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Did California’s DMV kill its no-party voter registration buzz?

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

The announcement five years ago from California’s elections chief was sobering: Voters registering with no political party had edged out Republicans for the first time — relegating the GOP of Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln to third place in the Golden State and stirring speculation that traditional party structures were on their way to irrelevance.The trend proved short-lived. In the years since Democratic registration has continued its long rise, and even Republican registration has edged up slightly. But no-party registration has unexpectedly plummeted.What killed the Golden State’s decades-long embrace of independent voter registration? A new analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California points to one of the state’s biggest buzz-kills as a likely culprit: The Department of Motor Vehicles.“California’s version of automatic voter registration is playing a big role in this shift,” PPIC policy director Eric McGhee wrot...

2024 San Jose mayoral and council races will be one for the record books

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

In just the past 13 months, San Jose’s political machinery has seen two major upheavals: Voters approved changing the year in which the mayor is elected. And two councilmembers were appointed to their seats in January for the first time in nearly three decades, a move deemed as a power grab by the city’s moderate wing.Those developments are likely to prove consequential as candidates line up to compete in the city’s primary race on March 5, 2024, with Districts 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 — along with the mayor’s seat — all up for grabs and fundraising set to begin Aug. 8.Here is a shortlist of who is running in the 2024 primary so far.District 2: Two candidates have officially registered for the seat now filled by Councilmember Sergio Jimenez. His term ends next year and the district he represents encompasses the far-reaching corners of south San Jose. Babu Prasad, an employee at Kaiser Permanente’s admitting department, has already garnered a long l...

Driving with hazard lights flashing might seem like right thing to do, but it’s illegal: Roadshow

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

Q: I believe you may be incorrect in saying that using your hazard lights while driving is illegal. Having just had to take a test to renew my driver’s license, I recently studied the California Driver’s Handbook. On page 67 it says to turn on your emergency flashers to warn other drivers about a traffic break. Isn’t that the same as hazard lights?Jo Anna WattA: I checked that section of the handbook, too, and it refers to use of hazard lights when you are in a law enforcement traffic break, but does not address hazard lights in other driving situations.Q: Using hazard lights while driving can be legal in some situations. See CVC 25251 for one example. I think being tailgated on a curvy road counts as a hazard on the roadway.Michael GraffA: This covers use of warning lights while passing by an accident or hazard on the roadway.Q: Tailgating is also illegal and I’ve found that turning on the hazard blinker gets tailgaters to back off every time. When they do, I turn off the blinker. ...

Denver Weather: High heat through Tuesday

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Denver’s weather will stay hot and sunny through the beginning of the workweek.Weather today: Sunny, hotterSunday will be hot and sunny again and even a touch more so than yesterday. An isolated storm is possible to the west, but most look to stay dry today. Looking ahead: Hot ahead of afternoon thunderstormsHigh heat will continue into the workweek.Monday will be the hottest day of the week, climbing to the upper 90s with plenty of sunshine.Tuesday is still hot but will start to bring in some more afternoon storms. The best chance for afternoon thunderstorms will be on Wednesday.Despite a daily chance for a few evening showers, high temperatures will continue to reach the low to mid-90s during the second half of the workweek.

2 people in custody following overnight rollover car wreck at Pelican Harbor Marina

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

The scene has cleared after North Bay Village Police investigated a severe rollover wreck overnight in Pelican Harbor Marina.The marina’s boat ramp is opened up for the public once again, which had shut down Sunday morning due to the on-scene investigation. According to officials, the accident happened just before 4 a.m. along the Kennedy Causeway and Northeast 79th Street in North Bay Village, where the car flipped upside down and engulfed in flames.Both occupants of the vehicle fled on foot after the crash.Cameras caught the police extracting a man from the water shortly after the wreck, who is now in custody along with the passenger in the car. Fire rescue also responded to the scene to extinguish the flames, but it’s unclear if anyone was transported for medical attention. A tow truck removed the car from the site after crime scene technicians collected evidence from the vehicle.Police report that the crash was a result of the driver fleeing from an attempted traffic...

12-year-old boy found safe after being reported missing from Little Haiti

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

The Miami Police Department has located a 12-year-old boy who was reported missing from Little Haiti. Kemarien Branton stands at 4 feet, 9 inches tall, weighs approximately 105 lbs, and has brown hair and brown eyes.He was last seen wearing a white shirt and black shorts.

Overnight shooting in Davie sends at least 1 person to hospital

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

Authorities responded to a reported shooting in Davie overnight. The incident occurred between Northwest 67th Avenue and Sterling Road.A man was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital.Please check back on WSVN.com and 7News for more details on this developing story.

Putin’s war is slowly destroying Europe’s breadbasket

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

ODESA, Ukraine — July begins the Ukrainian wheat harvest, and the stalks from the humus-saturated soil near the Black Sea are chest-high and golden. A 20-minute car ride separates the port city of Odesa from wheat fields that, aside from a line of low trees, extend north and east without visible end. The only natural sound is a loud whisper the wind elicits every minute or so from the expanse of grain.But it isn’t a time of plenty in the breadbasket of Europe, and not only because Russia, for now, says it won’t continue the arrangement it made with the United Nations and Turkey that for a year permitted 32 million tons of Ukrainian grain to be exported from the country’s massive southern ports. The present war has stunted Ukraine’s grain industry at every stage, beginning months before harvest time.Though blessed with an abundance of wheat-friendly chernozem — the Russian term for “black earth” — most Ukrainians fertilize their soil. “There’s a great shortage of nitrogen fertilizers...

Netanyahu stuck in hospital as contentious vote nears in Israel

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was recovering from an emergency heart procedure on Sunday after being taken to the hospital Saturday night, according to media reports. As Netanyahu recovers from a procedure to implant a heart pacemaker, the Israeli parliament is preparing to vote on a controversial overhaul of the country’s judicial system. Protests over the reforms have roiled the country recently, with demonstrations now entering their 29th week. According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, some are calling the crisis the most severe in the country’s history. Netanyahu’s doctors said on Sunday the pacemaker implantation went smoothly and that the prime minister felt fine, according to an Associated Press report.The vote taking place on Monday in the parliament will curb the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to stop government policy it finds to be unreasonable. The crisis reached a boiling point over the weekend ahead of the vote. Both business and labor lead...

Authorities arrest suspect in deadly bar fire in Mexico border city that killed 11

Published Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:39 GMT

(CNN) — Authorities in Mexico say they have arrested a man suspected of intentionally setting a bar on fire after being kicked out, killing 11 people near the Arizona border in the Mexican state of Sonora.The fire broke out at 1:33 a.m. Saturday at a bar in San Luis Rio Colorado, near the United States border city of San Luis, Arizona, according to a statement from the Sonora Attorney General’s Office.A 17-year-old and a female American citizen were among those killed, Gustavo Rómulo Salas Chávez, Sonora’s attorney general, said in a news conference Saturday.Mexican authorities were still trying to confirm if the woman who died also had Mexican citizenship, Chávez said.CNN has reached out to the US Department of State for comment.The person suspected of starting the fire, who authorities said had “a high degree of intoxication,” threw an object with fire at the drinking establishment’s doors after security staff removed him from the building, according to the statement tra...