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Editorial: Don’t give unemployment checks to striking workers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

California already doesn’t have enough money to pay for benefits for unemployed workers. So why would the Legislature even think about giving benefits to workers who choose to go on strike?Gov. Gavin Newsom should veto SB 799 and limit unemployment checks to workers who are out of work through no fault of their own. If unions want to help workers pay their bills during a strike, they should increase their strike fund budget. It’s not like they don’t have the money. Labor spent an estimated $1.8 billion on election campaigning in the United States in 2020.Expanding unemployment benefits to striking workers is in effect passing a tax increase on employers, because they fund the program.The legislation would provide unemployment benefits to striking workers when a strike goes on for more than two weeks. People who are eligible for unemployment in California  receive a weekly payment of $450 for a maximum of 26 weeks.Beyond the basic principle of paying benefits to wor...

Big San Jose apartment complex is bought by veteran real estate firms

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

SAN JOSE — A big downtown San Jose apartment building has been bought by real estate investors who express optimism about the South Bay’s economic prospects despite post-coronavirus uncertainties.The James, a luxury apartment complex in the heart of downtown San Jose, has been bought for a price of just under $74.3 million, the buyers said.The 190-unit, six-story apartment building is considered a Class A residential complex, according to the new owners, an alliance of Archway Equities and Virtú Investments, both real estate firms with decades in the business. The purchase price works out to roughly $390,800 a unit.The new owners see plenty of potential in the Silicon Valley market and its primary city, San Jose.“It’s an opportune time to enter the San Jose market, which we feel will bounce back faster than many of the other Bay area submarkets,” said Sankeerth Pulusani, managing director with Beverly Hills-based Archway.Larkspur-based Virtú Investments says ...

Opinion: Coercion for mentally ill can also be a form of compassion

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

My maternal grandmother’s China closet holds my inheritance from her: her favorite art deco vase, one solitary ceramic swan, eight Desert Rose plates, cups and saucers. She probably had bipolar disorder like me, had episodes that left her raving about being sexually assaulted by her 10-year-old brother, or injected with drugs by strangers in the night who also poisoned her food.Grandma was confined in a sanitarium in 1950, given the cold water treatment and who knows what else. I shudder at visions of her being swaddled with icy wet blankets, half-drowned, freezing water cascading down while she thrashed and cried out, begging, helpless to escape.Her husband put her there. Was it easy? Was it just on his word? Had she objected? What had she wanted? If I could, I would summon her ghost and ask about that.Summoning the ghosts of those days stirs nightmares and dread in those of us with tendencies to peculiar thoughts, mania or obsessions, who watch the world through windows curtained ...

Bay Area air quality advisory continues Wednesday

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- An air quality advisory continues Wednesday due to smoke from Northern California and Oregon wildfires, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Air quality in San Francisco and Oakland was graded as "unhealthy" Tuesday afternoon, which was the first day of the advisory.The agency said the fires have increased levels of particulate matter pollution in the air. Air quality is reaching high-moderate on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index. The National Weather Service wrote, "Smokey air from Northwest California fires may linger near the surface across the Bay Area for the next few days." San Francisco emergency dispatchers received a flurry of 911 calls Tuesday reporting smoky air in the city. Bay Area residents are advised to avoid exposure if the smell of smoke is present by staying indoors with the windows and doors closed. To check the air quality near you, use this interactive map. City of Salinas agrees to pay near...

Biden is using executive power to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ about 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps. The program is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal.“Th...

India asks citizens to be careful if traveling to Canada as rift widens over Sikh leader’s death

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — India on Wednesday advised its citizens to be careful when traveling to Canada as a rift between the two nations widens further in the wake of Ottawa’s allegations that India may have been involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in suburban Vancouver.The foreign ministry in New Delhi issued an updated travel advisory, urging its nationals and especially those studying in the North American country to be cautious because of “growing anti-India activities and politically condoned hate-crimes.”Indians should also avoid going to venues in Canada where “threats have particularly targeted Indian diplomats and sections of the Indian community who oppose anti-India agenda,” the ministry said.Ottawa and New Delhi, two key strategic partners on security and trade, are locked in a diplomatic tussle after Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, alleged that India was connected to the assassination of Sikh independence advocate on its soil in June.Canada has yet to ...

¿A qué hora sale la nueva canción de Shakira? Aquí, un adelanto

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

La cantante colombiana Shakira nos dio otra probadita de su nueva canción con música regional mexicana que se estrena esta noche de miércoles. La nueva canción “El Jefe” con Fuerza Regida, se estrena a las 8 pm ET. Así lo promovió la barranquillera en su cuenta de Instagram: Shakira, Camilo y Karol G, los más nominados a los Latin Grammy Shakira nos da una probadita a horas del lanzamiento de su nueva canción con música mexicana Esta historia tiene elementos que podrían no funcionar en nuestra aplicación. Pulsa aquí para abrir la historia en el navegador de internet. Source

France fully loaded for Namibia at Rugby World Cup

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

France is coming fully loaded for Namibia at the Rugby World Cup on Thursday in Marseille.After overcoming three-time champion New Zealand on opening night, France served up a second-string side against Uruguay last week and a lackluster and ill-disciplined 27-12 win was booed in Lille in front of President Emmanuel Macron.The French couldn’t even claim a bonus point and now think it would be a good idea to restore confidence and the public’s faith instead of rotating players too much with a more challenging test against Italy in their last pool game and an expected quarterfinal looming.“A lot of players were spared after the match against the All Blacks two weeks ago, and there are still two weeks to go before Italy and other forthcoming matches, I hope,” France captain Antoine Dupont said. “We want to play the best possible match, both in terms of results and form.”FRANCE vs. NAMIBIA (France leads 2-0 overall, 2-0 in RWC)After 12 changes for Uruguay, France has made 12...

UN rights experts report a rise of efforts in Venezuela to squelch democracy ahead of 2024 election

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Venezuela’s government has intensified efforts to curtail democratic freedoms with use of threats, surveillance and harassment as President Nicolás Maduro faces a re-election contest next year, U.N.-backed human rights experts reported on Wednesday.An international fact-finding mission authorized by the Human Rights Council notes that violent repression between 2017 and 2019 eased after the coronavirus pandemic broke out the following year. That coincided with a drop in huge protests against the government. A report by the mission three years ago decried “crimes against humanity” in Maduro’s Venezuela.In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, the experts warned that political interference has been on the rise. They noted that three candidates running for the opposition’s Unitary Platform — Henrique Capriles, Maria Corina Machado and Freddy Superlano — were banned from taking part. Other prominent figures have already been blocked from holding political off...

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin gets personal in ‘An Unfinished Love Story’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:23:53 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Doris Kearns Goodwin’s next book is a work of history that’s also close to home.The Pulitzer Prize winner’s “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s” is a reflection on her final years with her longtime husband, Richard Goodwin, the former White House speechwriter who died in 2018, and on the singular era they lived through. Simon & Schuster announced Wednesday that the book will be released April 16. The publisher is calling it a combination of memoir, history and biography; Goodwin was inspired in part by the couple’s looking through hundreds of boxes of letters, diaries and other papers. Richard Goodwin was a key aide to President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson who helped coin the phrase “The Great Society.” Doris Kearns was a White House Fellow who later helped Johnson work on his memoir, “The Vantage Point.” She went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for “No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: Th...