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Poll: Most Californians don't want the U.S. to play favorites in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with one exception

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

A new poll shows the majority of adults in California believe the United States should not take a side when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The poll, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that 61% of Californians, with variations across age groups and party lines, don’t want the nation to back either side."Twenty-eight percent of adults and 37 percent of likely voters say the US should take Israel’s side, while 9 percent of adults and 11 percent of likely voters say the US should take Palestine’s side," the PPIC website stated. PPIC Poll shows sentiment in California involving the Israel-Hamas war. December 2023. (PPIC)Divides become clear, however, when you look at political affiliations and age. The PPIC poll shows 59% of Republicans believe the U.S. should back Israel versus just 4% who say the U.S. should take the Palestinians' side, leaving 39% in the middle. Among Democrats, 19% favor Israel, 16% favor the Palestinians and 63% don't b...

Flammable materials removed from under 10 Freeway

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

Efforts were underway overnight to make a portion of the 10 Freeway through downtown Los Angeles safer. Caltrans crews worked into the early morning hours Thursday to remove flammable materials from an area under the freeway on 17th Street between Naomi Avenue and Hooper Avenue. Video showed crews using a loader to fill up a dump truck with large amounts of wood and debris. Pallets, abandoned vehicles and other items were also found at the location. A massive pallet fire closed the 10 Freeway through the downtown area for eight days last month. Man arrested for punching stroller-pushing grandfather in Calabasas The blaze, which broke out Nov. 11, is believed to have been intentionally set. “The fire was determined to be incendiary and on State of California property,” CalFire said in a release last month. “The subject then [left] the immediate area and is unable to be located.” Authorities have released a description of the suspect believed to have set the fire that destroyed par...

Delta-8 For Nausea Control — Can Delta-8 Decrease The Odds Of Vomiting?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

Nausea is a common symptom that people use medical marijuana to control. Even the FDA admits that delta-9 THC may have some potential in managing chemotherapy-related nausea symptoms. Today, patients in the USA can use the FDA-approved drug Marinol for nausea management. For those who aren’t aware, Marinol is a synthetic version of delta-9 THC.While delta-9 THC shows potential as a natural antiemetic, does that mean these effects transfer over to delta-8 THC? Some customers get interested in delta-8 because it promises to manage nausea symptoms without the intensity of delta-9. While there is preliminary research into delta-8’s use for nausea, patients should remember we still don’t have all the answers on this cannabinoid’s effectiveness.Is It Good To Take Delta-8 For Nausea?The most high-profile study on delta-8’s use for nausea patients took place in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital. In this trial, researchers examined how well delta-8 THC sup...

The Awakenings of Baby Tate

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

The Awakenings of Baby Tate: L.A.-based rapper experiences Sexplorations with new EPIt’s been eight years since Baby Tate released her debut EP, ROYGBIV. Back then, she was going by Yung Baby Tate, and she spent the next few years releasing a string of EPs and singles, building up to the Girls album in 2019.But this feels like a fresh era for Tate, and not just because she dropped the “Yung.” She just released the EP Baby Tate Presents – Sexploration: The Musical, and has been dropping videos of each of the tracks, week by week. There’s a new album coming later, but for now, this is more than enough. It’s a wonderfully open, vulnerable body of work, detailing recent awakenings. It’s not subtle – the meanings aren’t hidden. Tate has laid it all out on the table.“I feel like as I’ve grown as an artist and as a person, the evolution is really just refining and tightening and honing in on the skills that I started off with,” Tate says. “I’m really proud of this project because it feels ...

The difference between Serra and SoCal champ Mater Dei and why the Bay Area team’s state title chances are slim

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

In the Bay Area the past two high school football seasons, nobody has scaled the heights of San Mateo powerhouse Serra. The Padres were great in 2022. They’re even better in 2023.They’ve beaten De La Salle and Folsom. They’ve overpowered their West Catholic Athletic League rivals. They’ve breezed through the section playoffs with hardly a hair strand out of place.But even for a team as dominant as Serra, one in which second-half running clocks spared eight of its 12 opponents further despair, there is one more level on the ladder. Another team waiting to do to Serra what Serra has done to others in its ascent to the top of Northern California.Southern Section champion Mater Dei-Santa Ana is bigger and stronger than Serra. Its resume is more impressive. Its list of college prospects is stunning.When the teams meet on Saturday night for the California Interscholastic Federation Open Division state championship at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Mater Dei can seemingly pick its sc...

Analysis: The US shoplifting scourge is a lot of hype with little evidence

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

Analysis by Allison Morrow, CNNNew York  — There’s been much handwringing over the scourge of shoplifting in America since 2020. To hear some retailers and politicians tell it, retail crime is out of control across the country.The trouble with that story is, it’s not accurate.To be clear, theft is happening, as it always has, in stores and on the streets. But the narrative that shoplifting has exploded since the start of the pandemic is unfounded.In reality, retail crime has not meaningfully gone up nationwide in the past few years, and it has even gone down in many places.A study released last month, drawing on police data, found that shoplifting reports were 16% higher in the first half of 2023 compared with 2019. But, critically, if you exclude New York City’s stats, the number of shoplifting incidents fell 7%, or about 2,550 fewer than in 2019, according to the Council on Criminal Justice, which conducted the study.Overall, the study found, shoplifting generally followed the sam...

7 amazing Bay Area things to do this weekend, Dec. 8-10

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

Whether this weekend is all about celebrating the holidays, or avoiding them, we have some great ideas for fun stuff to do — from yummy cookies you can make at home to holiday shows to a bizarro movie with the lovable Emma Stone.And, as always, be sure to double check event and venue 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 SEE & HEAR: Great shows are all overWhether you’re in the mood for a holiday classic production like a “Nutcracker” or “A Christmas Carol,” or a great blues concert, there are a ton of live shows — and one wacky film festival — to catch this weekend.These gingerbread cookies are found in the new cookbook “Bake Your Heat Out: Foolproof Recipes to Level Up Your Home Baking” by Dan Langan. (Courtesy Rik...

In a season of adversity, De La Salle finds a way to play for a state championship

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

De La Salle’s road to another state championship game has been challenging, on and off the field.The Spartans opened the season with back-to-back losses to Orange Lutheran and Serra, managing 14 points in the defeats. They nearly lost to a North Coast Section opponent for the first time in 32 years when San Ramon Valley took the Concord powerhouse to overtime in October.A week after the SRV game, coach Justin Alumbaugh broke the news to the team that longtime defensive line coach Steve Jacoby had stunningly died the previous evening.Alumbaugh let the players decide whether to play that night against El Cerrito, which they elected to do.De La Salle beat El Cerrito and everyone else in its path on the way to a 31st consecutive NCS championship and a 41-0 rout last week of Clovis North in a NorCal regional, securing its spot in the 1-AA state title game on Friday night against Mission Viejo at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo.After months of trying to find the keys to its stor...

Kurtenbach: The post-Eagles letdown is real for the 49ers. It can’t carry into Sunday’s game with the Seahawks

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

SANTA CLARA — There’s a strange mood around the 49ers’ facility following Sunday’s win against the Eagles.Maybe it’s the rain, but the general buzz that usually permeates the grounds has calmed. There’s a pensiveness in the building.It’s as if everyone is asking “What now?”That’s understandable, right? The 49ers circled last Sunday’s game with the Eagles when the NFL schedule was released. Amid so many other goals, the 49ers prioritized beating Philadelphia in Philly.Then they did it — emphatically.The Germans probably have a big, compound, crazy-sounding word for the feeling after the glee of achieving a long-sought goal fades.Here in the good ol’ USA, we call it a letdown.And in the NFL, that feeling usually proceeds something the Germans don’t have a word for:A trap game.But that, of course, raises another question:Is it still a trap game if everyone sees it coming?Oh, and here’s another question: Is it...

Share the Spirit: Tri-Valley nonprofit helps pets change lives

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:50:56 GMT

When Deysi Gonzalez found a funny-looking German shepherd with short, stumpy legs in her neighborhood park in May, she didn’t expect he would help turn her life around.A mother of three, Gonzalez felt like her life had become a cycle of cleaning and cooking. She spent most of her time at her apartment in Pleasanton. The purpose she had felt in her youth seemed to have faded away, and she realized she was falling into a deep depression.“Sometimes I didn’t want to get up from bed in the morning,” Gonzalez said. “I felt so useless.”That day at the park in May, Gonzalez realized the friendly dog was alone. Eventually, the pup followed Gonzalez home, where she fed him a bowl of food — then two, then four. Gonzalez contacted Animal Control to see if the dog was microchipped and put up posters around town, searching for the dog’s owners. Eventually, it became clear that the dog, who the family began calling Max, didn’t have one.Deysi Gonzalez’s dogs Max and Millie, from right, wait f...