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Travel Troubleshooter: Budget charges fees after returning rental clean with a full tank

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER: I rented a car from Budget at Los Angeles International Airport recently. I returned the vehicle with a full tank of gas after stopping at a station a few blocks away.Christopher Elliott, the Travel Troubleshooter After I dropped off the car, I received a receipt that indicated they would charge me a $90 fuel service fee. I immediately called Budget, and they agreed to reverse the charge.Today I received a letter from Budget stating that they will charge me $125 for a cleaning fee. I absolutely dispute this.I contacted Budget again and asked them to remove the cleaning fee. Budget refused. Supposedly, they had to send the car to a detailer for cleaning. They sent pictures of the car, but I am still disputing the charge. I feel as though I am being scammed. Can you help me get rid of this $125 cleaning fee?— William Houck, Prince Frederick, MarylandANSWER: If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Budget was trying to make a little extra money...

From Silicon Valley to Muskogee, Oklahoma: Can exchange program help bridge the ideological divide among teens from opposite ends of the country?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

At first glance, Madelyn Castro and Paul Zeferino seem to be worlds apart.While 18-year-old Castro grew up in Palo Alto, home of Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley, 19-year-old Zeferino hails from Muskogee, home of the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in a region rich with Native American tribal history. Muskogee’s average household income is just one-fifth of Palo Alto’s, and has triple the poverty rate. Castro is headed to Northeastern University come fall, while Zeferino will start his post-high school journey at Oklahoma City Community College.But a week after meeting one another, the teens realized their differences didn’t really matter.“Paul and I got really close,” said Castro. “And I feel that’s because we were able to put our politics aside to get to know each other.”Paul Zeferino, 19, of Oklahoma, and John Miller, 17, of Palo Alto, visit the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco, Calif., Tuesday, July 11, 2023, as part of the American Exchange Project. The prog...

New record lows for California COVID hospitalizations. Will it stick?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

When Dr. Errol Ozdalga finished a recent 14-day stretch of working on the general medicine floor at Stanford Hospital, he realized what was no longer plaguing California’s hospitals.“I can’t remember the last time I saw someone purely admitted for COVID,” said Ozdalga, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford, who had only one patient in those two weeks with the virus that once overwhelmed every facet of the health care system.It’s not just Ozdalga seeing less COVID. The number of patients with the virus at California hospitals reached a new low this month since the start of the pandemic, with just 611 reported on July 2.“We’re at the lowest point, but the lowest point doesn’t mean zero,” cautioned Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco professor of medicine who specializes in infectious diseases. He said UCSF had 11 COVID patients on Thursday, about one-tenth of its peak, but not insignificant.Statewide, before th...

Massive job cuts start to ease at Bay Area tech companies as sector stabilizes

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

SAN JOSE — The wobbly Bay Area tech sector may be starting to stabilize after 18 brutal months of layoff announcements that revealed plans to chop more than 25,000 tech jobs in the nine-county region.Tech companies continue to disclose plans for layoffs as the industry proceeds with a wrenching restructuring, even as the economic blows wrought by the coronavirus fade away and remote work ebbs.Case in point: At the end of May, Facebook owner Meta Platforms revealed it would jettison slightly over 1,100 jobs in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Fremont. Other layoffs were announced in June and July.Yet the layoff numbers from the April-through-June second quarter, when compared with the first three months of 2023, show a distinctly improving trend in the Bay Area, according to this news organization’s analysis of official layoff notices tech companies have filed with the state Employment Development Department (EDD).“These numbers confirm what our instincts have bee...

Chunks of big San Jose office park are bought by Bay Area real estate firm

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

 SAN JOSE — Chunks of a big office and research park in San Jose have been bought by a veteran local real estate firm, a sign that investors still hunger for certain types of commercial properties despite a murky economy.Three buildings that are part of Oakland Road Business Park in San Jose have been purchased for $37.2 million, according to documents filed on July 14 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.Peninsula Land & Capital, acting through an affiliate, bought the trio of properties within the four-building business park, the county documents show.1630 Old Oakland Road in San Jose, part of an office and research park. (Google Maps)Together, the purchased buildings total about 129,800 square feet, according to information posted on the Compstak website. The overall business park totals 177,000 square feet, a marketing brochure shows.The business park appears to have relatively minor vacancy levels, property flyers show. The relatively high occ...

49ers camp preview: Charvarius Ward seeking his first All-Pro season

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

SANTA CLARA — The 49ers’ defensive backs huddled for a typical talk after practice. Daniel Bullocks, their position coach, debriefed them first. Then, in a welcome twist, cornerback Charvarius Ward had his say, too.“I’m not the first guy here to be vocal,” Ward told the 49ers secondary after that May practice, “but I think it’s my time to grow.”Indeed it is, for compelling reasons.One, the 49ers’ secondary is without Jimmie Ward for the first time in a decade after he left in free agency to join former defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans with the Texans.“We lost our biggest vocal leader in our DB room, one of the biggest vocal leaders on the team,” Charvarius Ward (no relation) said after their June minicamp.Speaking up offers extra motivation for the 49ers’ No. 1 cornerback, who bluntly added: “When you talk more, you have to back that (stuff) up more.”Ward, ultimately, hopes to emerge as a first-time All-Pro on potentially the NFL’s No. 1 defense.San Francisco 49ers def...

Bay Area COVID-19 whistleblower wins $1.3 million judgment against former employer

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

A Marin County jury has awarded a nearly $1.3 million judgment to a Fairfax resident who claimed he was fired in 2020 after objecting to his employer’s alleged violation of COVID-19 restrictions.“I lost my job for doing what was right,” said James Caldwell, who had worked as a salesperson at the Home Consignment Center in San Rafael for 11 years.The judgment was awarded July 7. Brad Weintraub, an attorney for the business, declined to comment.Caldwell, 59, earned about $40,000 to $45,000 a year while working at the San Rafael store. He said he is now making more in his new job reading meters for the Marin Municipal Water District.“I didn’t mind struggling because I was doing what I loved,” he said. “It was my passion.”Home Consignment Center is a furniture and jewelry consignment store with shops throughout California and in Texas. Its headquarters is in Danville, Contra Costa County.Caldwell said that over the years he became very knowledgeable about mid-century art, pianos, “the t...

Why California legislators want to spend more time on an effort to make Big Tech pay for news

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

When it comes to an effort to have big technology companies pay news organizations for their content, the legislature is pushing its deadline.Legislators last week said this isn’t the year for the bipartisan California Journalism Preservation Act, instead punting it to 2024. The idea, said Sen. Tom Umberg, is to give stakeholders more time to hash out some of the more complicated details in the interim.“I’m supportive of credible media being made available to the public,” said Umberg, D-Santa Ana. “The bill is fairly complicated in how you’re going to enforce it and who it benefits. We want to structure it in the interim and come back to work on it next year.”The bill, from Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, is meant to help news organizations that have struggled financially in the age of social media, where content helps bring in ad revenue for those platforms.The bill would require large online platforms, like Google and Meta, that host news content from certain publishers to ...

Motorcyclist killed when he’s ejected, then run over by big rig on California freeway

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

A 76-year-old motorcyclist died Thursday, July 13 after he got thrown off his motorcycle, then run over by a tractor-trailer on the northbound 15 Freeway in Temecula.The big rig did not stop, and while the California Highway Patrol is calling the case a hit-and-run, they also say the driver might not have realized his wheels ran over the man.“We don’t know the mindset of the driver,” CHP Sgt. Nathan Baer said.However, the CHP is calling it a hit-and-run because both the motorcycle and the semi were involved, he said. “Right now, it is until we can prove otherwise,” Baer said.The coroner has not yet identified the victim; the CHP described him as a Sun City resident.Related ArticlesCalifornia News | One dead, one arrested in suspected fatal DUI wreck on East Bay higheay California News | Santa Clara County sheriff’s correctional deputy dead in Highway 87 collision California News | Speed — and not using a seat belt — kills on one of Ea...

Grateful Dead comes back to life for final show of their final tour

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - JULY 16: (L-R) John Mayer, Jay Lane, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Oteil Burbridge of Dead & Company perform at Oracle Park on July 16, 2023 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images)(Getty Images/Miikka Skaffari) SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - JULY 16: (L-R) John Mayer, Jay Lane, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Oteil Burbridge of Dead & Company perform at Oracle Park on July 16, 2023 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images)(Getty Images/Miikka Skaffari) The band that resurrected the Grateful Dead played their final show of their final tour Sunday night in San Francisco, California. Deadheads both young and old danced to the final jam b...