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Buena Park apartment fire displaces 11

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

An early-morning fire in Buena Park has forced 11 people out of their homes.The fire broke out at about 1 a.m. in the 7700 block of 10th Street and was knocked down in 51 minutes by more than 40 firefighters, according to the Orange County Fire Authority."Our crews here were hampered with some challenges such as wires down that were affected by the fire," said Capt. Thanh Nguyen. "And then also, multiple units involved in fire."The OCFA added on Twitter that about $2 million worth of damage was done to the structure, plus another $250,000 to the contents of the units.Though no injuries were reported, the blaze did spread to a second building, though it remains unclear if the damage to that second structure is included in the dollar amount cited by fire officials.Eleven people were displaced, including Ashley Rodriguez."It was like swirling black smoke that was coming up through the floor," she said. "At that point, I panicked and I woke everybody up. We came outside and the apartmen...

Is THCP As Safe As Delta-8? — A Peek Into THCP’s Potential

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

View the original article about The Potential Of THCP at Real Tested CBD.THCP is the latest THC-related cannabinoid to pop up in the hemp industry. However, delta-8 customers must be super cautious before giving any THCP-related product a go. Even if THCP is from a legal hemp source, it will have a significantly different impact versus standard delta-8 extracts. Rushing to try the latest THCP vape pods could have disastrous consequences.Below, we’ll explain why researchers have so many reservations about THCP. Although THCP has potential use cases, most hemp customers should stick with delta-8 products until we know the whole story on this highly psychoactive cannabinoid.What Is THCP, And Why Is It So Scary?Interestingly, nobody knew about THCP’s existence before 2019. Even more fascinating, a research team out ofcannabis-restrictive Italy deserves credit for discovering THCP. According to a report from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, doctors accidentally discovered THCP...

Parallelle Mirrors

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

Parallelle Mirrors: French DJ brother duo Parallelle have been playing music from a very young age, with their parents putting them in music school from the age of six.“Moving to the Netherlands in 2011 opened the door to the underground electronic scene, in which we dived into and have stayed ever since,” they say. “Playing and producing, first separately and it is in 2016 we decided to join forces in brotherhood and created Parallelle.”Describing their sound today, they say: “We have evolved throughout different sounds throughout the years, but today we would say that we focus on a more melodic minimal tech, with housy and jazzy twists. Keeping it dirty, sexy, groovy and underground.”On the state of electronic music today, they say that it is becoming the standard in the night life as we speak.“We feel our music genre is becoming more and more accessible at festivals, clubs and other events,” they say. “All in all, electronic m...

California child welfare agencies under fire for pocketing foster kids’ Social Security survivor benefits

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

By JEANNE KUANG | CalMattersIn December 2019, a month after her son’s death, Patricia Baca contacted the federal government to provide for her surviving grandchildren.The twins, just 3 at the time, had lived a difficult first few years of life. San Diego County had removed them from their parents’ custody that year due to allegations of drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence in the home, Baca said. The brother and sister were in foster care with Baca when their father died in an accident.Hoping to secure the children a future nest egg, Baca filed for them to receive survivor’s benefits from the Social Security Administration for children whose parents have died.But it was the twins’ legal parent at the time — the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency — that stepped in to receive their money. For the next two years, the county put their survivors’ benefits into its own coffers. Records show it was an effort to pay itself back for having issued monthly checks to Baca...

Giants Fantasy Baseball Camp: Oracle Park, me and my bum knee — and a fantasy (un)fulfilled

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

Hobbling toward San Francisco’s Oracle Park, something told me this would be a humbling assignment.On this brisk November morning, I was scheduled to rendezvous with a courier at the Juan Marichal statue just outside the ballpark, head through stadium security and sign liability waiver forms. You know, in case something happened.We weren’t about to parachute out of an airplane above China Basin. No, this was the sort of paperwork you fill out when — like me — you are a washed-up junior college ballplayer participating in the San Francisco Giants’ fall fantasy camp.It’s a program that invites fans to spend two days on the diamond at Oracle Park — or a week on the field, if you go to the fantasy camp held in Scottsdale, Arizona, each January — living out their childhood dreams with coaching from the likes of former Giants pitcher Bill Laskey and former Oakland A’s and Giants lefty Vida Blue.It had been a decade-plus since I last stepped between the chalk lines ...

FasTrak sure stirs up drivers’ strong emotions: Roadshow

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

Q: I don’t have sympathy for those who ignore their FasTrak bills. Though toll scanners can’t be 100 percent correct, I think the issue of inaccurate scans and fees is overblown. I think many drivers believe they can ignore tolls with impunity. I was glad to read that this is not the case, that at vehicle registration time, the piper needs to be paid.I also believe the system design is flawed. The idea that all drivers will do the right thing, and will always stay aware of the fees they are accumulating, is a fantasy. It has put untold bridge toll collectors out of work. There should always be at least one option to pay your toll to a person.Also, it has turned what used to be lanes for 2 or more drivers into toll roads requiring 3 passengers and a FasTrak device (which may have been left in the family’s other car that morning) to avoid the toll.I really detest those variable toll amounts. Of course there will be those who challenge whether they entered the toll lane at a different ...

Reese Witherspoon’s divorce sparks a ‘nefarious’ narrative

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

Reese Witherspoon reportedly never saw herself getting another divorce, but a media narrative that’s emerged over the past week says she shouldn’t be surprised that her second marriage didn’t work out.According to the tale being spun by the celebrity press, Witherspoon’s nearly 12-year marriage to Jim Toth couldn’t accommodate her success and suggests that she might have been busy putting her career ahead of her marriage.“It’s a tale as old as time: Her success drove them apart,” Juliet Litman said while co-hosting The Ringer Dish podcast Monday. “It’s a nefarious narrative. … It’s very frustrating, because it takes away what she’s accomplished.”The couple announced their divorce on March 24, and Witherspoon formally filed the paperwork on Monday in Davidson County, Tennessee, near their home in Nashville, Vanity Fair said. The actor and producer cited “irreconcilable differences” and said she and Toth would share custody of their 10-year-old son Tennessee. The document also s...

Landmark ruling or wishful thinking? City of Alameda claims it is no longer bound by county mandates

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

When the Alameda Superior Court ruled that the county’s Covid-19 eviction moratorium did not apply in a housing dispute between a tenant and the city of Alameda, even the judge overseeing the case didn’t expect it to have larger ramifications.So it came as quite a surprise when city officials claimed Friday that the “landmark ruling” resolved a so-called “long-standing ambiguity” about the amount of power California counties have over the cities within their boundaries.Alameda contends the ruling has now set a precedent for whether counties can regulate incorporated cities during times of emergency. If its interpretation is correct — which has yet to be tested by further lawsuits — cities in Alameda County would have broad power to ignore ordinances set by the county – from mask mandates and curfews to eviction moratoriums.“When there’s a set of local laws, whether it’s curfews or emergency response, there is one set of laws that applies to you, not two,” sai...

Lottery-fueled Castellano Family Foundation ending operations

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

The Castellano Family Foundation — created out of a record-setting California Lottery jackpot — is ending its operations in June after 22 years of elevating Silicon Valley’s Latino community through millions of dollars in grants.Carmela Castellano-Garcia, the foundation’s president and daughter of its founders, said the organization has been winding down its work internally for more than a decade since she and her siblings joined the board.“We looked at the horizon of what we had in the foundation, and we were able to put a plan together of what the next 10 years could look like,” she said Tuesday. “We wanted to see what we could do in that time to influence philanthropy and encourage the Latinx community.”The San Jose-based foundation’s impact has been significant, starting with more than $7.5 million in grants to a diverse portfolio of organizations large and small that focused on arts and culture, education and leadership, inc...

When Finland Matters More Than Donald Trump

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:31:10 GMT

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, left, shakes hands after handing over his nation’s accession document to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, during a meeting of NATO foreign ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, April 4, 2023.Photo: Johanna Geron/APDonald Trump’s arraignment in New York on Tuesday was only the second most important news story of the day. In Brussels, Finland abandoned its nonaligned status and officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, redrawing the map of Europe and bolstering the West’s front-line defense against Vladimir Putin. Finland’s accession into NATO was Tuesday’s most significant and historic event — by far.It would never have happened if Trump were still in the Oval Office, rather than sitting in a Manhattan courtroom facing felony charges in a tawdry case involving a porn star and the National Enquirer.Trump has committed many crimes; in addition to those of which he was accused in New Yor...