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Empanada restaurant owner offers heartfelt apology to customers for high prices, lower quality

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

Lorena Cantarovici personally apologized in an email to her Maria Empanada customers this week for some empanadas that she was not proud of, and for higher prices that had begun to spiral out of control.The email, which Cantarovici sent on Tuesday, detailed how the 12-year-old business has struggled since the pandemic. “Our costs went through the roof and because our empanadas are made by hand and extremely labor intensive,” she wrote. As a result, “we were forced to raise our prices … Way higher than we ever wanted.”To minimize those labor costs, the restaurant purchased equipment to help seal the empanadas, which had always been done by hand. But because Maria Empanada’s dough was too light for the equipment, she was forced to change the recipe for a thicker consistency.The result: “Instead of a soft, pillowy bite, it ate more like a cracker,” she said. “Perhaps you visited us during this short timeframe where our empanada and its price did not reflect the ...

Thousands of Starbucks workers expected to strike Thursday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

Thousands of workers at more than 200 U.S. Starbucks stores plan to walk off the job Thursday in what organizers say is the largest strike yet in the two-year-old effort to unionize the company’s stores.The Workers United union chose Starbucks' annual Red Cup Day to stage the walkout since it’s usually one of the busiest days of the year. Starbucks expects to give away thousands of reusable cups Thursday to customers who order holiday drinks.Starbucks employees and supporters link arms during a union election watch party Dec. 9, 2021, in Buffalo, N.Y. Thousands of U.S. Starbucks workers plan to walk off the job Thursday -- one of the chain's busiest days of the year -- to protest the company's anti-union stance. (AP Photo/Joshua Bessex, File)The union said it was expecting more than 5,000 workers to take part in its “Red Cup Rebellion.” Around 30 stores also staged walkouts on Wednesday.Axios reported that 200 stores will be striking this year, up from more than 100 last year. In th...

Photos: Pink salt ponds drawing scores of visitors off Bay Area trails

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

Pink salt ponds at Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge are drawing crowds wanting to check out the water’s Barbie hues, and that has created a problem as people have been wandering off the trails and trampling on sensitive areas. U.S. Fish and Wildlife has a simple yet clear message to the public: “Stay on the trails.”Related ArticlesEnvironment | More pandas will be coming to California, China’s president signals Environment | Minnesota braces for wild ‘super pigs’ from Canada Environment | Coyote encounters: Keep the peace by keeping your distance Environment | Predator protector: Winston Vickers’ research aims to give California mountain lions a fighting chance  Environment | Spider season: Here are a few things you may not know about them In recent social media posts, the organization highlighted Pond A12 at Alviso Marina County Park. “These ponds provide a home to migrato...

Bay Area high school football 2023: Week 13 preview, schedule

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

Championships will be on the line Friday in the Bay Area’s top two divisions.Elsewhere, teams will play semifinals in hopes of reaching next week’s section championship games.The biggest of the games Friday are De La Salle against San Ramon Valley for the North Coast Section Open Division title at Dublin High and Serra facing Wilcox for the Central Coast Section Open Division championship at San Jose City College.But there should be plenty more drama throughout the Bay Area.Los Gatos at St. Ignatius in the CCS and California at Pittsburg in the NCS fall into the must-see column, as does Cardinal Newman at Las Lomas and Christopher at Menlo School, the latter four a combined 44-4 on the season.The Bay Area News Group will have complete coverage throughout. If you have not already, please sign up for a digital subscription. Your contributions keep us going.Here are this weekend’s top matchups and schedule:NCS Open/Division IOpen championship gameNo. 2 San Ramon Valley (10-...

Former Cal star Troy Taylor shares Big Game memories before first edition as Stanford coach

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

After 15 Big Games representing Cal as a player, coach, and broadcaster, Troy Taylor will be on the Stanford side for the first time when the Cardinal coach faces the Bears Saturday at Stanford Stadium (3:30 p.m., Pac-12 Network).“It’s gonna be a little strange,” Taylor said. “I think once the game gets going, it’ll feel pretty normal to go into a kind of competition mode, but yeah, it’ll be a different experience for sure.”Taylor was Cal’s quarterback from 1986-89 and started two Big Games, which resulted in a tie in 1988 and a loss in 1989. He graduated as the program’s all-time leading passer with 8,126 yards.He soon turned to coaching, and had stints coaching receivers, quarterbacks and tight ends at Cal from 1996-99, even serving as the team’s recruiting coordinator in 1999. When he stepped away from coaching, he worked as an analyst on Cal radio broadcasts from 2005-11.“Just being a part of Cal for so long and having such a love for the university and what it...

MLB owners approve Oakland A’s relocation to Las Vegas in unanimous vote

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

In the end, it was unanimous.All 30 owners of Major League Baseball voted Thursday morning in favor of approving the Oakland A’s relocation to Las Vegas.MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is scheduled to meet with reporters later this morning after the vote’s completion at the owners’ meetings in Arlington, Texas..The owners’ approval — it required 23 votes to pass — was the final step for A’s owner John Fisher as he looks to move his club 550 miles southeast, leaving the Bay Area behind after the team’s nearly-60-year run in Oakland.If completed, it will mark the second relocation for an MLB team in the last 52 years, and the first since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. to become the Nationals in 2005.Las Vegas would become the fourth home for the A’s since the franchise began playing in Philadelphia in 1901. The A’s moved to Kansas City in 1955, then to Oakland to begin play in 1968. No other MLB franchise has had four different cities to call home.It remains und...

7 awesome Bay Area things to do this weekend, Nov. 17-19

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we have more than cooking on our minds. Here are some ideas for great ways to have fun at home or out and about this weekend (and we have some cooking ideas, too).Note that if you are headed into San Francisco, the massive APEC international conference running through Nov. 19 is going to pose traffic issues. More about that is here along with a map detailing the more heavily affected areas.And, as always, be sure to double check event and venue websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines. Meanwhile, if you’d like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or www.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters.1 SEE, HEAR & LAUGH: Here comes TiffanyTiffany Haddish, one of the funniest humans on the planet (and there are a lot of funny humans on the planet) is headed to Oakland’s Paramount Theatre on Saturday. Here’s what she has to say...

MLB team owners approve Oakland A's move to Las Vegas: reports

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) -- Major League Baseball team owners voted unanimously Thursday morning to approve the Oakland A's move to Las Vegas, according to major news outlets. Oakland A’s fans are sending MLB owners ‘Stay In Oakland’ boxes as Las Vegas vote nears The vote comes around six months after the A's reached a tentative agreement for a new stadium in Las Vegas after being unable to reach a deal for one in Oakland. Fans of the team tried to persuade the team owners, who were meeting in Texas, to vote against the move. Petition opposing A’s stadium struck down, lawyer says Earlier this year, the Oakland Athletic's, who have suffered low turnout at games, announced a deal was reached to build a new stadium on the current site of the Tropicana hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada lawmakers even approved $1.5 billion for the ballpark.

David Cameron visits Ukrainian port of Odesa in first overseas visit as top UK diplomat

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — David Cameron traveled Thursday to the Ukrainian port of Odesa in his first overseas trip as Britain’s new foreign minister, and pledged that the U.K. would continue providing military support until Ukraine is victorious in its war with Russia.Cameron, a former prime minister who returned to government in a surprise appointment Monday in a Cabinet shuffle, said he wanted to make Ukraine his first diplomatic destination, and met Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.“I admire the strength and determination of the Ukrainian people,” he told Zelenskyy in a video posted by the president.Cameron said the U.K. would continue to provide moral, economic and diplomatic support “but above all, the military support that you need not just this year and next year but however long it takes.”The two-day visit came as Ukraine faces several challenges on and off the battlefield. Zelenskyy has struggled to capture the world’s attention as focus has sh...

The top U.N. court has ordered Syria to “take all measures within its powers” to prevent torture.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:57:20 GMT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top U.N. court has ordered Syria to “take all measures within its powers” to prevent torture.Source