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Can you afford to 'live comfortably' in these California cities?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

Are you making enough money to afford your bills, buy the things you want, and set aside some money and pay off debt? Unsurprisingly, where you live can impact just how much wiggle room you have in your budget, especially in some U.S. metros.A new study reviewed data from the MIT Living Wage Calculator, which estimates the living wage you need to support yourself and various family sizes throughout the country based on “geographically specific expenditure data related to a family’s likely minimum food, childcare, health insurance, housing, transportation, and other basic necessities" and a common budgeting method known as the 50/30/20 rule. Conducted by SmartAsset, a financial planning website, the study used the required annual income after taxes estimated by the living wage calculator to determine how much you need to earn to “live comfortably” in the nation’s largest cities using the 50/30/20 rule. The budgeting technique allocates your after-tax income to three categories: basic...

Pacific Park's original Sea Dragon ride enters retirement

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

It’s the end of an era as the original Sea Dragon ride, a staple at Pacific Park at the Santa Monica Pier for nearly 30 years, was airlifted out of the amusement park Thursday morning. The original ride was removed from the park to make way for an upgraded Sea Dragon car.“The Sea Dragon is an iconic piece of the amusement park ride experience for everyone, including the film and music industries and numerous celebrities,” Nathan Smithson, the marketing and business development director at Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier, said in a statement.The updated attraction opened to guests Thursday afternoon. The Sea Dragon, a classic swinging ship ride, debuted at Pacific Park on May 26, 1996. It has been enjoyed by millions of riders and served as the setting for Hollywood movies including “Iron Man” and “Her," according to the Pacific Park website. The ride has also shared the spotlight with Regional Mexican music artist La Sèptima Banda and was the focus of the book, "Stella Rose a...

Cal fires coach Mark Fox after school's worst-ever season

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — California men’s basketball coach Mark Fox was fired Thursday following the worst season in school history.The Golden Bears finished 3-29 in Fox’s fourth season as coach following a 69-52 loss Wednesday in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament against Washington State. Cal set a school record for most losses and worst winning percentage in a season.Cal went 38-87 in Fox’s tenure, ending his final season on a 16-game losing streak. Fox’s .304 winning percentage ranking second worst in school history to predecessor Wyking Jones’ 16-47 mark (.254) in the two seasons before Fox arrived.“I want to thank Mark for his unwavering commitment to our men’s basketball program,” Cal Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton said in a news release. “He led the team through some challenging times, and always did so with the class and professionalism we have come to expect from him. ... I wish him the best of luck in the future. “This was a difficult decision and one that I do n...

Ray Ratto, Damon Bruce fired by 95.7 The Game as station downsizes

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

A downsizing at 95.7 The Game has put two high-profile, longtime Bay Area talk show hosts out of work.Damon Bruce and Ray Ratto, who co-hosted “Damon and Ratto” from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, were informed Wednesday they were being let go.Also let go was Kyle Madson, who produced “Damon and Ratto” and was an occasional fill-in host, and at least one other employee.Bruce signed a contract extension in 2022, according to The Athletic, and referred all questions to his agent, who did not immediately return requests for comment. Bruce worked at KNBR as a producer in the 1990s and became a talk show host in 2005 through 2014, when he joined 95.7.Ratto, who worked at KNBR as a fill-in host and co-host to Tom Tolbert after a long career with two San Francisco newspapers, said the move was surprising while not necessarily shocking.“They called yesterday and basically just said, ‘That’s it,’ “ Ratto said in a phone interview. “They sent me a package of stuff including severance tha...

Man slain in Richmond shooting

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

RICHMOND — A 43-year-old man was fatally shot Wednesday morning, becoming the city’s first homicide of the year and the first since last August, police said.The man’s name was not immediately released. Police said he was a Richmond resident.The shooting happened about 11:30 am. Wednesday at Lancaster Drive and Aberdeen Way near San Pablo Avenue, which is in the Fairmede-Hilltop area.Police did not say if the man was killed in a drive-by shooting or by someone who approached him on the street. He was pronounced dead at the scene.A motive was not released and no arrests were announced.The killing was the first homicide in Richmond this year, police said. Last year the city had 18 total homicides, the last one on Aug. 22.The killing was the third shooting and second homicide in the area since last Aug. 16, but police said they do not believe they are related.A man was shot multiple times in the 2400 block of Aberdeen Way on Feb. 28 but survived. No motive or arrests h...

CIF Division I state final preview: Oakland Tech has backed up the talk, on cusp of D-I championship

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

Oakland Tech girls basketball coach Leroy Hurt called his team’s opportunity to win a Division I state title “unprecedented” after it went on the road and defeated No. 1 seed St. Mary’s-Stockton on Tuesday night. Not even a herculean 47-point performance by St. Mary’s star Jordan Lee could derail Oakland Tech. However, even though Hurt used the word “unprecedented” to describe Tech’s appearance in Sacramento, one could hardly call it all that surprising. After all, Hurt’s Bulldogs had spent the previous three tournaments dominating the lower levels of competition. Tech won state in Division IV in 2019, took NorCal’s Division II championship during the 2020 tournament that was cut short due to the pandemic, and was crowned state champions in 2022’s Division III bracket. After wrapping up its 2022 title, Hurt publicly declared his opinion that the Bulldogs should play in Division I, and then scheduled perennial powers such as Archbishop Mitty, Salesian, Carondelet, San Ramon Valley, P...

‘I can’t deal with this’: BART’s inspector general resigns slamming agency on way out

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

The inspector general tasked with investigating fraud and waste at BART will resign next week, leaving behind a bitter relationship with the transit agency’s leaders and a bevy of audits spanning allegations of wage theft, conflicts of interest, and opaque spending.“There comes the point where you just say, ‘I can’t deal with this anymore,'” Harriet Richardson told the Bay Area News Group in an interview on Thursday, saying the agency, backed by BART’s staff, board, and unions, undermined her oversight by restricting access to documents and employees.She is leaving the BART’s Office of the Inspector General with four and half months left on a four-year term.Richardson’s departure comes as BART faces a dire financial shortfall. The agency needs to rally the Legislature behind a difficult push for a new taxpayer subsidy, even as the state faces its own looming budget deficit.But as BART pushes for money it says will stave off drastic ser...

Israeli actor Chaim Topol dies; was famed for playing Tevye in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

Associated PressJERUSALEM — Chaim Topol, a leading Israeli actor who charmed generations of theatergoers and movie-watchers with his portrayal of Tevye, the long-suffering and charismatic milkman in “Fiddler on the Roof,” has died in Tel Aviv, Israeli leaders said Thursday. He was 87.The cause was not immediately released.Israeli leaders on Thursday tweeted their memories and condolences to Topol’s family.Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog hailed Topol as “one of the most outstanding Israeli actors,” who “filled the movie screens with his presence and above all entered deep into our hearts.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Topol’s “contribution to Israeli culture will continue to exist for generations.”Benny Gantz, Israel’s former minister of defense, praised Topol for helping Israelis connect to their roots.“We laughed and cried at the same time over the deepest wounds of Israeli so...

Guitars Not Guns volunteers turning kids into musicians

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

The sound of silence is no more. Youths are learning to finger chords and pluck out simple tunes once again through the Guitars Not Guns free music program in Contra Costa County.The nonprofit’s guitar classes for youths went silent early on during the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago, but this winter the Contra Costa chapter resurrected lessons with students learning the basics of playing music from a small group of volunteers. New classes will begin in Concord next week as the revived program rotates around the county, depending on available volunteers.“We need this, especially after COVID,” Barbara Gorin, president of the nonprofit’s Contra Costa County chapter, said in an interview. “Everybody needs a little music in their lives.”On Wednesday night, the first batch of graduating music students got a chance to strut their stuff during a short performance for family and friends at the Family Justice Center in Antioch where the weekly classes had been held.“COVID impacted us...

Mexican president denies any fentanyl production in country

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:01:59 GMT

By Mark Stevenson | Associated PressMEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president said Thursday that his country does not produce or consume fentanyl, despite enormous evidence to the contrary.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared to depict the synthetic opioid epidemic largely as a U.S. problem, and said the United States should use family values to fight drug addiction.His statement came during a visit to Mexico by Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House Homeland Security Advisor, to discuss the fentanyl crisis. It also comes amid calls by U.S. Republicans to use the U.S. military to attack drug labs in Mexico.The Mexican government has acknowledged in the past that fentanyl is produced at labs in Mexico using precursor chemicals imported from China. Fentanyl has been blamed for about 70,000 opioid deaths per year in the United States.“Here, we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have consumption of fentanyl,” López Obrador said. “Why don’t they (the Uni...