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Review: ‘Wizard of Oz’ reborn — and how! — at SF’s American Conservatory Thearter

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

There’s no place like home.Director and choreographer Sam Pinkleton’s wonderfully wacky “Wizard of Oz” is steeped in an ingenious mix of high camp and low-tech that revels in a distinctly San Francisco sense of aesthetics.Certainly the staging’s gender fluidity is a nice wink to the culture wars raging across the country. Welcome to Oz, this ACT production seems to say, no matter who you are, you will be celebrated here.That heartwarming subtext and a whimsy-on-steroids vibe elevates this production, particularly at the beginning and end of Dorothy’s journey. In the middle of the adventure, things tend to sag, particularly for some of the little ones in the audience.In this Oz revamp, the girl in the blue gingham dress is transformed into a kiddo (Chanel Tilghman) in a Batman T-shirt and a hoodie. The Scarecrow (Danny Scheie) is a crocheted Raggedy Ann-style moppet. The Wicked Witch of the West (Courtney Walsh) is a corporate lawyer-type in a blue suit. Toto is a pink puppet p...

Utah woman denied bail in death of book-subject husband

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

By Sam Metz | Associated PressPARK CITY, Utah — A Utah mother of three who wrote a children’s book about coping with grief after her husband’s death, and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, will remain in jail for the duration of her trial on murder and drug charges, a judge said Monday.Kouri Richins knelt her head and cried as a detective testified about authorities finding her husband dead and “cold to the touch,” and prosecutors argued the evidence against her was strong enough to deny her bail.Her case became a true-crime sensation last month when charges were filed as a transfixed public pored over “Are You With Me?” — the illustrated storybook about an angel wing-clad father watching over his children after passing away — and scrutinized remarks Richins made promoting the book as a tool to help children grieve.Monday’s detention hearing offered both prosecutors and Richins’ attorneys a chance to preview their cases and pr...

California lawmakers reach transit bailout deal: Will Gov. Newsom go along?

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

California lawmakers reached a handshake deal late Sunday that would provide more than $3 billion for BART, AC Transit, Caltrain and other beleaguered transit agencies that say low ridership since the COVID-19 pandemic is sending them over a fiscal cliff and without state aid would lead to catastrophic service cuts.The proposed deal between the state Assembly and Senate restores $2 billion in transportation infrastructure funding that was slated to be cut if revenues are as low as the governor’s budget office expects, and allows the money to be used for transit operations at local transportation authorities’ discretion.The deal also would allow local transit agencies to prop up their operating budgets over the next three years by diverting $1.1 billion in cap-and-trade funds that are supposed to be set aside to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.“The legislature’s budget agreement is a very positive first step toward securing the future of public transportation ...

Murder suspects killed in fiery San Leandro crash

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

(KRON / KTXL) -- Bay Area law enforcement officers chased murder suspects on Interstate-880 early Monday morning until the suspects' car crashed into a tree and burst into flames, investigators said.The fiery crash happened around 4 a.m. in San Leandro on Davis Street between Orchard Avenue and Pierce Avenue. Deputies rescued a 14-year-old girl out of the backseat moments before the car was fully engulfed in flames. The driver and front seat passenger, both men, were unconscious and died inside the car, investigators said.The deadly chase unfolded after Alameda County Sheriff's deputies received a "Be On The Lookout" alert from the Manteca Police Department for a stolen gray Toyota Camry with multiple suspects inside, investigators said. MPD advised that Toyota Camry had been stolen out of Oakland before it was used as a getaway vehicle for a Manteca murder. The murder happened just after 10 p.m. Sunday, Manteca police said. A woman was suffering from a gunshot wound when she stumbl...

New Technology Helps Reconstruct Atrocities. Will It Make It Easier to Convict War Criminals?

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

Standing before a computer monitor in a courtroom in The Hague in 2020, a prosecutor with the International Criminal Court zoomed in and out on a detailed 3D digital reconstruction of the city of Timbuktu. She moved around the interactive map through squares and markets, zooming past renderings of city buildings, eventually descending to street level. There, she played a video that showed a Malian rebel leader holding a whip and escorting two cuffed men to an open area, then ordering the men to kneel and whipping them before a crowd of bystanders, including several children.It was a vivid opening to the war crimes and crimes against humanity trial of Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz, a member of the Ansar Dine Islamist group, which took over swaths of northern Mali in a 2012 coup. As chief of Islamic police, Al Hassan stands accused of widespread crimes, including torture, rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriages.“Mr. Al Hassan’s work was not confined within the four walls of his office,”...

Mother of a 6-year-old who shot, wounded teacher pleads guilty to charge of using marijuana while possessing firearm

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — Mother of a 6-year-old who shot, wounded teacher pleads guilty to charge of using marijuana while possessing firearm.Source

Stock market today: Wall Street rises, and S&P 500 touches highest level in more than a year

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is climbing Monday ahead of a big week for central banks around the world, carrying the S&P 500 toward its highest level in more than a year.The benchmark index was 0.8% higher in late trading and near heights it hasn’t seen since April 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 149 points, or 0.4%, at 34,025, as of 3:10 p.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 1.4% higher.The U.S. stock market has been cruising on hopes the economy may avoid a recession and the Federal Reserve may soon take it easier on its hikes to interest rates. Traders are betting the Fed will hold rates steady at its next meeting, which concludes on Wednesday. That would be the first time it hasn’t hiked rates at a meeting in more than a year.Investors see high-growth stocks as some of the biggest beneficiaries of lower rates, and they were helping to lead the market. Tech stocks alone accounted for more than half the S&P 500’s gain, powered by gains ...

Family members say beloved AP photo assistant, driver dies at 64

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Moustafa Bassiouni, an intrepid photo assistant and driver for The Associated Press’ Cairo bureau, has died at age 64, family members said Monday. They said he died in a Cairo hospital on Saturday after experiencing a heart attack. Bassiouni, who started as a driver for the bureau in 1991, became a pillar of the AP’s Cairo operation. Staffers relied on his street smarts and quick reflexes behind the wheel to cover assignments across the massive metropolis and wider Egypt.He drove generations of AP photographers, writers, bureau chiefs and regional managers through the rule of former president Hosni Mubarak, the chaos that followed Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring protests, and the 2013 ouster of the popularly elected but divisive president Mohammed Morsi. He was later promoted to photo assistant because of his inventiveness in getting access to difficult locations, including once by horseback. He retired in 2019.“Moustafa was our driver, translator, fixer and most of all ...

Indoor plants have the power to fight pollution, study says. What does it mean for your health?

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

Surrounding yourself with indoor plants will do more than just add a little color to a room. New research shows plants may also fight indoor cancer-causing pollution.From gas fumes to cancer-causing pollutants, a new study has revealed plants are able to remove these toxins from the air we breathe indoors.The University of Technology Sydney led the study and when put to the test, the indoor plants were able to get rid of 97% of the most toxic compounds in the air in just eight hours.Researchers say the more concentrated the toxins in the air, the faster the plants worked to remove them.“Not only can plants remove the majority of pollutants from the air in a matter of hours, they remove the most harmful petrol-related pollutants from the air most efficiently,” said Associate Professor Fraser Torpy, a bioremediation researcher, in a statement.For example, he said the known carcinogen benzene, which is found in gasoline fumes, was digested at a faster rate than less harmful substances,...

Mother jailed in England for medicated abortion later in pregnancy

Published Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:00:28 GMT

LONDON (AP) — A 44-year-old mother of three was sentenced Monday to more than two years in an English prison for medically inducing an abortion about eight months into her pregnancy.Justice Edward Pepperall in Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court said the “tragic” case required him to balance the woman’s reproductive rights with the rights of the fetus and said the sentence might deter others from exceeding the 24-week limit on abortions.Pepperall said the mother could have avoided prison if she had pleaded guilty sooner and that he was sentencing her despite her “deep and genuine remorse” and the fact that her children, including one with special needs, would suffer without her.“You are wracked by guilt and have suffered depression,” Pepperall said. “I also accept that you had a very deep emotional attachment to your unborn child and that you are plagued by nightmares and flashbacks to seeing your dead child’s face.”The woman was 32 to 34 weeks along when she induced a miscarriage in May 202...