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Preview: New ‘Hello Kitty’ brings ‘Animal Crossing’ vibes to Apple Arcade

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m excited for a Hello Kitty game. The Sanrio character and her cute cadre haven’t exactly set the video game world on fire with their projects, but “Hello Kitty Island Adventure” is different.Coming out on Apple Arcade on July 28, this title by the developer, Sunblink, takes the Sanrio characters and blends them with “Animal Crossing”-style game. It’s a cozy life sim game that follows the crew as My Melody was invited to open up a gift shop at Big Adventures Park at Friendship Island. It sounds like a promising opportunity, but when the Sanrio crew arrives, they discover that the locale is in disrepair.It looks like a Scooby Doo ghost town, but not to fret, Hello Kitty and friends rally and decide to fix it up. That takes players on a 45- to 50-hour initial adventure.“We’re bringing a triple AAA game to Apple Arcade,” said Julian Farrior, Sunblink CEO. “It’s multiplayer, open-world game that’s about personal expression. It’s endlessly extensibl...

Bay FC signs 5-year deal to make Earthquakes’ PayPal Park its home stadium

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

SAN JOSE — At long last, Bay FC has a home for its inaugural season.PayPal Park in San Jose will be the initial home of Bay FC, the team announced on Friday.While the team plans to build its own stadium at some point in the future, Bay FC CEO Brady Stewart told this news organization that the team signed an agreement to spend at least its first five years at PayPal Park.“We’re incredibly excited,” Stewart said on Wednesday. “It’s great to know where our near-term home will be and we can’t wait to kick off our first season in PayPal Park.”Built by the San Jose Earthquakes and opened in 2015, the 18,000-seat facility is the Bay Area’s only soccer-specific stadium, making it the expected first home of Bay FC since the first hint of an expansion team for the region. Earthquakes president Jared Shawlee told this news organization his team is thrilled to finally have the agreement secured, which comes 107 days after the National Women’s Soccer League awarded a team to the San Francisco Ba...

“You’re dead to me,” one of three former San Jose State athletes testifies after experience with sports trainer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

SAN JOSE – For the second day, a witness left the courtroom in tears after testifying against San Jose State’s former head athletic trainer Friday, recounting how he grazed her breast and cupped her buttocks during treatment for a back injury.“I was frozen, uncomfortable,” the 23-year-old former soccer player testified in San Jose’s federal courthouse. “I wasn’t sure what was going on. I was going, ‘oh, maybe this is normal,’ but deep down inside, I knew something was wrong.”Scott Shaw has pleaded not guilty to six federal charges of violating the constitutional right to “bodily integrity” of four former SJSU athletes, whose experiences fall within the five-year statute of limitations.Two other former athletes also testified Friday, including a former softball player from 2008 who said Shaw pressed his erection against her crotch while stretching her hamstring and a water polo player from 2020 who struggled on the stand to say whether Shaw’s touching her upper and side breast was a ...

Spare the Air alert extended through Saturday

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

A brief heat wave that will again bake parts of the Bay Area and smoke from the Flat Fire burning in southern Oregon have extended a Spare the Air alert through Saturday, officials said.The Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced its decision at noon Friday, saying smog in the region is expected to be unhealthy. The air district urged residents to stay inside and avoid using vehicles.The air was expected to be at its dirtiest Saturday, a day after temperatures were expected to spike, according to the National Weather Service. Brentwood (107 degrees) and Walnut Creek (101) were expected to be the two hottest spots in Contra Costa County on Friday; Livermore (103) was expected to lead Alameda County; and Morgan Hill (101) was forecasted to be the hottest spot in Santa Clara County.A heat advisory was in effect in those areas through 11 p.m. Saturday.Milder temperatures remained in areas closer to the bay, with the thermometer on Friday likely to reach 90 degrees in San Jose...

San Francisco man convicted for multiple burglaries, residential break-ins

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- A San Francisco man who broke into several local residences with the intent to steal property has been convicted of burglary and other charges, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office announced Friday. Alberto Uc, 46, of San Francisco, was apprehended in February of 2021 after he was spotted breaking through the garage door of an Inner Richmond residence with a crowbar.A resident called 911 and Uc was apprehended by SFPD within minutes. An array of burglary tools was found on him, according to the DA. Uc was made to wear an electronic monitor as a result. SF restaurant named among most ‘legendary’ in the world In August of 2021, the monitor helped officers to locate Uc when he broke into a Laurel Heights apartment. He was "repeatedly inspecting residents' locked bicycles in the garage," when he was arrested, according to the DA. Again, police found burglary tools on him.In December of 2022, Uc broke into a residential garage in the Marina District. Fo...

2 arrested in connection with fatal Lower Haight shooting last month

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

(BCN) -- Two men have been arrested in connection with a fatal shooting last month in San Francisco's Lower Haight neighborhood, police said Friday. A 20-year-old man died in the shooting reported at 9:16 p.m. in the 400 block of Rose Street. Officers arrived to find the man, who was taken to a hospital and succumbed to his injuries there, according to San Francisco police. His name was not immediately available. Investigators identified two suspects in the case, Kameron Kaywood, 35, and Delvon Carter, 25, and obtained arrest warrants for them. Taipei-bound flight diverted back to SFO due to ‘unruly passenger’ Officers learned on June 28 that Kaywood was in custody in Contra Costa County for an unrelated case and had the warrant detainer placed on him for the homicide. On Wednesday, officers located Carter in South San Francisco and arrested him without incident, police said. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the San Francisco police 24-hour tip line a...

‘Barbenheimer’ arrives as moviegoers flock to a Mattel-mushroom cloud double feature

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Waves of pink-clad moviegoers passed under carboard palm trees on the frenzied first day of “Barbenheimer.”After a feverish drumbeat propelled forward by a mushroom cloud of memes, the most anticipated day on the year’s movie calendar finally arrived as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — two movie opposites brought together by cross-marketing fate — landed in theaters.“I think it’s the contrast,” said Lucy Ruiz, 17, as she and a friend made their way into the first showing of “Barbie” on Thursday at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, New York. “If you want to do both in the same day, it’s like two sides of the same coin.”For Ruiz, the second half of her “Barbenheimer” would have to wait. “Maybe next week,” she said of seeing “Oppenheimer.” But many are flocking to see both on opening weekend. The National Association of Theater Owners says some 200,000 moviegoers in North America have booked same-day tickets to each movie. The movie of the summer has turned out to be not “In...

Threat or not? Elon Musk gets new hearing on tweet about Tesla workers’ stock amid UAW union effort

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court Friday said it will reconsider its March ruling that Tesla CEO Elon Muskunlawfully threatened to take away employees’ stock options in a 2018 Twitter post amid an organizing effort by the United Auto Workers union. Three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld a National Labor Relations Board order to delete the tweet. The panel also upheld an order to rehire a fired Tesla employee, with back pay.But Friday’s brief order says a majority of the court’s full-time judges have voted to hear the matter again — this time before the full court. The March ruling was vacated — snatching away, at least for now, a UAW legal victory. The case arose amid UAW organizing efforts at a Tesla facility in Fremont, California, and years before Musk bought the platform in 2022.On May 20, 2018, Musk tweeted: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pa...

Alabama lawmakers refuse to create 2nd majority-Black congressional district in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama lawmakers refuse to create 2nd majority-Black congressional district in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court.Source

Justice Department tells Texas that floating barrier on Rio Grande raises humanitarian concerns

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:17 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Justice Department has told Texas that a floating barrier of wrecking ball-sized buoys the state put on the Rio Grande violates federal law and raises humanitarian concerns for migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. President Joe Biden’s administration told Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that the barrier installed this month near the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, was “unlawful” in a letter dated Thursday and obtained by The Associated Press. “The floating barrier poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns,” reads the letter, which also informs the state that the Justice Department intends to sue if the barriers are not removed. Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday, but on Twitter, the governor wrote that Texas was acting within its rights. “Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border,” Abbott tweeted. The buoys are the latest esc...