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'My second tow truck this month': Potholes a recurring headache for Southern California drivers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

After months of rainstorms and flooding, potholes have appeared or worsened on Southern California streets and freeways, damaging vehicles and snarling traffic.Multiple cars were damaged on the 210 Freeway Wednesday night near the Baldwin Avenue exit, just hours after similar issues that morning.A driver named Adam said his family has experienced multiple issues with potholes on the freeway."They patch it, and it goes away," he said. "More potholes. My wife had one this month earlier, so this is my second tow truck this month on the 210 Freeway, and it probably won't be the last, so that is really frustrating."Earlier this week, the 71 Freeway in Pomona experienced similar issues near the Holt Avenue exit.Repairing the damage done by potholes can be costly — about $600, according to AAA — and while that is usually covered by car insurance, it may not be worth filing a claim if you have a high deductible. Instead, drivers can file a claim with the government. Caltrans, which handles...

Forever Endeavor — Genevieve Artadi’s Forever Forever is a love album for the ages

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

Forever Endeavor: The last time we spoke to L.A. artist Genevieve Artadi was in August 2020. The pandemic was six months in and still raging, and showing no signs of letting up. Concerts were on hold, along with the rest of our lives. The whole thing feels like a fever dream.Artadi had just released the Dizzy Strange Summer album which, while written prior to the pandemic, offered an ideal soundtrack to the trauma. It felt both relevant and soothing. The new album Forever Forever is different but similar in that regard.“I recorded the album in Mexico,” Artadi says, via a phone interview. “We went to this beautiful studio called El Desierto, and it’s just the most gorgeous place ever. But we had to cut the first session short because we got COVID. We went home, and recorded the rest of the album. Because we were on such a time crunch and I wanted it to have a live feeling, and a unified sound which is really different from Dizzy Strange Summer, we were recording things three people a...

Five CBD Gummies Worth Trying

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

View the original article about Five CBD Gummies Worth Trying at Real Tested CBD.Everyone seems to love a sweet or sour fruity treat in the form of a gummy. So why not make that gummy even better with a little CBD?Many people are choosing CBD gummies as their preferred method of consumption these days, and it’s no wonder why. CBD gummies offer a tasty and perfectly dosed way to get you CBD. They are easy to take on the go and can be discrete. If you haven’t tried CBD gummies yet but are curious to try, read on for five CBD gummies worth giving a try and why.What Is CBD?Cannabidiol, or CBD, is one of many cannabinoids or naturally occurring compounds in hemp and cannabis plants. CBD produced and sold in the U.S. today is made with hemp plants that have a THC threshold of 0.3% or less. THC is another well-known cannabinoid most often associated with marijuana.Though both THC and CBD are cannabinoids, CBD is not psychoactive or intoxicating like THC can be. CBD can have effects on the ...

Pac-12 WBB: Our predictions for Colorado, Utah and UCLA in the Sweet 16

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

Two of the four No. 1 seeds, Stanford and Indiana, failed to survive the first week of the NCAA Tournament.Will the two remaining, South Carolina and Virginia Tech, make it through the second week to reach the Final Four in Dallas?Or will land mines ahead claim at least one more No. 1 by the conclusion of the regionals Monday in Greenville, S.C., and Seattle?The Pac-12 enters the Sweet 16 without Stanford for the first time since 2007 but with three second-round winners: Utah, the regular season co-champion, plus UCLA and Colorado.The No. 2 Utes are slight seeding favorites over No. 3 LSU but a 5-point betting underdog. Defending national champion South Carolina is a decided favorite over No. 4 UCLA while No. 2 seed Iowa is a 5.5-point favorite over No. 6 seed Colorado.So it would take an upset — as defined by the oddsmakers — for the Pac-12 to advance a team to the Elite Eight, something it has accomplished every year since 2016.The Pac-12 last went without a Final Four...

7 fantastic Bay Area things to do this weekend, March 24-26

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

Got your weekend plans? We are here for you on that front, with details on compelling new movies and shows as well as some awesome ways to have fun in Sonoma Valley. So let’s get to it, shall we?As with everything these days, be sure to double check websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines. Meanwhile, if you’d like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or www.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters.1 WATCH: A racy ‘Great Expectations’?An edgy new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic 19th-century novel finds Pip getting a somewhat more visceral education, if you catch our drift. It tops our list of new shows and movies you should watch this weekend. Also on the list is “A Good Person,” Zach Braff’s new tragicomedy starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman which, he tells us, he had a brutal time directing.The sculpture grove at Santa...

Prescription for housing? California wants Medicaid to cover 6 months of rent

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

By Angela Hart | Kaiser Health NewsSACRAMENTO  — Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration is struggling to contain a worsening homelessness crisis despite record spending, is trying something bold: tapping federal health care funding to cover rent for homeless people and those at risk of losing their housing.States are barred from using federal Medicaid dollars to pay directly for rent, but California’s governor is asking the administration of President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, to authorize a new program called “transitional rent,” which would provide up to six months of rent or temporary housing for low-income enrollees who rely on the state’s health care safety net — a new initiative in his arsenal of programs to fight and prevent homelessness.“I’ve been talking to the president. We cannot do this alone,” Newsom told KHN.The governor is pushing California’s version of Medicaid, called Medi-Cal, to fund experimental housing subsidies for homeless people, betting that it’s cheap...

Reader offers to pay for slain SJ Safeway worker’s permanent memorial: Roadshow

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

Q: I’m sending you the response I wish I could have sent directly to Robert Flanagan (featured in Roadshow on March 17). I lived in the Bay Area for over 50 years. This made me so sad. I would pay for the memorial outside Safeway on Hamilton Avenue.Lisa Johnson, Coeur d’Alene, IdahoA: And her follow-up…Q: Dear Robert, What an inconvenience to you and neighbors for what you think is an unsightly memorial. You didn’t elaborate on why the site is problematic, just that neighbors are tired of it. I’m pretty sure the parents, family, and friends of 24-year-old Manny Huizar, whose precious life was cut short trying to stop a shoplifter at the store, are not.What about a kind gesture from you and your neighbors, offering to work with Safeway to establish a plaque, plant, or something that honors Manny’s life in his community, in place of the site? If you and your Silicon Valley neighbors can’t afford it, I’ll pay for it.Lisa JohnsonA: Here is what Colin-a-San Jose-s...

Art from encampments: Bay Area’s homelessness crisis inspires wave of artistic expression

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

There’s nothing beautiful about homelessness.Or is there?Amid the heartbreaking conditions of the Bay Area’s homeless encampments, those with little recourse are fighting their despair by creating works of art. The results can be uplifting — like the celebratory murals painted to cheer up residents of tent clusters and cars turned into homes. Other times — like a recent play that dramatized Caltrans workers kicking unhoused residents out of a camp — they’re gut-wrenching.With more than 30,000 unhoused residents in the Bay Area and little visible progress toward stemming the homelessness crisis, those who live or have lived in encampments, and those who work with people who do, describe this artistic expression as vital. For some, it provides a way to heal from the trauma of life on the streets. For others, it’s an opportunity to tell their stories and teach the world what it’s like to live in their shoes.“Art has a way of involving peo...

Cottage cheese injections and electric shocks: Emeryville attempts to reclaim toxic soil

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

Emeryville is still digging itself out from under its industrial past.For years, the city has cleaned up vast swaths of land contaminated by the scores of commercial warehouses that used to dominate the East Bay shoreline community. By the early 2000s, Emeryville earned a reputation as “one of the foulest industrial wastelands in the Bay Area,” according to one news outlet, which said the soil was “so toxic that anyone treading it had to wear a moon suit.”In 2004, for instance, 15,000 gallons of cottage cheese was injected into the groundwater below an abandoned factory, cleaning up the toxic hexavalent chromium — a substance some have dubbed “the Erin Brockovich chemical” — that was produced while manufacturing car bumpers in the 1950s and ’60s.This week, city officials kicked off the complex task of cleaning up roughly 78,000 square-feet of contaminated soil on another city-owned property just across the railroad tracks from the popular Bay Street Emeryville shopping c...

Why were San Jose firefighters at a strip club? Still no answers on Poodlegate

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:33:51 GMT

A five-month investigation into why a San Jose firetruck dropped off a bikini-clad woman at a strip club has concluded, but officials have yet to answer many questions about the scandalous incident caught on video, including which firefighters were outside the Pink Poodle and what discipline — if any — they face.In a letter sent to city councilmembers earlier this month, San Jose Fire Chief Robert Sapien wrote the department “extends a sincere apology” to the community. But he said the identities of the firefighters seen at the strip club won’t be released.“The actions portrayed in the video were received with disappointment and concern, as they appeared seriously misaligned with the Department’s mission and values and were highly detrimental to the confidence and trust of our community and our workforce,” Sapien wrote in the 343-word letter dated March 10. It was the first time that he apologized for the incident.Sapien said the city would ...