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Bay Area’s empty-storefronts plague: Blight goes far beyond downtowns

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

Welcome to Mountain View: Look at some blight.Enter this Bay Area city, home to Google and dining hotspot Castro Street, via El Camino Real from the south and the first thing you see is a shuttered muffler shop with boarded up and papered over windows, sharing a crumbling parking lot with a defunct used-car dealership.Mountain View — median family income $158,000 — is far from alone. Around the Bay Area, vacant eyesores gape.Welcome to San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Redwood City, Fremont, Oakland and many other Bay Area cities: They’ve got blight, too.Struggling downtowns in San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco receive plenty of public attention, but cities around the region are facing a confluence of troubles outside their cores that are replacing formerly vibrant shopping districts with decaying, empty storefronts. That restaurants and brick-and-mortar retailers — already teetering from the rise of online shopping — have been devastated b...

Chaplains made part of Ukraine’s military as war drags on

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — To the haunting chants of a church choir in Kyiv’s 11th century Saint Sophia Cathedral, the first group of chaplains to join the Ukrainian military’s command structure graduated in a ceremony Saturday.Although chaplains have ministered to Ukraine’s armed forces for years, they worked as embedded civilians rather than as officers. Now, they will sign contracts to serve in those armed forces, undergo a six-week training program and get inducted.The first group of military chaplains to fall under this new system began training Feb. 20. In their new assignments, they won’t use weapons but are expected to know general military concepts and tactical medicine, Ukrainian authorities said.“We had intense psychological training, military training,” Gennadiy Rohmanenko, who was among the graduates who received the rank of junior lieutenant, said. “It means that we can put together church duty and military duty. The motto of chaplains is ‘Being there,’ God...

After Nashville, Congress confronts limits of new gun law

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine months ago, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping bipartisan gun law, the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades.“Lives will be saved,” he said at the White House.The law has already prevented some potentially dangerous people from owning guns. Yet since that signing last summer, the tally of mass shootings in the United States has only grown. Five dead at a nightclub in Colorado. Eleven killed at a dance hall in California. And just this past week, three 9-year-olds and three adults were shot and killed at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.A day after that school shooting, Biden’s tone was markedly less optimistic than it was the signing ceremony.“What in God’s name are we doing?” he asked in a speech Tuesday, calling for a ban on so-called assault weapons like those that were used to kill at The Covenant School in Nashville. “There’s a moral price to pay for inaction.”Biden and others had hailed last year’s bipartis...

Man City routs Liverpool 4-1 without injured Haaland

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — No Erling Haaland, no problem for Manchester City.Even without the Premier League’s leading scorer, Pep Guardiola’s team came from behind to rout Liverpool 4-1 on Saturday and stay in pursuit of first-place Arsenal.Haaland, who has scored 42 goals in all competitions this season, was ruled out of the game at Etihad Stadium after failing to recover from a groin injury.But even after falling behind to a 20th-minute strike from Mohamed Salah, City powered back with goals from Julian Alvarez, Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish to keep the pressure on Arsenal and deliver another blow to Liverpool’s Champions League qualification hopes.The game represented one of the biggest remaining tests in City’s league campaign. Defeat would have given Arsenal the chance to extend its lead at the top to 11 points.And that looked like a real possibility when Liverpool scored against the run of play early on, with Diogo Jota bursting past City...

Muere Rubén Cherres, pieza clave dentro de investigaciones por narcotráfico y tráfico de cargos públicos en Ecuador

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

(CNN Español) — Rubén Cherres Faggioni fue encontrado muerto en la localidad de Punta Blanca, provincia de Santa Elena, informó la Policía de Ecuador este viernes. Cherres se encontraba prófugo de la justicia desde principios de año.En el lugar, una casa ubicada a dos horas de Guayaquil, fueron hallados otros tres cuerpos. La Policía informó que inició las investigaciones sobre estas cuatro muertes que, dice, ocurrieron en un evento violento.El ministro del Interior, Juan Zapata, indicó que la Policía desplegó acciones técnicas y operativas para dar con los responsables y las causas del hecho.Rubén Cherres era buscado por la Policía para que respondiera en una investigación que emprendió la Fiscalía en enero denominada “Caso Encuentro”, sobre la existencia de una presunta estructura criminal para el nombramiento de cargos y contratos públicos a cambio de dinero en empresas estatales. Además, la Fiscalía pidió en febrero que se reabriera una investigación por supuestos vínculos...

Dentro del largo y sinuoso camino hacia la histórica acusación contra Trump

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

(CNN) — El jurado investigador de Nueva York que escuchó el caso contra Donald Trump estuvo a punto de interrumpirse durante varias semanas. Los abogados del expresidente creían este miércoles por la tarde que tenían al menos un pequeño respiro de una posible acusación. Trump elogió la demora percibida.El fiscal de distrito de Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, tenía otros planes.Este jueves por la tarde, Bragg le pidió al jurado investigador que emitiera una acusación histórica contra Trump, la primera vez que se acusa a un presidente actual o anterior de Estados Unidos. El movimiento sorpresa fue el giro final en una investigación que tomó un camino largo y tortuoso hasta los cargos históricos que se devolvieron esta semana.Se había anticipado una acusación a principios de la semana pasada, incluso por parte del propio Trump, quien promovió la teoría de que sería “arrestado”, mientras las agencias policiales se preparaban para la logística de procesar a un expresidente. Per...

Maryland man accused of killing woman in 2014 to be extradited from El Salvador

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

A Maryland man hiding out in El Salvador was charged with murder Thursday for shooting and killing a woman in D.C. nearly a decade ago, according to authorities.D.C. police said that Marvin Wilfredo Lopez-Cabrera, 43, of Hyattsville, Maryland, was charged with first degree murder while armed in connection to the 2014 killing of 27-year-old Evelyn Yamalith Arroyo.More Local News More DC NewsLopez-Cabrera was extradited on an arrest warrant by the U.S. Marshals Service from El Salvador to D.C. on Thursday.On the evening of Dec. 24, 2014, officers arrived on the scene of the 3900 block of 14th Street NW where they discovered Arroyo suffering from gunshot wounds. She was transported to a hospital where she later succumbed to her injuries and died.Source

Lost in translation: Washington and Brussels face pushback on effort to patch trade rift

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

The United States and European Union are racing to settle their dispute over tax credits for electric vehicles, but their attempted fix is creating new problems for each of them back home.Lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic complain leaders are circumventing the standard approval process for free trade agreements in their attempt to heal the rift. The potential deal between the Biden administration and the EU would qualify European automakers for some of the taxpayer subsidies embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act, the $369 billion climate and tax legislation that the U.S. Congress passed last year.Those negotiations will set a precedent, the lawmakers worry, that could cut Congress and the EU’s member countries out of decisions that carry major political and economic consequences. In the U.S., lawmakers said this week they are weighing action to reclaim their authority.“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again so there is no confusion: Congress will not, under any circumstan...

Tornadoes kill at least 11 across US Midwest and South

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

WYNNE, Ark. (AP) — Unrelenting tornadoes that tore through parts of the South and Midwest killed at least 11 people, collapsed the roof of a packed theater during a heavy metal concert in Illinois, and left small towns and big cities throughout the region bewildered Saturday by the damage.Tornadoes touched down into the night, laying waste to homes and businesses and stripping bark and limbs off trees, as part of a sprawling storm system that also brought wildfires to the southern Plains and blizzard conditions to the Upper Midwest.The dead included four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, Cross County Coroner Eli Long told KAIT-TV. Other deaths were reported in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi the Little Rock area.Wynne City Councilmember Lisa Powell Carter said the town about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Memphis, Tennessee, was without power and roads were full of debris.“I’m in a panic trying to get home, but we can’t get home,” she said Friday night. “Wynn...

Peabody man wins $1M Mass. lottery prize

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:58:06 GMT

Robert Tucker, of Peabody, has won a $1 million prize in the Massachusetts State Lottery’s “$2,000,000 50X Cashword” instant ticket game.Tucker chose the annuity option on his prize and received the first of 20 annual payments of $50,000 (before taxes). He plans to put some of his winnings toward traveling.He purchased his winning ticket at T.J.’s Variety on Lynnfield Street in Peabody. The store will receive a $10,000 bonus for selling the ticket.