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Nearly 250 Marshall fire victims file joint lawsuit against Xcel Energy over deadly wildfire’s ignition

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

Nearly 250 residents, property owners and businesses harmed by the Marshall fire sued Xcel Energy this week seeking “just compensation and compensatory damages” after the public utility was blamed by investigators for helping start the disastrous wildfire.The lawsuit, filed in Boulder County District Court on Monday, follows several other lawsuits already brought against Xcel over the Marshall fire, including one filed by more than 150 insurance companies in an attempt to reclaim money paid in settlements to the wildfire’s victims.Monday’s complaint and the insurance companies’ lawsuit come after the Boulder County sheriff and district attorney named the utility as one of two entities responsible for the deadly Dec. 30, 2021, wildfire, which killed two people and caused more than $2 billion in property damage.The 246 plaintiffs named in the new lawsuit suffered a variety of losses, according to the filing, including property and personal damages, as well as l...

5 serene Colorado lakes to explore with your paddleboard

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

When it comes to watersports, nothing matches the serenity – or scenery – of gliding across a mountain lake on a stand-up paddleboard.On some Colorado lakes and reservoirs, stand-up paddleboarding is confined to a specific, relatively small area. However, there are several liquid oases where you can capture the full panorama of the surrounding peaks, forests and shores, and explore to your heart’s content.Here are some of our favorites.Grand LakeThe largest and deepest natural water source in Colorado, Grand Lake measures 515 surface acres and is 265 feet at its deepest point. The shoreline measures 4.5 miles and because it’s connected to the neighboring and even more expansive Shadow Mountain Reservoir (accessed through a narrow passage that’s ideal for SUPs), the opportunities for exploration are bountiful. Considering its proximity to the west entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, the lake is also surprisingly uncrowded.With the dark green presence of Shadow Mountain looming ...

National group promoting women of color in politics want reboot in Emerge Colorado

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

The national affiliate of a Colorado group that’s trained several prominent Colorado Democratic women has moved to effectively dissolve its Colorado chapter amid dueling accusations of mismanagement and power grabs.In June, officials from Emerge America told their Denver-based affiliate, Emerge Colorado, that they were dissolving the affiliation agreement effective Aug. 19, signaling the end of the group as it exists now. In a Wednesday letter sent to alumni, Emerge America’s president wrote that the national group had made the decision after launching an investigation into “multiple complaints about the management of Emerge Colorado.”The investigation, Emerge America president A’shanti Gholar wrote, “identified several areas that not only were inconsistent with our values and creating a supportive environment for all, but unquestionably violated our affiliate agreements and principles.” The letter does not describe what those allegations or findi...

The third anniversary of Tovuz clashes and its message for the ongoing peace process between Baku and Yerevan

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

On 12-17 July 2020, a series of clashes took place between the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan after the former launched a sudden attack against the position of Azerbaijani armed forces with heavy artillery along the state border straddling Azerbaijan’s Tovuz and Armenia’s Tavush regions. This was the first major escalation between the sides since the April War of 2016 and particularly since Nikol Pashinyan took over the political leadership in Armenia in mid-2018. The clashes, involving heavy artillery as well as aerial drones, resulted in the deaths of several military personnel and civilians along with the destruction of infrastructure in the border region, writes Vasif Huseynov.The Tovuz clashes came on the heels of a series of provocative moves by the Armenian government, in particular, the so-called inauguration of a new leader of the separatist regime in the historical Azerbaijani city of Shusha in May 2020 with the attendance of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan...

Man struck in head with machete near Anaheim Burger King

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

Police are searching for whoever struck a man in the head with a machete near an Anaheim Burger King restaurant Wednesday night. The incident took place around 8:15 p.m. in the 800 block of North Brookhurst Street. A man was struck with a machete in Anaheim on July 12, 2023. (OnScene.TV)Officers were dispatched to investigate the possible assault along with reports of an injured male inside a nearby restaurant. Anaheim police found a victim at a Burger King who was bleeding from the head. The victim said he had been struck over the head with a machete. Los Angeles face transplant recipient recovering after drunk driver crashes into him Investigators determined the attack did not happen inside the restaurant. The unidentified male victim was transported to a UCI Medical Center in Orange with a large laceration to his head, the Police Department confirmed. No arrests had been made in connection with the incident.

Historic face transplant recipient doing well four years later

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

A Los Angeles man who underwent a historic face transplant after suffering extensive burns in a 2013 crash is recovering well and happy for a second chance at life.Robert Chelsea, 68, was driving home from church in 2013 when his car overheated, so he pulled over on the side of the freeway. While waiting for roadside assistance, a drunk driver crashed into his car, causing it to explode on impact. Chelsea suffered third-degree burns on over 50% of his body as a result.He underwent an extensive 16-hour surgery in July 2019, which he said at the time, made him the oldest person and the first African American to get a face transplant.Robert Chelsea, a Los Angeles man who underwent a historic face transplant after suffering extensive burns in a 2013 crash is recovering thanks to the surgeries providing him with a second chance at life. (KTLA)"After enduring more than 30 surgeries, three years of tests, physical and psychological evaluations, and a longer than usual wait for a donor, Che...

If you see these, push them over, Yosemite National Park says

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

Have you ever passed by a rock cairn and felt the urge to knock it over? Well, officials with Yosemite National Park strongly advise that you do.Rock cairns are man-made piles of rock stacked on top of each other. According to park rangers, Leave No Trace ethics states that when recreating in wilderness spaces, the goal is to leave no signs of human impact on the land so as to respect the other creatures living in it.And while the effort and aesthetics of these rock cairns may seem too precious to ruin, oversized cairns are a mark of human impact and are distracting in a wilderness setting. Push these over, say rangers at Yosemite National ParkOfficials also say building them disturbs small insects, reptiles, and microorganisms that live on the underside of these rocks.In general, park rangers say rock cairns should only be built by trail workers and are meant for navigation, safety, and delineating new or hard-to-follow trails.Yosemite National Park advises visitors to dismantle an...

A’s second-half preview: What will it take to avoid historically bad season?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

OAKLAND — Forgive manager Mark Kotsay for the unrestrained optimism that often accompanies baseball at the close of spring training.Kotsay was sitting in the Athletics’ dugout at the Coliseum on March 26 before their Bay Bridge Series game against the Giants, talking about his team’s 102-loss 2022 season and having come through a “transition period” that gave young players some opportunity.“Our expectation this year is we’re going to go compete and find ourselves in a position to hopefully add at the break and surprise people,” Kotsay said.Fast forward to the All-Star break, with the A’s a major league-worst 25-67 as they open a 10-game homestand Friday night with a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins at the Coliseum.Besides the losing, the first half of the season saw the franchise cease negotiations with the city of Oakland for a proposed ballpark at Howard Terminal and commit to a 30,000-seat stadium in Las Vegas and the d...

Opinion: Why courts shouldn’t ban government from talking to Big Tech

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

Last Tuesday a federal judge banned communications between large parts of the federal government and social media platforms. The case was brought by two Republican attorneys general and several individuals to allege that the government has unconstitutionally censored online speech from conservatives.The issue of government interference in what social media platforms can publish is real. But the judge’s solution — widely halting contact between the government and Big Tech — is both legally dubious and practically dangerous. It’s important that online speech, irrespective of political viewpoint, flourish without the specter of censorship. But it’s also essential that the government be allowed to engage with social media giants to address manifest harms from online content.The solution lies not in this ban, but in exposing government communications with tech to scrutiny so that both parties are held accountable for ensuring that their relationships serve the public interest.The Biden a...

Real estate report reveals Silicon Valley’s weakest office markets

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:02:58 GMT

SAN JOSE — Tech layoffs and retrenchments have shoved South Bay office vacancies higher and transformed downtown San Jose and Santa Clara into the region’s weakest office markets.The worsening vacancy rates in Silicon Valley were a key revelation in a new report for the April-through-June second quarter of 2023 that was issued by CBRE, a commercial real estate firm.“The office market continued its downward trend in the second quarter of 2023,” CBRE stated in its new report.During the second quarter, the South Bay’s office vacancy rate was 18%, CBRE reported. That was worse than the 15.5% first-quarter vacancy rate for Silicon Valley as estimated by CBRE. The real estate firm defines the South Bay as Santa Clara County and the Fremont-Newark area for the purposes of the report.“Many large tech tenants continued to offload their underutilized space,” CBRE researchers stated in the quarterly report.Yet while the South Bay office vacancy rate is...