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Local food truck owner accused of arson will head to trial

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Local businessman Avonte Hartsfield, who is accused of setting his own truck on fire and taking thousands from donors, is headed to trial.  A preliminary hearing was held Wednesday, where a judge determined there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.  The judge heard from six witnesses from the San Diego Police Department, District Attorney’s Office investigators and State Farm Insurance investigators.  The judge made note that Wednesday's hearing was the sixth time they have tried to have a preliminary exam. “I have made a finding that the crimes were committed and that you committed them, so I’m binding you over on all the counts that are charged,” said Honorable Runston Maino with the San Diego County Superior Court.  Hartsfield is headed to trial in an arson and insurance fraud case. However, the preliminary hearing started late after Hartsfield showed up an hour late and claimed he had a flat tire and had to ride his motorcycle in. At the end of the hearing, Main...

Forecasters are warning gusty winds and low humidity raise risk of fires spreading rapidly in Hawaii

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — The National Weather Service on Wednesday warned gusty winds and low humidity have increased the risk that fires could spread rapidly in the western parts of each Hawaiian island, three weeks after a deadly blaze tore through a coastal Maui town during a similar alert. But the agency said winds would not be as powerful compared to Aug. 8 when flames burned down much of Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying more than 2,000 structures. The fire was the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.Lahaina’s flames were fanned by wind gusts topping 60 mph (97 kph). This time, winds are forecast to be 15 to 30 mph (24 to 48 kph) with gusts up to 50 mph (80 kph), said Maureen Ballard, meteorologist at the agency’s Honolulu office.“There is a magnitude of difference between the wind speeds in this event versus August 8th,” Ballard said.The agency issued a Red Flag Warning for the leeward sides of the Hawaiian Islands through Thursday afternoon. It said g...

North Korea says it simulated nuclear attacks on South Korea and rehearsed occupation of its rivals

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Thursday its latest missile launches simulated “scorched earth” nuclear strikes on South Korea and that it’s also been rehearsing an occupation of its rivals’ territory in the event of conflict.Pyongyang has previously tested nuclear-capable missiles and described how it would use them in potential wars with South Korea and the U.S. But the North’s disclosure of detailed war plans reaffirmed its aggressive nuclear doctrine to intimidate its opponents, as it escalates its protest of the ongoing South Korean-U.S. military exercises that it views as a major security threat, observers say.North Korea’s military said it fired two tactical ballistic missiles from the capital on Wednesday night to practice “scorched earth strikes” at major command centers and operational airfields in South Korea, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.The North’s military said the missiles carried out their simulated strikes through air bursts, sugge...

College students are still struggling with basic math. Professors blame the pandemic

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — Diego Fonseca looked at the computer and took a breath. It was his final attempt at the math placement test for his first year of college. His first three tries put him in pre-calculus, a blow for a student who aced honors physics and computer science in high school.Functions and trigonometry came easily, but the basics gave him trouble. He struggled to understand algebra, a subject he studied only during a year of remote learning in high school.“I didn’t have a hands-on, in-person class, and the information wasn’t really there,” said Fonseca, 19, of Ashburn, Virginia, a computer science major who hoped to get into calculus. “I really struggled when it came to higher-level algebra because I just didn’t know anything.”Fonseca is among 100 students who opted to spend a week of summer break at George Mason University brushing up on math lessons that didn’t stick during pandemic schooling. The northern Virginia school started Math Boot Camp because of alarming number...

Some US airports strive to make flying more inclusive for those with dementia

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

PHOENIX (AP) — Andrea Nissen is trying to prepare her 65-year-old husband, who has Alzheimer’s disease, for a solo flight from Arizona to Oklahoma to visit family. She worries about travelers and airport officials misinterpreting his forgetfulness or habit of getting in people’s personal space, and feels guilty about not being able to accompany him.“People say, ‘He has dementia. You can’t let him go by himself,’” Nissen said. But attending a dementia-friendly travel workshop in July helped ease some of those fears. She learned about the resources available at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and what assistance airlines can offer when asked. It was the first time the city of Phoenix hosted such a workshop, making it the latest U.S. city pledging to make flying friendlier for people with dementia. Over 14 million people are expected to check into airports nationwide for Labor Day weekend and, inevitably, some will be travelers with dementia or another cognitive impairme...

Stock market today: Asian markets lower after Japan factory activity, China services weaken

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets were mostly lower Thursday after Japanese factory activity and Chinese service industry growth weakened.Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul declined. Tokyo gained. Oil prices edged lower.Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.4% on Wednesday after the U.S. government cut its estimate of economic growth for the second quarter to a still-robust level.Traders hope that and data on hiring and retail sales will convince the Federal Reserve upward pressure on prices is under control and no more interest rate hikes are needed.Official data showed Japanese factory activity shrank by 2% from the previous month in July. Meanwhile, a survey of Chinese service industries showed activity weakened in July but still was expanding.“Things could be worse. But markets are not likely to take too much comfort from this set of data,” said Rob Carnell of ING in a report.The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5%to 3,122.37 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo advanced 0....

Japan’s PM visits fish market, vows to help fisheries hit by China ban over Fukushima water release

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sampled seafood and talked to workers at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market Thursday to assess the impact of China’s ban on Japanese seafood in reaction to the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi plant to the sea.The release of the treated wastewater began last week and is expected to continue for decades. Japanese fishing groups and neighboring countries opposed it, and China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood in response. One of the seafood business operators told Kishida that sales of his scallops, which are largely exported to China, have dropped 90% since the treated water discharge. “We will compile support measures that stand by the fisheries operators,” Kishida told reporters after the market visit. “We will also resolutely call on China to scrap its trade restrictions that has no scientific bases.”China had stepped up testing on Japanese fisheries products, causing long ...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton pursued perks beyond impeachment allegations, ex-staffers say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Unexplained Caribbean and European trips that cost taxpayers more than $90,000. A $600 sports coat paid for by an event organizer. A $45 office Christmas cake taken as his own.These are among the perks that Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ‘s former employees say he reveled in while using his office in ways that now have him facing a federal criminal investigation and potential ouster over allegations of corruption.Paxton’s impeachment trial that starts Tuesday covers years of highly publicized scandal, criminal charges and whistleblower accounts from his inner circle. But records obtained by The Associated Press, interviews with former aides and a review of thousands of legal filings reveal other ways in which Paxton allegedly reaped the benefits of being one of Texas’ most powerful figures. Together, they show how conviction and removal from office could cost Paxton not just a job but a lifestyle.Last year, that lifestyle included more ...

Tampa Bay area gets serious flooding but again dodges a direct hit from a major hurricane.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

Last year it was Hurricane Ian that drew a bead on Tampa Bay before abruptly shifting east to strike southwest Florida more than 130 miles (210 kilometers) away. This time it was Hurricane Idalia, which caused some serious flooding as it sideswiped the area but packed much more punch at landfall Wednesday, miles to the north.In fact, the Tampa Bay area hasn’t been hit directly by a major hurricane for more than a century. The last time it happened, there were just a few hundred thousand people living in the region, compared with more than 3 million today.“Tampa Bay avoided the worst again,” Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, said via email. “A lot of it comes down to luck. It’s happened before ( 1848, 1921 ) and will happen again.” Many in the area live in low-lying neighborhoods that are highly vulnerable to storm surge and flooding they have rarely before experienced, which some ...

Newsom plans to transform San Quentin State Prison. Lawmakers and the public have had little input

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:54:06 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has ambitious and expensive plans for a dilapidated factory at San Quentin State Prison where inmates of one of the nation’s most notorious lockups once built furniture, and lawmakers have given him the greenlight to start with little input or oversight. He wants to spend $360 million demolishing the building and replacing it with one more reminiscent of a college campus, with a student union, classrooms and possibly a coffee shop. It’s part of his desire to make San Quentin, once home to the nation’s largest death row and where the state performed executions, a model for preparing people for life on the outside — a shift from the state’s decades-long focus on punishment.And Newsom wants it all to happen by December 2025, just before he leaves office.A 21-member advisory council Newsom selected to help shape the new facility’s design and programming does not have to follow open meetings laws, while the Legislature traded away se...