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Concord seniors, advocates battle for rent stabilization as prices rise

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

(BCN) -- When the Concord City Council discussed a rent stabilization ordinance for nearly five hours at a meeting earlier this month, the emotionally charged conversation attracted 67 public speakers, by one count. Rent is obviously a hot button issue in a community where, between 2011 and 2021, median gross rents increased 62 percent, according to the city. Higher rents affect nearly everyone who doesn't own homes. But tenant advocates say high rents likely impact seniors in Concord harder than other groups, as 58 percent of area seniors -- according to the Association of Bay Area Governments -- are very low-income. VIDEO: People with batons smash car windows of Oakland armed robbers That means about 2,000 households in Concord are vulnerable to displacement, according to the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, a tenants rights advocacy group. The group says about 29 percent of unhoused people in Contra Costa County are over 55. When public comment closed from the Sep...

Mets owner Steve Cohen apologizes to Marlins for soggy field that forced doubleheader

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The sloppy field that caused a costly postponement for the Miami Marlins left the New York Mets all wet.Mets owner Steven Cohen apologized to the Marlins on Wednesday for the circumstances that led to Tuesday night’s series opener between the teams getting washed out. The game was rescheduled as part of a doubleheader Wednesday, affecting Miami’s pitching plans in the final days of a heated playoff race and angering team officials, according to a report by The Athletic.“Our sincere apologies to the Marlins and their fans for having to postpone last night’s game,” Cohen posted Wednesday on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. “We know how important this series is to the Marlins and every effort was made to get the field playable.”The infield at Citi Field wasn’t covered with a tarp for at least some portion of last weekend, when rain from Tropical Storm Ophelia began pelting New York City for four straight days. The tarp was on the fie...

AC Milan takes 1st formal step to moving away from iconic San Siro and into new stadium

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

MILAN (AP) — AC Milan took the first formal step Wednesday to moving away from the iconic San Siro, which it shares with Inter Milan, and building a new stadium in the southern part of the city.The Rossoneri announced they had filed a proposal to the council in San Donato to build a 70,000-seater stadium in the city suburb.The move makes it even more likely that both Milan clubs — which play their home games at San Siro in the north-west of the city — will completely abandon their initial plans to build a new stadium on the same site. “For over four years, we have embarked with conviction on a journey aimed at giving our club one of the best stadiums of the world, which is able to accompany us into a victorious and sustainable future,” Milan president Paolo Scaroni said. “This represents a preliminary step in the evolution of this process but, at the same time, it is further proof of our ownership’s commitment to guaranteeing continuous growth for AC Milan both on and off the pitch....

6 bodies and 1 survivor found in Mexico, in the search for 7 kidnapped youths

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A search for seven kidnapped youths in the north-central Mexico state of Zacatecas appeared to come to a tragic end Wednesday when searchers found six bodies and one survivor in a remote area.State prosecutors said the surviving young man was found with serious head wounds. His condition was listed as stable. They said the bodies of six young men were found nearby, but that investigators had not yet confirmed they were the youths abducted from a farm Sunday. The bodies will have to be removed from the roadless site and brought to the state capital for identification. Their relatives had carried out protests earlier this week in the violence-plagued state to demand authorities find them. It was the latest tragic outcome to mass abductions of young people this year.In August, a gruesome video circulated on social media recorded the last moments of five young men kidnapped in the neighboring state of Jalisco.In the video, a pair of bound, inert bodies are seen lying ...

Michael Bonallack, amateur great and R&A secretary, dies at 88

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

Michael Bonallack once said he never considered turning pro because he didn’t realize he was good enough until he was too old. No matter. His influence on the game was enormous, from his standing as Britain’s greatest amateur to his running the Royal & Ancient Golf Club.Bonallack died on Tuesday at age 88, a month after he made one last appearance at St. Andrews for the opening ceremony of the Walker Cup.Jack Nicklaus said Bonallack always embraced the game’s traditions and that his friend of 65 years was “important voice through golf’s growth, evolution and global expansion.”“He was an influential ambassador, and someone always dedicated to properly shaping the future of the next generations of golfers,” Nicklaus said in a statement.Bonallack was a five-time British Amateur and five-time English Amateur champion, part of nine Walker Cup teams and the playing captain when Great Britain & Ireland won for the first time after World War II.Bonallack late...

Man City out of the League Cup after 1-0 loss at Newcastle. Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea advance

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

NEWCASTLE, England (AP) — Manchester City seems to win every competition it enters these days except the English League Cup.Newcastle beat Man City 1-0 on Wednesday in the third round of the League Cup which also eluded Pep Guardiola’s team during its storied treble last season. Guardiola’s agitation at his team’s first defeat of the season showed by getting a yellow card in the closing minutes for dissent to the match officials.Leaving star starters Erling Haaland, Kyle Walker and Phil Foden on the bench, Man City still dominated the first half without making its possession count with a goal.Alexander Isak struck in the 53rd for Newcastle which also made sweeping lineup changes to rest key players for another midweek fixture sandwiched between two Champions League challenges.The goal was created by Joelinton’s dribble into and across the penalty area past four City defenders before squaring a pass that found Isak alone at the far post.Foden and Jeremy Doku came on in the seco...

Nebraska latest Republican state to expand Medicaid to cover postpartum care for low-income mothers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lower-income new mothers will get a full year of Medicaid health care coverage in Nebraska under an order issued Wednesday by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen. The move makes Nebraska the latest in a growing list of Republican-led states that had previously refused to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage beyond the minimum 60 days after women give birth. Conservatives are now largely embracing the change as part of an anti-abortion agenda in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year overturning Roe v. Wade, which for 50 years guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.Since that ruling, the Nebraska Legislature enacted a 12-week abortion ban, and Pillen has promised to push for a six-week ban next year.State lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year to expand Medicaid’s postpartum coverage to at least six months. Pillen said his order of a full year of coverage is “a significant step in supporting Nebraska’s mothers and children.” Other states that h...

New storms batter central Greece as government prioritizes adapting to effects of climate change

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — New floods following torrential rain swept Wednesday across swathes of central Greece already battered by deadly storms weeks earlier, once again damaging roads, flooding homes and causing power outages in the city of Volos and the island of Evia.At least eight villages were ordered evacuated late Wednesday as floodwaters rose, and road traffic was banned in Volos — a coastal city of about 140,000 — with residents urged to stay indoors.The fire service received hundreds of calls for assistance in Volos and dozens of people were evacuated from flooded homes, but there were no reports of deaths or people missing. State-run ERT television said the basement of the Volos hospital was inundated, although services were not affected.The new heavy storms follow deadly wildfires that caused record destruction in the summer, and earlier Wednesday the government declared that adapting to climate change has become a national priority.Volos, the nearby Mount Pilion area and ...

Nebraska police standoff stretches into day 2 with hostage still trapped in home

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

GERING, Neb. (AP) — A police standoff with a man who barricaded himself in a Nebraska home with a hostage passed the 24-hour mark Wednesday. Local law enforcement agencies said the standoff began after the 37-year-old fled when a deputy tried to pull him over for a traffic violation Tuesday in the western Nebraska city of Gering. Gering police and the Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Office said the man shot at the deputy’s vehicle during a brief chase, then crashed into a residential garage.The man barricaded himself inside the home around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Scottsbluff Star-Herald reported. He took a woman and two girls hostage but eventually freed the children.Local law enforcement says the man has fired at officers with multiple weapons during the standoff.The FBI and the Nebraska State Patrol are helping local law enforcement. Source

Boulder mass shooting suspect suggested to psychologist that he wanted police to kill him

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:53:45 GMT

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — The man accused of killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021 told a mental health evaluator he bought firearms to carry out a mass shooting and suggested that he wanted police to kill him, according to Wednesday court testimony.Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa made the statements at a state mental hospital during an August evaluation that determined he was mentally competent to stand trial, said Loandra Torres, the forensic psychologist who evaluated the 24-year-old suspect. Remains of Suzanne Morphew found during unrelated search The defendant, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, also “recognized that there are guns that have his fingerprints on them and that can be used as some evidence against him," Torres said.Alissa is charged with murder and multiple attempted murder counts after the shooting rampage on March 22, 2021, in a crowded King Soopers store in Boulder, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Denver. He has not yet been asked to enter...