The Year of the Snake is upon us as communities across the Bay Area celebrate Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year and Tet. Here’s just a sampling of ways to join in the celebrations. A 289-foot long golden dragon winds its way through Chinatown for the finale of the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco, Calif., Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) The Year of the Snake is upon us as communities across the Bay Area celebrate Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year or Tet. Here’s a sampling of ways to join in the celebrations. Children’s…
Author: MAK Gojar
Antioch’s first Aftrican-American city attorney resigns after serving the city for about six years. Thomas Smith, the first African-American city attorney in Antioch, is pictured on Feb.5, 2019. (Judith Prieve/Staff) ANTIOCH — Antioch City Attorney Thomas Lloyd Smith resigned Jan. 17 following a special city council meeting held on the same day. Replacing Smith on an interim basis will be Derek Cole of Cole Huber LLP, the city said Tuesday in a news release. Cole will fill that role until a permanent replacement is appointed. “The City Council would like to express its gratitude to Mr. Smith for his service…
Much of the 2025 Sundance lineup is available online — here’s a look. Sundance Institute “The Virgin of the Quarry Lake” sets a supernatural-tinged tale near Buenos Aires tied in with teen love and jealousy. While the future home for Sundance, the iconic indie film festival actor Robert Redford helped create, remains up for debate, there’s no argument about the 2025 lineup in Utah. It’s dynamite, and includes a smattering of films with Bay Area ties. This year’s roster of 88 films will be screened Jan. 23 through Feb. 2. The event isn’t yet budging from Park City, Utah, and…
WASHINGTON — At the inaugural prayer service, the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and undocumented migrant workers. Referencing Trump’s belief that he was saved by God from assassination, Budde said, “You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” The Trump administration has already issued executive orders rolling back transgender rights and toughening immigration policies. When he returned…
LAS VEGAS — The only suspect ever to be charged in the 1990s killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas has lost a bid to have his murder case dismissed. In a ruling Tuesday from the bench, Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny said Duane “Keffe D” Davis isn’t protected against prosecution because he has not provided proof of immunity deals that he says he reached years ago with federal and local authorities while still living in California. Davis and his lawyer had argued that he never should have been charged with murder because of those deals.…
ANKARA, Turkey — A fire raged through a 12-story hotel at a popular ski resort in northwestern Turkey early Tuesday during a school holiday, killing at least 76 people — at least two of them when they jumped from the building to escape the flames, officials said. At least 51 people also were injured in the fire at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya, in Bolu province’s Koroglu mountains, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of Istanbul, said Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. The fire occurred near the start of a two-week winter break for schools, when hotels in the region…
LOS ANGELES — Dangerous winds returned to Southern California on Tuesday as new wildfires broke out and a pair of major Los Angeles-area blazes burned for a third week, while officials made preparations to protect scorched neighborhoods from toxic ash runoff ahead of potential rain this weekend. Forecasters cautioned that gusts could peak at 70 mph along the coast and 100 mph in mountains and foothills during extreme fire weather that’s expected to last through Tuesday afternoon. The National Weather Service warned of a “ particularly dangerous situation ” across Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego counties due to low…
A man has been arrested, months after a burned body was found on the floor of a Miami home. Leer en español According to an arrest report from the Miami Police Department, firefighters responded to a blaze on the morning of Aug. 18, 2024, at a home in the 3000 block of Southwest 13th Street. Local 10 News learned the home was used as a multi-unit short term rental property, and police confirmed that the fire occurred in the rear unit. According to the arrest report, while working to extinguish the flames, firefighters discovered a burned body on the floor…
Israel launched a major military operation Tuesday in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin that killed at least nine Palestinians and left at least 40 more people wounded, Palestinian health officials said, as Israel’s fragile ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza entered its third day. In Tel Aviv, four people were wounded in a stabbing attack and the suspect was killed by security forces, according to Israeli police. Authorities only identified the attacker as a 28-year-old “foreign national” but believe the stabbings were a terrorist act. Israel’s top general resigned Tuesday, taking responsibility for security failures tied to Hamas’ surprise…
A winter storm sweeping through the U.S. South on Tuesday was dumping snow at levels millions of residents haven’t seen before. Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was combining with a low-pressure system and chilly air to drop significant amounts of snow in some spots. That included 10.5 inches near Lafayette, Louisiana by midday Tuesday — within striking distance of the state record of 13 inches set in 1960. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had 6 inches. More than 5 inches had fallen in New Orleans, breaking the record of 2.7 set in 1963. In Texas, the Houston-Galveston area had 2.4 inches…
Democrats knew this was coming. President Donald Trump promised a shock-and-awe campaign to deliver major policy victories immediately after he took office. Much of it was outlined in the Project 2025 document that Democrats predicted he would adopt. But in the hours since Trump’s inauguration, Democrats are struggling to confront the sheer volume of executive orders, pardons, personnel changes and controversial relationships taking shape in the new administration. In less than two days, the Republican president has moved to end diversity and inclusion programs across the federal government, withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris climate accords, blocked a federal law…
Five elephants at a Colorado zoo may be “majestic” but do not have the legal right to pursue their release since they aren’t human. Five elephants at a Colorado zoo may be “majestic” but do not have the legal right to pursue their release since they aren’t human. DENVER (AP) — Five elephants at a Colorado zoo may be “majestic” but, since they’re not human, they do not have the legal right to pursue their release, Colorado’s highest court said Tuesday. The ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court follows a similar court defeat in New York in 2022 for an…
Public health experts say there could be massive implications after President Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization.
With half the country firmly behind him and the blessing of America’s tech billionaires, President Donald Trump is moving at a breakneck pace to try to remake America.
Trump’s executive order freezing refugee programs could impact thousands of Afghans approved to resettle as refugees in the US.
All told, more than 1,500 people have been indicted or already prosecuted for the massive Capitol break-in. At least 17 were from Northern California. WASHINGTON D.C. — There was the aquaponics farmer from Half Moon Bay, the Sacramento Republican Assembly president who talked online about “going to war,” and the yoga studio owner from Gilroy. The Northern California residents were all named by federal prosecutors as people who joined the thousands of Capitol insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021, and now they’re all recipients of a pardon from President Donald Trump. RELATED: Former Proud Boys leader and Oath Keepers founder released…
The Chicago Bears have made it official, announcing Ben Johnson as their head coach Tuesday and scheduling an introductory news conference for 11 a.m. Wednesday at Halas Hall. The team issued its formal news release a day after news broke that the Detroit Lions offensive coordinator had agreed to join the Bears and was finalizing a deal. In a statement, general manager Ryan Poles called Johnson “a proven leader with winning pedigree and a mind toward innovation.” “Throughout our search process, I was thoroughly impressed by Ben’s character, intelligence, leadership and ability to connect,” Poles said. “A progressive offensive mind,…
A Central Illinois man is being held after being charged with murder in the 2020 death of a Harvey woman whose partially burned body was found in a forest preserve near Midlothian. Cook County sheriff’s police said Tuesday that 30-year-old Dakota Petrey, of Lewistown, was taken into custody Saturday and charged with first-degree murder and aggravated criminal sexual assault in the death of 22-year-old Vanessa Ceja-Ramirez. Her body was found Nov. 4, 2020, in the Midlothian Meadows Forest Preserve, near 15300 S. Pulaski Road, two days after she disappeared while on a walk there. Ceja-Ramirez was strangled and her body partially…
A former executive for Chicago-based Verano, one of the largest cannabis companies in the United States, was federally indicted on charges of insider trading. The indictment Thursday accused Anthony Marsico, 39, of Bartlett, of using confidential information to make an illegal profit of about $607,000 by buying stock in another marijuana company that Verano planned to acquire. The deal to buy Minneapolis-based Goodness Growth Holdings Inc., now named Vireo Growth Inc., fell through. The two companies remain in court fighting over the failed deal. Marsico’s lawyers, Todd Pugh and Patrick Blegen, told the Tribune their client was innocent of the…
Amina Gilani quit her full-time insurance job in 2019 when the restaurant software company she co-founded in Canada, Sociavore, was accepted into a Chicago accelerator program for food industry startups. At the time, Sociavore, which is based in Ontario, had a staff of two people. Today it has about a dozen employees, and Gilani doesn’t consider it a startup anymore. “If I look at the timeline of the company and what’s happened since then, that opportunity was really important to us,” Gilani said about Food Foundry’s accelerator program, which connects its startups to investors and helps them get a foothold…