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Oakland man accused of murdering UC Berkeley employee gets 9 years in prison after plea deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

OAKLAND — A city resident has been sentenced to nine years in state prison in connection with a 2020 road rage shooting that paralyzed a UC Berkeley student who would die from his injuries months later, court records show.Jamon Hill, 27, pleaded no contest to a charge of shooting an inhabited vehicle. In exchange, prosecutors dropped murder charges related to the killing of 32-year-old Quoc Tran, a UC Berkeley staffer who used his cellphone to photograph Hill’s car moments before he was shot.The evidence linking Hill to Tran’s shooting had mostly to do with a gold Lexus ES 350 that was seen on both surveillance video and in a photo taken by Tran. The surveillance video showed Tran trying to get away from the car as it chased him.Hill was identified as the owner of the Lexus, and when police attempted to pull him over the day after Tran was shot, he sped away, then stopped, got out of the car, ran away, and got arrested by an Oakland officer. In a subsequent intervi...

Review: Tony winner confesses an undercover life onstage in Berkeley

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

Ari’el Stachel is an animated, charming guy and a compelling storyteller. You might never know how nervous he is if that weren’t exactly what his story is about.On the face of it, Stachel’s one-man show “Out of Character” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre is about how he hid his ethnicity from everyone at school from middle school all the way into college. Growing up in Berkeley with a Jewish Yemenite immigrant father and an Ashkenazi mother, he felt shunned by other kids after 9/11 for his Middle Eastern heritage and kept switching schools and reinventing himself, pretending to be of different ethnicities entirely.“Posing as someone else gave me so much freedom at school,” he says.At its core, however, “Out of Character” is about Stachel’s lifelong anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, personified as a character in itself. He calls it Meredith, after the mean-spirited would-be-stepmother in 1998 remake of “The Parent Trap,” and it’s represented by a monstrously distorted, female-s...

The top 10 US beaches for 2023

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

Half of the top 10 beaches in the United States for 2023 are in Florida and Hawaii.That’s according to the 2023 list of best US beaches released in May by “Dr. Beach,” aka coastal scientist Stephen Leatherman.Florida’s St. George Island State Park earns the top slot. The barrier island park offers nine miles of pristine beaches along the Gulf Coast. With nature trails for biking and hiking, plus birding, fishing, boating and camping, St. George offers more than just excellent swimming and sunbathing. It’s also a prime spot for stargazing with limited light pollution and an observation platform for night sky exploration.The beach has “some of the whitest, finest sand in the world,” said Leatherman, who is a professor in the Department of Earth & Environment at Florida International University. “The water is crystal clear and clean, far from any sources of pollution on this offshore barrier island.”Leatherman has been ranking America’s best beaches since 1991.He uses 50 criteria t...

Police make arrest in strong-armed robbery case in Palo Alto

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

(KRON) – A suspect was arrested on Wednesday for an alleged strong-armed robbery that occurred on March 14, 2022 in Palo Alto. Just before 10 a.m., a woman called 911 to report that two suspects had stolen her cell phone in the 2000 block of Webster Street. According to the victim, the suspects fled the area in a parked car nearby. Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan Police who investigated the incident say the woman, in her forties, was walking on the sidewalk while talking on her phone when she noticed two men walking behind her for around two minutes. The suspects eventually ran past her with one of the suspects grabbing the phone out of her hand, police said. The suspects then ran towards a parked white four-door sedan and drove off in the westbound direction of Santa Rita Avenue. Police say the victim ran back to her home to call 911. Police were able to identify one of the suspects as a man from Redwood City, but will not release the suspect...

Formula One leader Max Verstappen takes pole position for Austrian GP

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

SPIELBERG, Austria (AP) — Reigning Formula One champion Max Verstappen topped qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix on Friday to clinch his fourth straight pole position.The runaway championship leader put his Red Bull on pole for the sixth time this season and 26th overall. He finished a narrow 0.048 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, whose teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. had the third-quickest time.“Very happy being on pole but it is a very long weekend,” Verstappen said. “It is always tricky round here.”Lando Norris qualified in fourth for McLaren ahead of Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who holds the F1 record of 103 race wins. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll will start from sixth ahead of teammate Fernando Alonso.A victory for Verstappen at his team’s home track in Spielberg on Sunday would take him to 42 race wins, one more than the late Ayrton Senna and alone in fifth place on the all-time list.Mercedes driver George Russell and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez did n...

Baltimore police fatally shoot man who fired on officers pursuing him, commissioner says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore police officers fatally shot a man who fired on officers who were pursuing him, the acting police commissioner said.Officers recognized the 40-year-old man who was wanted on a warrant around 5:30 p.m. Thursday and began to follow his vehicle, Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said at a news conference. The man’s car became disabled at the intersection of North Milton and East Fairmount avenues.That’s when Worley said the man began firing at an officer riding by, striking the patrol vehicle and got out of his car. The man kept firing at officers as he continued down Milton Avenue and officers coming from the other direction fired at the man, striking him, and he died on the scene, Worley said. The man had dropped one gun and was preparing to fire a second when he was shot, Worley said. No officers were injured, he said.Worley declined to say what charges the man had faced, saying it was part of the investigation. It wasn’t clear where the officers b...

Ex-Ohio GOP chair and lobbyist Matt Borges has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for his role in $60M bribery scheme

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

CINCINNATI (AP) — Ex-Ohio GOP chair and lobbyist Matt Borges has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for his role in $60M bribery scheme.Source

Unlicensed Hong Kong radio station that hosted many pro-democracy guests goes off air after 18 years

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — An unlicensed pro-democracy radio station in Hong Kong was shutting down on Friday, going off air after 18 years of service. The closure of Citizens’ Radio came on the eve of the 26th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China’s rule. Since its launch in 2005, the station has hosted various prominent democrats in its shows, including former lawmakers Szeto Wah, Emily Lau, Albert Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan. But its founder Bull Tsang said it was getting increasingly difficult for the station to invite guests following the enactment of a Beijing-imposed law that jailed or silenced many activists. Coupled with banking problems and limited resources, he had no choice but to say goodbye, he said. “It’s hard to let go. It’s like my third son,” Tsang, 67, told reporters before he hosted his last show on Friday night. The closure reflects the collapse of the city’s pro-democracy movement under the national security law following massive protests in...

‘Lives could be saved’: Virginia’s expanded Move Over law takes effect Saturday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

Alexis Wells and Latane Flanagan always used to call their sister Angela Hurley when they needed advice.“She knew what was right,” Flanagan said. “You call her and you’re like, ‘Hey, this is what I was thinking, what do you think?’ And she was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s right,’ or ‘Oh my gosh, no, you are absolutely out of your mind.'”Hurley, 49, of Mechanicsville, Virginia, was killed on July 19, 2022, when she was waiting for roadside assistance after her car broke down on the side of Interstate 95 in Hanover County outside Richmond. An SUV swerved into the shoulder and hit her vehicle.Her sisters have been advocating for safer traffic laws since her death, in the hopes that other people’s loved ones will make it home safely. Now, a major law they supported is going into effect, as Virginia drivers prepare to travel for the holiday weekend.The state’s updated Move Over law will kick in July 1. It requires d...

Photos: Funnel clouds spotted in Park County

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:30:52 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) -- Two defined funnel clouds were caught on camera by a FOX31 viewer as storms moved into the state on Friday morning. Bryan Gunsher, who lives about 5 miles north of Antero Reservoir, told FOX31's Drew Englebart and Katie Orth this is the first funnel cloud he's seen in the eight years he's lived in Park County. Photos: Coors Field covered in hail after Denver storm "These are the first two funnel clouds that I've actually seen in this area. I know we've had a few in the last week or so and a tornado, but nothing like that in our area that I've seen," Gunsher said. Funnel cloud captured on June 30, 2023 in Park County (Photo credit: Bryan Gunsher)Funnel cloud captured on camera in Park County (Photo credit: Bryan Gunsher)The Park County resident captured not one, but two funnel clouds on camera clear as day off in the distance. "We were experiencing a good bit of rain. The wind was actually pretty light. It was very dark, thunder and lightning, and so forth," Gunsh...