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Beethoven’s hair: How a museum docent turned genetic researcher debunked a famous relic

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

SAN JOSE — Tristan Begg was an anthropology student at UC Santa Cruz and a Beethoven fanatic when he volunteered as a docent at San Jose State University’s Beethoven center in the summer of 2009.He would pull out the drawer holding a lock of hair and tell visitors, “This is real” and that it once was on the head of the greatest composer who ever lived, the one whose music changed Begg’s life when he heard the first notes of Moonlight Sonata on Christmas morning at age 17.“It was instantaneous. I was astounded. I’ve never heard anything like it,” he said. “It was an instant sort of obsession.”Now, 14 years later, Begg, a Ph.D student at the University of Cambridge, is the lead author on a genome research study that debunked the story he once told. The hair is a fake.The findings, published this week in the journal Current Biology, revealed new insights about the life and death of Ludwig van Beethoven. Five other locks of hair were authenticated, including another one recently acquire...

Graze Craze: Charcuterie board utopia opens first San Diego location

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Listen up meat, cheese, fruit and vegetable lovers: charcuterie board connoisseurs are now hand-crafting creations at a first-of-its kind location in San Diego County. A catering business, known as Graze Craze, is bringing its "innovative graze-style food concept" to Chula Vista. A storefront officially opened this month at 931 Otay Lakes Rd. in the Southwest College Shopping Center. It’s ‘ridiculicious’: Popular ‘best-burger’ joint opens first San Diego location From picnic boxes, to grab and go options and entire grazing tables, Graze Craze said it specializes in artfully designed charcuterie boards with the highest-quality ingredients.The charcuterie board business offers a variety of grazing options that can be made to order for groups of any size. For those looking to snack solo or with a partner, small board and box options are also available. The South Bay location will be the first Graze Craze to open in California.So, what's all the craze about? Each charcute...

These San Diego spots are among the top places to play pickleball in the nation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Pickleball pandemonium has been sweeping the country over the last year. Nowadays, it seems like everyone has been captivated by the part-tennis, part-badminton and part-ping-pong game.Considered one of the fastest growing sports in the country, nearly 5 million people now play the game, which ironically, has no connection to pickles, according to industry statistics.For people just picking up a paddle, you might just be in the right place, as San Diego has three of Yelp's all-time top 20 places to play pickleball. What is pickleball? Behind the sport sweeping California Bobby Riggs Racket & Paddle, San Diego Pickleball and Pickleball Club of Carlsbad were all listed on the business's recent list of places to check out for some pickleball playtime.Bobby Riggs Racket & Paddle, located in Encinitas, took the number one spot on the list. Meanwhile, Mission Bay-based club, San Diego Pickleball, ranked third and Pickleball Club of Carlsbad came in at number 11.Each...

The sailing ships at the center of San Diego's film history

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

SAN DIEGO – Walking in the Embarcadero area of downtown, it’s hard to miss the towering ships of the Maritime Museum lining the edge of the bay’s waters.The museum has been a focal point of the San Diego neighborhood since its founding, collecting one of the largest collections of historical sea vessels in the country. Most locals are quite familiar with the ships’ presence and history in the bay, but the vessels carry with them a lesser known history intertwined with San Diego’s background as an extension of Hollywood.From the days of silent films to the first colored pictures, the bay has been at the heart of San Diego’s appeal to Hollywood, given the ease at which film and TV productions could access waterside filming. How artists transformed the Spanish Village in Balboa Park Established in 1948, the Maritime Museum has been around almost as long as the film industry has existed in San Diego, current Museum president and CEO, Ray Ashely, told FOX5SanDiego.com.Since the fi...

DEA overseas review barely mentions corruption scandals

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — After nearly two years and at least $1.4 million spent, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday released an external review of its overseas operations that barely mentioned recent corruption scandals and offered recommendations that critics dismissed as overly vague.Much of the 50-page report outlines the DEA’s sprawling, 69-country “foreign footprint,” while lauding its efforts to plug gaping holes in the oversight of undercover money laundering operations and special vetted units overseas.“This report is stunningly vague in its actual evaluation of known problems at the DEA and remedies to fix them,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “This speaks to the agency’s broader effort to evade oversight. The agency has attempted to dodge my oversight inquiries but I intend to push forward.”The external probe was announced in 2021 following reporting by The Associated Press on the crimes ...

17-year-old charged in kidnapping ending in Houston shooting

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

A 17-year-old has been charged with kidnapping two migrants whose rescue this week from a Houston hotel by FBI agents after days of captivity ended in gunfire that killed another suspect. Josiah Jackson was charged Friday with two counts of aggravated kidnapping in the abduction of a man and woman and the attempt to ransom them, Harris County court records show. The case filings do not list an attorney for Jackson, who is being held in a county jail ahead of a bond hearing.The migrants were stopped on a highway northwest of Houston on Saturday and were forced into another vehicle by the kidnappers, according to a prosecutor. Officials have said little about what happened between then and Thursday morning, when the FBI says its agents rescued two migrants following the shooting in north Houston.The FBI and various local law enforcement agencies offered little additional information Friday and the terse court records didn’t reveal much more.Senior Deputy Thomas Gilliland, a spok...

Biden, Trudeau celebrate ‘inseparable’ US-Canada relations

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

OTTAWA, ONTARIO (AP) — President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday celebrated the close, “inseparable” U.S.-Canada relationship and declared their nations’ shared values have never been more important for a world facing both tumult and possibility.Biden, making his first visit to Canada as president, said the U.S. is lucky to have Canada as its neighbor as both countries grapple with the rapidly changing global economy, climate change, war in Europe and more.“Today our destinies are intertwined and they are inseparable,” the president said in a speech before the Canadian Parliament. “Not because of inevitability of geography, but because it’s a choice, the choice we made again and again.”“Two people, two countries, in my view sharing one heart.”On one often-difficult subject, immigration, Biden and Trudeau used the visit to announce an agreement aiming to stem the flow of asylum seekers at unofficial border crossings from the U.S. to Canada.The ...

Indigenous groups wary of Canada-U.S. pledge to ‘reduce, mitigate’ Kootenay pollution

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

WASHINGTON — Canada and the U.S. say they hope to reach a tentative deal by summer to “reduce and mitigate” the impact of toxic mining runoff in B.C. and the Pacific Northwest that has been leaching for years into a vital cross-border watershed. Any forthcoming agreement on pollution from B.C.’s Elk Valley would be in partnership with tribes and Indigenous Peoples from both countries, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Joe Biden said Friday after meeting in Ottawa. But they made no mention of the biggest demand from conservationists and Indigenous leaders in both countries: a bilateral investigation by the International Joint Commission under the auspices of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty. Such an investigation, known in treaty parlance as a joint reference, requires both countries to agree. The U.S. has long pledged its support for the idea, but Canada has been dragging its heels for years. Indigenous leaders in the U.S. fear Friday’s announcement ...

Georgia activist killed by troopers shot first, officers say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia authorities allege that state troopers in January fatally shot an environmental protester who had fired at authorities after a trooper shot pepper balls into the protester’s tent, according to incident reports obtained Friday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The newspaper obtained multiple Georgia Department of Public Safety use-of-force incident reports through an open records request. The records offer the most complete account yet of authorities’ version of the Jan. 18 killing of Manuel Paez Terán, who went by the name Tortuguita and used the pronoun they. Paez Terán was killed in DeKalb County’s South River Forest as officers tried to clear activists who were camping near the site of a planned police and training center that protesters derisively call “Cop City.”Protesters have questioned officials’ assertion that officers shot Paez Terán in self-defense after the 26-year-old shot a trooper. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation continues to e...

Parade disinvites Hawaii lawmaker after pride flag comments

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:15:50 GMT

HONOLULU (AP) — The chair of a parade honoring a Native Hawaiian leader and prince said Friday a state lawmaker won’t be allowed to participate in the event after he questioned a middle school principal’s display of a pride flag supporting LGBTQ+ people.Kūhiō Lewis, the chairperson of the Prince Kūhiō Parade, said he notified Republican state Rep. Elijah Pierick of the decision in a letter. “The LGBTQ+ and mahu community is an essential part of the fabric of Hawaii that we all know and cherish,” Lewis said in a statement. In Hawaiian language and culture, “mahu” refers to someone with dual male and female spirit and a mixture of gender traits.The parade is scheduled to be held in Kapolei on Saturday.“Rep. Pierick’s commentary is hurtful, not aligned to the cultural values that we work to promote, and will serve as a distraction to honoring a true leader of Hawaii, Prince Kūhiō,” Lewis said. He said Pierick will be removed from the parade lineup. Lewis said he looked forw...