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CIF state football: Los Gatos ready to put championship icing on a sweet title run

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

Few football programs in Northern California have a trophy case as crowded as Los Gatos, which boasts 16 section titles and a slew of league championships.After winning its first regional title last week, It now has a chance to add the 2-A state crown to the collection on Saturday night against Central Valley Christian-Visalia at Pasadena City College. In recent seasons, it seemed as if state hardware, much less a 16th section title, would continue to elude the Wildcats. In each of the past two years, Los Gatos had seen stellar regular seasons turn into heartbreaking first-round playoff defeats. The Wildcats lost on a last-minute Bellarmine pick-six in 2021 and on a game-winning two-point conversion in overtime against Archbishop Mitty last season. Los Gatos was relegated to watching other teams go on deep runs.“You always think about that as a coach, you know, how far could we go and what would it be about,” Los Gatos coach Mark Krail said. Krail doesn’t call those seasons di...

The US economy added 199,000 jobs in November

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

By Alicia Wallace | CNNMinneapolis — The US economy added 199,000 jobs in November, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday.The unemployment rate fell to 3.7% from 3.9% the month before.Economists were expecting net job gains of 180,000 for the month and for the unemployment rate to hold steady, according to Refinitiv.The largest employment gains last month came in health care and government, which added an estimated 93,200 and 49,000 jobs, respectively. Manufacturing saw a boost, too, largely because of the return of striking autoworkers.The biggest declines occurred in the retail trade and temporary help services sectors, which lost 38,400 jobs and 13,600 jobs, respectively.November’s job growth was stronger than October’s unrevised tally of 150,000 jobs added. September’s job gains were revised down to 262,000 from 297,000, according to the BLS.Related ArticlesEconomy | Cardroom employees protest another California bill aimed at non-tribal gambling...

State-bound: Why Acalanes didn’t let late-season loss derail championship run

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

With the playoffs getting ready to start, Acalanes coach Floyd Burnsed had to remind his players that everything they worked for was still possible. The Lafayette school, one win from clinching its first outright league title in four decades, blew a two-touchdown fourth-quarter lead to rival Campolindo, losing the regular-season finale 25-24.“That was a tough loss for us,” Burnsed said Sunday. “When you’re up 24-10 in the fourth quarter, you should win the ballgame. So that was a poor job of coaching.”Since then, Burnsed and his staff have been on their game. “We still ended up with the (shared) league championship, we still ended up with the automatic berth to the playoffs,” Burnsed said. “So everything was still in front of us to achieve.”Once the playoffs started, Acalanes obliterated competition on the way to its first North Coast Section title, routing Mt. Diablo, Vallejo and defending 4-A state champion San Marin by an average of 32 points per game. Acalanes will play Birmingh...

Kurtenbach: Rookie safety Ji’Ayir Brown is looking like the Brock Purdy of the 49ers’ defense

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

SANTA CLARA — Safeties are the most crucial defensive chess pieces on the board that is an NFL field.So it’s good that 49ers rookie safety Ji’Ayir Brown likes playing chess.“I’ve messed around with video games a bit, but I’ll play chess all day,” he told me Wednesday.The 49ers are going to need Brown’s strategic mind to be working overtime in the final four weeks of the regular season and all the weeks that are to follow.Because after 49ers’ All-Pro strong safety Talanoa Hufanga blew out his knee in Week 11, Brown was tossed into the fire. Now he’s the marked man in the Niners’ defense.But much like Brock Purdy last season, he’s been able to take it in stride, because of preternatural maturity and serious extra-curricular preparation.And also like Purdy during his rookie season, Brown’s success or failure will prove critical to the 49ers’ chances of achieving their Super Bowl dreams.“Every week is go...

Putin will seek another presidential term in Russia, aiming to extend his rule of nearly 25 years

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

By JIM HEINTZ | Associated PressVladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win.Putin still commands wide support after nearly a quarter-century in power, despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has taken thousands of his countrymen’s lives, provoked repeated attacks inside Russia — including one on the Kremlin itself — and corroded its aura of invincibility.A short-lived rebellion in June by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin raised widespread speculation that Putin could be losing his grip, but he emerged with no permanent scars. Prigozhin’s death in a mysterious plane crash two months later reinforced the view that Putin was in absolute control.Putin announced his decision to run in the March 17 presidential election after a Kremlin award ceremony, when war veterans and others pleaded with him to...

While Oakland’s 911 system was dangerously understaffed, 1,000 operator applications went unprocessed

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

OAKLAND — Applications from hundreds of prospective 911 dispatchers who could have helped speed up Oakland’s notoriously slow response times to emergency calls piled up at the city’s Human Resources department, and some went unprocessed for months, city officials acknowledged this week.Between April 2022 and April 2023, the applications were all but ignored, further stressing a glitchy emergency dispatch system that earlier this year led California to threaten to have an outside company handle Oakland’s emergency calls.The problem was first detected by a city audit amid a transition between the administrations of Mayor Libby Schaaf and Mayor Sheng Thao, months before a report by the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury pilloried the city’s disproportionately slow 911 response.But vacancies have nonetheless climbed each month of this year within the dispatch ranks, represented by SEIU Local 1021 and officially employed by the Oakland Police Department. There ...

Pearl Harbor survivor recounts day of infamy, honoring veterans at Mount Diablo beacon lighting

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

CONCORD — At the ripe age of 99, Earl “Chuck” Kohler is among the last of a quickly vanishing generation that personally remembers the terror that rained down on Pearl Harbor the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.The Concord resident — who turns 100 in January — is among an estimated 25 remaining survivors of the attack on the U.S. Naval base in Honolulu that propelled the U.S. into World War II when the Minnesota farm-boy-turned-sailor was only a teenager.“Suddenly and simultaneously, there was a tremendous roar, and bomb fragments, debris and window glass came crashing into the back of my head, ears, neck and onto my shoulders,” Kohler said. “Believe you me, folks — something like that can kind of upset your best-laid plans for the day.”Related ArticlesLocal News | Pearl Harbor survivors return to honor those who perished Local News | Date of infamy: A look back at the Pearl Harbor attack Local News | Sunnyvale teen wins int...

Is Millbrae using a ‘racist’ amendment in the state constitution to block homeless housing?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

When San Mateo County supervisors agreed in September to buy a Millbrae motel to convert to homeless housing, neighbors were furious that the county had pushed through the plan over their safety concerns.Now Millbrae is suing to halt the project, alleging the county’s $33 million purchase of the La Quinta Inn violated a 73-year-old amendment to the state constitution that requires local governments to get voter approval before developing, buying, building or funding “low rent housing.”The amendment, the result of a successful 1950 ballot initiative spearheaded by the state’s real estate industry, drummed up fears about public housing and neighborhood integration to rally support for the measure. Housing advocates have condemned Article 34 for its racist origins and will ask voters to repeal next year.Although cities have found some ways around the law, experts and advocates say it’s responsible for halting thousands of affordable homes and creating cost...

Photos under Redwood Creek Bridge caused alarm but Caltrans tests show bridge is safe: Roadshow

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

Q: I sent photos to you that were taken recently by Dave Menche in Redwood City from his kayak under the Highway 101 bridge at Redwood Creek. He shared these photos in a post he wrote on Nextdoor. By now, that post has many comments. Some people said that they had reported the problem to Caltrans.Here’s some of what Dave described in his post, “Many columns are damaged, rebar is corroding, concrete is cracking and spalling off the columns. Caltrans was notified, our State Senator Josh Becker’s office, also. It has been four weeks since, yet no reply has been received. Is this bridge safe?” And, “The failing columns are on both north and south directions, in both the outside lanes, and in the inside (carpool) lanes.”I know I don’t have to tell you how well-traveled 101 is on the Peninsula. Any chance you can talk to one of your contacts and find out how safe/unsafe this is and when this might get fixed?A. Nichols, Redwood CityA: Thanks for sharing this i...

Roblox of San Mateo fails to protect child gamers from predators, sexual content, lawsuit claims

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:54:50 GMT

After Quisha Smith allowed her young daughter to open an account on the hugely popular gaming platform of San Mateo’s Roblox, she was surprised to see that when the girl went into a bathroom in a role-playing game, someone asked her to take off her pants, Smith alleges in a lawsuit against the company.Roblox claims more than 66 million daily users globally, with the fastest-growing age group 17 to 24, and estimated in 2020 that three-quarters of U.S. kids aged 9 to 12 had accounts. While its promotional materials tout a safe and “welcoming environment for all ages,” Smith’s lawsuit alleged the platform exposes children to “rampant sexual content, including the presence of child predators posing as innocuous avatars in an effort to groom child-users.”Such content, the lawsuit claimed, “is available — and, in some cases, recommended — to children of all ages on the platform, including the youngest of audiences who are barely old enough to be i...