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The cost of high-speed rail in California might surprise you

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

Californians narrowly approved about $10 billion for a high-speed rail system between the Bay Area and Southern California in 2008. It’s been 15 years since the vote.Here’s a look at the latest cost and time estimates for the completion of California’s high-speed rail.In 2015, construction began on a viaduct in Madera County, the first visible sign of the high-speed rail project. The cost estimate was about $68 billion for the project then. The 119-mile Central Valley segment (Merced to Bakersfield) is still under construction and not expected to have passenger service until between 2030 and 2033.The state requires the High-Speed Rail Authority to prepare a project update every odd year and in its 2023 report, it said that, “the biggest risk we face is full funding – over which we have very little control.”The original goal of the project was to go from San Francisco to Anaheim, with another phase connecting Sacramento and San Diego. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in his State...

Prep roundup: Branham snaps Leigh’s streak, Woodside pitcher throws no-hitter

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

NEW: PREP SPORTS MAILBAGThe Bay Area News Group is introducing a high school sports mailbag in May. Get your questions in as soon as possible. Our debut edition is an open forum. Got questions about spring sports playoffs, coaching changes, an early peek at football season, etc.? Send questions to [email protected]. Please include “mailbag” in the subject line.BaseballBranham 2, No. 15 Leigh 1Branham senior Evan Williams pitched a complete game and struck out seven as the Bruins snapped Leigh’s 11-game winning streak. Williams also drove in a run with a single into right field in the top of the first. Colin Williams’ fly ball scored Gunnar Paedon in the top of the next inning to double the lead. Leigh senior infielder Nate Miller cut the deficit to one in the bottom of the third with a home run to left, his third homer of the year. With the victory, Branham (17-7, 10-6) spoiled Leigh’s bid to clinch the Blossom Valley Athletic League Mt. Hamilton Division title....

US job gains and wages pick up, signaling labor resilience

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

By Reade Pickert | BloombergUS hiring and workers’ pay gains accelerated in April, showing signs of labor-market resilience and fresh inflationary pressures in the face of economic headwinds.Nonfarm payrolls increased 253,000 after a downwardly revised 165,000 advance in March, a Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed Friday. The unemployment rate fell back to a multi-decade low of 3.4%.The job growth was broad-based, reflecting gains in health care, professional and business services as well as leisure and hospitality. However, the prior two months of payrolls were revised lower by a combined 149,000.The latest figures underscore the resilience of labor demand despite growing concerns about the toll high interest rates, inflation and tightening credit conditions are projected to take on the economy. While some businesses have paused hiring or laid off workers, others are still boosting pay in an effort to fill a multitude of open positions.The S&P 500 opened higher, Treasury ...

US probes complaint that woman died after being trapped in flaming SUV

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

DETROIT — U.S. safety regulators are investigating possible electrical problems in older Dodge Journeys after a woman was trapped and died when her SUV caught fire in December.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it’s investigating whether inoperative door locks and windows can prevent people from getting out of the SUVs during an emergency.Documents posted Friday on the agency’s website say the probe covers more than 82,000 Journeys from the 2009 model year. The investigation was opened after the woman’s death on Dec. 9.A complaint filed with the agency says the woman pulled to the side of a road when warning lights started flashing, windshield wipers came on, the horn started honking, windows wouldn’t go down and the doors wouldn’t unlock. The complaint alleged that fire apparently started in the engine and spread, trapping the woman inside.“The driver was unable to exit the vehicle, resulting in her death,” the agency wrote in documents.Stellantis, which makes ...

Oakland teachers strike enters Day 2

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) -- Friday, Oakland teachers got back on the picket line. No deal was reached with the Oakland School District Thursday. Now, the state superintendent is getting involved.The strike comes after days of consistent negotiations between the Oakland School District and thousands of its teachers. It's now Day Two of the strike and more than 30,000 school kids are without teachers as we head into the weekend.Negotiations have been happening since last November with 3,000 members of Oakland Education Association seeking better pay, more services for students with disabilities, additional mental health services for students and smaller classrooms.The Oakland School District says it can only do so much, adding that it has offered a historic pay raise, which totaled to more than $69 million ultimately giving most teachers up to a 22 percent pay raise and a $5,000 bonus.So what's the hold up? Well, teachers want other issued resolved. The district says the group brings up...

COVID health emergency over: WHO downgrades pandemic

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies worldwide and killed at least 7 million people worldwide.WHO said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn't come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The U.N. health agency says that thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week.“It’s with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.“That does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat,” he said, adding he wouldn't hesitate to reconvene experts to reassess the situation should COVID-19 “put our world in peril.”Tedros said the pandemic had been on a downward trend for more than a year, acknowledging that most countries have already...

FDA weighing 1st over-the-counter birth control pill

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health regulators are weighing the first-ever request to make a birth control pill available without a prescription.Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration meet next week to review drugmaker Perrigo’s application to sell a decades-old pill over the counter. The two-day public meeting is one of the last steps before an FDA decision.If the FDA grants the company’s request, Opill would become the first contraceptive pill to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter onto store shelves or online.In an initial review posted Friday, the FDA raised several concerns about studies of Opill, citing problems with the reliability of some of the company’s data and raising questions about whether women with certain other medical conditions would correctly opt out of taking it. It also noted signs that study participants had trouble understanding the labeling instructions.The agency will ask the panel to consider whether younger teenagers will be ab...

Suspect in slaying of Syrian surrenders to German police

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — German authorities said Friday that a man sought in connection with the fatal shooting of a 24-year-old Syrian in the western town of Luedenscheid has been detained after surrendering to police.Prosecutors in the western city of Hagen said the 23-year-old suspect is also a Syrian citizen and knew the victim, who died at a hospital hours after Monday’s shooting in the nearby town of Luedenscheid.Police declined to immediately provide further details about the suspect or the circumstances of the shooting.Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have come to Germany since the start of the conflict in their country more than a decade ago.Source

Nigerian senator, wife jailed in UK for organ-harvest plot

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A senior Nigerian politician and his wife were handed prison sentences Friday for conspiring to transport a street trader to the U.K. as part of an organ-harvesting plot. Ike Ekweremadu, former deputy president of the Nigerian Senate, and his wife Beatrice were convicted in March of conspiring to arrange the travel of a 21-year-old man to be a kidney donor for their sick daughter.Ike Ekweremadu, 60, was sentenced to nine years and eight months by a judge at London’s Central Criminal Court. Beatrice Ekweremadu, 56, was jailed for four and a half years and 51-year-old Dr. Obinna Obeta, described by prosecutors as a medical “middleman” in the plot, received a 10-year sentence.The case was the first to convict suspects of an organ-harvesting conspiracy under the U.K.’s modern slavery laws.Passing sentence, judge Jeremy Johnson said that “people-trafficking across international borders for the harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery.” “It treats human beings a...

Unprecedented number of primaries prompt some Democrat angst

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:02 GMT

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Since their wipeout in the 2021 election cycle, Virginia Democrats’ one remaining hold on state government has been in the General Assembly’s upper chamber. The narrow Senate Democratic majority prides itself on being a “brick wall” against Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s agenda. Operatives from both parties see a roadmap for Democrats to keep that majority in November, when all 140 legislative seats are on the ballot. But first come the primaries. Newly drawn legislative maps have led to a wave of retirements and more nomination contests in both assembly chambers than any other comparable election cycle in recent decades. But there’s a sharp discrepancy in the 40-member Senate: There are nearly twice as many Democratic nomination contests as Republican ones. As the races start to heat up, the imbalance in numbers has sparked some concerns among Democrats that spending in the primaries could diminish their current financial advantage, limiting their abili...