Street for a life in jazz

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

Photo by Stefan Kohli“I want to be the next Chris Botti, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to do it,” says Sausalito jazz trumpeter Jonathan Dely. (Photo by Stefan Kohli)Provided by Jonathan DelySausalito musician Jonathan Dely stars in “Goodbye Jonathan’s Soul,” a short film based on his life. (Provided by Jonathan Dely)Photo by Will JellicorseSausalito’s Jonathan Dely started playing the trumpet when he was 8 years old. (Photo by Will Jellicorse)Show Caption of ExpandHere’s the scenario: A young man from a privileged background with a talent for playing the trumpet is faced with the choice between a lucrative career on Wall Street or the uncertain life of a jazz musician.If that sounds like a script for a movie, that’s because it is. It’s the plot of a short film, “Goodbye Jonathan’s Soul,” that’s based on the true story of 30-year-old Sausalito jazz trumpeter and bandleader Jonathan Dely (pronounced Day-lee).Dely, whose attorney father was a senior corporate...

Caltrans: Highway 35 near Bear Creek Road to reopen Friday

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

BOULDER CREEK — Highway 35 near Bear Creek Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains is scheduled to reopen at 5 p.m. Friday to one-way reversing traffic control, according to a Caltrans release.This section of the highway has been closed since Oct. 2 so crews could repair damage suffered during last winter’s storms. Crews excavated the site, constructed a soldier pile wall to support the damaged northbound lane and installed drainage systems.With one-way reversing traffic in effect, crews will continue to work on Highway 35 behind concrete barriers over the next few months. (Contributed – Caltrans) Once reopened, this stretch of roadway will be subject to one-way reversing traffic control by means of a temporary signal which will remain in place for the next few months, according to the release. Additional repairs will continue in the northbound line with crews working behind concrete barriers.This scheduled reopening is weather dependent, according to the release, and updates will be ...

Court order sought to bar California school district from enforcing LGBTQ policy, critical race theory ban

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

The law firm suing Temecula’s school district over its critical race theory ban announced Thursday, Nov. 30, it is seeking a court order to stop the district from enforcing that ban as well as a policy requiring parents be told if their child identifies as transgender.Its motion asks a judge to bar the Temecula Valley Unified School District from enforcing school board policies “that censor state-mandated curriculum,” a news release from Public Counsel states.“Across the district, teachers are avoiding discussions of racial and other forms of inequality for fear of violating the ban, making it impossible to teach subjects like American history and government with even a semblance of accuracy,” lawyers argue in their motion.“Denied access to concepts being learned by their peers elsewhere in the state, Temecula students are at a marked disadvantage as they prepare for college, careers, and participation in a diverse democracy.” View this document on ScribdPublic Counsel’s release in...

USC’s Bronny James cleared by doctors for return

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

LOS ANGELES — Smiles abounded when Bronny James walked into the gym for USC’s practice on Thursday, but not much was said. There was no fanfare. There was no raucous applause.On Thursday morning, a long-awaited statement from a James family spokesperson confirmed the USC freshman had been cleared by doctors for a “full return to basketball,” about a month after father LeBron said they had a “big moment” at the end of November to gauge his son’s progress. The statement went viral, like most everything surrounding the young James does. But his USC teammates, senior DJ Rodman said Thursday, knew he was coming back sooner than the public expected.“We’re excited,” senior guard Boogie Ellis said. “But we’ll be more excited when he’s actually out there with us, playing next week.”Yes – playing next week. It’s been all of four months since James collapsed during a USC summer workout with cardiac arrest; all of two months since he’d started rehab after heart surgery. But the path forward has...

Cal State faculty plans to strike as officials reject a 12% salary increase

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

BY MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN | CalMattersBarring a breakthrough in negotiations, the California State University faculty will go on one-day strikes at four campuses next week as they fight for 12% wage hikes this academic year plus other key concessions — increases that the system of nearly 460,000 students says it cannot afford.The action would dash hopes of a labor peace between the union of 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches on one end and management of the nation’s largest public four-year university system on the other. And it would only be the beginning: If Cal State leadership doesn’t meet faculty demands, union leadership is promising more labor unrest in 2024.“The decision was made to start on the smaller side…to allow us to give some space to escalate,” said Kevin Wehr, bargaining team chair for the California Faculty Association and a professor at Sacramento State. “We don’t feel the need necessarily to go from zero to 60.”The planned dates and camp...

Meta shuts thousands of fake Facebook accounts primed to polarize voters

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

By David Klepper | The Associated PressSomeone in China created thousands of fake social media accounts designed to appear to be from Americans and used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the U.S. ahead of next year’s elections, Meta said Thursday.The network of nearly 4,800 fake accounts was attempting to build an audience when it was identified and eliminated by the tech company, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The accounts sported fake photos, names and locations as a way to appear like everyday American Facebook users weighing in on political issues.Instead of spreading fake content as other networks have done, the accounts were used to reshare posts from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that were created by politicians, news outlets and others. The interconnected accounts pulled content from both liberal and conservative sources, an indication that its goal was not to support one side or the other but to exaggerate partisan ...

2 children who died in Southern California fire had been deemed ‘safe’ by caseworker

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

Riverside County Child Protective Services caseworkers assessed the risk to the children living with a drug-addicted mother in a Lake Elsinore-area home as “moderate” and the living conditions as “safe” a year before a boy and girl died in a fire that authorities blamed on their mother’s neglect, according to documents obtained by the Southern California News Group.Arya Alcarez, 1, and Julian Alcaraz-Fisher, 2, perished on Jan. 25, 2021, when a garage, converted into a living quarters at a home on Blackwell Boulevard in unincorporated Lakeland Village, caught fire with three children inside watching television. Cal Fire/Riverside County fire investigators said a space heater tethered to a table by bungee cords either tipped over into a pile of clothes or made contact with clothes and a bamboo partition hanging from the ceiling.The children’s mother, Devinn Elise Fisher, was outside in a car with her boyfriend at the time — she under the influence of methamphetamine and he smoking me...

Rafael Nadal to return to playing at Brisbane International in January after being out for a year

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:38 GMT

MADRID (AP) — Rafael Nadal will return to playing at the Brisbane International in Australia in January, the 22-time Grand Slam champion said Friday.“After a year of not competing, it is time to come back,” Nadal said in a video posted on social media. “It will be in Brisbane in the first week of January. See you there.”The 37-year-old Spaniard has not played on tour since last January, when he hurt his hip flexor during a loss in the second round of the Australian Open.In May, a little more than a week before the start of the French Open, Nadal announced that he would miss the tournament he’s won a record 14 times and wasn’t exactly sure when he might return to play.Nadal had said then that he hoped to compete in 2024, which he expected to be his final season.“You never know how things will turn out,” Nadal said at a news conference at the time, “but my intention is that next year will be my last year.”He wound up having arthroscopic surgery in June in Barcelona.Dating ...