Just in May, Americans saw rents grow by 4.8% to about $2,048 a month on average nationally, according to Zillow Observed Rent Index data.

Lawn Love, a yard care business, ranked 2023’s most expensive metro area for renters. It compared 172 based on three categories: average rent prices, year-over-year rent charges, and the share of renters spending over 30% of their income on rent and utilities.

Overall, the report found that if you’re looking to live on a coast, prepare to pay up. All of the top 10 most expensive metro areas for renters are near the shore.

Top 10 most expensive metro areas for renters

1. New York City, N.Y., Newark, Jersey City, N.J.
2. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Fla.
3. Oxnard, Thousand Oaks, Ventura, Calif.
4. San Diego, Chula Vista, Carlsbad, Calif.
5. Urban Honolulu, Hawaii
6. Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim, Calif.
7. Napa, Calif.
8. Naples, Marco Island, Fla.
9. Washington D.C., Arlington, Alexandria, Virg.
10. Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk, Conn.

The New York City tri-state area ranked as the most expensive on the list. It has one of the highest shares of cost-burdened renters who are paying over 30% of their income on expenses like rent and utilities.

While the average rent in Newark is $1,850 and $2,500 in Jersey City, in New York City it is $3,610, according to Zillow’s rental manager.

According to Payscale, the cost of living in this area is 26% higher than the national average. Housing expenses are 74% higher than the national average and utility prices and transportation expenses are also 10% higher than the national average.

No. 2 on the list is the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach, Florida metro area.

It has the highest share of cost-burdened renters, with over 62% spending most of their income on rent.

The rents in this Florida area range from $2,115 to $2,711, according to RentCafe. The overall score of this area is 55.68 out of 100.

Oxnard, Thousand Oaks and Ventura, California, which is part of the greater Los Angeles area, ranked third on the list. It scored 55.17 out of 100 and was the second least affordable area, according to Lawn Lovers.

The average rent for this California area ranged from $2,533 to $2,704.

It also ranked as the area with the fourth-highest average rent in the U.S., right behind two other California areas: Napa and San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.

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The International Longshore and Warehouse Union reached the tentative deal for a new six-year contract with the Pacific Maritime Association, a trade group for cargo carriers and terminal operators. Its members include such global shipping giants as Maersk and Evergreen Marine.

The agreement will require ratification by PMA and union members and would affect 22,000 dockworkers at 29 ports from Washington state through California.

Details of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement that recognizes the heroic efforts and personal sacrifices of the ILWU workforce in keeping our ports operating,” PMA President James McKenna and ILWU President Willie Adams said in a joint statement. “We are also pleased to turn our full attention back to the operation of the West Coast Ports.”

The dockworkers have been without a contract since July 1.

West Coast ports handle some 40% of U.S. imports and their smooth operation is so important that President Joe Biden even stepped in last year and met with both sides in Los Angeles.

A lockout in 2002 and an eight-day strike in 2015 cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and forced the administrations of then-presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to intervene.

The ports weren’t completely shut down this time but several short-term worker shortages in recent weeks disrupted or even closed some terminals in California and Washington.

After the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold in 2020, cargo traffic to ports slumped drastically. But then it recovered. Soaring demand led to traffic jams at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s busiest port complex.

The union sought higher wages, arguing they deserved a greater share of record profits made by shippers and terminal operators during the pandemic.

“ILWU workers risked and lost their lives during the pandemic to ensure grocery store shelves were stocked, PPE (health safety gear) was made available, essential medical supplies were reaching our hospitals, and record volumes of consumer goods continued to reach the door steps of American consumers,” argued an ILWU statement on June 2.

In his statement, Biden congratulated the port workers, “who have served heroically through the pandemic and the countless challenges it brought, and will finally get the pay, benefits, and quality of life they deserve.”

Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su was sent to assist in the negotiations.

Biden said Su “used her deep experience and judgment to keep the parties talking.”

“The tentative agreement delivers important stability for workers, for employers and for our country’s supply chain,” Su said in a statement.

The tentative agreement was praised by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who said port work generates 1 in 15 jobs in the city.

“This is a win for the working people of our city,” she said.

Five-year-old Wesley Rea was born with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a disease that affects one in 60,000 newborns. It impairs the immune system, leaving the child unable to fight even the smallest infection.

“I wouldn’t be able to bring him around people. If he didn’t receive treatment, he wouldn’t have survived past his first birthday,” said his mother, Vanessa Cruz.

But Wesley’s doctors knew they could save him. He underwent stem cell and bone marrow therapy, a process that required blood products such as plasma and platelets but ultimately restored his immunity.

That’s where Kazhuhiro Ando stepped in.

Ando is a regular blood donor at the UCLA Blood and Platelet Center in Los Angeles. He has donated blood 236 times over the years.

Ando’s constant donations were vital to the success of Wesley’s stem cell and bone therapy after the boy’s family was eliminated as a match.

On Wednesday morning, Ando and Wesley finally met at the blood and platelet center, where Ando smiled from ear to ear as he and Wesley posed for photos in front of a clapping audience.

“When you see that little boy’s face. Oh, that makes me so happy because, oh, my blood is doing something,” Ando said.

The accused Marine, Chance Brannon, 23, a San Juan Capistrano resident, and Tibet Ergul, a 21-year-old from Irvine, Calif., were both arrested Wednesday without incident, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice. The men, who each face a charge of using an explosive or fire to damage real property affecting interstate commerce, are due in court Wednesday afternoon in Santa Ana.

“While it is fortunate that no one was physically harmed and responders were able to prevent the clinic from being destroyed, the defendants’ violent actions are entirely unacceptable,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said, in part, in the news release.

Brannon and Ergul, who were wearing hoodies and facemasks, firebombed the clinic early on March 13, 2022, according to the federal criminal complaint.

“The device landed against a southern wall next to the glass door and erupted into a fire, which spread up the wall and across the ceiling above the glass door,” the complaint states.

The fire was quickly extinguished by the Costa Mesa Fire Department, but not before doing enough damage had been done to force the closure of the clinic the following morning, when 30 appointments had been scheduled, prosecutors said.

The men face up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.

Southern Baptist church representatives at their annual meeting here also rejected a similar appeal by a smaller church, Fern Creek Baptist of Louisville, Kentucky, which is led by a woman pastor.

The results of the Tuesday votes were announced Wednesday morning on the concluding day of the the two-day annual meeting here of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, whose statement of faith asserts that only qualified men can serve as pastors.

The convention hall packed with about 12,000 Southern Baptists was quiet after the announcement, appearing to have listened to the earlier urging by SBC President Bart Barber for them to show restraint.

“I know sometimes there are churches where people wind up in biblical divorce,” he said. “But we don’t throw divorce parties at church. And whatever these results are, I’m asking you, behave like Christians.”

Saddleback had been the denomination’s second-largest congregation and until recently was widely touted as a success story amid larger Southern Baptist membership declines.

With the 9,437-1,212 vote, delegates rejected an appeal by Rick Warren, the retired founding pastor of Saddleback and author of the best-selling phenomenon, “The Purpose Driven Life.” Warren had urged Baptists to agree to disagree “in order to share a common mission.”

“Messengers voted for conformity and uniformity rather than unity. The only way you will have unity is to love diversity. We made this effort knowing we were not going to win,” Warren said at a news conference after the results were announced.

Church representatives also voted 9,700-806 to deny an appeal by a smaller congregation, Fern Creek Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky, which has had a woman pastor for three decades but came under heightened scrutiny this year.

Warren and the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham, pastor of Fern Creek, made their final appeals to Southern Baptists here on Tuesday during the denomination’s annual meeting.

Warren has been a lifelong Southern Baptist, and the church he founded being removed from the denomination was something he might have never expected even though he has pushed the boundaries for several years now, said Scott Thumma, a sociology of religion professor and director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

“It’s pretty clear (from his speech Tuesday) that Warren did not think the SBC was going to reinstate Saddleback,” he said. “But, he’s had a platform to say what being Baptist means, what the Scripture says about women in ministry, that Southern Baptists are under a big tent and what is means to exclude any congregation. This is all probably more symbolic.”

Following the vote results, Warren issued a critique of the direction of the SBC that contributed to Saddleback’s ejection.

“There are people who want to take the SBC back to the 1950s when white men ruled supreme and when the woman’s place was in the home. There are others who want to take it back 500 years to the time of the Reformation,” he said. “I say we need to take the church back to the first century. The church at its birth was the church at its best.”

In February, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee voted to oust the two congregations, along with three others that chose not to appeal, for having women pastors.

All Baptist churches are independent, so the convention can’t tell them what to do, but it can decide which churches are “not in friendly cooperation,” the official verbiage for an expulsion. The SBC’s official statement of faith says the office of pastor is reserved for qualified men, but this is believed to be the first time the convention has expelled any churches over it.

___

Bharath reported from Los Angeles.

A home security camera caught the moment the mother coyote waited out on the driveway of the home. 

Soon a few of the pups begin to show up on camera, then even more rush out to join the mother and their siblings. 

At least six pups are seen in the video running around and playing until they follow behind their mother into the night. 

The homeowner believes the mother coyote and her babies may have built a den at the bottom of his home. 

Kevin Wright, who has multiple myeloma, unknowingly built his home directly over the chemical pit near Santa Barbara in 1985, according to his lawsuit.

Starting in 1974, Chevron subsidiary Union Oil Company of California had operated a sump pit for oil and gas production, a process that left the carcinogenic chemical benzene on the property, court papers said.

Wright bought the land and built the house in 1985. Nearly three decades later, he was diagnosed with the cancer that attacks plasma cells in the blood and can be caused by benzene exposure, court documents said.

The jurors in Santa Barbara on Wednesday returned the $63 million verdict, said Jakob Norman, an attorney for Wright. Norman called the case a “blatant example of environmental pollution and corporate malfeasance.”

Chevron said Union Oil Company would appeal the judgment.

“We strongly disagree with the jury’s decisions to award compensatory and punitive damages,” Chevron said in a statement Thursday.

Wright’s cancer is in remission, his attorneys said, but he regularly undergoes chemotherapy treatments to hold the illness at bay.

“They cut corners, and my life was turned upside down as a result,” Wright said in a statement provided by his attorneys. “Chevron’s continued denial of the harm they caused is a shameful reminder that this company values only profits, not people.”

Detectives from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office were traveling to San Diego County to interview Donald Michael Santini, who was being held in jail following his arrest Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Santini had been on the run since June 1984, when Florida authorities obtained an arrest warrant linking him to the strangling death of 33-year-old Cynthia Ruth Wood of Bradenton, located south of Tampa.

Wood’s body was found in a watery ditch three days after she went missing on June 6 of that year. The arrest warrant said a medical examiner determined she had been strangled and Santini’s fingerprints were found on her body, WFTS-TV reported.

“We are aware of this arrest and have sent detectives to interview Santini, while we await extradition,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “This arrest allows us to reexamine evidence collected in 1984 using the technology of today, as the case is now considered open once again.”

Online jail records said Santini, 65, was arrested as a fugitive. He was scheduled to appear in court in San Diego County on Friday. Records had no listing of an attorney for Santini who could speak on his behalf.

Newsom’s proposed 28th Amendment would also institute what he called a “reasonable” waiting period for all gun purchases and ban assault rifles throughout the country.

“The gun lobby says we can’t stop the carnage America now experiences every day without violating the 2nd Amendment – that thoughts and prayers are the best we can do … that’s a lie,” Newsom said in a statement. “In this country, we do have the power to change things. That power is written into the Constitution, and today we’re using it to end America’s gun violence crisis.”

His pitch for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution will be an uphill battle — a new amendment has not been added since 1992.

Amending the Constitution requires either approval from two-thirds of the members of Congress or for 33 states to support the effort and call for holding a constitutional convention. Newsom said he plans to try to win approval from other states rather than Congress, though Republicans hold more power in statehouses across the country.

“It’s possible because their constituency demands it,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” show.

Newsom said the proposal is in response to the courts rolling back several gun safety laws. For example, in 2022, the Supreme Court rejected a century-old New York law that made it difficult to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun. Newsom added that some federal judges “are trying to turn America into Texas.”

“We cannot let that happen,” he added.

As of early May, the U.S. was on a record pace for mass killings, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in a partnership with Northeastern University. The database counts killings involving four or more fatalities, not including the perpetrator, the same standard as the FBI, and tracks a number of variables for each.

“There’s not a parent out there, not one parent, you included, that doesn’t think about these things when you send your kids to school,” Newsom told NBC.

Newsom, who handily won re-election in 2022, said he will run his efforts through his new political action committee, Campaign for Democracy. He ended his last campaign with more than $16 million left in his political account, some of which will be spent on his new effort.

It’s yet another step for Newsom onto the national political stage. In recent months, he’s campaigned for Democrats in Republican-led states and urged the national Democratic Party to get more aggressive in its defense of abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights and a host of other progressive stances. During his easy re-election campaign, he spent money on ads in Florida and Texas to poke at the policies of his rivals, Republican governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott.

He’s said he does not plan to seek the presidency, but he is widely viewed as a likely future candidate.

Newsom said he will work with supporters, elected and civic leaders and “broad and diverse coalitions” to push for resolutions on the amendment to be passed in other state legislatures. He said he believes he can be successful because a majority of Americans say they want stricter gun laws. Despite that, significant new gun regulations have been nearly impossible to pass and Republicans resistant to more restrictions hold power in far more states.

“I screamed ‘orca!’” recalled Michael Pierson, a Oceanic Society naturalist leading the tour, after noticing “those distinct dorsal finds poking out of the water.”

“It was really, really special,” Pierson said in an interview Wednesday.

The big group of whales was seen on May 7 near the Farallon Islands, about 28 miles (45 kilometers) west of San Francisco. Killer whales are more commonly found around the deep ocean canyon beneath Monterey Bay — about 75 miles south of the city — and can be spotted anywhere from the coastline to just 5 miles off shore, according to Nancy Black, a marine biologist and owner of Monterey Bay Whale Watch.

It’s easier for whale-watching tours to see them in Monterey Bay because the canyon is so close to the beach, while the Farallon Islands require a miles-long boat ride from San Francisco, and the water still may not be deep enough there, Black said.

“They’re the whale that most people want to see when they go whale-watching,” she said, “you just don’t know when they’re going to be around.”

Black, who is also the director of the nonprofit California Killer Whale Project, said she’s seen larger groupings of orcas than last month’s two dozen but added that any sighting is special. As she spoke, she watched five swim together in Monterey Bay.

The Oceanic Society regularly does tours to the Farallon Islands — which include collecting data for scientists and conservationists — and spring is migration season. Pierson and the boat’s captain, Jared Davis, decided to try a different route on May 7 to head out over deeper water.

When spotted during Farallon Islands tours, the orcas are usually in a family group of three to six whales. They typically range from Baja California up the West Coast and Canada to Alaska.

Last month, however, the tour stumbled across several family groups congregating together, for a total of 20 to 24. They were likely near the islands because it’s where pregnant sea lions and seals give birth this time of year — and the mammal-eating whales had probably just feasted.

“We don’t know exactly why this particular group was so big,” he said.

While the adult males, with their distinctive 6 feet-tall (2-meter) dorsal fins, were “definitely a showstopper,” Pierson said the mothers and their calves were also a big hit.

“You could hear the coos and awws from everyone on board,” he said.

Experts on the expedition estimate they saw from 10 to 13 of the tiny, shy, elusive porpoises during nearly two weeks of sailing in the gulf last month.

That is a similar number to those seen in the last such expedition in 2021. Because they are so small and elusive, many of the sightings through powerful binoculars are categorized as probable or likely. The animals also emit “clicks” that can be heard through acoustic monitoring devices.

Experts from Mexico, the conservation group Sea Shepherd and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said they sighted at least one and probably two calves, as immature vaquitas are known, raising hopes for the survival of the world’s most endangered marine mammal.

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They said there may be more vaquitas out there, since the voyage covered only part of the creature’s habitat in the gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez. It lives nowhere else, and the species cannot be captured, held or bred in captivity.

But it is far too soon to celebrate. Illegal gillnets have trapped and killed vaquitas for decades; the population has declined from nearly 600 vaquitas in 1997.

Fishermen set the nets to catch totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is considered a delicacy in China and can fetch thousands of dollars per pound (kilogram).

While the Mexican government has made some efforts to stop the net fishing — like sinking concrete blocks with hooks to snag nets — the fishermen still appear to have the upper hand, entering the protected are to fish on a daily basis and even sabotaging monitoring efforts.

According to the report, “fishermen have begun removing the acoustic devices (CPODs) used to record vaquita clicks. The data recorded on each device is lost, and it is expensive to replace the stolen CPODs.”

“Unless enforcement of the fishing ban is effective and the theft of equipment is stopped, acoustic monitoring cannot collect data as it has in the past,” the report stated.

Researcher Barbara Taylor called on Mexico to sink more concrete blocks to snag nets, because some of the vaquitas were seen outside the protected area.

The expedition took place May 10-26, and crisscrossed a corner of the gulf where the few remaining vaquitas had last been seen.

Alex Olivera, the Mexico representative for the Center for Biological Diversity, said “this is encouraging news and it shows that vaquita are survivors. But we still need urgent conservation efforts to save these tiny porpoises from extinction.”

Olivera, who was not part of the expedition, estimated that “even in a gillnet-free habitat, it will take about 50 years for the population to return to where it was 15 years ago,” adding “we need Mexico to urgently comply with existing regulations to prevent the vaquita from disappearing forever.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration has largely declined to spend money to compensate fishermen for staying out of the vaquita refuge and stop using gillnets, or monitor their presence or the areas they launch from.

Sea Shepherd has been working in the Gulf alongside the Mexican Navy to discourage illegal fishing in the area known as the ‘zero tolerance’ zone, and no fishing is supposedly allowed there. However, illegal fishing boats are regularly seen there, and so Mexico has been unable to completely stop them.

Pritam Singh, Sea Shepherd’s chairman, said that patrols with the Mexican Navy has reduced the number of hours that fishing boats spend in the restricted zone by 79% in 2022, compared to the previous year.

The last vaquita sighting expedition in 2021 yielded probable sightings of 5 to 13 vaquitas, a decline from the previous survey in 2019.

Illegal fishing itself has impeded population calculations in the past.

According to a report by experts published in 2022, both the 2019 and 2021 surveys “were hindered by the presence of many illegal fishing boats with gillnets in the water. Some areas could not be surveyed at all on some days due to the density of illegal fishing.”

The government’s protection efforts have been uneven, at best, and also often face violent opposition from local fishermen.

California’s historic winter season left record-breaking snowpacks, according to the Golden State Department of Water Resources (CDWR).

In March 2023, the snow reached 15 feet and forced the closure of Yosemite National Park.

According to Yosemite National Park, the snowpack in May was 253% above normal in the Tuolumne River Basin and 231% above normal in the Merced River Basin for this time of year.

With the arrival of warmer temperatures, authorities warned of flooding as the snow melted. “The size and distribution of this year’s snowpack also presents a serious flood risk in areas of the state,” the CDWR reported.

In fact, much of the national park was closed in April and May due to flooding and rapid snowmelt, endangering structures and increasing the flow of waterfalls and rivers in a way not seen in years.

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However, in recent weeks, the national park has gradually opened various areas through the valley.

And tourists are lining up quickly to see for themselves this natural wonder.

Yosemite has “countless” graceful cascading waterfalls that flow from its Rocky Mountains and valleys. This year, the waterfalls are more powerful and small waterfalls have been discovered in other areas of the park.

The best time to see the waterfalls is between May and June, but when the snow cover is very heavy this period can be extended.

Among them, the waterfall called Yosemite Falls is open to the public. “You can see Yosemite Falls from numerous places around Yosemite Valley, especially around Yosemite Village and Yosemite Valley Lodge,” according to information from the natural park.

Currently, some roads and camp centers will remain closed for security or for repairs.

Visit the Yosemite website for more information on closures and enjoy the peace of nature this summer.

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But 17-year-old Violet Cayton’s turned out to be priceless, the result of her mom’s love, dedication and a collection of more than $5,000 worth of dimes that added up for over more than a decade.

Violet’s mom, Cari Mae Bulthuis, started planning for the celebratory graduation trip when her only child was just 4 years old. The idea came to the single mother 13 years ago when Bulthuis saw an article about Hawaii with the phrase, “Paradise for Pennies.”

“It had this beautiful picture of the palm tree and the ocean,” said Bulthuis. “I crossed it out and put ‘Dimes.'”

Bulthuis gathered most of the dimes from tips at her job as a server at Abby’s Cafe in the Riverside County community of Hemet.

“At the end of the shift, I would sometimes trade out a dollar for dimes so I could add to the collection,” Bulthuis said. “A lot of customers would leave me handfuls of dimes for the collection.

“I did every single shift for my girl. It’s what we do as a parent. You just want to be able to give to them.”

That collection steadily increased over the years. Bulthuis’ father rolled up the dimes and kept them safe at his Fallbrook home.

“Her daughter is her only child and going to college, and it’s a nice way to send your kid off to college,” said cafe co-worker Katie Bertram.

Violet graduated in May from West Valley High School with several honors, including Student Athlete of the Year and prom queen. The day after graduation, Bulthuis took the dimes to her bank to cash in.

The grand total: $5,665.

“That’s an intense amount,” Violet said. “Even her stories about the hostesses not believing, I always thought of Hawaii as this really expensive land and it is.

“I’m very grateful,” Violet said. “I love my mom so much.”

Bulthuis and Violet are set to depart in July for Oahu on a seven-day trip. It will be the first trip to Hawaii for both mother and daughter.

The attraction will last until June 11 and will give fans the opportunity to visit the stand right in the middle of the desert. It is similar to a gas station where you will be able to fill up and devour the cheesy bites.

“We know that many Cheez-It fans love to travel and never hit the road without their beloved Cheez-It. We created this first-ever desert outpost to capture the excitement of summer road trips and cheer on fans,” said Erin Storm, senior brand director for Cheez-It.

This is the world’s first and only Cheez-It pump that literally pumps a stream of Cheez-It bags right into your car window.

The store is located at 61943 Twentynine Palms Highway in Joshua Tree, and will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It will feature Cheez-It branded merchandise, plus fans will be able to find exclusive flavors of the popular crackers.

“Cheez-It Stop will wow with exclusive merchandise, massive, shareable images of Cheez-It and aisles packed with our famous crackers. We can’t wait to see them,” Storm said.

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About three dozen asylum-seekers, mostly from Colombia and Venezuela, arrived in the California capital on two charter flights after, according to officials, they were promised jobs by people purporting to work for Florida’s government. DeSantis and Florida lawmakers approved state funding to transport immigrants to other states, even if they never step foot in Florida, and carried out similar flights from Texas to Massachusetts last year.

DeSantis’ administration confirmed Tuesday Florida’s role in relocating migrants from Texas to California and said the move was voluntary.

“Through verbal and written consent, these volunteers indicated they wanted to go to California. A contractor was present and ensured they made it safely to a 3rd-party NGO. The specific NGO, Catholic Charities, is used and funded by the federal government,” said Amelia Johnson, Florida Division of Emergency Management’s deputy director of communications. “From left-leaning mayors in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, the relocation of those illegally crossing the United States border is not new. But suddenly, when Florida sends illegal aliens to a sanctuary city, it’s false imprisonment and kidnapping.”

Florida’s statement also included a video it claims showing migrants signing waivers.

Anthony York, California governor’s office senior advisor for communications, released the following statement in response:

“This is exploitative propaganda being peddled by a politician who has shown there are no depths he won’t sink to in his desperate effort to score a political point. Governor Newsom said it best. The Florida governor is small and pathetic, and this video is just another reminder of that.”

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and faith-based groups that have been assisting the migrants said they come together to help the newcomers, who are staying at two undisclosed locations in Sacramento and have been given food, clothing and cellphones to contact their families.

“Sacramento should be a model for the rest of the state and the rest of the nation,” Steinberg said at a news conference Tuesday.

Gabby Trejo, executive director of Sacramento ACT, a collaboration of religious congregations in the Sacramento area, said the young migrants told advocates that they’re ready to work and contribute to the community. All of the migrants had already been given pending court dates by U.S. immigration officials before they were approached in El Paso, Texas, by people promising jobs, she said.

“They couldn’t have landed in a better place because Sacramentans know what it means to come together and we are here to walk with them,” Trejo said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he’s investigating whether criminal or civil charges can be pursued, and Newsom tweeted that kidnapping charges could be on the table.

DeSantis announced his presidential bid just weeks ago, and he’s been quick to highlight his role in moving migrants last year to the pricey Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard.

His latest apparent move to send migrants to California’s capital city appears to be a direct shot at Newsom. Though Newsom has no plans to run for president in 2024, he and DeSantis have frequently used each other as political foils as they cast their own governing approach as a model for the nation. Beyond immigration policy, the two have sparred on abortion access, LGBTQ+ and civil rights, and a host of other cultural issues.

On the campaign trail, DeSantis has been eager to slap at progressive policies in Democratic strongholds such as New York and California, claiming that Florida’s population boom in recent years has been driven by people fleeing blue-state policies.

DeSantis is currently positioned as the strongest Republican alternative to former President Donald Trump in the GOP’s crowded primary, although Trump maintains a big lead in early polls.

It’s not yet clear if the new arrivals in Sacramento plan to stay in California or will eventually seek to go elsewhere, advocates said. Four who arrived on the first flight on Friday have already been picked up by friends or family members, but the rest remain in the care of local advocacy groups.

The faith-based coalition is also connecting the migrants with medical and legal services, said Shireen Miles, a longtime Sacramento ACT volunteer. She said several people have court hearings as soon as next week in places such as Chicago, New York and Denver, which immigration attorneys are working to reschedule.

Since they arrived, advocates have taken the migrants to a thrift store to pick out clothing and have let them choose what meals to eat, advocates said.

“We’re allowing them to define what their needs are and how we can best meet them,” said Cecilia Flores, of Sacramento ACT.

None of the recent arrivals spoke during a Tuesday news conference.

Bonta, who met with some of the migrants who arrived Friday, said they told him they were approached by two women who spoke broken Spanish and promised them jobs. The women traveled with them by land from El Paso to Deming, New Mexico, where two men then accompanied them on the flight to Sacramento. The same men were on the flight Monday, Bonta said.

“To see leaders and governments of other states and the state of Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, acting with cruelty and inhumanity and moral bankruptcy and being petty and small and hurtful and harmful to those vulnerable asylum seekers is blood-boiling,” Bonta said in a Monday interview.

Some of the migrants who arrived Friday told Bonta they met on their nearly three-month journey to the United States and decided to stick together to keep each other safe as they slept on the streets in several countries, he said.

The migrants carried documents that mentioned the state of Florida and one of its chosen vendors for transporting people, Bonta said. He added that the document “purports to be a consent and release form” that is designed to shield Florida from liability.

“Of course, what’s important is what is actually said and represented and told to the individuals and we’ve got good indications of what that was and the fact that it was false, misleading, and deceptive,” he said.

As the migrants arrived in California Monday, a Texas sheriff’s office announced it had recommended criminal charges over the two flights to Martha’s Vineyard last year.

Johnny Garcia, a spokesman for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, said the office is not naming suspects at this time. It’s not clear whether the local district attorney will pursue the charges, which include misdemeanor and felony counts of unlawful restraint, according to the sheriff’s office.

Rodriguez reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Fla., Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed.

“While this is still under investigation, we can confirm these individuals were in possession of documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida,” Bonta said in a statement late Saturday.

The documents said the migrants were transported through a program run by Florida’s Division of Emergency Management and carried out by contractor Vertol Systems Co., said Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Bonta. Florida paid the same contractor $1.56 million last year to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and for a possible second flight to Delaware that never took place.

The 16 migrants who arrived in Sacramento on Friday are from Colombia and Venezuela. They entered the U.S. through Texas, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Saturday.

The young men and women were dropped off Friday outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento with only a backpack’s worth of belongings each, said Eddie Carmona, campaign director at PICO California, a faith-based community organizing group that has been assisting the migrants.

The migrants had already been processed by U.S. immigration officials and given court dates for their asylum cases when “individuals representing a private contractor” approached them outside a migrant center in El Paso, Texas, Carmona said. They offered to help the migrants get jobs and get them to their final destination, he said.

“They were lied to and intentionally deceived,” Carmona said, adding that the migrants had no idea where they were after being dropped off in Sacramento.

Vertol Systems Co. and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not immediately respond Sunday to emails seeking comment.

Bonta said he is evaluating whether violations of civil or criminal law took place.

“While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said in a statement.

Newsom said he and Attorney General Bonta met with the group of migrants on Saturday and learned they were transported from Texas to New Mexico and then flown by private chartered jet to Sacramento.

“We are working closely with the Mayor’s office, along with local and nonprofit partners to ensure the people who have arrived are treated with respect and dignity, and get to their intended destination as they pursue their immigration cases,” Newsom said in a statement.

Kevin Parkourana, 31, of San Jose was in custody in connection with the attacks, police from San Jose and the adjacent city of Milpitas announced Friday.

“We ended the crime spree,” Milpitas Police Chief Jared Hernandez said at a news conference Friday. “We were able to effectively prevent additional people from being injured.” 

Parkourana was booked on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and carjacking in connection with the violence Thursday in both cities, San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata said at the news conference.

Charges have not been formally filed, and the area public defender had no comment.

The spree began shortly after 3 p.m. Thursday in San Jose, when the suspect stabbed a victim and carjacked a Honda Odyssey minivan blocks from his own home, local Deputy Chief Steve Lagorio said. That victim was stabilized at a hospital, he said.

Roughly 20 minutes later, the suspect ditched the minivan and took another vehicle, a Honda Pilot SUV, by stabbing a motorist in a parking lot in San Jose, Lagorio said. The suspect, behind the wheel, then struck a pedestrian, he said.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

But then the fossil vanished, and it took a media blitz and a kind-hearted jogger to find it again.

Jennifer Schuh found the foot-long (.30-meter) tooth sticking out of the sand on Friday at the mouth of Aptos Creek on Rio Del Mar State Beach, located off Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz County on California’s central coast.

“I was on one side of the creek and this lady was talking to me on the other side and she said what’s that at your feet,” Schuh recounted. “It looked kind of weird, like burnt almost.”

Schuh wasn’t sure what she had found. So she snapped some photos and posted them on Facebook, asking for help.

The answer came from Wayne Thompson, paleontology collections advisor for the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.

Thompson determined that the object was a worn molar from an adult Pacific mastodon, an extinct elephant-like species.

“This is an extremely important find,” Thompson wrote, and he urged Schuh to call him.

But when they went back to the beach, the tooth was gone.

A weekend search failed to find it. Thompson then sent out a social media request for help in finding the artifact. The plea made international headlines.

On Tuesday, Jim Smith of nearby Aptos called the museum.

“I was so excited to get that call,” said Liz Broughton, the museum’s visitor experience manager. “Jim told us that he had stumbled upon it during one of his regular jogs along the beach, but wasn’t sure of what he had found until he saw a picture of the tooth on the news.”

Smith donated the tooth to the museum, where it will be on display Friday through Sunday.

The age of the tooth isn’t clear. A museum blog says mastodons generally roamed California from about 5 million to 10,000 years ago.

“We can safely say this specimen would be less than 1 million years old, which is relatively ‘new’ by fossil standards,” Broughton said in an email.

Broughton said it is common for winter storms to uncover fossils in the region and it may have washed down to the ocean from higher up.

Schuh said she is thrilled that her find could help unlock ancient secrets about the peaceful beach area. She didn’t keep the tooth, but she did hop on Amazon and order herself a replica mastodon tooth necklace.

“You don’t often get to touch something from history,” she said.

It’s only the third find of a locally recorded mastodon fossil. The museum also has another tooth along with a skull that was found by a teenager in 1980. It was found in the same Aptos Creek that empties into the ocean.

“We are thrilled about this exciting discovery and the implications it holds for our understanding of ancient life in our region,” museum Executive Director Felicia B. Van Stolk said in a statement.

California lawmakers advanced a bipartisan bill on Thursday that would require Big Tech platforms to pay publishers for news they host, just a day after Meta threatened to remove news from Facebook and Instagram should the bill pass.

The California Journalism Preservation Act, which passed out of the state Assembly 46-6, still needs to be approved by the state Senate and signed by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to become law. But if it makes it that far, it could create new challenges for tech platforms and possibly change the landscape of what information is available on social media sites in California versus the rest of the country.

“If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram, rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement on Twitter Wednesday. “The bill fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves and that substantial consolidation in California’s local news industry came over 15 years ago, well before Facebook was widely used.”

According to the text of the bill available on the state government website, the California legislation would require online platforms with at least 50 million monthly active U.S. users, a billion worldwide active users, or U.S. net annual sales or market cap over $550 billion, to pay a “usage fee” to eligible digital journalism providers who want it. Payments would be calculated based on the amount of each outlet’s news products that the platform displayed or linked to. The parties would use an arbitration process to come up with the percentage of the platform’s advertising revenue that would make up the usage fee.

Chamber of Progress, a trade group that counts Meta among its backers, criticized the bill’s advancement. The coalition’s CEO Adam Kovacevich said in a statement that “the CPJA is riddled with holes” and that the bill “includes a questionable arbitration process and supports hedge funds known for cutting news staff rather than hiring journalists.

“It’s sad the Assembly is passing the buck to the Senate rather than fixing the bill’s problems,” he added.

The News/Media Alliance, which represents over 2,000 media organizations, applauded the Assembly vote.

“We are extremely encouraged to see this progress at the state level, which shows that Americans understand the importance and value of journalism to keeping their communities safe and informed and holding those in power to account,” News/Media Alliance President & CEO Danielle Coffey said in a statement. “We look forward to the CJPA moving on to the Senate and working with policymakers there to pass the CJPA and restore fairness and balance to the marketplace.”

The California bill has similar aims to federal legislation that a bipartisan group of lawmakers attempted to advance last year. Tech companies also took issue with that bill, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would create a temporary safe harbor from antitrust laws for news publishers to collectively bargain revenue-sharing terms with tech giants that carry their products.

The current conflict between Meta and California lawmakers recalls a similar fight in Australia in 2021, when the government there sought to require online platforms to pay for news content. Days after restricting news pages in the country, Facebook reached an agreement with the government that led to a reversal of the company’s policy. Facebook said at the time that the government “agreed to a number of changes and guarantees that address our core concerns about allowing commercial deals that recognize the value our platform provides to publishers relative to the value we receive from them.”

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WATCH: Australia slams Facebook’s move to block news amid new media bill

The four boys and one girl were booked into jail on charges of assault with a deadly weapon (non-firearm), the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said, adding that their identities were not being disclosed because they are minors. The department noted, however, that the investigation is ongoing.

The pair of Marines were treated at the scene for minor injuries to their hands, knees, abdomens and heads, but they refused to go to a hospital, Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Mike Woodroof said. A third Marine was later identified as a victim as well.

It was unclear how many people attacked the two men, but Woodroof said the number was likely somewhere between 10 and 30.

A minute-long video which has circulated online captured the brawl. In the video the Marines are seen on the ground trying to shield themselves from the attack as their assailants punch and kick them.

According to the OCSD, the brawl sparked from fireworks being set off on the beach. When the Marines asked them to stop, both men were assaulted as they were leaving the area.

The group then circled the two Marines and begin punching and kicking them.

The brawl appeared to come to an end after two individuals, a man and a woman, step in, telling the group to stop.

“I didn’t think of the consequences, obviously,” said Patricia Hurtavo, the woman in question. Hurtavo said that she feared the crowd would have killed the Marines had she not stepped in.

State Farm General Insurance Company on Friday announced that it will stop accepting new homeowners insurance applications in California, citing “rapidly growing” catastrophe risks like wildfires, “historic increases” in construction costs and a challenging reinsurance market.

“We take seriously our responsibility to manage risk,” the company said in a release.

State Farm said it will stop accepting new business, personal lines property and casualty insurance applications starting Saturday. The new policy will not impact personal auto insurance, according to the release. State Farm’s independent contractor agents will also continue to serve existing customers.

The company said it will work with the California Department of Insurance and other policymakers to improve conditions in California, but that State Farm decided to take action to improve its “financial strength.

“We will continue to evaluate our approach based on changing market conditions,” State Farm said.

State Farm did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Edwin Castro was identified as the winner of the record-setting prize in February. At the time, he said he was “shocked and ecstatic” and chose to accept the jackpot in a lump sum payment of $997.6 million. 

The same month he was identified, a man named Jose Rivera filed a civil complaint in Alhambra Superior Court claiming the jackpot should be his. 

The suit was filed against Castro, the California State Lottery Commission, the state of California and a man named Urachi F. Romero, whom Rivera accused of taking his ticket. 

Rivera purchased the lottery ticket for the $2.04 billion Powerball on Nov. 7 at Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, California, one day before the draw, according to the complaint.

Rivera alleges Romero stole the ticket that same day. The complaint did not detail how the alleged theft happen.

NBC News has reached out to attorneys for Rivera and Castro for comment. Romero, who did not file a response in the court docket, could not be reached Friday. 

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

Ecology Mountain Holdings spent approximately $22.58 million to purchase the real property and mining claims of Eagle Mountain, Calif., according to SEC documents obtained by SFGATE. The LLC made the deal with Eagle Mountain Acquisition LLC on April 17.

There is little information about Ecology Mountain Holdings other than it is based in Cerritos, Calif., about 180 miles west of the ghost town it just acquired. The company made no announcement about its plans for the new property.

Eagle Mountain was once a thriving iron mine for Kaiser Steel. The mine shut down in 1983, and the approximately 4,000 people who lived in the town left. 

Since then, there have been various attempts to utilize the land, which sits just outside of Joshua Tree National Park.

Eagle Mountain Community Correctional Facility opened in 1988 and was open for 15 years before a deadly prison riot led to its downfall. In the early 1990s, a private company unsuccessfully attempted to turn the area into the Eagle Mountain Landfill and Recycling Center. Los Angeles County was also unable to turn Eagle Mountain into a landfill.

Hollywood has made its mark in Eagle Mountain. Movies like “Stand By Me,” “Tenet” and more used the site as a filming location, and there are no plans for that to stop following the Ecology Mountain Holdings purchase.

“We’re going to continue to operate as normal,” Levi Vincent, president of the Greater Palm Springs Film Office, told The Los Angeles Times.

Burbank police officers responded around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, to Riverside Drive and Mariposa Street after receiving a report about a horse running loose.

“A concerned citizen said she saw a riderless horse running frantically down the street with a saddle attached, leading her to believe that the rider had fallen off and was hurt”, said Sgt. Brent Fekety, Burbank Police Officer.

When officers arrived to the scene, they found the horse, named Oreo, grazing on the front lawn of a residence, and that’s when Officer Nicolas Moreno came to the rescue.

“When I see the horse, I see it getting a little flustered as more units come to help us. My concern is getting it to safety,” said Moreno.

The owner said the horse had gotten spooked after a ride and ran off.

Moreno rode Oreo back to its owner, and the two were happily reunited, police said.

Michael Angodung was playing volleyball with his daughter, Kassidy, in the driveway last Sunday and went inside to get some water. That brief period is all it took for the kidnapper to make his move.

The 10-year-old was bouncing the volleyball when the stranger stopped on the sidewalk and told her he wanted to see her shirt. Another neighbor’s camera picked up the audio.

“Hey, what is that shirt? Let me see that shirt,” the man told her.

The video then shows the man chasing Kassidy up the driveway, but she runs into her home, screaming that the man was trying to kidnap her. The man then quickly walks down the street and out of sight.

“As a father, as a parent, this is literally your worst nightmare,” Angodung said.

He said he called the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, but the suspect had already left the area.

Angodung said the officer he spoke with is in charge of the schools in the area, and it was the first time he heard of something similar happening around the neighborhood.

Angodung said he is grateful his daughter is physically OK, but the encounter has had a traumatic impact on her. These days, she has trouble sleeping and doesn’t want to walk or bike to school anymore.

Angodung is proud of the way Kassidy reacted under the circumstances, and he’s hoping other parents will talk to their kids about stranger danger and how to handle similar situations.

“I’m mad. I’m furious, I don’t want any parent to go through this sort of trauma or any kid to undergo this trauma again, and I just want to make sure this guy is caught,” Angodung said.

Rivara made sure traffic in all directions was stopped, witnesses said, then escorted the duck and her babies to the other side of the street around 8:15 p.m. last Thursday in suburban Rocklin, northeast of Sacramento.

“All the ducks made it safely across,” said 11-year-old Jude Peterson, who was watching with a carpool group after track practice. “He did something amazing.”

His good deed done, Rivara was walking back to his car when another vehicle came through the intersection and struck him. He flew through the air and landed in the street. The 41-year-old father of two died at the scene.

“Casey was the kindest, most amazing husband and father. Even his last act in this world was a sign of his compassion,” his aunt, Tracey Rivara, wrote on a verified GoFundMe page raising money for his widow and their 11-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son. Nearly $90,000 was raised by Tuesday afternoon.

“The family is trying to figure out how to recover and keep going after this immense loss,” his aunt wrote.

The driver of the car that hit him, a 17-year-old girl, remained at the scene and is cooperating with investigators, said Rocklin police Capt. Scott Horrillo. Detectives are still interviewing witnesses and reviewing video, he said, but it doesn’t appear the teen driver will face charges.

“Right now, we don’t have any reason to believe there was any criminal negligence,” Horrillo said Monday. He called it a tragic accident.

Flowers adorned a growing memorial to Rivara at the accident site on Tuesday in Rocklin, a city of about 73,000 people. Somebody also left several toy rubber ducks.

Casey was married to Angel Chow, his high school sweetheart. The inseparable pair met at age 17 when she arrived at his high school as an exchange student from Hong Kong, according to the GoFundMe page.

“His family was Casey’s world, and to remain even closer to them he had recently started working at their children’s school,” Tracey Rivara wrote. “He loved working at the school as he was able to positively impact other children.”

His wife said the family has been touched by the outpouring of love and support from family, friends, co-workers and community members.

“It’s truly humbling to hear how Casey has positively impacted your lives, and we’re extremely grateful for that,” Chow wrote Monday on Facebook.

She said she planned to compile the tributes in a book “that our children can turn to whenever they miss him.”

Jude Peterson, the young witness, said he was “in shock and so scared” after witnessing the tragedy. His mother, Summer Peterson, said Jude was in tears when he got home that night.

By Monday, his mother said, Jude had processed his shock and was filled with admiration for Rivara.

“He did the right thing,” Jude said. “He wanted to help because there were ducks in the road, and he didn’t want anyone to hit the ducks.”

A rail car carrying ammonium nitrate left a plant operated by explosives manufacturer Dyno Nobel in Cheyenne, Wyo., on April 12, according to an incident report filed by a representative of the company with the National Response Center on May 10.

The report states that the chemical was released “due to an unknown cause,” and that it was discovered missing after the rail car arrived in Saltdale, Calif., an unincorporated community more than 1,000 miles from Cheyenne.

At the time of the report, the car was empty and on its way back to Wyoming, according to the company.

Ammonium nitrate has been a key ingredient used in both terror attacks and fatal accidents.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here.

However, when her parents divorced, the beloved gown somehow wound up among items designated for donation. When Nguyen, of Mission Viejo, Calif., realized that her dad was clearing out the house before selling it, she immediately called him.

“And he’s like, ‘There’s nothing left,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,'” Nguyen said. “Unfortunately, things were being donated to Goodwill, and my wedding dress was accidentally donated with some of the other stuff.”

But Nguyen wanted to find her wedding dress, which was donated to the Goodwill in Brea.

“We called Goodwill right away, and then they said, ‘Well, unfortunately, we don’t sell wedding dresses at this location.'”

Nguyen’s search efforts included circulating a photo among Goodwill stores.

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“They’re helping out,” she said. “All the Goodwill stores have a photo of the dress and an email with my information in it. So we’re doing as much as we can.”

Nguyen is also sharing her story on social media.

“I posted, I don’t know, I wanna say like 30 to 40 Facebook pages. Like every local page I can find, you know, wedding pages, things like that.”

A TikTok about the dress search already has about 30,000 views, she said.  

She’s also getting advice from social media users on how to retrieve her dress.

“People are being really amazing and sharing,” she said.

Even though Nguyen knows it is very difficult to find her gown, she is still trying.

“There’s a high likelihood that somebody has the dress already, and I understand that they’re probably in love with it because, I was in love with it, and finding it at a Goodwill is such a score,” she said. “I’m ok with whoever has this wedding dress, like wearing it to their wedding. But, you know, if I could pay them to have it back, that would be, that’s just really all I’m asking for.”

Nguyen married Jesse Sánchez in August 2017. Her dress is one of the most beautiful memories she has of that day. 

“I honestly didn’t think I’d be this attached to it,” she said. “But when I was looking for the dress, I had tried on so many dresses, and I just didn’t feel like myself in any of them.

“But then when I found that dress, I put it on, and I just felt like the most beautiful version of myself.”

Fast forward to the wedding.

“I’m walking down to see my husband and he’s a Marine, so he’s pretty stern and like, doesn’t show that much emotion, but I’m coming down the aisle and he was crying,” she said.

She only hopes this will one day be a funny story to tell her kids and grandchildren.

“Oh, I was on TV,  and it was this big manhunt and we found the dress. 

“I’m pretty heartbroken. I’ll be ok.”

One of Airbnb’s most wish-listed properties in 2023 is on the market.

The Joshua Tree, California-home is for sale at an asking price of $18 million, making it the most expensive home to ever hit the market in the town located about two hours southeast of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County. 

The record-breaking listing is called the Invisible House named for its mirror-clad facade which reflects the desert surroundings and can effectively disappear into the rocky landscape.

The modern glass architecture is situated on 67.5 acres just steps away from the Joshua Tree National Park. The living space spans almost 5,500 square feet with three bedrooms, four baths and a 100-foot indoor pool, according to the sale listing.

“This is one of the coolest houses in the world,” said co-listing agent Aaron Kirman, CEO of AKG Christie’s International Real Estate.

Kirman told CNBC the $18 million listing is all about show-stopping modern architecture and the illusion created by the 10,500 square feet of wrap-around mirrored glass on the home’s exterior.

The home was designed by film producer and current owner, Chris Hanley, and Frank Gehry-collaborator, architect Tomas Osinski. The glass-and-steel structure is 225 feet long, 25 feet wide and 21 feet tall.

Inside, there are smooth concrete floors and steel beams that criss-cross 12-foot ceilings. Those walls of mirrored-glass on the home’s exterior are transparent from the inside and they deliver panoramic views of a rock-filled landscape. The home’s west-facing wall of glass can slide open to reveal a symphony of boulders, tangled brush and stoic trees.

The minimalist design surrounding the 100-foot indoor pool makes a swim across the living room to one of the bedrooms even more lavish. 

Finding real-estate comps for such unique architecture located in a remote desert town with a population of just thousands, is impossible, according to Kirman.

“So let’s just be clear, there are no comps. We are not comping this house based on Joshua Tree,” he said.

According to co-listing agent Matt Adamo, the highest price ever achieved for a home in Joshua Tree was $3.5 million. So a sale anywhere near the Invisible House’s asking price would shatter the local record.

The closest comps, Kirman said, are homes by built Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Rudolph Schindler — “some of the great architects from the past.”

The Invisible House’s $18 million price tag amounts to almost $3,300 per square foot, which puts the Joshua Tree residence above some of the priciest listings in Los Angeles — on a per-square-foot basis — where the top 10% of all single family homes that sold during the first quarter averaged just under $2,400 a square foot, according to the Elliman Report.

And even before a potential sale, the modern desert home, which has its own Instagram account and boasts about 35,000 followers, is already a money-maker.

The home is frequently rented out to guests on Airbnb and for production shoots.

“In 2021, this house generated over $1.4 million in total revenue,” Adamo told CNBC, adding about 15% of that came from production.

The home’s Airbnb listing starts rentals at $2,500 a night and includes a small guest house on the property. Adamo said the rate for production is even higher, with past rentals earning $1,000 an hour or as much as $12,000 for a full day.

Between those two rental avenues, the brokers told CNBC the home has hosted quite a few notable guests including musicians and actors like Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Lizzo, Diplo and The Weeknd, as well as a long list of social media influencers.

“When you do the math, you’re buying significant architecture, uniqueness, grounds, plus the ability to make money on all of that,” Kirman said.

In the four months since the home has hit the market, it hasn’t seen any takers, but both agents are confident the record-breaking asking price will deliver the highest priced sale Joshua Tree has ever seen.

“I feel like $18 million is 100% the right price,” said Kirman.

“Don’t look at this as a house. It’s a piece of art, and look at what art sells for.”

Here’s a look around the Invisible House:

Giant wind-worn boulders rest at the home’s entrance. Once inside visitors are greeted by a dramatic 100-foot indoor pool.

Off the pool area and at the center of the kitchen is an oversized island with high-end cabinetry crafted in Italy by Boffi.

The home’s two guest rooms feature king-sized beds raised on  platforms of black and white striped marble that are built into the wall.

Two caissons lift the home’s primary bedroom high above the desert floor and deliver dramatic panoramic views from a king-sized bed that sits on a platform constructed completely of glass.

The room’s open layout includes an oversized soaking tub, floating double sinks and a stainless steel rain shower with a glass wall that frames a picturesque view.

The minimalist bathrooms feature showers clad in stainless steel. 

The roof of the off-the-grid estate is lined with 92 solar panels that store energy in 3 Tesla batteries.

Steps away from the main residence is a one-bedroom, pre-fab guest house with its own kitchen and bath, bringing the estate’s total room count to four bedrooms and five baths.

The plea agreement signed by Trevor Daniel Jacob, 29, of Lompoc, California, and his attorney was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement that Jacob is expected to make a court appearance in coming weeks.

Jacob, an experienced pilot and skydiver, agreed to plead guilty to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The video titled “I Crashed My Airplane” appeared in December 2021 and purported to show Jacob’s small plane have engine failure over the mountainous Los Padres National Forest. Already wearing a parachute, he jumped out with a selfie stick camera in hand.

His jump and the aircraft’s plunge were recorded by cameras mounted on the plane’s wing and tail and by the camera he carried. After landing, he hiked to the crash site and recovered video from the onboard cameras, the government said.

According to the plea agreement, Jacob had a sponsorship deal to promote a company’s product in a video he would post, and he never intended to complete the Nov. 24, 2021, flight.

The Justice Department said Jacob later informed federal investigators about the crash, was told he was responsible for preserving the wreckage, agreed to determine its location — and then lied that he did not know the location.

On Dec. 10, 2021, Jacob and a friend flew to the site in a helicopter that was used to lift the wreckage and fly it to a trailer attached to his pickup truck, according to the agreement. The plane was later cut up, and the parts were disposed of in trash bins.

Jacob’s pilot license was revoked by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2022.

A magnitude 5.5 quake centered in the Sierra Nevada’s Lake Almanor resort region struck at 4:19 p.m. Thursday and a magnitude 5.2 aftershock occurred at 3:18 a.m. Friday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

People reported feeling the earthquake all the way to Sacramento, about 160 miles south.

The magnitude 5.5 quake was the largest in California since the magnitude 7.1 Ridgecrest sequence in 2019, according to former USGS seismologist Lucy Jones, who now runs a center focusing on making communities more resilient to disasters.

With soil still too wet for planting, farmers postponed the season’s start by three weeks, which could translate into a shortage of tomato-based items this summer, according to individual farmers and the California Tomato Growers Association.

The most dire predictions come from farmers themselves, who say some of them could be forced out of the tomato-growing business.

To make up for a shortened planting season, which usually runs 12 weeks from late February to May, some growers are putting more seeds into the ground than usual. But even then, it may be too late, they said.

“I don’t think anybody is very optimistic about what our yields are going to be this year,” said Aaron Barcellos, a fourth-generation farmer who owns A-Bar Ag Enterprises in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s main agricultural region, which is nicknamed “America’s salad bowl.”

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

The nine-member committee, which first convened nearly two years ago, gave final approval at a meeting in Oakland to a hefty list of proposals that now go to state lawmakers to consider for reparations legislation.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, who is cosponsoring a bill in Congress to study restitution proposals for African Americans, at the meeting called on states and the federal government to pass reparations legislation.

“Reparations are not only morally justifiable, but they have the potential to address longstanding racial disparities and inequalities,” Lee said.

The panel’s first vote approved a detailed account of historical discrimination against Black Californians in areas such as voting, housing, education, disproportionate policing and incarceration and others.

Other recommendations on the table ranged from the creation of a new agency to provide services to descendants of enslaved people to calculations on what the state owes them in compensation.

“An apology and an admission of wrongdoing just by itself is not going to be satisfactory,” said Chris Lodgson, an organizer with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, a reparations advocacy group.

An apology crafted by lawmakers must “include a censure of the gravest barbarities” carried out on behalf of the state, according to the draft recommendation approved by the task force.

Those would include a condemnation of former Gov. Peter Hardeman Burnett, the state’s first elected governor and a white supremacist who encouraged laws to exclude Black people from California.

After California entered the union in 1850 as a “free” state, it did not enact any laws to guarantee freedom for all, the draft recommendation notes. On the contrary, the state Supreme Court enforced the federal Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed for the capture and return of runaway enslaved people, until for over a decade until emancipation.

“By participating in these horrors, California further perpetuated the harms African Americans faced, imbuing racial prejudice throughout society through segregation, public and private discrimination, and unequal disbursal of state and federal funding,” the document says.

The task force approved a public apology acknowledging the state’s responsibility for past wrongs and promising the state will not repeat them. It would be issued in the presence of people whose ancestors were enslaved.

California has previously apologized for placing Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II and for violence against and mistreatment of Native Americans.

The panel also approved a section of the draft report saying reparations should include “cash or its equivalent” for eligible residents.

More than 100 residents and advocates gathered at Mills College of Northeastern University in Oakland, a city that is the birthplace of the Black Panther Party. They shared frustrations over the country’s “broken promise” to offer up to 40 acres and a mule to newly freed enslaved people.

Many said it is past time for governments to repair the harms that have kept African Americans from living without fear of being wrongfully prosecuted, retaining property and building wealth.

Elaine Brown, former Black Panther Party chairwoman, urged people to express their frustrations through demonstrations.

Saturday’s task force meeting marked a crucial moment in the long fight for local, state and federal governments to atone for discriminatory polices against African Americans. The proposals are far from implementation, however.

“There’s no way in the world that many of these recommendations are going to get through because of the inflationary impact,” said Roy L. Brooks, a professor and reparations scholar at the University of San Diego School of Law.

Some estimates from economists have projected that the state could owe upwards of $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget, in reparations to Black people.

The figure in the latest draft report released by the task force is far lower. The group has not responded to email and phone requests for comment on the reduction.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a former Democratic assemblymember, authored legislation in 2020 creating the task force with a focus on the state’s historical culpability for harms against African Americans, and not as a substitute for any additional reparations that may come from the federal government.

The task force voted previously to limit reparations to descendants of enslaved or free Black people who were in the country by the end of the 19th century.

The group’s work has garnered nationwide attention, as efforts to research and secure reparations for African Americans elsewhere have had mixed results.

The Chicago suburb of Evanston, for example, has offered housing vouchers to Black residents but few have benefited from the program so far.

In New York, a bill to acknowledge the inhumanity of slavery in the state and create a commission to study reparations proposals has passed the Assembly but not received a vote in the Senate.

And on the federal level, a decades-old proposal to create a commission studying reparations for African Americans has stalled in Congress.

Oakland city Councilmember Kevin Jenkins called the California task force’s work “a powerful example” of what can happen when people work together.

“I am confident that through our collective efforts, we can make a significant drive in advancing reparations in our great state of California and ultimately the country,” Jenkins said.

Officers responding around 3:30 a.m. to reports of gunfire found six people shot at an apartment building in Chico, police Chief Billy Aldridge said.

All the victims were taken to hospitals, and the teenager died at a hospital, he said.

Two men, ages 21 and 19, and a 17-year-old girl remained hospitalized in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries, the chief said. Two other men, ages 18 and 20, were treated at the hospital and released, Aldridge said.

The shooting appeared to be an isolated incident, and there was no ongoing threat to the community, police said. They released no information on the shooter.

Police had been called to the same address about 30 minutes before the shooting and arrested a man on suspicion of brandishing a firearm, Aldridge said.

That suspect matched the description of a man who was asked to leave a separate party about a mile away around 12:30 a.m., Aldridge said. A fight broke out at the earlier party, and two people were hospitalized after being struck in the head, one with a bottle and one with a firearm, the chief said.

The investigation was ongoing Saturday.

Both parties were in neighborhoods near California State University in Chico, a city with about 101,000 residents 90 miles (145 km) north of Sacramento.

Anyone with more information is asked to call Chico police at (530) 897-5820.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

The man who saved the baby boy spoke to NBCLA for the first time about the heart-stopping save.

Updated Article: Baby Stroller Hero Lands Job

In the video, you see the stroller start rolling down the driveway at A1 Hand Car Wash. The baby boy’s great aunt tries to run after it, but collapses to her knees.

“I heard screaming to the right,” said Donna Gunderson.

Donna Gunderson was sitting at a nearby patio when she heard the screams for help.

“And I look back and I see a stroller going down the driveway and my heart dropped,” she said.

At that exact moment, Gunderson sees her brother Ron Nessman running toward the stroller which was also being pushed by strong winds blowing through the high desert. The stroller was heading directly toward Bear Valley Road.

“The cars do 50-55 and it was a busy time of day,” Gunderson said.

But just before the stroller rolls into traffic, Nessman grabs it.

“I knew I could get it and I got it and I’m thankful for that because I really wouldn’t want to see the end result if I wasn’t there,” he said.

Nessman was there because he had just come from a job interview at a nearby Applebee’s. He’s been living with his sister for the past three months after being homeless for about eight years, in part because of depression from his girlfriend passing away.

“I decided to get right. If you want something different in your life, you do something different and that’s where I am at today. I thank my sister for helping me out. She’s always been there for me,” he said.

He’s also thankful that the baby boy is OK, and so is the great aunt who suffered injuries to her knees.

“She tried everything she possibly could to get up. Her knees were bleeding when I got up to her. She was still shocked and she was crying,” he said.

Gunderson says this frightening video should be a lesson to anyone who uses a stroller: Don’t forget to lock the wheels on hills or even on windy days.

“Just as simple as hitting the brake,” she said.

Nessman says he is still looking for a job and he’s hoping some employer will see this story and give him an opportunity.

Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat who is running in the competitive 47th congressional district, said in a Facebook post that he was cited with a misdemeanor for driving under the influence. Min was released Wednesday morning after being arrested by California Highway Patrol, the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department said. It wasn’t clear if he would have to appear in court.

“My decision to drive last night was irresponsible. I accept full responsibility and there is no excuse for my actions,” Min posted Wednesday. “To my family, constituents and supporters, I am so deeply sorry. I know I need to do better. I will not let this personal failure distract from our work in California and in Washington.”

A spokesperson for Min’s Senate office declined to comment.

Min was arrested around 10:50 p.m. near the Capitol, according to a police report. He was driving without headlights, then ran a red light, the report says.

Min showed “signs and symptoms of alcohol intoxication,” a California Highway Patrol officer noted in the report. Min was booked in the Sacramento County jail.

Many state lawmakers stay overnight in Sacramento during the week rather than returning home to their districts.

Min is vying for the competitive Congressional seat in Orange County now represented by Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who is leaving her post to enter a race to replace retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Min, who has secured Porter’s endorsement, is the most prominent Democrat in the race. Former Assemblyman Scott Baugh, a Republican, is also running.

Min, a Harvard-educated lawyer and a former congressional aide to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, was elected to the state Senate in 2020. He chairs the Senate’s Committee on Natural Resources and Water.

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It was all about the fives for a man who recently won $5 million after buying a Scratchers ticket in Irvine, California.

Alec Bucur’s strategy was simple, if not somewhat unconventional: buy only the fifth ticket on the stack of Millionaire Bucks Scratchers at the Chevron gas station at 5425 Alton Parkway, according to an April 27 press release by the California Lottery.

The idea came to him after asking the clerk how much the last winning ticket was worth. After learning it was worth $500 and that it was ticket No. 5 in the stack, Bucur became a regular at the station, employing his unscientific strategy to buy his Scratchers.

Eventually, it paid off.

“Number five in the series was worth five million dollars,” Bucur told the California Lottery. “I was just gunning for it, and now I’m a multimillionaire.”

real estate Mar 7

Winner of $2 Billion Powerball Buys $25.5 Million Mansion in Hollywood Hills

For its part, the Chevron got a $25,000 bonus for selling Bucur his winning ticket.

Bucur told the California Lottery that he’s not a big spender and doesn’t need a mansion or a Ferrari. “I’m going to do some traveling and let this money grow,” he said.

The lottery noted that in addition to Bucur, someone else recently won big in Southern California: Jose Sanchez won $1 million after buying a Power 10’s Scratcher at Shahkot Gas & Market, located at 1727 East Dyer Road in Santa Ana.

Haz clic aquí para leer esta historia en español.

Jaime Brugada Valdez, 22, of Huntington Park, was found in the shower area of the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Despite life-saving efforts, he died at a prison medical facility.

The agency didn’t detail his injuries but said his death was being investigated as a homicide.

“They said it was a stabbing to the neck,” Valdez’s attorney, Nicholas Rosenberg, told the Los Angeles Times.

Suede signed to Atlantic Records in 2021, and released his most recent album “Parkside Baby” last September, the Times said.

The Monterey County prison houses more than 4,000 minimum- and medium-security inmates.

Valdez was sent there after being sentenced in Riverside County last December to serve two years and eight months on two charges of being a convicted felon in possession of a gun, according to state corrections officials.

Surveillance video captured a car smashing through the front door of Kim Hoan Jewelry on April 18 at around 3:45 a.m. knocking down security bars installed inside of the property.

The five masked men are seen breaking display cases and shattering glass using hammers. The owner of the store said that, fortunately, no high-value jewelry was stolen, but that they got away with thousands of dollars in merchandise.

Security cameras also showed the moment they escaped in several vehicles minutes before local police arrived to the scene.

The owner of the store estimates he will have to pay around $20,000 to repair the damages caused by the incident, according to Telemundo Sacramento.

Police are also investigating a similar robbery after several individuals broke into the nearby King’s Jewelry shop, stealing more than $70,000 worth of merchandise. The suspects were caught on camera, Stockton police said.

According to Stockton police, they are studying both cases to determine a possible connection. No arrests have been made in either burglaries.

Brian Michael Gaherty, 60, was charged in the indictment with four counts of making threats in interstate communications and four counts of threatening a U.S. official, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said in a statement.

Gaherty was arrested April 13 after prosecutors filed a criminal complaint alleging that he had threatened Waters, other elected officials and a news reporter in Houston.

The indictment says Gaherty called the congresswoman’s office four times — twice in August and twice in November — and each time left a threatening message.

Prosecutors said that in one, he told the congresswoman he intended to “cut your throat.”

The indictment alleged Gaherty “knowingly threatened to assault and kill” Waters while she was engaged in the performance of her official duties.

There was no immediate response to messages requesting comment from an attorney who was believed to be representing Gaherty.

After Gaherty was arrested at his residence in Houston, he made a court appearance Monday and was ordered released on $100,000 bond.

He is expected to appear for an arraignment in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in the coming weeks.

Each count of making a threat to a federal official carries a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. The charge of making threats in interstate communications carries a maximum penalty of five years.

Anthony Duran died April 17, four days after he was involved in a “brief physical altercation” on April 13 at the Rockin’ Jump Trampoline Park in Merced, the Merced Police Department said in a statement. 

Witnesses told police that the boy had been playing basketball inside the park when he and another child began to fight.

“As a result, Duran collapsed and the other juvenile fled on foot,” police said.

According to NBC News, officers were called to the scene at 5:12 p.m.

Duran was transported to a regional trauma center but unfortunately did not survive, police said.

Detectives who are investigating the case have reviewed footage of the incident that was captured on the establishment’s security camera, police said. They have also spoken to 35 witnesses including staff, parents and children who were at the scene when the incident took place.

Detectives have “identified the other youth involved in the altercation and have been in contact with the parents throughout this investigation,” police said.

The Merced County Coroner’s Office is performing an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Detectives are reviewing the incident with the Merced County district attorney’s office to determine if charges will be filed. 

Rockin’ Jump Trampoline Park said in a statement posted on Facebook, “We are deeply saddened by the tragic incident that occurred at our Rockin’ Jump park in Merced, California. Our hearts go out to the guest’s family and friends during this difficult time.” 

TODAY.com reached out to the Merced Police Department and Rockin’ Jump Trampoline Park for any additional comments.

“Guest safety and care is our top priority,” said the establishment on its Facebook page, adding, “Our entire team has remained actively engaged throughout the investigation and will continue to cooperate with local authorities.”

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

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Patty Hung, who was born and raised in the Boston area but moved to California decades ago, found running in her late 30s, she recalled last week to her cousin’s daughter, NBC10 Boston’s Hannah Donnelly, who calls Hung her auntie.

Running “gives me joy, it gives me purpose and time to be with my family,” said the 77-year-old, whose family met her at the finish line.

Once again, Hung returned East to run the marathon’s iconic 26.2 miles. She opened the race strong, running the first 5K with a pace under 11 minutes per mile, and finished strong as well, with just over a 12-minute mile.

Her first Boston Marathon was in 1987, after she saw people running and walking on a nice day in Oakland and thought, “I can do this.” Since then, her family has joined her for some races, though she said last week that it never gets easier the more she runs it.

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Halfway through the race and “it’s all downhill from there,” she said, “even though it’s uphill when I hit Heartbreak Hill.”

Ahead of the race, she made a list of all 26 miles, writing a person she was running one on behalf of. Hung usually writes the names on her arm, but wrote them on paper because of the rain Monday.

Hung said she plans to continue running in the years to come, since she wasn’t taking part to break a record, just to keep a tradition alive.

Watch the full pre-marathon “On Her Mark” interview here:

Workers following the original design began painting the new mural on the spillway of Prado Dam this month, Southern California News Group reported.

The dam is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control project on the Santa Ana River, about 36 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

More than 40 years ago, high school students from the nearby city of Corona used the dam to salute the nation’s bicentennial, painting the phrase “200 YEARS OF FREEDOM,” a Liberty Bell silhouette, and the dates “1776-1976.”

The mural became a landmark but it suffered from weathering and graffiti, and the Corps announced it would be removed due to lead in the original paint. That led to a lawsuit and a failed effort to have it listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Many of the original painters attended a September ceremony marking the greenlighting of a plan to remove the old mural and replace it.

Some bunny — also known as Officer Ashley Carson — found a lost rabbit last year in the middle of Percy Avenue in Yuba City, California.

Carson scurried back to the police station and handed the rabbit over to animal control, who could find neither hide nor hare of the bunny’s family.

In a hoppy ending, a police services analyst adopted the allegedly “docile and friendly” animal and named him Percy.

The Yuba City Police Department — about 40 hopping miles (64.37 kilometers) north of Sacramento — announced the rabbit’s promotion to the rank of “wellness officer” just days before Easter Sunday.

“Officer Percy lounges at the police department during the day and is a support animal for all,” the department wrote on Facebook Wednesday.

The Easter Bunny could not be reached for comment. Case closed.

The driver was traveling east on PCH at around 12:45 a.m. when he hit several pedestrians and vehicles.

The driver crashed into multiple vehicles that were parked on the shoulder of PCH overlooking the beach, sending at least two vehicles down to the beach. 

The driver also crashed into multiple pedestrians causing the death of a woman in her 30s. Six other pedestrians were hit and were rushed to local hospitals. One was found in severe critical condition, while the other five had moderate injuries. 

There is not other information on the condition of the other pedestrians. 

According to an LAPD officer, an arrest has been made but there are no further details at this time. 

Officers are looking into the incident to determine how and why this happened. 

It happened Thursday in Roseville, a city of about 150,000 northeast of Sacramento, in the early afternoon as families played at nearby baseball fields and children attended camp.

The California Highway Patrol officer was in stable condition at a hospital. The names of the two adults taken hostage, including the one who died, were not immediately released.

The surviving hostage was taken to a hospital with what appeared to be non-life threatening injuries, according to a statement from the city of Roseville, about 20 miles northeast of Sacramento.

The suspect, who also was not immediately named, was hospitalized with gunshot wounds but there was no immediate word on his condition, the city statement said.

It was unclear how he was wounded. Police didn’t immediately indicate whether officers had fired any shots.

The events unfolded when highway patrol officers attempted to serve the man a warrant, prompting him to shoot at and wound an officer. The Roseville Police Department received a radio call around 12:30 p.m. alerting them an officer had been shot, Capt. Kelby Newton said.

When Roseville police arrived, the suspect was seen carrying a gun and running. He then grabbed two civilians in the park and held them hostage, shooting both, Newton said.

Newton said he did not know what prompted the warrant.

Victor Michael was at batting practice with his child at Mahany Park when he saw what he thought was kids playing paintball. But then he heard police tell someone to stop and “get down.” Then, gunfire.

“I can’t tell you who shot first, I just know that I saw a suspect look back and the volley of fire just went off. It was crazy,” Michael said. “I just told my kid and everybody to get down.”

Michael heard between 20 and 30 gunshots in all and took refuge with his child behind the tires of his truck, he said.

The sprawling park tucked into a quiet suburb of Sacramento includes a sports complex, public library, aquatics center and nature trails. The fitness center and library were temporarily locked down, and students attending camps were taken to a nearby school to be reunited with their families.

___

Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Adam Beam in Sacramento, California, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.

What makes the treats so vibrant is erythrosine, a chemical that shows up on ingredient labels as Red No. 3. It’s one of several chemicals, along with titanium dioxide, used to color some of the most popular candy in the country — including Skittles and Hot Tamales.

Both chemicals have been linked to cancer. More than 30 years ago, U.S. regulators banned Red No. 3 from makeup. The U.S. still has not banned the chemical from food, to the dismay of some consumer safety groups.

Now, a state lawmaker wants to ban erythrosine and titanium dioxide in California, plus three other chemicals used in everyday favorites like tortillas and some store brand sodas.

The bill has prompted headlines around the world declaring California wants to ban Skittles and other candy. Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, a Democrat who authored the bill, said he wants to ban the chemicals, not the candy. He said plenty of alternative ingredients are available, noting the chemicals are already banned in Europe and that companies still find a way to sell candy there.

“They still produce Skittles in other parts of the world. What they do is they take out these toxic ingredients, and they replace them with something else,” Gabriel said. “What we really want is for these companies to make the same minor modifications to their recipes that they made in Europe and elsewhere.”

The National Confectioners Association, the trade group that represents candy companies, says it’s not that easy. Tastes vary across cultures, it said, meaning just because a candy is accepted by Europeans doesn’t mean it will be received well in the United States. Plus, changing ingredients would be a hardship for regional candy makers who don’t sell their products overseas, according to the trade group.

“There’s a lot more here at play than a simple soundbite solution,” said Christopher Gindlesperger, spokesperson for the association. “We need a comprehensive look at this to make sure there isn’t unintended consequences for chocolate and candy companies.”

In addition to erythrosine and titanium dioxide, the bill would ban potassium bromate and propylparaben, two chemicals used in baked goods, and brominated vegetable oil, which is used in some store brand sodas.

The U.S. has allowed dyes like erythrosine in food since 1907. Decades later, researchers found rats exposed to lots of erythrosine over a long time developed thyroid cancer. In 1990, based in part off of that research, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned erythrosine from cosmetics.

Consumer safety groups have tried for years to get the agency to ban the chemical in food to no avail. Researchers have since linked the chemical to other health problems besides cancer, including hyperactivity and other neurobiological behaviors in some children, according to a 2021 report from the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

The International Association of Color Manufacturers argued in a 2021 statement that California study was “based on insufficient scientific evidence.”

Titanium dioxide is a white powder that, because it scatters light, can make colors appear brighter. It’s been used for 100 years in products like paints, paper, rubber, toothpaste, soap and food coloring. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has listed titanium dioxide as a possible carcinogen in humans. The Titanium Dioxide Manufacturers Association maintains there is no evidence of it causing cancer in humans.

The candy industry insists the chemicals California is considering banning “have been thoroughly reviewed by the federal and state systems and many international scientific bodies and continue to be deemed safe,” according to a letter signed by various industry trade groups.

“These scientifically based regulatory processes should be allowed to continue without second guessing their outcomes,” the letter stated.

Scott Faber, senior vice president for governmental affairs for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, said the only reason the chemical is still deemed safe by federal regulators is because of a loophole that has been exploited by chemical companies. He says regulators have not reviewed their prior decisions in light of new science.

“The confectioners and the food industry know the review process at the FDA is broken. They have been hiding behind it for decades. We shouldn’t let them hide behind it anymore,” Faber said. “If FDA won’t fix this review system and keep us safe from dangerous chemicals in our food, it’s up to states like California to keep us safe.”

Just Born Inc., the Pennsylvania-based company that makes Peeps, said in a statement the company complies with FDA regulations and gets their “ingredients and packaging exclusively from reputable suppliers who adhere to high quality and safety standards.”

The company noted its development team is looking for other options, “including colors derived form natural sources that can deliver the same visual impact and stability as their certified counterparts.”

Dealing a blow to the salmon fishing industry, the Pacific Fishery Management Council unanimously approved the closure Thursday for fall-run chinook fishing from Cape Falcon in northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border. Limited recreational salmon fishing will be allowed off southern Oregon in the fall.

Much of the salmon caught off Oregon originate in California’s Klamath and Sacramento rivers. After hatching in freshwater, they spend an average of three years maturing in the Pacific, where many are snagged by commercial fishermen, before migrating back to their spawning grounds, where conditions are more ideal to give birth. After laying eggs, they die.

“The forecasts for chinook returning to California rivers this year are near record lows,” Council Chair Marc Gorelnik said after the vote in a news release. “The poor conditions in the freshwater environment that contributed to these low forecasted returns are unfortunately not something that the Council can or has authority to control.”

Biologists say the chinook population has declined dramatically after years of drought. Many in the fishing industry say a rollback of federal protections for endangered salmon under the Trump administration allowed more water to be diverted from the Sacramento River Basin to agriculture, causing even more harm.

“The fact is that just too many salmon eggs and juvenile salmon died in the rivers in 2020 as a direct result of politically driven, short-sighted water management policies, under the prior federal administration, to ‘maximize’ irrigation river water deliveries during a major drought,” said Glen Spain, acting executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “Unfortunately, this purely politically driven mistake will cost our fishing-dependent coastal communities dearly.”

California fishing industry representatives and elected leaders said federal aid must be released quickly and efforts need to be ramped up to restore salmon habitat in California rivers with better water management, and the removal of dams and other barriers.

“We have to make sure that the policies and practices and the rest are not such that they are defying the evolutionary progress of salmon,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Friday, speaking in San Francisco in the rain, surrounded by fishers who spoke of their concerns about making ends meet during the closure.

The Democratic congresswoman, whose district includes the San Francisco Bay area, pledged to push for the Biden administration to act quickly on the state’s request to declare the situation a fishery resource disaster, the first step toward a disaster assistance bill that must be approved by Congress.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo seeking the declaration, the California governor’s office stated that the projected loss of the 2023 season is over $45 million — and that does not include the full impact to coastal communities and inland salmon fisheries.

California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity and 23,000 jobs annually in a normal season and contributes about $700 million to the economy and supports more than 10,000 jobs in Oregon, according to the Golden State Salmon Association.

“There’s a lot of fear and panic all up and down the coast with families trying to figure out how they’re going to pay the bills this year,” said John McManus, the group’s senior policy director.

Experts fear native California salmon are in a spiral toward extinction. Already, California’s spring-run chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, while winter-run chinook are endangered along with the Central California Coast coho salmon, which has been off-limits to California commercial fishers since the 1990s.

Recreational fishing is expected to be allowed in Oregon only for coho salmon during the summer and for chinook after Sept. 1. Salmon season is expected to open as usual north of Cape Falcon, including in the Columbia River and off Washington’s coast.

There’s some hope that the unusually wet winter in California, which has mostly freed the state of drought, will bring relief. An unprecedented series of powerful storms has replenished most of California’s reservoirs, dumping record amounts of rain and snow and busting a severe three-year drought. But too much water running through the rivers could also kill eggs and young hatchlings.

___

Baumann reported from Bellingham, Washington.

Those scenes are no more after a series of powerful storms dumped record amounts of rain and snow across California, replenishing reservoirs and bringing an end — mostly — to the state’s three-year drought.

[Photos: AP]

Now, 12 of California’s 17 major reservoirs are filled above their historical averages for the start of spring. That includes Folsom Lake, which controls water flows along the American River, as well as Lake Oroville, the state’s second largest reservoir and home to the nation’s tallest dam.

It’s a stunning turnaround of water availability in the nation’s most populous state. Late last year nearly all of California was in drought, including at extreme and exceptional levels. Wells ran dry, farmers fallowed fields and cities restricted watering grass.

The water picture changed dramatically starting in December, when the first of a dozen “ atmospheric rivers ” hit, causing widespread flooding and damaging homes and infrastructure, and dumping as many as 700 inches of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

“California went from the three driest years on record to the three wettest weeks on record when we were catapulted into our rainy season in January,” said Karla Nemeth, director of California Department of Water Resources. “So, hydrologically, California is no longer in a drought except for very small portions of the state.”

All the rain and snow, while drought-busting, may bring new challenges. Some reservoirs are so full that water is being released to make room for storm runoff and snowmelt that could cause flooding this spring and summer, a new problem for weary water managers and emergency responders.

news Apr 4

Record Snowpack in California Poses Severe Flood Risk, Officials Warn

The storms have created one of the biggest snowpacks on record in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The snowpack’s water content is 239% of its normal average and nearly triple in the southern Sierra, according to state data. Now as the weather warms up, water managers are preparing for all that snow to melt, unleashing a torrent of water that’s expected to cause flooding in the Sierra foothills and Central Valley.

“We know there will be flooding as a result of the snowmelt,” Nemeth said. “There’s just too much snowmelt to be accommodated in our rivers and channels and keeping things between levees.”

Managers are now releasing water from the Oroville Dam spillway, which was rebuilt after it broke apart during heavy rains in February 2017 and forced the evacuation of more than 180,000 people downstream along the Feather River.

The reservoir is 16% above its historic average. That’s compared to 2021, when water levels dropped so low that its hydroelectric dams stopped generating power.

That year the Bidwell Canyon and Lime Saddle marinas had to pull most recreational boats out of Lake Oroville and shut down their boat rental business because water levels were too low and it was too hard to get to the marinas, said Jared Rael, who manages the marinas.

In late March, the water at Lake Oroville rose to 859 feet above sea level, about 230 feet higher than its low point in 2021, according to state data.

“The public is going to benefit with the water being higher. Everything is easier to get to. They can just jump on the lake and have fun,” Rael said. “Right now we have tons of water. We have a high lake with a bunch of snowpack. We’re going to have a great year.”

The abundant precipitation has prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to lift some of the state’s water restrictions and stop asking people to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15%.

Newsom has not declared the drought over because there are still water shortages along the California-Oregon border and parts of Southern California that rely on the struggling Colorado River.

Cities and irrigation districts that provide water to farms will receive a big boost in water supplies from the State Water Project and Central Valley Project, networks of reservoirs and canals that supply water across California. Some farmers are using the stormwater to replenish underground aquifers that had become depleted after years of pumping and drought left wells dry.

State officials are warning residents not to let the current abundance let them revert to wasting water. In the era of climate change, one extremely wet year could be followed by several dry years, returning the state to drought.

“Given weather whiplash, we know the return of dry conditions and the intensity of the dry conditions that are likely to return means we have to be using water more efficiently,” Nemeth said. “We have to be adopting conservation as a way of life.”

This comes after California voters passed Prop 63 in 1986, which established English as the official language of the state, causing those who have accent marks or tildes in their names to be barred from including them in birth and death certificates, marriage licenses and other forms of government documents.

The law allowed hyphens for names such as Smith-Jones and apostrophes in names like “O’Hare,” but accents used in names in other languages such as Spanish were “unacceptable entries.”

The proposed change would affect not only California’s large Latino population but also those with non-English names from other cultural backgrounds such as Vietnamese, French or Arab heritage. If passed, residents would be able to request new documents with the desired changes for a fee.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com