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DOJ: Trump does not deserve immunity in E. Jean Carroll suit

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

By Kara Scannell | CNNThe Justice Department has reversed course and said it no longer believes that Donald Trump should be entitled to immunity for his response to E. Jean Carroll’s accusation of sexual assault, allowing the civil lawsuit to move forward to trial in January.The change in position eliminates one legal hurdle surrounding Carroll’s 2019 defamation lawsuit against Trump for statements he made while president, denying her allegation of rape decades earlier, that he didn’t know her, and that she wasn’t his “type.”DOJ lawyers said in a letter to lawyers for Trump and Carroll that “the Department has determined that it lacks adequate evidence” to conclude the former president was acting within the scope of his employment or serving the US government “when he denied sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll and made the other statements regarding Ms. Carroll that she has challenged in this action.”Initially, the Justice Department under both the Trump and Biden administrations said T...

49ers training camp: Nine open practices on calendar

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

SANTA CLARA — The 49ers’ veterans are set to report to training camp July 25, and the next day will be their first open practice, according to an email sent Tuesday to season-ticket holders who’ll get first dibs at securing the limited tickets.Rookies are slated to report next Tuesday, July 18, with veterans due in for the full-squad reporting date on July 25.Practices again will start at 10:15 a.m., and others open to fans are:Thursday, July 27Sunday, July 30Monday, July 31Tuesday, Aug. 1Thursday, Aug. 3Friday, Aug. 4Saturday, Aug. 5Monday, Aug. 7Those dates were listed in the email to season-ticket holders; the 49ers have not formally announced those dates to the general public or media.The 49ers are expected to conduct joint practices with the host Las Vegas Raiders on Aug. 11-12 before their preseason opener Aug. 13 at Allegiant Stadium. Neither team has officially announced details of those practices, including whether they’ll be open to the public.Relat...

San Jose’s Vietnamese residents find representation in the arts

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Mosaic Journalism Workshop for Bay Area high school students, a two-week intensive course in journalism. Students in the program report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.Vietnamese artists in San Jose — whether they are refugees, other immigrants, or U.S. born — are proudly exploring their culture and heritage through their art.Lan Duong, a Vietnamese American poet, read from her newest book, “Nothing Follows,” on June 15 at the Vietnamese American Service Center on Senter Road in San Jose.Her powerful collection of poetry examines her childhood growing up in San Jose in the 1980s and ’90s, and how Vietnamese families helped shape the culture and history of San Jose.She recalled the clean rooms of semiconductor factories filled with Vietnamese immigrants exposed to toxic materials such as carcinogens and lead fumes, and that allowed for Silicon Valley to become the dominant region in the tech industr...

OPD makes arrest in hit-and-run crash that killed beloved grandmother

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) -- The Oakland Police Department arrested a suspect in connection with a hit-and-run crash that killed a woman on June 16, it announced Tuesday. San Francisco man who brought gun to memorial service convicted Santu Maya, 73, of Oakland was walking with her daughter when she was struck and killed by a car in the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Vicksburg Avenue. Witnesses said the car may have been street racing, but police did not mention racing when announcing the arrest. "He didn’t stop. He ran away," Maya's daughter Sanjoo Verma said. "And I heard the noise 'boom,' and I turned around and I saw her body and I tried to hold my mom. I told her, 'Mommy, mommy, don’t worry. I’m here.' And she just looked at me and then she was gone." Maya had moved to the United States from Thailand just four months before she was killed, her family told KRON4. She left a 10-year-old granddaughter behind. The suspect car is a black Mercedes Benz. OPD released photos of...

Bay Area native found dead in Yosemite after 7-day search

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

(KRON) -- A Petaluma native who fell into rushing rapids at Yosemite National Park and vanished for seven days was found deceased, according to his family. Hayden Klemenok, 24, was backpacking with friends when he fell into the water at Upper Chilnualna Falls on July 2. Yosemite search and rescue crews scoured the park for days looking for the missing man while his family waited in agony for answers.Klemenok's sister, Taylor McKinnie, posted a statement on her Facebook page Tuesday reporting that his body had been found. "On Sunday morning, we were notified that Hayden had been located," she wrote. Torrents of water cascade down Upper Yosemite Fall in Yosemite Valley on April 28, 2023 in Yosemite National Park. (Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images)"Hayden's cause of passing is presumed to be an accidental drowning," McKinnie wrote.The backpacker's body was found in location that was logistically complex to recover. "It took another 24 (hours) to formally recover him," McKinnie wrote....

More Bay Area tech layoffs on the way

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- After a relatively stable couple of months for the tech sector, more Bay Area tech layoffs are on the way. Chip manufacturer Intel, machine data analytics company Sumo Logic, Inc. and even Microsoft are among the local tech companies to have submitted notices to the California Employment Development Department signaling they were cutting, or had already cut jobs.According to EDD filings, Sumo Logic cut 79 jobs at its headquarters in Redwood City back on June 8. A notice announcing the cuts was submitted about a month later on July 10. Best cities for Gen Z: Where do Bay Area cities rank? Intel, meanwhile, apparently cut 21 jobs at a location in Santa Clara back at the end of May.Microsoft plans to cut just two jobs at one of its Mountain View offices. The notice, submitted on July 7, indicates the layoffs will take place on August 4. A separate filing with the Washington Employment Security Department indicates that Microsoft also plans to cut 276 jobs in t...

DC Council passes crime bill, gives police green light for high-speed chases

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

On a 12 to 1 vote, the D.C. Council passed a bill on Tuesday that supporters said would help address a spike in crime across the nation’s capital.Homicides are up 17%, and violent crime overall has risen 33% when compared to the same time last year, according to police figures.“Most crime is committed by repeat offenders,” said D.C. Council chair Phil Mendelson. “A robber robs more than once; shooters unfortunately shoot more than once, or commit other violent offenses more than once.”The most controversial part of the legislation would make it easier for judges to hold people in jail pending trial when the court finds that they have likely committed a violent crime.“These changes will provide courts with more direction and flexibility to hold individuals who may be contributing to repeated instances of retaliatory gun violence,” according to the bill.Council member Janeese Lewis George, the only lawmaker to vote against the bill, voiced opp...

Scientists say a new epoch marked by humans’ impact on Earth — the Anthropocene — began in 1950s

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

From climate change to species loss and pollution, humans have etched their impact on the Earth with such strength and permanence since the middle of the 20th century that a special team of scientists says a new geologic epoch began then.Called the Anthropocene — and derived from the Greek terms for “human” and “new” — this epoch started sometime between 1950 and 1954, according to the scientists. While there is evidence worldwide that captures the impact of burning fossil fuels, detonating nuclear weapons and dumping fertilizers and plastics on land and in waterways, the scientists are proposing a small but deep lake outside of Toronto, Canada — Crawford Lake — to place a historic marker.“It’s quite clear that the scale of change has intensified unbelievably and that has to be human impact,” said University of Leicester geologist Colin Waters, who chaired the Anthropocene Working Group. This puts the power of humans in a somewhat similar class with the meteorite that crashed into E...

A 76-year-old woman has sued a Kansas hospital saying a man sexually assaulted her at the facility

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

A man has been charged with rape and other crimes in a series of sexual assaults on patients in a Kansas hospital, and a 76-year-old woman who says she was among his victims has blamed negligence and carelessness by the facility.The woman filed a lawsuit Monday against Ascension Via Christi Hospital in Wichita seeking in excess of $75,000. Miguel Rodela, 28, was charged last month with multiple counts of rape, attempted rape and battery, and is jailed on $250,000 bond. Rodela, who was neither a patient nor a hospital employee, was apprehended in the pre-dawn hours of June 15 after fighting with security guards. His attorney in the public defender’s office declined to comment.The 76-year-old woman said she awoke around 1 a.m. that day to a man manipulating her catheter. She told police she assumed he was fixing it but noticing he was wearing no gloves or medical attire, she told him to find someone else to fix the catheter, according to the probable cause affidavit.A nurse walk...

Idaho sued over law making it a crime to help minors get abortions without parental consent

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:40:51 GMT

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Two advocacy groups and an attorney who works with sexual assault victims are suing Idaho over a new law that makes it illegal to help minors get an abortion without their parents’ consent. Abortion is already banned in Idaho at all stages of pregnancy. But the law enacted in May — dubbed a “travel ban” by the advocacy groups and an “abortion trafficking ban” by the lawmakers who passed it — seeks to prevent minors who don’t have parental approval from getting abortions in states where the procedure is legal. Violating the law is a felony, punishable by at least two and up to five years in prison.The Legal Voice activist group filed the lawsuit in federal court Tuesday on behalf of Nampa attorney Lourdes Matsumoto, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, and the Indigenous Idaho Alliance. All of the plaintiffs work with and sometimes assist minors who are seeking abortions, and they want to continue that work without the threat of prosecution. They conten...