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In brief: Piedmont residents reminded to get ready for wildfires

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

PIEDMONTWildfire preparation is critical in the East Bay hills, and Piedmont’s Fire Department is encouraging property owners to to prepare their yards for the height of wildfire season as late summer and early fall approaches.Protecting residential and commercial property primarily requires managing vegetation and maintaining defensible space by trimming trees and shrubs, clearing flammable yard materials and removing dead or dying vegetation. A printable checklist residents can use to prepare their property is available online at piedmont.ca.gov/yardchecklist.Residents needing assistance to identify what needs to be done on their property can call the Piedmont Fire Department at 510-420-3030 to request an inspection. For information on wildfire evacuation and emergency alerting, visit piedmont.ca.gov/wildfire online.Streamlined new housing proposals heading to City CouncilTwo proposals aimed at simplifying the process to create new housing in Piedmont that the Planning Commission ...

UK police charged after racist text messages targeted Harry and Meghan, Rwandan asylum seekers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

Related ArticlesWorld News | ‘I’m already good at racial profiling’: New batch of Antioch cops’ texts show how much racism and policing intertwined London’s vaunted Metropolitan Police Service is grappling with a blight that’s been affecting police departments in the United States, including in the Bay Area: Racism among its ranks that has been exposed by secret text messages shared among officers.In a sign that racism has roiled in the highest ranks of the Metropolitan Police, the BBC reported Tuesday that six retired officers, who all spent time in the force’s Diplomatic Protection Group, have been charged with criminal offenses over “grossly offensive racist messages.” These messages were sent in a WhatsApp group between 2018 and 2022, with some of these messages involving Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Newsweek reported. Others targeted Rwandans who are subject to the UK’s controversial policy on asylum...

8 months after brutal winter storms, California disaster relief slowly flows to undocumented workers who lost homes, income

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

Undocumented Californians affected by winter storms and floods are slowly starting to receive money from a special relief program the state launched for them two months ago.In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced it plans to spend $95 million from the state’s Rapid Response Fund to help thousands of flood victims recover from storm damage and financial setbacks.The beneficiaries would be immigrants who don’t qualify for federal emergency assistance or state unemployment insurance because they are undocumented.More than 20 nonprofits have contracts with the Department of Social Services to distribute the money. So far they have begun handing out nearly $18 million to about 12,000 residents — but it’s at an uneven pace.About 4,000 residents in San Joaquin County are expected to receive a total of about $6 million, according to data from the state. Fewer people have received aid in other big counties. For instance, only a few hundred thousand dollars went to 415 households in Ker...

Serial Millbrae groper still on the loose

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

(KRON) -- A serial groper remained at-large on Wednesday after he targeted multiple women around Millbrae, investigators said. The groper wears a black hoodie with a white "Wall Street Journal" logo, sheriff's deputies said. The most recent incident happened on Tuesday at 10:20 p.m. on Poplar Avenue. A 38-year-old woman was walking with her son when the man groped her from behind, San Mateo County Sheriff's Sgt. Gaby Chaghouri said. The man fled from the scene on foot after the woman began yelling. On Sunday at 7:35 p.m., a similar incident occurred on Spur Trail near Millbrae Avenue. A 28-year-old woman was walking on the trail when a man groped her. "The individual approachedthe victim from behind, subjecting her to a similar instance of inappropriate physical contact," Chaghouri wrote. He fled on a black mountain bicycle. Victims described the man as Hispanic, about 30 years old, between 5'7" - 5'10" inches tall. He was wearing the "Wall Street Journal" sweatshirt and black pants...

All lanes blocked on CA-4 following collision in Discovery Bay

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

(KRON) -- All lanes in both the westbound and eastbound direction of State Route 4 are closed Wednesday morning, according to the California Highway Patrol.At 10:27 a.m., CHP reported a traffic collision with injuries occurred east of Discovery Bay Boulevard. Traffic is being moved to Tracy Boulevard. Drivers are advised to expect delays in the area. There is no estimated time of when the roadway will reopen.

Person critically injured in Oakland crash near Evergreen Cemetery

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

(BCN) -- A person was in critical condition following a traffic crash early Tuesday morning in East Oakland, police said Wednesday. The crash occurred at about 5:45 a.m. in the 6500 block of Foothill Boulevard near Evergreen Cemetery. A vehicle was traveling west on Foothill Boulevard when it hit a parked vehicle and a building, according to police. San Jose police officer shot by suspect near Auzerais Avenue Paramedics took two of the five people in the vehicle to a hospital while the other three arrived a little later, police said. One of the five people suffered critical injuries in the crash, according to police. Anyone with more information about the case is asked to call the Police Department's traffic investigation unit at (510) 777-8570. Copyright © 2023 Bay City News, Inc.

Pakistan Confirms Secret Diplomatic Cable Showing U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

For a year and a half, Pakistani politics has been gripped by word of a diplomatic cable said to describe U.S. State Department officials encouraging the removal of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan from power. Last week, The Intercept published the contents of the cable, known internally as a cypher, which revealed U.S. diplomats pressing for the removal of Khan over his neutral stance on the conflict in Ukraine.Since it was published, the response to the story from Pakistani and U.S. officials has been both defensive and contradictory. Most Read Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan Ryan Grim, Murtaza Hussain UFO Whistleblower Kept S...

AI Isn’t Banning Books in Iowa Schools. Republicans Are.

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speak on a book tour in Des Moines on March 10, 2023.Photo: Rachel Mummey for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesIt reads like a headline pulled from a dystopian near future: Artificial intelligence is being used to ban books by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Maya Angelou from schools. To comply with recently enacted state legislation that censors school libraries, Iowa’s Mason City Community School District used ChatGPT to scan a selection of books and flag them for “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.” Nineteen books — including Morrison’s “Beloved,” Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” — will be pulled from school library collections prior to the start of the school year.This intersection of generative AI and Republican authoritarianism is indeed disturbing. It is not, however, the presage of a future ruled by censorious machines. These are the banal operations of reac...

New York seeks 25th victory this season in matchup with Las Vegas

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

New York Liberty (24-6, 13-3 Eastern Conference) at Las Vegas Aces (27-3, 15-1 Western Conference)Las Vegas; Thursday, 10 p.m. EDTFANDUEL SPORTSBOOK WNBA LINE: Aces -5.5BOTTOM LINE: New York will try to earn its 25th victory this season when the Liberty play the Las Vegas Aces.The Aces have gone 15-0 in home games. Las Vegas ranks second in the WNBA with 21.9 assists per game led by Chelsea Gray averaging 6.9.The Liberty are 12-2 on the road. New York has an 8-4 record against opponents over .500.The teams meet for the fourth time this season. The Liberty won 82-63 in the last matchup on Aug. 16.TOP PERFORMERS: Gray is averaging 15 points and 6.9 assists for the Aces. A’ja Wilson is averaging 24.7 points over the last 10 games for Las Vegas.Breanna Stewart is averaging 23.3 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.5 blocks for the Liberty. Sabrina Ionescu is averaging 17.0 points over the last 10 games for New York.LAST 10 GAMES: Aces: 9-1, averaging 94.2 points, 34...

Court says two abortion protesters in DC can proceed with freedom of speech lawsuit

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:50:50 GMT

Two students were arrested in August of 2020 for writing an anti-abortion message on a sidewalk. Now, a federal court ruled a lower court was wrong for dismissing their lawsuit over First Amendment rights.Erica Caporaletti and Warner DePriest chalked “Black Pre-Born Lives Matter” outside a Planned Parenthood in Northeast D.C. when they were cuffed by on police Aug. 1, 2020.A lawsuit was filed that fall by the Frederick Douglass Foundation on behalf of the two protesters, alleging that their free speech rights and equal protection rights were violated.D.C.’s district court dismissed the lawsuit, concluding the foundation had failed to adequately allege discriminatory intent.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit heard arguments in late September of 2022, and while they agreed with the dismissal of the equal protection, they found that the suit had merit based on the First Amendment.Judge Neomi Rao wrote the opinion for the court, saying “the First Amen...