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“Amache,” “Reading Colorado” and other Denver book reviews of local interest this month

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

“Amache,” by Robert Harvey (Hawes & Jenkins)Some 30 years ago, Douglas County teacher Robert Harvey wrote “Amache,” an extraordinary book about the World War II relocation camp near Granada.  At the time Harvey did his research, few Coloradans had heard of Amache or, indeed, knew anything about the federal government’s policy to incarcerate West Coast Japanese-Americans in prison camps.Amache, by Robert Harvey (Hawes & Jenkins)“Amache” helped to inform them.  And thanks to interest in the book and the Colorado camp itself, the site was recently designated a national monument. It’s about time, then, that “Amache,” out of print for some years, is once again available.On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed the government to round up more than 100,000 West Coast Japanese and send them to holding pens, such as the Santa Anita race track.  Eventually, they were transported to relocation camps across the West and South,...

Man uses T-shirt to fight wildfire in Sylmar area

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

A man tried using his T-shirt to stop a wildfire from spreading in the Sylmar area Tuesday night.The fire was burning near the 210 Freeway around 11:30 p.m. when the Good Samaritan jumped into action. A man is seen using his T-shirt to fight a wildfire in the Sylmar area on July 11, 2023. (RMG News)Video shows him frantically waving his shirt in an effort to stop the fire from spreading. Los Angles Fire Department crews arrived on the scene and asked the man to stop as they took over the situation. Evacuated homes continue sinking in L.A. County Crews were seen giving the man what appeared to be a bottle of water after he left the firefight.The flames were out shortly before midnight.

Baby stars seen in close-up revealed by Webb Space Telescope

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

See a high-resolution satellite view of Earth in the video above. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Webb Space Telescope is marking one year of cosmic photographs with one of its best yet: the dramatic close-up of dozens of stars at the moment of birth.NASA unveiled the latest snapshot Wednesday, revealing 50 baby stars in a cloud complex 390 light-years away. The region is relatively quiet yet full of illuminated gases, jets of hydrogen and even cocoons of dust with the delicate beginnings of even more stars.The first anniversary image released Wednesday, July 12, 2023, by Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach, shows NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displaying a star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pon via AP)All of the young stars appear to be no bigger than our sun. Scientists said ...

See it while you can: After MOMA run, historic Diego Rivera headed to storage until 2027

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

Five days a week, Will Maynez makes a pilgrimage from his Mission District home to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to view a massive Diego Rivera mural.The piece by the famed Mexican artist, commonly known as Pan American Unity, lived in relative obscurity in a community college theater lobby for nearly 60 years before making its heralded debut two years ago at the museum.“This is the best that this mural has ever been presented,” said Maynez, a retired lab manager who has made it his mission to protect the painting — the only one of three Rivera murals in San Francisco that is currently on public display. “It’s available 24/7 and you can look right in from the (gallery’s) windows. I’d come back from Giants home games at night and I can stop by and take a peek.”But that won’t last. As part of an agreement between SFMOMA and the City College of San Francisco, the precious fresco, created by Rivera during the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1940, is on loan ...

Tax prep companies shared private taxpayer data with Google and Meta for years, congressional probe finds

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

By Brian Fung | CNNSome of America’s largest tax-prep companies have spent years sharing Americans’ sensitive financial data with tech titans including Meta and Google in a potential violation of federal law — data that in some cases was misused for targeted advertising, according to a seven-month congressional investigation.The report highlights what legal experts described to CNN as a “five-alarm fire” for taxpayer privacy that could lead to government and private lawsuits, criminal penalties or perhaps even a “mortal blow” for some industry giants involved in the probe including TaxSlayer, H&R Block and TaxAct.Using visitor tracking technology embedded on their websites, the three tax-prep companies allegedly sent tens of millions of Americans’ personal information to the tech industry without consent or appropriate disclosures, according to the congressional report reviewed by CNN.Beyond ordinary personal data such as people’s names, phone numbers and email addresses, the li...

These 7 California metro areas have the lowest young adult homeownership rates in the country

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

So you’re in your late 20’s or early 30’s, and you’re thinking about buying your first home somewhere in California. You scroll through housing websites and realize that you can’t afford a single listing.Sound familiar? Well, you’re not alone. All seven of the country’s major metro areas with the lowest homeownership rates for 25-to-34 year-olds are in California, a Bay Area News Group analysis of Census Bureau data from 2017 to 2021 has found. And the ripple effect is having a profound impact on more than just young people.The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area, where only 2 out of 10 young adults ages 25-34 own their home, scored lowest in the country.Santa Maria-Santa Barbara was just a fraction better with a young adult home ownership rate of 21%, followed by Santa Cruz-Watsonville (22.5%), San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (22.8%), Salinas (23.3%), San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward (23.4%) and San Diego-Carlsbad (23.8%). Our analysis fi...

Federal bill to make online platforms pay for news they use advances while California bill slows

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

While California lawmakers have put the brakes on a bill that would make the likes of Facebook and Google pay news publishers for using their stories, a similar federal bill has once again advanced in Congress.But it remains to be seen whether this year’s version of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act advances beyond the U.S. Senate, where an earlier version quietly died last winter.Once again co-authored by Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, S.1094, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, sailed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last month on a 14-7 vote with broad bipartisan backing.Klobuchar, the daughter of a former newspaperman, told the committee that since 2005, some 2,200 local newspapers across America have closed and a third of U.S. newspapers that existed two decades ago are expected be gone by 2025.“This isn’t because of a lack of talent or a lack of things to cover or a lack ...

A’s All-Star Brent Rooker heard ‘sell the team’ chants at Midsummer Classic

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

SEATTLE — Brent Rooker, the Oakland A’s lone All-Star representative, told himself to take mental snapshots throughout the festivities on a picture-perfect Tuesday afternoon.The one he’ll remember was walking off the field after the top of the ninth. But the moment that will last in the minds of most fans came during his first at-bat.Before lacing a ground-rule double over the right-field fence in the sixth inning, Rooker was greeted by a chorus of chanting fans as he stepped into the batter’s box.Sell-the-team! Sell-the-team!A popular refrain from disgruntled fans to owner John Fisher, whose intent to move the team to Las Vegas becomes clearer by the day, made its way to baseball’s biggest stage. At commissioner Rob Manfred’s news conference earlier in the day, he said the A’s had begun the relocation process.“I don’t know if it’s a large presence of Oakland fans here or if fans across the league share the sentiment, but I did n...

Huge San Jose housing project will include scores of affordable homes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

SAN JOSE — A 737-unit housing development proposed for an older tech campus in north San Jose will feature a diverse mix of residences including numerous affordable units, new plans on file with city officials show.The proposed development is slated to be built in phases, according to documents that the project developer, San Jose-based Valley Oak Partners, submitted to municipal planners.It wasn’t immediately how the project might be phased.The 737 units will consist of 132 apartment units that will all be offered at affordable rates, 101 townhomes and 504 apartments that will be rented at market rates, the planning documents show.The apartments, both market rate and affordable, would include a mix of studios, as well as one-, two- and three-bedroom units.The housing project would be constructed on a 9.8-acre site that’s near the intersection of River Oaks Parkway and Zanker Road.This multi-faceted residential development has become a real possibility after the cu...

Editorial: Pink Poodle strip club ruling provides critical voice for transparency

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:52:10 GMT

It was a victory for transparency when a Superior Court judge last week ordered San Jose officials to release investigative records of firefighters’ involvement in the Pink Poodle strip club fiasco.Too many local government leaders across the Bay Area and California have forgotten whom they work for. Public workers have reasonable rights to privacy. But that doesn’t extend to malfeasance on the job.That doesn’t extend to social workers in Alameda County who fail to protect vulnerable youth. Nor to Contra Costa County law enforcement who send racist texts or abuse their power. And, as Judge Thomas Kuhnle ruled in a case brought by this news organization, it doesn’t extend to San Jose firefighters who take a bikini-clad woman for a ride in a firetruck and then drop her off at a strip club.California law is clear: The public has a right to see details of investigations in which the complaints are well-founded and substantial. The Pink Poodle incident met both tests. As then-Mayor Sam L...