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Jury finds in favor of California toy maker in legal dispute with rapper Clifford ‘T.I.’ Harris and his wife

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

A federal jury in Santa Ana on Friday ruled against a legal claim by rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris and singer-songwriter Tameka “Tiny” Harris’ that a Chatsworth-based toy manufacturer stole the name and likeness of a girl group they managed in creating a popular line of dolls.The husband and wife musicians sought nearly $100 million from MGA Entertainment, Inc., which began selling the OMG LOL Surprise dolls in 2019.The Harris family claimed the hair, dress and name of the dolls were nearly identical to the OMG Girlz, a trio of teenage singers promoted by the couple from 2009 until 2015, and during a brief 2017 reunion.When the Harris family sent a cease-and-desist order to MGA in 2020, the company sued back.SEE: Rapper T.I. and singer Tiny’s lawsuit against Chatsworth toymaker goes to trial in Santa AnaThe toy maker prevailed on Friday, May 26 after their attorneys argued the girl group allowed their trademark on the OMG Girlz name to lapse in 2018.“They abandoned it,” Jennifer Kel...

Tickets go on sale for In-N-Out Burger’s 75th anniversary festival

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

Tickets are on sale for In-N-Out Burger’s 75th anniversary bash, Oct. 22 at the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for children 3-12 years old.Admission includes a festival, drag racing, car show and carnival rides. In-N-Out cookout trucks will be on hand as well as other concessions.Sean Ellington and his wife, Lynsi Snyder-Ellingsonon, CEO of In-N-Out Burger announce that the event raised over $430,000. The event helped the foundation, Slave 2 Nothing and Truckers Against Trafficking on Saturday January 21, 2023, in Costa Mesa, California. (Photo by Michael Kitada, Contributing Photographer)Funny Car winner Matt Hagan celebrates with race fans after winning the 63rd NHRA Winternationals at the newly renamed In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona on Sunday, Apr. 2, 2023. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)Nick Hexum of 311 performs during KROQ 106.7/FM’s annual Weenie Roast at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point on Satu...

Where do people go when they leave California and why?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

The top-line number was eye-opening: About 725,000 people moved out of California in 2020 to set up new lives in one of the 49 other states or Washington, D.C.If that were the end of it, the number – derived from the Internal Revenue Service’s Migration Data for 2021 – would’ve represented the biggest single-year exodus in state history.But it wasn’t the end of it. While experts say the reasons are more nuanced than the gross outflow of a single year, California’s population has been shrinking steadily since 2020. Recent state data shows California’s population today is a little under 39 million, after flirting with 40 million just four years ago.A lot of other new data shows where people are going (Texas, Idaho and Florida, as well as neighboring Arizona and Nevada). Polling reports show who is leaving (higher-income, well-educated workers recently started to join a migration pattern that traditionally has been dominated by lower-income movers). And yet other data shows at least so...

Monterey masseuse convicted of sexual battery of clients

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

SALINAS – A Monterey masseuse was convicted of sexual battery in Monterey Superior Court this week after a jury trial, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.Wuguang Wang, 29, was convicted of touching a female patron’s breasts during her massage appointment.On Jan. 1, 2022, Jane Doe – the victim – was in Monterey with her husband and two children for a short holiday, the DA’s Office said in a press release. During the trip, Doe made an appointment for a massage at a local spa in Monterey.At around 4 p.m., Doe arrived for her appointment, and after what began as a “normal massage,” according to the DA’s Office, Wang began “touching Joe Doe’s breasts.”Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | Former corrections officer charged with sexually assaulting 13 at California women’s prison Crime and Public Safety | JPMorgan Chase blames Virgin Islands for Jeffrey Epstein sex crimes Crime and Public Safety | Indian wrestle...

Faces of Monterey County floods: Out of work, overlooked and afraid

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

Less than 5.5%. That’s how much of Monterey County’s productive farmland felt the impacts of rain and flooding this winter.Just under 20,100 of 366,000 acres.One 18th.And still, losses and damages to the local ag industry are expected to top $600 million. Individually, growers are frustrated, left wondering if cropland that suffered while runoff charged down the Salinas River could have been spared. Field work was delayed, in some cases, for months. Houses were lost, rent payments were put on hold, costs condensed, anxieties heightened and security ebbed.That 5.5% starts to feel pretty big. Especially for those facing the strain of a sodden start to the growing season firsthand.Farmworkers in Gonzales agricultural fields on May 5, 2023. (Tess Kenny/Monterey Herald) Over the last month and a half, as floodwaters receded and dry weather set in, the Herald interviewed farmworkers and ag laborers impacted by storms in January and March. Through interpreters, they detailed challenge...

Downtown San Jose lands several new merchants as area rebound sprouts

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

Fox Tale Fermentation Project (left) and Hula Bar And Kitchen restaurant (right), located at 30 East Santa Clara Street in downtown San Jose. (George Avalos/Bay Area News Group)SAN JOSE — Some sections of downtown San Jose are starting to land a fresh crop of restaurants, bars and other establishments as new businesses sprout in the economic rubble left behind by the coronavirus pandemic.A burst of leases bringing new ventures to several spots is raising hopes that downtown San Jose’s post-coronavirus recovery has finally begun to take root.Fountain Alley, South First Street and East Santa Clara Street are among the areas seeing some activity in the form of new leases. Still, if a rebound is underway, it’s likely only in the very early stages.Downtown San Jose is characterized by a block here or there of lively activity. Yet each hub is akin to an oasis of vibrant energy hemmed in by economic wastelands of empty commercial fronts that stare out at pedestrians ...

Downtown San Jose housing and office complex may add live/work spaces

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

SAN JOSE — Office and retail spaces in a prominent downtown San Jose residential and commercial complex near the footprint of Google’s transit village might become live/work units under a new proposal.Vespaio, a seven-story building at 130 Stockton Avenue near the SAP Center and Diridon train station in downtown San Jose, is a mixed-use complex with residences, retail and creative office spaces.The building features 162 residential units and offers office and other commercial spaces on its first, second and third floors. The commercial space totals 32,600 square feet.To be sure, the Vespaio complex has managed to attract some high-profile commercial tenants — but the office and retail spaces still remain mostly empty.Surfaceink, a pioneer in product design and engineering for consumer electronics and tech firms, leased a large chunk of office space in Vespaio, taking about 6,900 square feet of office space on the second floor in 2021.Mayweather Boxing + Fitness, Th...

Opinion: California teaches Florida and Texas harsh public policy lesson

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

Back in 2015 when California had the seventh-largest economy in the world, outperforming the rest of the US, economist Irena Asmundson attributed her native state’s trajectory to a government increasingly in harmony with the diversity of its constituents. The cost of clean energy will “continue to fall” because of the convergence of “public policy and people’s preferences,” she said amid the proliferation of solar roofs and zero emission electric vehicles from Balboa Park to Yosemite Valley. “Everyone can see the writing on the wall, that climate change is happening. These clean technologies are going to be more valued in the future.”That’s especially true for business in the Golden State, whose gross domestic product is poised to overtake Germany’s and where the 30 publicly-traded companies deriving more than half of their revenue from alternative energy are mostly California-based. Those companies delivered a total return of 1,600% the past 10 years, exponentiall...

Two injured in shooting on Hwy-87 in San Jose

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

(BCN) -- San Jose police are on the scene of a shooting early Tuesday that injured two people and has closed at least one lane of northbound Highway 87 near Willow Street, according to a 4:52 a.m. tweet from police.One man and one woman were injured in the shooting. No further information was immediately available. Copyright © 2023 Bay City News, Inc.

Juventus agrees to fine but won’t appeal in plea bargain over salaries probe

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:00:00 GMT

ROME (AP) — Juventus will be fined 718,000 euros ($770,000) but will agree not to make any appeals as part of a plea bargain with the Italian soccer federation on Tuesday after the club and seven former team directors were charged with alleged fraud for the way they handled player salary cuts during the coronavirus pandemic.The only former team director who did not agree to the plea bargain was ex-Juventus president Andrea Agnelli, who will be judged on June 15.Juventus and the former team directors denied any wrongdoing.At the start of the pandemic, Juventus said 23 players agreed to reduce their salary for four months to help the club through the crisis. But prosecutors claim the players gave up only one month’s salary.Juventus, which has already been docked 10 points for false accounting in a separate legal case, had risked a further points deduction.The decision leaves Juventus in seventh place and with a chance of qualifying for Europe entering its final game of the Serie A sea...