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Powerball jackpot winner purchases $25.5 millon mansion in Hollywood Hills

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

The winner of last year's record-setting $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot has made his first major splurge.Edwin Castro, who came forward to claim the prize in February, has apparently used a chunk of that life-changing money to purchase a mansion in the Hollywood Hills.The mansion sold for a whopping $25.5 million, according to Jack Flemming of the Los Angeles Times, citing property records. Zillow lists the sale date as March 1. It's the most expensive sale in Hollywood Hills this year and one of the most expensive homes ever sold in the area, Flemming reports.The home was built in 2022 by developer Roman James, according to Dirt.com. The 5-bedroom, 7-bath mansion (with a footprint of 13,578 square feet) overlooks both the Sunset Strip and Chateau Marmont.The mansion sold for a whopping $25.5 million, according to Jack Flemming of the Los Angeles Times, citing property records (Berlyn Photography)The mansion sold for a whopping $25.5 million, according to Jack Flemming of the Los A...

Sex assault reported near San Dimas Dog Park

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

Authorities are investigating a sexual assault at Horsethief Canyon Park in San Dimas.The assault, which was only recently reported, occurred in mid-January on the trails north of the San Dimas Dog Park, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.The suspect is described only as a male adult who was wearing green cargo pants, a black sweater, and dirty, black Converse tennis shoes.No further information was released.“The purpose of this notification is to advise those frequenting the area of the San Dimas Dog Park to use caution and be cognizant of your surroundings,” the Sheriff’s Department said. “San Dimas Station Deputies are monitoring and providing additional safety checks of the area in addition to walking the trails to provide additional security for our community members.Anyone with information about the attack is asked to contact the Special Victims Bureau at (562) 946-7960, or if you would like to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS (8...

Los Angeles County to fly pride flag in June

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

Los Angeles County buildings will fly a pride flag during the month of June in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride Month.The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to fly the Progress Pride Flag during Tuesday's meeting.The flag will fly above the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles, as well as at all L.A. County facilities where U.S. and California flags currently fly.The Progress Pride Flag is a modified version of the original rainbow pride flag, with the addition of a chevron pattern in black, brown, light blue, pink and white. Black and brown represent LGBTQ+ people of color, while the light blue, pink, and white colors represent the trans community, according to Daniel Quasar, the artist who designed the flag in 2018.A Progress Pride flag flies on a flagpole on June 04, 2022 in London, England. (Tristan Fewings/Getty Images)Supervisor chair Janice Hahn said the first pride flag was commissioned in the 1970s by gay icon Harvey Milk, who served as a ...

Ahead of Team USA scrimmage, SF Giants’ Kapler says Mike Trout is ‘the best player ever’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Gabe Kapler was giddy with excitement Wednesday afternoon.The Giants manager had just arrived in the first-base dugout for his pregame session with reporters before San Francisco’s scheduled scrimmage with Team USA ahead of the World Baseball Classic. Kapler took one look at the Americans’ lineup and couldn’t contain himself.“It’s ridiculous,” he said, smiling. “It’s so fun.”Considered to be among the favorites, along with equally stacked teams from Japan and the Dominican Republic, the Americans’ lineup Wednesday evening, “you could say it’s better than a lot of the All-Star lineups,” Kapler said. In fact, one through nine, the batting order boasted 40 All-Star appearances, 30 Silver Sluggers and five MVPs. Their No. 9 hitter was last year’s National League batting champion.One player, though, Kapler was most excited to see.The one who accounts for three of those MVP awards, who was penciled in to...

Atmospheric river storm: When it’s arriving and which areas will be hit hardest

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

The atmospheric river storm steaming toward Northern California from Hawaii is likely to bring the wettest conditions the Bay Area has seen in two months.The storm is on track to hit the North Bay by mid-morning Thursday, spreading across the Bay Area by Thursday afternoon, with the heaviest winds, rainfall amounts and disruption — from power outages to flooded roadways — on Thursday night into Friday morning, forecasters said late Wednesday.“This will be similar to what we saw in January,” said Brayden Murdock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey, who predicted winds up to 50 mph in many areas. “Not as strong as the biggest one of those nine atmospheric river storms in January, but on the same level. Plenty of wind. Strong rain. And chances of rain through the weekend.”The storm is expected to be a category 3 atmospheric river event, perhaps a category 4 in the Big Sur area, on a scale of 1-5, according to scientists at the Sc...

Summit Public Schools must be held accountable for school closure, Sunnyvale officials say

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

Summit Denali community members, city government officials and school board trustees joined together Wednesday to denounce the decision to close the Sunnyvale charter school and demand that Summit Public Schools be audited.At the press conference, Sunnyvale Councilmember Richard Mehlinger said he remembers long before he joined the council, when parents first advocated for Summit Public Schools to bring the Denali campus to the city.“I remember how they turned out because they believed in this school, because they believed in its mission,” Mehlinger said. “This is how they have been repaid.”On Jan. 11, Summit Denali’s parent organization, Summit Public Schools, abruptly announced the school was facing a projected $4.5 million deficit for the next school year and would likely shut down permanently after the end of the school year, leaving the school’s 600-plus students suddenly unmoored.Parents, teachers and students of Summit Denali were left in limbo for weeks before the Summit boa...

2 American survivors of deadly Mexico kidnapping are being treated in US hospital as bodies of 2 killed are expected to be repatriated Thursday

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

Two of the Americans who were kidnapped at gunpoint in a Mexican border city on Friday have returned to the US and are being treated at a hospital, while the remains of the two Americans who were killed are expected to be brought back to the US Thursday.LaTavia Washington McGee, one of the surviving Americans, is expected to come home Wednesday, her mother, Barbara McLeod Burgess, said in an interview with “CNN This Morning.” Burgess also described her understanding of what happened in the harrowing attack.“They were driving through and a van came up and hit them, and that’s when they started shooting at the car, shooting inside the van,” Burgess said. “She said the others tried to run and they got shot at the same time. They all got shot at the same time. And she watched them die.”The other survivor, Eric Williams, was shot in the legs three times and was brought to a hospital in Texas to undergo surgery, his wife, Michele Williams, told CN...

Phone data, surveillance used to monitor San Jose church that violated COVID rules

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

Newly unearthed court documents reveal a bevy of extraordinary surveillance measures Santa Clara County used in trying to prove a San Jose megachurch and its congregants were violating COVID rules at the height of the pandemic.In its ongoing legal battle with Calvary Chapel, Santa Clara County used mobile phone data to map concentrations of congregants gathering on the church’s Hillsdale Avenue grounds and conducted multiple stealthy inspections in late 2020 and early 2021 that experts say raise major civil liberties questions.The use of third-party phone data — a technique known as “geofencing” — and the numerous visits by enforcement officers reveal the lengths to which a county known for its strict COVID response was willing to employ in order to prove that the church was breaking the rules.The county is currently seeking nearly $3 million in public health fines from Calvary, a non-denominational church with 3,000 congregants. Whether or not the church will fork over ...

Rare endangered whale glimpsed in Monterey Bay

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

The rarest of all large whales swam through the shallow waters of Monterey Bay last weekend, a sight greeted with elation and awe.A North Pacific right whale, believed to be one of only 32 surviving individuals of the critically endangered species, was spotted, tracked and photographed by a Monterey Bay Whale Watch vessel. Its identity has been confirmed by a government whale expert.“It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience,” said Pualani Dalton, captain of the Point Sur Clipper, who first sighted the 45-foot animal just a few miles off the coast.  “I’ve never ever seen one before. And I might never see one again.”Hunted nearly to extinction the whaling heydays of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the species was protected in 1949. But it has struggled to recover, unlike more abundant and faster-maturing species of humpback and gray whales.It got its name because whalers identified it as the “right” whale to kill, because of its thick blubber and plentiful oil.Wh...

Man charged with stealing $50,000 tractor from Dublin High School

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 15:14:02 GMT

DUBLIN — Alameda County prosecutors have filed felony charges against a 45-year-old man for allegedly stealing a tractor worth $50,000 from Dublin High, court records show.The 45-year-old Dublin resident was charged in late February with burglary, car theft, and receiving stolen property, all felonies, as well as a misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license. He was arrested Feb. 17 but released from custody, and remains out of jail while the charges are pending, records show.The John Deere tractor was stolen from campus in the early morning hours of Feb. 11. The theft was discovered later that day.Police say the suspect wasted no time in attempting to sell it online, using Craiglist and OfferUp. He allegedly used his initials on the online listing and included pictures that made it easy for school officials to identify the stolen tractor.Police recognized the suspect from prior contacts. They also recovered video surveillance from elsewhere in Dublin that showed the t...