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Inflation proving stickier in metro Denver than in rest of the country

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

Metro Denver’s inflation rate is coming down, but not as quickly as it is in other major cities or in the country as a whole, with stubborn housing and energy costs largely to blame, according to a bimonthly update Thursday from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.The Consumer Price Index for Denver-Aurora-Lakewood was running at an annual rate of 4.7% through the end of July. That was down from a 5.1% annual rate in May, a 5.7% rate in March and a 6.4% pace in January.That decline would be something to cheer about, except that the annual U.S. inflation rate was also at 6.4% in January, got down to 3% in June, and bounced back a little to 3.2% in July, according to the BLS.After Miami at 6.9% and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., at a 5.7% rate, metro Denver and Detroit have the highest rate of consumer inflation this summer, at 4.7%.Housing costs represent 44% of the basket of goods used to measure the CPI in metro Denver, a heavier weighting than in the country as a whole. After w...

Listeria outbreak may be connected to recalled ice cream cups in California and 18 other state, FDA says

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

By Jen Christensen | CNNThe US Food and Drug Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials are investigating a multistate Listeria outbreak that may be connected with Soft Serve On The Go ice cream cups, the FDA said Thursday.Two people have gotten sick, and both were hospitalized. Both said they had eaten Soft Serve On The Go vanilla chocolate ice cream cups, made by Brooklyn-based Real Kosher Ice Cream.The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture was able to collect an unopened serving of the ice cream at the home of one of the patients, and it tested positive for the bacteria that causes a listeria infection. Investigators are running genetic tests to determine whether this is from the same strain of Listeria that’s causing the illnesses.The FDA says Real Kosher has recalled all its ice cream and sorbet flavors in the 8-ounce cups. Real Kosher has also temporarily shut down production of the product.Consumers who have any of the produc...

COVID Q&A: Can I use an expired test? Time to get boosted? How to cope with the sneaky summer surge

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

California’s COVID positivity rate has topped 10% and is still on a steep upward path, nearly tripling since June, according to new data from the state’s Department of Public Health.“Anecdotally, I feel like everybody I know has been getting COVID,” said Dr. Errol Ozdalga, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford.But unless your social circle has been hit by the virus recently, this wave might have caught you by surprise. The public health emergencies are over, testing has become harder to find, and data monitoring has been largely abandoned. But the virus is still among us, and more so now than in May or June.Once again Bay Area residents are scrambling to do the right thing when a family member tests positive, or they start feeling a tickle in their throat. What are the best practices these days for handling this persistent virus? What have we learned with three years of pandemic practice under our belts? We checked in with the experts.Q: I’m feeling sick...

Goodbye hotdogs, hello vegan masala: California’s school lunches are going gourmet

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

BY CAROLYN JONES | CalMattersThe hottest new restaurant in California might be your local elementary school.Thanks to a surge of nearly $15 billion in state and federal funding, school districts are ditching the old standbys — frozen pizza and chicken nuggets — in favor of organic salads, free-range grilled chicken, vegan chana masala, chilaquiles and other treats. Districts are building new kitchens, hiring executive chefs, contracting directly with local organic farmers, and training their staffs to cook the finest cuisine. One district in San Luis Obispo County even bought a stone mill to grind its own wheat for bread and pasta.The move to healthier, fresher school meals comes on the heels of California’s first-in-the-nation program providing free breakfast, lunch and snacks to nearly 6 million students in public schools, regardless of whether they qualify under federal income guidelines. The expansion of the meal program, combined with investments in school kitchens and training...

‘Underdog’ Ryan Walker enjoying rise from 31st-round pick to SF Giants’ bullpen

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

Toward the end of last spring training, Giants pitching coach Andrew Bailey was giving manager Gabe Kapler the rundown of arms coming over from minor-league camp to round out their bullpen for one of their final exhibitions.Something stuck out about an otherwise relatively nondescript profile: 26 years old, right-handed, 31st-round draft pick, fifth year in pro ball, hadn’t pitched 10 innings above Single-A.“(Bailey) said, ‘It looks like he’s going to pick to third base every time he delivers the baseball,'” Kapler said. “I’m like, sure. Really can’t wait to see this. So I was excited to bring him into the game, and sure enough, full crossfire, full across-the-body delivery.“Sometimes different is enough to get hitters out. … It’d be cool to see him make a name for himself.”Speaking from the dugout of Scottsdale Stadium that morning in April 2022, Kapler had to be reminded of the name of the reliever he was talk...

Editorial: Finally, polluting Bay Area cement plant will be closed

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

At long last, after thousands of environmental violations and more than $2.5 million in fines, an agreement has been reached to shut down a 3,500-acre quarry that had sent wastewater laced with selenium into San Francisco Bay.The permanent closure of Lehigh Quarry and Cement’s cement production in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County near Cupertino is a long overdue environmental victory for the Bay Area.For decades, Lehigh had provided more than half the cement used in Bay Area construction projects. Cement distribution will allow construction projects to continue without the massive regional environmental impact.The East Bay Regional Park District’s new Dumbarton Quarry Campground in Fremont, seen from the air above, was converted from a gravel pit to a family campsite. The campground near the San Francisco Bay shore include 60 sites with full RV hookups, restrooms and showers, a camp store, an amphitheater, a playground and picnic areas. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Gr...

Mental health services firm buys San Jose office building in expansion

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

SAN JOSE — A mental health services firm has bought a San Jose office building in a deal that shows medical companies still seek expansion sites to operate despite economic uncertainties.LGTC Group, which describes itself as an outpatient mental health center, has bought a southwest San Jose medical office building that at present is occupied by units of Sutter Health, including hospice services.The mental health firm’s affiliate paid $9 million for the office building, according to documents filed on Aug. 7 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.The just-bought building totals 17,200 square feet and is located at 4850 Union Avenue in San Jose, according to county documents and a marketing brochure circulated by Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm.The deal was arranged by brokers Erik Hallgrimsom and Clark Steele of Cushman & Wakefield and Geri Wong of Newmark.“LGTC is in expansion mode,” said Wong, a senior managing direct...

Opinion: ‘Oppenheimer’ intersection with sacred Hindu text misses the mark

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

A controversy has erupted about the way the movie “Oppenheimer” depicts the scientist’s relationship with the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad Gita.J. Robert Oppenheimer saw the Gita as a reflection of his moral dilemma over the act of killing. He would use a line from a translation of the Gita to describe how he felt after the first atomic explosion: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”However, the movie refers to the Gita not in this accurate biographical context but in a sex scene instead. This has provoked outrage from some Hindu viewers. Officials of India’s ruling party have called the scene a “disturbing attack on Hinduism” and are demanding that it be cut from the movie. Critics of the government disagree and say this is just one more instance of Hindu Nationalist censorship.The bigger issue, in my view, is the lack of effort in understanding cultural context in our increasingly, if seemingly only superficially, globalized world.Even though in the past...

Opinion: Santa Clara County must not allow closure of inpatient psychiatric beds

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

For over a year, Santa Clara County has been in a mental health state of emergency. The County Board of Supervisors openly said our mental health system is “fundamentally broken.” They have acknowledged that the system is in dire need of inpatient acute care services, residential treatment facilities and staffing. Yet, the county has done nothing substantive to prevent 18 inpatient psychiatric beds at Mission Oaks Hospital, part of Good Samaritan, from closing.Last week, NAMI Santa Clara County, along with affiliates, community members and advocates, protested in front of Good Samaritan to save those essential beds. Losing them is not just a local issue but a regional one. Such a loss would push the problem into other counties as patients are transferred to hospitals in the East Bay, Central Valley or farther. No one wins in this patient shell game, especially if our most vulnerable end up in substandard facilities.If those beds disappear on Aug. 20, only 193 acute psychiatric beds ...

Lawsuit filed by family of San Quentin guard who died during COVID outbreak to proceed

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:01:51 GMT

The death of Sgt. Gilbert Polanco, a San Quentin State Prison officer infected with the coronavirus, the prisons department announced on Aug. 9, 2020. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabiliation) A lawsuit filed by the family of a San Quentin guard who died of COVID-19 in 2020 will be allowed to go forward.In a 2-1 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a federal judge’s refusal to dismiss the suit filed by the widow and children of Sgt. Gilbert Polanco. Polanco was the only guard to die in a COVID-19 outbreak at the prison that resulted in the death of 28 inmates and the infection of more than 2,100 inmates and 270 staff members.Terri Hardy, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email, “CDCR does not comment on pending litigation.”The outbreak occurred a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic shortly after officials in the California prison system transferred 122 inmates from the Califor...