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Cover Story: The Biltmore Los Angeles Celebrates 100 Years

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

It was home to the 1960 Democratic National Convention when John F. Kennedy was announced as the party’s presidential nominee, one of the last sightings of the Black Dahlia in 1947, the site of a significant gay rights protest against the psychiatric establishment listing homosexuality as a disease, and for its role in the death of the famous Pershing Square critter, Benny A. Squirrel. The Biltmore Los Angeles celebrates its centennial this year, and if only those walls could talk.Recently designated as a Los Angeles Historic cultural monument, the building was originally designed by architecture firm Schultze & Weaver, inspired by the Italian and Spanish Renaissance with travertine walls and painted Mediterranean landscape murals throughout and two bronze light fixtures imported from Italy that hang between the ceiling’s ribs. There are detailed carvings throughout, and the rooms are finished with paint that’s accented in 24-karat gold. The hotel commissioned artist Giova...

Wish Book 2023: Animal Assisted Happiness brings smiles to kids in need

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

Bada Bing, Lollipop and Jingle Bell – an alpaca, a miniature horse and a miniature donkey, respectively – need to be fed. The rabbit hutches need mucking. And, uh oh, now there’s a sheep on the loose.It’s a typical Saturday afternoon at Sunnyvale’s Baylands Park, where Michael Porrovecchio, one of Animal Assisted Happiness‘ staffers, is leading a crew of 28 youth volunteers as they take care of the 100 or so animals who live here — pot-bellied pigs, alpacas, goats, ducks and more.The nonprofit group helps children with challenges — they’re disabled, for example, medically fragile, economically disadvantaged or in foster care – find respite and joy in the company of barnyard animals at this Sunnyvale farm.“Need is a large umbrella,” says Animal Assisted Happiness cofounder Vicki Amon-Higa.The organization arranges private farm visits for kids in need, sends animals out to visit kids who are unable to travel via its mobile barnyard buddy program and offer...

Borenstein: Alameda County demands A’s make $45 million payment for leaving Oakland

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

Alameda County officials on Thursday demanded $45 million in payments from the A’s because the baseball team is leaving Oakland for Las Vegas.It’s a move the county should have taken eight months ago when the team first announced its departure.But late is better than never.The demand, in a letter signed by Nate Miley, president of the Board of Supervisors, was prompted by my recent column questioning why the county was not seeking money it was entitled to as part of a contract it had with the team.That deal, struck in 2019 and expected to close in 2026, calls for the county to sell its half-interest in the Coliseum site to the team. The city of Oakland owns the other half interest.The county’s sweetheart deal with the A’s bypassed any competitive bidding and probably undervalued the land. It was misleadingly billed by county officials and team President Dave Kaval as an incentive for the team to stay in Oakland.It proved to be no such thing.Indeed, not only are the A’s leaving town,...

Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Nat Javier, Christopher basketball

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

Christopher basketball player Nat Javier is the Bay Area News Group’s girls athlete of the week for Nov. 27 to Dec. 2 after she received 43.83% of the vote by the deadline Wednesday.Newark Memorial basketball player Sydney Scott finished second.Congratulations to all the candidates for this week’s recognition.Related ArticlesHigh School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week High School Sports | Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Zakara Cooper, Cornerstone Christian basketball High School Sports | Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: Kevin Chapman, Moreau Catholic basketball High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week Javier, a senior, helped the Cougars win the Watsonville tournament by scoring 70 points over three games. The senior is also ...

Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: Matthew Tahir, Foothill soccer

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

Foothill soccer player Matthew Tahir is the Bay Area News Group’s boys athlete of the week for Nov. 27 to Dec. 2 after he received 42.16% of the vote by the deadline Wednesday.American basketball player Jordan Bucko finished second.Congratulations to all the candidates for this week’s recognition.Related ArticlesHigh School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week High School Sports | Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Zakara Cooper, Cornerstone Christian basketball High School Sports | Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: Kevin Chapman, Moreau Catholic basketball High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week The senior had a hat trick as the Falcons opened the season with a 4-1 victory over James Logan. Tahir then scored the only goal in a 1-0 v...

Opinion: Biden’s struggle among Latino voters is real

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

It’s often noted that the Latino vote is “not monolithic,” and Latino voters do in fact come from an array of countries, generations, regions, races, faiths and classes. But with a few exceptions, this loosely connected group has voted strongly Democratic, meeting all conventional definitions of a voting bloc.Until recently.The Latino population is changing, with parallel repercussions for two prominent American institutions: the Democratic Party and the media giant Univision. Both have built their successes over the last few decades on the notion that Latinos are primarily Spanish-speaking recent immigrants, an image increasingly disconnected with reality.Univision, long the primary news and entertainment source for millions of U.S. Spanish speakers, now finds itself at much the same demographic crossroads as the Democrats. Slowing immigration rates and exploding numbers of U.S.-born, primarily English-speaking Latinos threaten the network’s hegemony as a news source for the popula...

The dirty truth about taking your shoes off at the door

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

By Sandee LaMotte | CNNAt-home holiday parties are on many people’s calendars right now, and germ-conscious hosts are faced with a dilemma: Should I require my guests to take off their shoes at the door, especially if the gathering is cocktail or formal attire — or the guest is a stylish shoeaholic like Carrie Bradshaw?In a 2003 “Sex and the City” episode, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is asked to leave her $485 Manolo Blahnik shoes at the door during a New York City baby shower hosted by her friend Kyra (Tatum O’Neal) and soon finds they have been stolen.“I hadn’t even done a full lap around the party,” Carrie lamented later at a lunch with her friends. The iconic TV character had been forced to walk home in her party dress and old gray sneakers lent by her host.“Why in the h*ll did you take off your shoes to begin with?” asked Carrie’s friend Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall).“We had to!” Carrie explained. “For their kids — apparently we drag things in on our heels that make children ...

Review: ‘Poor Things’ is a demented tale of enlightenment

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

By Lindsey Bahr | Associated PressIt is sickly hilarious to make a movie in which so much consensual sex is had, often so gleefully, that is not the least bit sexy. Though Bella Baxter’s insatiable libido might be her guiding light at first in “Poor Things,” sexual liberation (or “furious jumping,” as she calls it) is only part of this fantastical, anarchic journey to consciousness.Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and his star, Emma Stone, have a good and strange thing going whether she’s playing a striving scullery maid who works her way into the favor of Queen Anne, or a re-animated Victorian woman finding independence. Stone helps make his black humor more accessible, and he creates unorthodox opportunities for her to play and stretch. We, the audience, are the benefactors.“Poor Things” was not a whole cloth invention. It is an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, done by “The Favourite” screenwriter Tony McNamara w...

Granderson: American culture around aging men needs to change

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

America is getting older.That was the snapshot given earlier this year by the U.S. Census Bureau. Our median age is about 40 and rising. In a third of the states, it’s already higher.Remember that, while also considering this: America’s suicide rate in 2022 was the highest seen since 1941 — the tail end of the Great Depression.The nation’s suicide rate has steadily climbed since the turn of the century. A few years ago research that included these “deaths of despair” was recognized with a Nobel. The numbers are out there to diagnose the problem. But it’s much harder to treat.Here’s what the data show: “Rising rates of suicide among people 35 or older.” Men are about four times more likely to kill themselves than women are. The gap in life expectancy between men and women is increasing, and suicide has more to do with that widening gap than heart disease or homicides do.There is something within American men’s culture ...

Mike Krukow: If SF Giants don’t acquire a star player this offseason, ‘I’ll quit the show’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:07:14 GMT

The tension is building for the San Francisco Giants to make a star-sized splash this offseason.A few days after new manager Bob Melvin said the Giants are “players at the top of the market” and San Francisco is a “star-power town,” Giants color commentator Mike Krukow doubled down on his prediction that the club will make a huge addition this winter.“In the last two years they really weren’t a team that could go out and support a super-duper star,” Krukow said on KNBR on Thursday. “Now they are. And I think they’re going to get one this year.”Just what constitutes a “super-duper star” is up for debate.It’s no secret the Giants need a middle-of-the-order bat to upgrade an offense that ranked second-to-last in the National League while scoring just 4.2 runs per game during the 2023 season.During Melvin’s introductory press conference, he said that president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi “realizes there probably needs to be some stability in the middle of the order here.”But who...