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Lawsuit: Celebrity-friendly church attended by Russell Wilson required workers to tithe

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

SEATTLE (AP) — A Seattle-area megachurch that counts celebrities such as Russell Wilson and Justin Bieber among its thousands of members has been accused in a lawsuit of requiring employees to donate some of their earnings back to the religious organization or risk being fired.Employee Rachel Kellogg alleges Churchome and its leaders “engaged in a systemic scheme of wage and hour abuse against their employees,” including the requirement that all employees tithe 10% of their gross earned wages per month, according to the lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court last week.If they didn’t, the lawsuit says, they would face pressure, discipline or termination, The Seattle Times reported.Kellogg, who worked in video and production for Churchome, says she wasn’t informed of the policy until after her hiring in 2019. The lawsuit argues the practice violates the state’s Consumer Protection Act, as well as hour and wage laws.“Regardless of whether this is a church, or not a church, or a no...

Dionisio Roxas Molina Jr. Killed in Pedestrian Crash on Alvarado Niles Road [Union City, CA]

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

51-Year-Old Alameda Man Killed in Pedestrian-Auto Collision near Dowe AvenueUNION CITY, CA (March 30, 2023) – Friday evening, a pedestrian accident on Alvarado Niles Road claimed the life of Dionisio Roxas Molina Jr.Officers responded to the deadly collision on March 24, 2023, just after 9:30 p.m. near Dowe Avenue in Union City.Upon arrival, they located an unresponsive man lying on the roadway with injuries related to the incident. Tragically, medical personnel declared the pedestrian dead at the scene despite their life-saving efforts.Later, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office coroner identified the deceased victim as 51-year-old Dionisio Roxas Molina Jr from Alameda.The responding officers also located the suspect’s vehicle parked in a nearby residential neighborhood. The suspect was eventually contacted, however, police said the driver did not appear to be intoxicated.In the end, authorities arrested the man for an unrelated crime. He was not charged for the fatal pedestri...

Berkeley woman, 78, fends off teen armed robber with stick; suspect later arrested

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

BERKELEY — A 78-year-old woman out walking her dog Friday night used a stick she was carrying to knock away what turned out to be a BB gun from a 16-year-old boy trying to rob her, authorities said.The woman was not hurt and the boy was later arrested and the gun recovered, authorities said.A 13-year-old boy who was with the suspect was released after it was determined he was not involved in the crime, police said. Both boys are from Berkeley, authorities said.Police said the attempted robbery happened about 9:07 p.m. Friday on Hopkins Street near Carlotta Avenue.The woman was walking her dog when two youths approached her from behind.The 16-year-old, who police said was wearing a black mask, pointed what turned out to be a BB gun at the woman and demanded her property, police said.The woman refused; when the suspect asked her again, she again said no, and he grabbed at her pocket, police said.That prompted the woman to use a stick she was carrying to knock the BB gun out of t...

Russia jails Wall Street Journal reporter on spying charges

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

Associated PressRussia’s security service arrested an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal on espionage charges, the first time a U.S. correspondent has been detained on spying accusations since the Cold War. The newspaper denied the allegations and demanded his release.Evan Gershkovich was detained in the city of Yekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information, the Federal Security Service, known by the acronym FSB, said Thursday.The service, which is the top domestic security agency and main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, alleged that Gershkovich “was acting on instructions from the American side to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.”The Journal “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” the newspaper said. “We st...

Harry and Meghan relied on Silicon Valley nonprofit’s mystery donor to fund good works

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

When Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation released its annual report earlier this year, it made some amazing claims about the couple’s “impact,” linking their philanthropy to the delivery of more than 12 million COVID-19 vaccines globally and the resettlement of more than 174,000 Afghan and Ukrainian refugees in the United States.While some of these claims may be difficult to verify and could be the product of a carefully worded PR spin, newly obtained IRS documents confirm that Harry and Meghan’s nonprofit still donated generously to a number of causes in 2021 — to the tune of more than $3 million.The documents also show that Harry and Meghan’s largesse is largely connected to the Bay Area. The more than $13 million they reported in total revenue for 2021 comes from two mystery donors. The substantively larger donation of $10 million came to Archewell via the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), according to SVCF’s 2021 IRS documents, otherwise known as...

Southern California police pursuit of East Bay man ends in crash, 1 killed and 7 others injured

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

A 74-year-old woman was killed and seven other people injured when a Seal Beach police pursuit ended with a multi-vehicle crash in Long Beach on Tuesday night, March 28, authorities said.The incident began at around 8 p.m. when a Seal Beach officer stopped a car for a Vehicle Code violation, which the department declined to reveal.The 2006 Lexus sedan was occupied by a woman driver, an infant, and a 39-year-old man who was a passenger.After an officer started talking with the driver, at some point, the passenger slid into the driver’s seat and sped away with all three occupants still inside, police said.The Lexus took off northbound on Pacific Coast Highway, with police in pursuit. The chase went through the Old Towne neighborhood in Seal Beach, with the suspect veering in and out of the southbound lanes, Seal Beach Police spokeswoman and Lt. Julia Clasby said.Five minutes later, the Lexus collided — with eight other vehicles getting entangled as well at Pacific Coast Highway and Se...

How waterwise, drought-tolerant garden landscapes are being developed

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

Flowers, shrubs, and grass are pretty to look at, but they can also transform outdoor spaces into something that feels like home.That, however, takes water. With an eye toward changing environmental conditions of the future, researchers are testing plants and new-fangled tech that will help them stay lush, green and healthy while requiring less irrigation.We talked with researchers in Southern California and beyond to learn about the research they’re doing and how it might be reflected in the landscapes of tomorrow. Parched, but still pretty The University of California’s South Coast Research and Extension Center in Orange County is testing to see how long some plants can go between waterings; the answer for some is a long time – think months – without water and they still somehow look good. The South Coast REC is one of two California facilities — the other is at UC Davis  — conducting the University of California Landscape Plant Irrigation Trial; its goal is to determine the water...

Cal hires Mark Madsen: Will the former Stanford star revive a dreary program and spark and Bay Area basketball resurgence?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

In what can only be described as a startling upset, Cal made a shrewd hire to fill its basketball coaching vacancy. The Bears on Wednesday selected Mark Madsen to revive the program and, in the process, flipped the script on their Bay Area rival.Four months after Stanford hired a former Golden Bear, Troy Taylor, to resuscitate its football operation, Cal appointed a former Cardinal star, Madsen, to salvage a product that has sunk to unprecedented depths.In that regard, Cal basketball reflects the general state of affairs in Berkeley, where football is struggling for traction, women’s basketball is floundering and athletic director Jim Knowlton is under investigation for his handling of accusations of abuse levied against former swimming coach Teri McKeever.Otherwise, everything’s grand on Bancroft.Exactly what role Knowlton played in the basketball coaching search isn’t known. He was responsible for the misguided decision to hire Mark Fox four years ago and could b...

How can some states ‘afford’ to charge little or no income taxes?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

Californians might wonder how other states can “afford” to charge their residents little to no income tax.Let’s politely say “small government” sometimes gets a lot of help from the biggest government – Uncle Sam.Income-tax burdens on residents vary widely by state. The federal government’s financial input into local economies also fluctuates across the nation.My trusty spreadsheet, looking at rankings of state-by-state tax burdens and federal-dollar dependency from WalletHub and SmartAsset, found that low-tax states often get more generous financial inflows from the U.S. government than higher-tax states.Taxing mattersLet’s note that taxpayers in the 17 states with the lowest individual income-tax burdens pay only an average 0.7% of their incomes to the state. Compare that with the 17 states with the highest income-tax burdens where taxpayers are charged an average 3.1% of incomes.FYI: California’s 3.05% income tax burden was the seventh highest among the states.The spreadsheet fou...

FBI offering $40K reward for information on San Mateo woman kidnapped in Mexico

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:20:49 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering a $40,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a San Mateo woman who was kidnapped in Mexico last year. Monica de Leon Barba was walking home from work with her dog in Tepatitlan, Jalisco, Mexico on Nov. 29, 2022, when she was kidnapped. Executive Director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association charged with importing fentanyl The FBI's San Francisco Field Office is asking for the public's assistance in locating De Leon, a U.S. citizen who was born in Jalisco but lived in San Mateo. Her family reported her missing to the U.S. State Department at the time of her disappearance.De Leon is described as 29 years old, 5'7", 240 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. A Facebook group has been established by De Leon's friends and family to help locate her.Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is asked to call the FBI's Toll-Free tipline at 1-800-225-5324.