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Editorial: CSU four-year graduation rates improve, but not enough

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

Amidst all the troubling data about the effect of the pandemic on education, there is some good news.The California State University system continues to increase the portion of students graduating after four years. The rate is still unacceptable, but at least the numbers are trending in the right direction.Shockingly, of the students who entered CSU as freshmen in 2010, only 19% had graduated by 2014. The good news is that, eight years later, 35% of the class that started in 2018 graduated by 2022.The biggest improvement among the system’s 23 campuses was seen at San Jose State, while the rates at Cal State East Bay and San Francisco State lag the average.The steady improvement is positive, but it’s not enough. CSU — which has about 460,000 students and is the largest university system in the nation — trails far behind the national average for graduation within four years, estimated at 44% in 2019, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.CSU must do a much...

Meet Wes Anderson’s scene-stealing ‘Asteroid City’ triplets, Ella, Gracie and Willan Faris

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

Ella, Gracie and Willan Faris landed in Spain two years ago to make their feature film debuts in Wes Anderson‘s “Asteroid City,” and like any first-timers, they were excited to meet their costars.Woody from the “Toy Story” franchise. Gru in the “Despicable Me” movies. And Marvel’s Black Widow, even though the triplets haven’t seen any of her superhero flicks yet.“Dad doesn’t let us,” explained Ella, who, like her sisters, turned 8 this month.Faris triplets: Willan, from left, Ella, and Gracie, at home n Orange County on Monday, June 19, 2023, star in Wes Anderson’s new film, “Asteroid City,” which was shot in Spain in the summer of 2021 and opens on Friday, June 23. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)Orange County triplets Gracie, Willan and Ella Faris, second from left to right, were 6 years old and just out of kindergarten in 2021 when they spent two months in Spain on director Wes Anderson’s new film, “Asteroid City,” which opens Fr...

Over 1,000 sea lions, dolphins are getting sick and dying as toxic bloom off California coast expands

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

A toxic algae bloom that has crept down the coast of California from San Luis Obispo County has been sickening and killing hundreds of sea lions and dolphins. Animals began washing up along the coastline earlier this month in alarming numbers.The massive bloom produced by a species of marine plankton fueled with a toxin called domoic acid has struck the hardest off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties – staff at the Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute have struggled to keep up, officials said Monday – but affected animals have been seen as far south as Los Angeles and Orange County.The impacted animals – mostly sea lions and dolphins, but also whales and other marine mammals – are feeding on smaller fish, such as squid, sardines and anchovies, that have eat the poisonous plankton. The toxins can cause seizures and severe brain inflammation and often leads to death by causing irreversible brain damage.Ruth Dover, co-founder and managing director of the Channel Islands cente...

‘One of the most violent’: California man who shocked officer during Capitol riot gets more than 12 years

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

A Panorama City man who advocating violence before the Capitol insurrection and used an electroshock weapon on a police officer in the midst of the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday, June 21, to 12 years and seven months in federal prison.Daniel Joseph Rodriguez, 40, was sentenced after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson described him as a “one-man army of hate, attacking police and destroying property (and showing) up in D.C. spoiling for a fight.”It was the harshest sentence yet for a Jan. 6 defendant with a strong Southern California tie.Rodriguez had accepted a plea deal and admitted to felony conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, tampering with documents or an official proceeding, and inflicting bodily injury on officers using a dangerous weapon.A day before the 2021 Capitol riot, he told his followers: “There will be blood. Welcome to the revolution.” Prosecutors described him as “one of the most violent” of the hundreds of insurrect...

The U.S. Open returns to Riviera in Los Angeles in 2031 after an 83-year absence

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

By DOUG FERGUSON | AP Golf WriterLOS ANGELES — Los Angeles had to wait 75 years to get another U.S. Open and now it’s becoming a regular stop. The USGA is bringing the U.S. Open to Riviera Country Club in 2031.The announcement Wednesday comes three days after Wyndham Clark won the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, just over 5 miles away and across the 405 freeway from Riviera.The fabled course off Sunset Boulevard is the longtime host of what now is the Genesis Invitational, long considered a favorite by top PGA Tour players. Riviera held the first U.S. Open in California in 1948 when Ben Hogan won with a record score of 276.Hogan also won the Los Angeles Open in 1947 and 1948, and Riviera soon became known as “Hogan’s Alley.”The club now takes on a greater profile. It will host the U.S. Women’s Open in 2026 on the centennial anniversary of Riviera, and then it has the golf competition in the 2028 Olympics.And then, 83 years later, it finally gets another U.S. Open.“We are so g...

Barabak: Texas vs. California: Migrant dumping and the ‘race to the bottom’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

Name-calling. Mean tweets. A governor’s quick-draw veto pen.What does any of that have to do with the latest batch of migrants swept up in a red state and deposited in California?The shipment arrived last week courtesy of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Forty-two people — and let’s not forget they’re people — arrived in downtown Los Angeles, presumably famished as well as frightened after a 23-hour bus ride with starvation rations.It’s all politics, of course.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who spent Monday in California hustling cash for his presidential bid, advanced his visit by dumping two planeloads of asylum-seekers earlier this month in Sacramento.They were lied to — promised jobs and attorneys to hasten their bid for legal status — but at least DeSantis got what he wanted: Several days of national news coverage to boost his enervated campaign and a chance to stick it to his blood enemy, Gov. Gavin Newsom.Abbott isn’t running for president.At least not in 2024.But he is caught up in an in...

CHP investigating 5 highway shootings in 7 days in East Bay

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

(KRON) – The California Highway Patrol Oakland Area office is investigating a series of highway shootings that have recently occurred within the past week. There have been five highway shootings spanning over the course of seven days.On June 14, the passenger of a white Ford Crown Victoria fired two shots at fourteen landscaping employees who were contracted by Caltrans on Interstate 80 in Berkeley. The suspects were described as Black male adults with short hair, CHP said. Suspect arrested in Pier 39 shooting identified On June 18, a freeway shooting incident took place on eastbound I-80 in Albany around 7:40 p.m. The victim did not sustain any injuries, however, their vehicle sustained damage. The suspect is described as a Hispanic male who wore a green fitted hat and sunglasses. He is around 35 to 40 years old and his vehicle was described as a newer model silver BMW convertible, CHP said.At 8:40 a.m. on June 19, a shooting on I-880 in Oakland resulted in the victim's vehicle s...

Former Texas congressman Will Hurd, a Trump critic, announces 2024 Republican presidential campaign

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

FILE - Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd speaks during the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off Saturday, April 22, 2023, in Clive, Iowa. Hurd, a onetime CIA officer and fierce critic of Donald Trump, announced on Thursday that he's running for president, hoping to build momentum as a more moderate alternative to the Republican primary field's early front-runner. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)(AP/Charlie Neibergall) FILE - Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd speaks during the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off Saturday, April 22, 2023, in Clive, Iowa. Hurd, a onetime CIA officer and fierce critic of Donald Trump, announced on Thursday that he's running for president, hoping to build momentum as a more moderate alternative to the Republican primary...

Ex-Sri Lanka president ordered police records destroyed to stall mass grave probes, report alleges

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was accused in a report released Thursday of tampering with police records in order to hamper investigations into mass graves discovered in an area where he was a military officer at the height of a bloody Marxist insurrection in 1989.The report by activist groups including the International Truth and Justice Project, Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka and Families of the Disappeared said even though hundreds of remains were unearthed in some 20 exhumations of mass graves in the past three decades, no action has been taken to identify the victims and return their remains to their families.Tens of thousands of remains could still be buried in undiscovered mass graves, it said.None of the numerous commissions of inquiry established by successive Sri Lankan governments were mandated to look into mass graves. Instead, efforts to uncover the truth were stymied, the report said.When mass graves were discov...

Who is under a slight risk for severe storms Thursday?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:16:29 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — After Wednesday's storm brought severe weather with a tornado that destroyed a home and hail that injured people in the audience at Red Rocks, weather on Thursday brings more strong thunderstorms to the Denver metro.A Pinpoint Weather Alert Day has been issued as another round of thunderstorms imposes a slight risk of becoming strong to severe, especially in the afternoon. Red Rocks hail storm: Nearly 100 concertgoers hurt Storms will begin to form in the early afternoon hours along the foothills, then push into the plains.Slight risk for severe stormsThursday's storm is in the slight risk category, meaning there is increased confidence that some areas will produce damaging winds, severe hail and the possibility for tornadoes.The Pinpoint Weather team said their biggest concerns are heavy rainfall, large hail, gusty winds and abundant lightning.Location and impactThe area at a slight risk spans from north to south across the whole state, focused just east of the me...