Photo Credit: tomertu / Shutterstock With the NBA and NHL playoffs in full swing once again, this spring will see new champions crowned in two of the U.S. major sports. And with each title comes bragging rights and a boost to community pride for the cities that the winning teams call home. A select few U.S. metro areas have enjoyed bursts of success across multiple sports in recent years. In 2021, Tampa saw the NHL’s Lightning win their second straight Stanley Cup while the NFL’s Buccaneers captured the Super Bowl. Los Angeles has had recent titles from the NFL’s Rams (2022), MLB’s Dodgers (2020), and NBA’s Lakers (2020). And the…

Apple has revealed the top 10 winners of its Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge who come from a range of international locations and have a diverse set of professions. The competition asked any iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 13 Pro Max users to “capture the little things, in a big way” using macro photography, which takes advantage of one of the iPhone 13 Pro’s new features: a two-centimeter minimum focusing distance. A panel of expert judges reviewed what amounted to tens of thousands of submissions and selected the 10 winning photos. These winners will be featured on Apple’s website, the Apple Instagram , and on billboards in select cities around…

Bay City News Foundation Book lovers of the Bay Area, rejoice — the 8th annual Bay Area Book Festival, in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle, announced its lineup of speakers and events on Friday. Following two years of virtual programming because of the coronavirus pandemic, Northern California’s biggest literary festival will return to its Downtown Berkeley grounds for an in-person celebration of literature on May 7 and 8. This year, the festival will be offering 70 indoor programs and 27 programs on the outdoor stages at Berkeley’s Civic Center Park from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day. For those who are outside of the Bay Area or who…

Photo Credit: GagliardiPhotography / Shutterstock College basketball takes center stage on the sports calendar each March as the NCAA basketball tournament gets underway. The tournament brings a packed three weeks of high-pressure games as 68 teams compete for the college basketball crown. Along the way, millions of Americans fill out brackets, join office pools, and tune in to games as March Madness unfolds. For most of the rest of the year, professional sports are more popular among U.S. sports fans. According to polling from Gallup, professional football is America’s most popular sport , with 62% of Americans identifying as fans, and professional baseball is close behind with 57%. And the…

Two years after being decimated by the pandemic the wedding industry is getting hoarse singing “here comes the bride.” The trade group Wedding Report anticipates there will be nearly 2.5 million weddings this year nationwide, a number that hasn’t been reached since 1984. “We are booked out for this year. A lot of people had to reschedule from previous years so it’s been busier than we would like,” said Ben James who with wife Willow owns Willow and Ben Wedding Photography in Napa. The pandemic brought the Wine Country wedding business to a standstill starting in 2020. People could not gather for large weddings for most of 2020 and in…

Participation via Zoom with in person gatherings as well Eureka Dunes, Death Valley, February 2020. This photo recently took 1st place in the Northern California’s Photo Clubs monochrome category. Gaidus credits his participation in the Santa Rosa Photographic Society for his win.Photo by Herb Gaidus By Herb Gaidus Under a dim amber light, a 10-year-old boy watches in wonder as a black and white image magically appears on the wet paper in a tray before him. He dreams of someday capturing iconic images of the National Parks of the west like his childhood hero, photographer Ansel Adams. Thirty years later, the boy has two sons, 8 and 10, of his…

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. Terms apply to the offers listed on this page. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page . We’ve yet to meet a beach we didn’t like. From underrated U.S. beaches to bucket list spots like the Maldives (catch us in these underwater villas at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island ), the options are as endless as the waves in the sea. If you are traveling with kids , though, there are certain destinations that provide top-notch accommodations and activities for families, in…

Paleontologist Ashley Poust, a post-doctoral researcher at San Diego Natural History Museum, holds the 42-million-year-old fossilized jawbone of the newly discovered Diegoaelurus, or “San Diego’s cat.” For comparison, behind him is the skull of the much-larger Smilodon or saber-toothed cat from the more recent Pleistocene era. A newly discovered saber-toothed catlike predator that hunted in the forests and coastal areas of this region 42 million years ago has been given the name Diegoaelurus, or “San Diego’s cat,” the San Diego Natural History Museum announced Tuesday, March 15. The discovery of Diegoaelurus — which is now the earliest known cat-like predator in North America west of the Rocky Mountains — was…

Photographers from around the world are sharing their unique and mesmerizing images in an attempt to take the top prize in the 2014 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. Across an expanse of locales, the contest aims to capture the world through the lens of its explorers, offering a glimpse into some of the most remote and beautiful areas of the globe. Below are a selection of some of the amazing shots from Nat Geo’s competition, which you can see more of here . If you think you’ve got the camera skills to beat them you can enter the contest yourself by June 30th, which is still plenty of time to…

Downtown Los Angeles last week.Credit…Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press When my friend texted me last week to say that she had a fever, I nearly discounted the possibility that she might have contracted Covid-19. The case numbers are so low in California right now, I thought. But, it turns out, she did have Covid. And, as I found out the next day, so did I. Over the past 10 days, I’ve heard about more friends and acquaintances infected with the coronavirus in Los Angeles, where I live, than at any time other than the earliest days of the Omicron surge. Of course, this might be my own bias, given my recent positive…