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Corporate landlord’s California buying spree alarms tenants: ‘I only earn enough to pay the rent’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

BY ALEJANDRO LAZO AND WENDY FRY | CalMattersGladys Balcazar says she can barely afford food after paying rent to her new landlord, Blackstone Inc, one of the world’s largest private equity firms.Balcazar, a 60-year-old janitor, lives with her 27-year-old son in a two-bedroom apartment in Imperial Beach. She supports her son, who has a disability, on a salary of $2,800 a month.Blackstone bought her building and 65 others in San Diego County in 2021, becoming one of the region’s biggest landlords and alarming lawmakers, affordable housing advocates and Balcazar. In March Balcazar’s monthly rent rose $200 to $2,000.“All of this has really depressed me because I don’t see a way out,” she said in Spanish. “I only earn enough to pay the rent, and after that there is nothing left.”Adding to her stress were large swaths of dark mold outside her building, on walls and window ledges, climbing to a roofline. A building manager said she would be responsible for mold remediation in her unit if s...

Opinion: Mia Bonta bill attacks charter school construction funding

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

Fifteen thousand students, nearly one-third of all children in Oakland public schools, attend charter schools. While all children deserve safe and equitable education facilities, a bill introduced by Oakland’s assemblymember would make it more challenging for public charter schools to purchase and improve their schools.Assemblymember Mia Bonta’s legislation, AB 1604, makes it more expensive, and possibly prohibitive, for charter schools to finance new facilities or improvements to existing ones. The bill focuses on construction bond financing and how charter facilities are turned over if a school closes. But, at its heart, it’s a labor-backed bill that makes serving children, especially in communities such as East Oakland, harder.Under the current state-run system, charter schools borrow money through the bond market. Bonds for charter schools are issued at a higher rate of interest than a school district is afforded because the smaller size of charters presents greater bond risk to...

Community gathers to honor Banko Brown in San Francisco

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- Funeral services for Banko Brown, the 24-year=old transgender Black man who was shot and killed by a Walgreens security guard after suspected of shoplifting, will begin at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. Organizers expect hundreds--if not thousands--of people from the community to attend potentially causing traffic issues.Brown and the security guard got into a confrontation inside the store, but Brown was outside the store when he was shot.San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said that based on surveillance footage and witnesses, her office has decided not to prosecute the guard, 33-year-old Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, which has many in the community outraged. Anthony was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department on suspicion of homicide immediately after the killing. Anthony was released from jail days later.Anthony told police he believed he was in imminent danger because Brown made a “sudden movement,” and...

Man dies after falling into ocean over sea wall; police investigation underway

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

Officers from the Miami Police Department are investigating an area after a man fell over a sea wall and lost his life.Just before 5 a.m. Thursday, City of Miami Fire Rescue units responded to a drowning after a man allegedly fell into the ocean.Upon arrival, officials said they found two men in the water. One was clinging to the other.According to rescue officials, a friend of the man who fell into the sea jumped in after him, he was treated on the scene and did not need to be transported. The other man was taken to Ryder Trauma Center in extremely critical condition but was later pronounced dead. An official at the scene said the men were out partying when they started playing around with each other and eventually started chasing each other.“One decided that he was going to jump into the water and maybe either he hurt himself or he didn’t know how to swim and that’s the male that was pronounced deceased once he got to the hospital,” said an officer. The vic...

Police arrest man in Hallandale Beach after fatal stabbing in Sunny Isles Beach leaves 1 dead

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

Police arrested a man in Hallandale Beach after officers responded to a fatal stabbing in Sunny Isles Beach that left one person dead, Wednesday night. According to officials, Sunny Isles Beach Police Department officers arrived at Plaza of the Americas around 6:30 p.m., where they found a mother and her son with multiple stab wounds.Fire rescue transported them to the hospital where the woman appeared to have suffered non-life-threatening injuries, while the man later died.The 30-year-old subject, a family member of the victims, fled in his vehicle but he was found by Hallandale Police officers moments later.Authorities responded to a 911 call after a man beat up his girlfriend following the aforementioned incident. The woman told police that the situation started in Sunny Isles Beach.When the two departments contacted one another, they determined the man that assaulted the woman was the same subject that stabbed the mother and son.Preliminary investigations determined the mother, ...

More Storms Today & Tomorrow

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

Low pressure over Florida is keeping the atmosphere ripe for rain today through Friday as deep tropical moisture continues to flow into the area. Therefore, looks for a few isolated morning showers followed by scattered showers and storms in the afternoon and evening. Models have been hinting that we could see widespread coverage of showers and storms Friday. By the weekend, it should be drier and brighter overall with a slot of dry air building in from the North. It won’t be totally dry, but it will be much nicer! A non-tropical area of low pressure is forecast to form along a front offshore the Southeastern United States coast during the next 48 hours has been giving a low chance by NHC to grow into something stronger. It is going to move slowly Northward and inland over the Carolinas this weekend. Regardless of development, gusty winds, dangerous surf and rip currents expected along portions of the Southeastern United States late this week and into the weekend. Have a wonde...

Qatargate suspect Eva Kaili freed from house arrest

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

BRUSSELS — Eva Kaili, one of the main suspects in a cash-for-influence corruption probe at the European Parliament, is no longer under house arrest.A spokesperson for the Belgian prosecutor’s office confirmed an earlier AFP report on this to POLITICO. “The investigation no longer requires her detention,” the prosecutor’s office said in a brief press release. Kaili’s lawyers, both in Belgium and Greece, didn’t reply to POLITICO’s request for comments. Kaili was one of the first to be detained last December, when the Belgian police launched raids in a sprawling investigation into whether foreign countries, including Qatar and Morocco, were bribing EU lawmakers. After her detention was prolonged a couple of times, she was moved from jail to house arrest with an electronic monitor in mid-April, pending trial. By being able to remove her electronic tag, Kaili is joining some of her fellow suspects — like Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella, who had this b...

3 years after Brexit, UK net migration has never been higher

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

LONDON — It’s official: net migration to the U.K. is at an all-time high.New figures published Thursday show migration added 606,000 people to the U.K.’s population in 2022 — the highest number on record.The data from the Office for National Statistics is likely to prompt fresh criticism of the governing Conservatives, who promised in their 2019 election manifesto to ensure “overall numbers come down” at a time when net migration stood at 226,000.The rise also comes three years after Britain left the EU touting more control over arrivals through a “points-based” system in place of the bloc’s free movement of people.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told ITV Thursday: “Numbers are too high, it’s as simple as that and I want to bring them down.” Labour accused him of having “no grip on immigration.”There’s plenty of nuance in Thursday’s numbers. Jay Lindop, director of the Centre for International Migration at the ONS, said th...

Boris Johnson aide joked about drone strike on Partygate investigator

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

LONDON — Well, that’s one way to deal with an annoying inquiry.A senior aide to Boris Johnson calmed him down by jokingly offering to order a drone strike against Sue Gray, the government official who was leading the “Partygate” probe into lockdown-busting gatherings in Johnson’s government.Speaking to a Global podcast about his brief spell in No. 10 as Johnson’s director of communications last year, Guto Harri said his boss was “literally hysterical” on the night before Gray published her damning report into the saga.As Johnson prepared a parliamentary speech responding to its findings, Harri recalled Johnson getting “more and more angry, uncharacteristically sweary and cross, the more he thought about the impact of this and what Sue Gray had done to his premiership.”Harri then floated an unconventional plan to soothe the frayed prime minister, saying to the then-PM: “Look at me. Here’s what we’re going to do. ...

McCarthy set to send the House home without a debt limit deal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:24:31 GMT

(CNN) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appears set to send members home after votes on Thursday, signaling that debt negotiations with the White House will continue as the risk of a first-ever default grows.While the speaker urged lawmakers to stay close to the nation’s capital over Memorial Day weekend, his top deputy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, announced that the House will recess following votes on Thursday as negotiators continue to work on a debt ceiling deal.“Following tomorrow’s votes, if some new agreement is reached between President Biden and Speaker McCarthy, members will receive 24 hours’ notice in the event we need to return to Washington for any additional votes, either over the weekend or next week,” he said.Negotiators are trying to make progress on a handful of outstanding issues – in addition to cutting federal spending, which remains a major sticking point. Two sources familiar with the matter said the White House is weighing ...