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49ers mailbag: How do you measure heart in the NFL Draft? And, of course, more Lance trade queries

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

SANTA CLARA — The 49ers don’t own a draft pick until No. 99 under Friday night’s lights, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the 88th annual player selection meeting. It’s a rite of passage to renew hope — and to restart our mailbag via questions from Instagram and  Twitter:Is there a level to rate a prospect’s “Love of the game?” (@mattyb4949)If so, the draft would not be such an inexact science. Linebacker Fred Warner, a 2018 third-rounder and now two-time All-Pro, said it best Monday: “I would never want to be a GM or a college scout. Because I don’t get how you can hand-pick these cats out of all these different schools all over the country, and you’re saying this guy is going to turn into something. It’s all projections. You don’t really know until they come here and you try to develop them.“… You want to just talk to a kid face-to-face. You write up these reports about him and you watch him on tape. You want to know, ...

Warriors’ Andrew Wiggins flipped from MIA to playoff-mode without a hitch

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — Sometime in the middle of Game 3 at Chase Center, Steve Kerr pulled Andrew Wiggins aside to put the game into a different perspective.“Okay,” Kerr said. “This is like Opening Night for you.”Lost in the ejections, suspensions and missed buzzer-beaters that have defined the very first Battle for Northern California is the uncertainty that surrounded Wiggins heading into this first-round series. The 28-year-old’s first NBA game action since Feb. 13 was the Warriors’ Game 1 loss in Sacramento following his mysterious 50-day absence.Underlying an unprecedented situation was a harsh reality that Wiggins — one of Golden State’s most important players in last year’s title run — might not be physically ready to help get his team into the next round. Rave reviews from teammates on how Wiggins looked in practice and scrimmages leading up to the playoffs were the only hints for how he’d recover from the subs...

Niles: Is this the first in a new wave of theme park failures?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

Is a Dubai theme park’s closure this month a one-off, or the first sign of a new round of failures in the global attractions industry?Dubai Parks and Resorts this month announced the permanent closure of Bollywood Parks Dubai, one of the three parks that opened at that resort in late 2016. Themed to the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai, Bollywood Parks offered wonderful decorative touches, as well as a fun live-action stunt show and media-based motion-base and flying theater shows, with a new GCI wooden coaster seemingly ready to open soon.RLATED: 10 fascinating theme parks that have closed foreverAt first glance, Dubai ought to be a prime market for theme park development. UK-based research company Euromonitor ranked Dubai as the second-most visited city in the world last year, trailing only Paris. On paper, Bollywood also looks like a can’t-miss theme for a park. Movies long have provided the most compelling IP for themed attractions, and Bollywood films are wildly popular arou...

California will be home to country’s first all-electric hospital

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

The country’s first all-electric medical campus should be fully open in Irvine by 2025.Spanning more than 800,000 square feet, and under the UCI Health umbrella, the medical campus will be powered by a central utility plant, an epicenter that will house all the equipment producing the electricity needed to power the facilities.The 45,000-square-foot plant is all electric and solar-powered and will use state-of-the-art chillers for cooling and heating the hospital. The technology is currently in use at the UCI Medical Center in Orange.“They’re highly efficient; they run 24/7,” Joe Brothman, facilities and general services director at UCI Health, said about the chillers. “They are a good example of the technology that we are going to be going live with in Irvine that we’ve been using for half a decade now at a highly reliable, highly safe manner.”A sign for the new medical center campus of UCI Health currently under construction at the intersection of Jamboree and Campus in Irvine on ...

SF Giants: Inside Blake Sabol’s career night, from catching eight pitchers to an electrifying walk-off bomb

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO – Blake Sabol might be a rookie that’s still getting his feet wet at the Major League level as a catcher with the San Francisco Giants.But he still knows when he’s hit a home run, even at a place like Oracle Park.“When I hit a ball (well) and I click one,” Sabol said, “there’s not a ballpark that can hold me.”Sabol looked at two sliders for strikes from Ryan Helsley in the ninth inning Tuesday before he crushed a third one 428 feet to center field, a two-run shot that gave the Giants a stunning 5-4 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.“You’re fighting for your life with two strikes, and for him to get a swing off like that is pretty remarkable,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said. “Really cool moment. One of the cooler moments I’ve been a part of since I’ve been here.”The bat flip pic.twitter.com/s2rapkuzZw— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 26, 2023Sabol didn’t even watch the ball fly over the fence, as he flipped hi...

Barabak: Finally, accountability for Carlson. But it’s only a start

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

If you believe in accountability, if you believe in personal responsibility, if you believe that misdeeds merit punishment and those who knowingly lie should pay for their dishonor and deceit, then Monday was a good day.Tucker Carlson — the race-baiting, immigrant-hating, election-denying, Putin-promoting, two-faced ringmaster of right-wing sophistry — was unceremoniously dumped by his corporate sponsor, Fox News.Let the joyous news be spread!If you believe his ouster will commence a new day of sunshine and companionship across the land, healing our divisions and making red and blue Americans join hands as one, you are probably as gullible as the viewers who swallowed the diet of fallacy and claptrap routinely fed them by Carlson and other disingenuous Fox hosts.It’s not going to happen.As odious and insidious as he was, newsHis removal from a slot in television’s prime time eliminates a major source of air pollution. But it doesn’t change the mentality, a corporate drive for profit...

Angels ride 4-run first inning to victory over Miller, A’s

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

ANAHEIM — Mason Miller, the A’s hard-throwing rookie right-hander making his second big-league start, gave up four runs in the first inning in a 5-3 loss to the Angels Tuesday night as Oakland lost for the 10th time in its last 12 games.The Angels’ Brandon Drury had a two-run triple to key the first-inning uprising and give him six RBIs in the first 11 innings of the series.Mike Trout went 2-for-4 with a double, Shohei Ohtani had two stolen bases, and the Angels have alternated wins and losses over their past five games.Griffin Canning (1-0) allowed three runs in five innings while striking out seven.Miller, who threw 12 pitches that clocked at least 100 mph in the first inning, was nearly pulled before the inning could end. However, he struck out Matt Theiss on his 39th pitch of the inning to escape additional trouble.Miller then went on to retire nine of his final 10 batters, including back-to-back impressive strikeouts of Trout and Ohtani in the second inning. Miller finished his...

Political Cartoons: Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon exit Fox and CNN

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

CNN fired longtime anchor Don Lemon on Monday, the same day that Fox News fired Tucker Carlson.Their former employers thanked the pair in their respective statements on the firings.“We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” Fox News said in a short statement that did not offer an explanation for his ouster, adding only that his last show was on Friday, April 21.CEO Chris Licht in a memo to CNN staff“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years … We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”Here is how cartoonists reacted to the sudden departures.Lemon tucker by Frank Hansen, PoliticalCartoons.com Right Replacement Theory by John Darkow, Columbia Missourian Fox Cuts Carlson by Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News Gary Markstein 

Renowned boxers visit Pajaro trailer park to lift spirits after flood

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

PAJARO — Residents at Village Trailer Park in Pajaro experienced a bit of joy in the wake of all that has happened in the past month as they got to witness a meeting between two world-class boxers.In one corner: Jose Ramirez, a former unified light welterweight champion who represented the U.S. in the 2012 Olympics. In the other corner: Ruben Villa, a two-time U.S. National Golden Gloves champion who has experienced only one loss out of 20 matches in his seven-year career.However, Ramirez and Villa were not at the park to square off. They were there to uplift the spirits of residents and raise funds in the aftermath of the March 11 Pajaro River levee breech that flooded the community and led to the displacement of many residents. The two boxers mingled with residents, auctioned off household items and gift cards and even provided tickets to Villa’s May 13 undercard match against an opponent to be determined at the Stockton Arena. Villa’s match will be on the same bill as the headlin...

Oakland phases out pandemic-related eviction moratoriums

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:00:16 GMT

(BCN) -- Oakland's City Council has voted to phase out the city's pandemic-related moratorium on evictions and rent increases over the next 15 months.After more than four hours of discussion at its meeting Tuesday night, the council voted to wind down its restrictions on evictions and late fees for renters on July 15, 2023.The council also voted to end the city's moratorium on rent increases above the consumer price index on July 1, 2024.The council adopted its restrictions on eviction in March 2020 in an effort to prevent homelessness, ensure residents could comply with the shelter-in-place orders in effect at that time and avoid punishing residents who lost income due to the pandemic.While some cities and counties in the Bay Area tied their phase outs of pandemic-related eviction protections to the end of the state's COVID-19 state of emergency, the policy as proposed by Council members Nikki Fortunato Bas and Dan Kalb will allow the city to help tenants and property owners transi...