Latest news with #SouthernCalifornia
Forbes
5 hours ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
Test-Driving The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo
The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo. 'What if' is one of those hypotheticals that every automotive enthusiast regularly dreams of. What if I had $100,000 to spend on a single, brand-new sports car? What if I were to swap X modern powertrain into Y vehicle from the past? Another scenario that truly lives rent-free in enthusiasts' heads: What if an automaker could create the pinnacle version of a beloved car of yore, utilizing the most up-to-date modern technology and sparing no expense along the way? When it comes to Porsche, Gunther Werks has brought this to life in various iterations, based on the mid-1990s' 993-generation 911. Recently, the Southern California operation has debuted a new model and it's the most powerful, yet: The Turbo. Starting at $850,000, this handcrafted extra-high-performance machine is more than just a restomod; it's an almost entirely in-house-produced love letter to the legendary 911 badge. Recently, I had the chance to check out Gunther Werks' facility in Huntington Beach, as well as take this new creation for a spin. Gunther Werks' boutique showroom. Getting To Know the Brand To get a good idea of what GW is all about, Peter Nam, CEO/Founder and Ross Pisarkiewicz, Director of Client Relations and Marketing, gave me a thorough tour of the building. When clients walk through the front door, they enter a beautiful showroom with carefully curated color samples, interior equipment displays, and at least one of its models bathed in beautiful showroom lighting. It's more boutique than front office, devoid of clutter, and GW even offers carefully planned dining experiences with chef-prepared meals to break bread and discuss bringing visions to life. Moving deeper down the main hallway, personnel offices face a special room designated for hand-assembling opulent interior pieces, steps away from where engineers make concepts a reality. Across the hall, craftsmen carefully put together cars' complex harnesses using aerospace-grade wiring and connectors. Finally, through the back doorway is where the majority of production kicks off. Gunther Werks' assembly facility. Here, countless carbon fiber components are carefully organized on shelves, from interior accouterments to seats, panels and aerodynamic features. Several bodywork and paint bays prepare the classic 911 shape for full assembly, and massive machinery turns out a variety of lightweight alloy and carbon-fiber wheels. Nam shared that around 90% of parts are made in-house, including the carbon fiber bodywork. This maximizes freedom in the creative process, as well as significantly decreases tariffs' impact. GW also has the ability to offer an unlimited selection of paint colors to firmly secure its place in high-end automotive customization. The 4.0-liter air-cooled flat-six engine that bolts up behind each example's rear wheels comes from Rothsport Racing, an authority in its own right, which GW enjoys an excellent technological partnership with. Suspension and electronic components are sourced from a myriad of top-tier suppliers with endless experience in motorsports, such as Motec, JRZ and KW. Visions truly come to life in the final room: Craftsmen move about each assembly bay carefully bolting models together, from heat exchanger piping to finely stitched, opulent interior pieces. It's a place where enthusiasts with an appreciation for anything classified as coach-built could spend all day poring over details. The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo. Hopping In In the middle of this room sat my ride for the day: A 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo painted in gorgeous pearlescent orange. Limited to just 75 examples, this wide-body work of art pays homage to Porsche's own circuit-ready 993 911 RSR and Turbo, inside-out. While customers may choose from a selection of aerodynamic features, this one sported a massive carbon fiber wing for maximum grip and motorsports aesthetic. The instrument cluster stays true to the classic Porsche formula with five finely machined gauges reporting on the engine's vitals—three readings are dedicated to oil, since there are no coolant channels cut into its case. There's no shortage of beautiful Alcantara, carbon fiber and stitched leather inside, though simplicity is definitely the main theme. It's an open and airy environment, rich in opulence and surprisingly spacious. As the Turbo is based on an older 911, overall visibility is quite good in spite of the wing occupying almost all of the rear-view mirror. The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo's interior. Firing it up produces an awe-inspiring, even-firing roar, and the event truly begins. After a few miles with Pisarkiewicz at the helm to help me get acclimated and soak it all in, it was my turn to take the wheel. Not to oversimplify the experience, but every finely machined metal surface felt perfect. From the bottom-hinged and perfectly placed pedals to the lightweight titanium shifter. The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo. Massive Vehicular Joy Selecting first gear and becoming acquainted with the right ratio of clutch to gas pedal was, in a word, easy. The clutch possessed quite a bit of weight behind it, but finding the take-up point was a cinch, and the gas pedal quickly introduced me to how fast the independent throttle body-equipped 4.0 revved. Once underway, I was quickly up to speed with smooth rev-matching, heel-toe downshifts, and learning what percentage of throttle input dilated my pupils the most. The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo's shifter. The Turbo's hydraulically assisted steering was rich in texture and feedback, with a brilliant ratio to match, and the brake pedal was reassuring in both its power and easy modulation. This is one rapid little sports car. No, scratch that, hypercar. With under 2,800 pounds to haul, the twin-turbo 4.0 produces as much as 840 horsepower and 594 pound-feet of torque in its most powerful Track mode. Here, 0-60 mph takes a little over three seconds, and the quarter mile comes and goes in 11 at over 134 mph. Prefer a tamer experience? A quick turn of a knob on the steering wheel cuts output to just 650 and 518, respectively, in Sport. Then, 513 and 458 are available in Comfort—it's basically always fast. There's no electronic traction or stability control to speak of, but rather the analogue kind; an aggressive aero package, massive carbon-ceramic brakes, and 295-wide track-ready tires. The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo's engine. Power was brilliantly linear with barely any turbo lag to speak of, thanks to the turbos' somewhat reasonable size, generous air-to-water intercooling and a very short path for the intake charge to travel. Yet, there was never any fear of aggressive throttle inputs sending us straight into a nearby wall. All we experienced was thrilling acceleration achieved by way of a little courage and a blessedly good manual gearbox sporting perfect gearing. And then there was the beautiful soundtrack: Strong notes of quintessential Porsche howl and boost-building crescendos, followed by pronounced blow-off valve and wastegate actuations. The shove back into the seat was unreal in each gear, including some eyebrow-raising passes on the nearby freeway in sixth. Finally, thanks to intuitive adaptive shocks that adjust damping rates on the fly—compensating for every minuscule bit of pitch and roll—the Turbo rode quite comfortably. While I didn't get the chance to wring out its abilities on any winding canyon roads, It dipped in and out of traffic with precision, and dealt with Southern California's most battered roads like any number of more luxury-centric fare. To increase comfort even further, a nose lift system was equipped to make easy work of steep driveways. Combine all this with its vivacious powerplant, and I was taken aback by how effortless and daily-ready this monster was to drive. In terms of downsides, well, they really weren't any. The turning radius rivaled that of a seafaring vessel, and there was plenty of road and engine noise inside. But these are miniscule in the grand scheme of things. The Gunther Werks Turbo is an all-around idyllic high-performance driving experience. The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo. Pinnacle There's no mistaking that every fine-tuned aspect of the Gunther Werks Turbo's assembly resulted in an equally fine-tuned driving experience. Quality of construction and materials were second-to-none, its visceral driving experience was a highlight of my career, and I'm still amazed over its brutal-yet-user-friendly performance. Anyone who gets behind the wheel will agree—kudos to GW for creating a blank-check scenario that blends '90s 911 and modern hypercar technology so well. The 2025 Gunther Werks Turbo.
The Independent
5 hours ago
- Health
- The Independent
PHOTO ESSAY: Many Californians lack safe tap water and don't trust cleanup efforts
Agustin and Ricarda Toledo loaded eight empty 5-gallon jugs onto their truck and drove to a water store some 14 miles from their Southern California home, just as they've done almost weekly for years. The couple, originally from Mexico, planned to make dozens of chicken tamales for their five children and 13 grandchildren that weekend, and the limited flow of clean, safe water from their home filter wouldn't suffice. 'We can't consume the water; we can't use it' to drink or cook, said Ricarda, a retired farmworker whose family lives in and co-owns a mobile home park, speaking in Spanish. 'We'd like to have potable water." In the agriculturally rich Eastern Coachella Valley, water is a source of worry. What flows from many people's taps contains health-damaging arsenic, and in areas where the issue has been resolved, distrust about the tap water lingers. Many rely on water donations or drive miles to fill water jugs and buy packs of bottles. Residents here are mostly low-income Latino and Indigenous farmworkers whose only affordable housing options are mobile home parks served by small, outdated systems more likely to violate drinking water rules. Luz Gallegos, executive director of Training Occupational Development Educating Communities, or TODEC, an immigrant and farmworker justice group, said people live in places with contaminated water because they have no other choice. 'Our community right now is not thinking of prevention. Our community is thinking of survival,' Gallegos said. More than a decade after California legislatively recognized that all residents have the right to clean water, more than 878,000 people were connected to failing water systems, many of which can increase their risk of cancer or other serious health issues, according to 2024 state data, the last year available. The Environmental Protection Agency has been working with a local nonprofit to restore safe drinking water to some Eastern Coachella residents. Last year, the agency announced that more than 900 people could safely drink and cook with tap water again. Distrust of tap water is widespread Many still fear the tap — an issue not unique to the area. Flint, Michigan's water crisis that began in 2014 eroded public trust of government and tap water. Even after high levels of lead were reduced to well below a state threshold, many residents still won't drink or cook with it. It's a distrust most common among non-white populations, research shows. A recent study on drinking water behaviors and perceptions in Evanston, Illinois, a suburban city north of Chicago, found, in part, that people who drank mostly bottled water were more likely to be Black, Indigenous or other people of color. Compared with white respondents, they were more than three times more likely to distrust tap water. The finding that minority groups in Evanston were more likely to distrust tap water was 'remarkably consistent' with research elsewhere, said Sera Young, a study co-author and co-director at the Center for Water Research at Northwestern University. 'It's a global phenomenon,' Young said. Respondents' main concern was contamination. A lack of trust in government and negative experiences with water were among other reasons. ' People who thought that they had been harmed by their water in the past were more likely to think they would be harmed by the water in future,' Young said. That's true for Martha. For 18 years, she and her husband lived in the Eastern Coachella Valley's Oasis Mobile Home Park, where the EPA found high levels of naturally occurring arsenic in the tap water in 2019. Martha, who is in the country illegally and spoke under the condition that only her middle name be used, said the water sometimes smelled like rotten eggs. An itchy rash would sometimes break out over her body when she showered, and her hair would fall off in clumps. She thinks the water was to blame. Martha and her family now live in a new place and have been told the tap water is safe to consume. "We don't trust it,' Martha said. They buy water at stores or pick up bottled water at one of TODEC's offices, where plastic-wrapped packs cram a closet. The group provides free water to many of the area's residents and organizes know-your-rights workshops in farm fields, among other things. Perceptions can cause cascading effects Anisha Patel, a pediatrics professor at Stanford University who has studied drinking water access and tap water perceptions for years, said immigrants from countries with unsafe tap water can also bring those perceptions here and low-income families are more likely to distrust the tap because they may live in older homes. These perceptions can have significant negative impacts. People are more likely to consume sugary drinks, eat out and spend limited money on bottled water — upward of 10% of their household income, said Patel. Microplastics found in containers like bottled water, researchers are learning, may be harmful. Then there's the environmental impacts — single-use bottled beverages create enormous waste. Convincing people to drink from the tap is not easy, but experts have some recommendations based on their research findings. That includes government funding to improve plumbing in people's homes and investing in community-trusted groups to implement water testing programs and educational campaigns, said Silvia R. González, co-director of research at the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Institute who lead a study in 2023 exploring drinking water distrust in Latino communities. 'It's been something that we've been trying to understand for the past 10, 15 years now, and I don't think we're closer to solving the issue, but we definitely see similarities across different communities,' especially among immigrant, Spanish-speaking and other non-English-speaking groups, González said. Back in the California desert, water jugs and stacked packs of bottled water are a common sight inside and outside homes. The kitchen in Virgilio Galarza Rodriguez's mobile home is cramped by bottled water — boxes and shrink-wrapped packs piled four high, a drinking water dispenser topped by a 5-gallon (19-liter) jug with a spare nearby and more loose bottles scattered around. The Galarzas, raising three boys, drank and cooked with tap water 16 years before a 2021 inspection by the EPA revealed arsenic at levels more than six times the federal limit. Despite now having filters and regular water tests, the family still worries. 'They tell us it's safe to drink, but we don't really trust it,' Galarza said, speaking in Spanish. ___ The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP's environmental coverage, visit
Bloomberg
5 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Silicon Valley's $4 Billion Gamble on Defense Manufacturing
Every month Neros Inc. makes hundreds of drones designed to drop warheads on adversaries. By the end of the year, the company wants its new Southern California factory to crank out 10,000 per month. Never mind that Neros only has orders for 36,000 of them for Ukraine. 'If we wait until a buyer comes knocking and asks for a certain quantity of drones built at a certain pace, it will be too late,' said Chief Executive Officer Soren Monroe-Anderson. 'The supply chain is the hard part. We are putting in the work now' to be able to produce weapons later, he said.
CNET
a day ago
- Sport
- CNET
Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints, Answers for July 25 #305
Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Today's Connections: Sports Edition tested my breadth of sports knowledge. The blue category pays tribute to one of the greatest players of all time. See if you can figure it out. We've got hints and the answers in case you get stuck. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That's a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn't show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic's own app. Or you can continue to play it free online. Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta Hints for today's Connections: Sports Edition groups Here are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group. Yellow group hint: Rink-related. Green group hint: The lower end of the Golden State. Blue group hint: NFL G.O.A.T. Purple group hint: You can also do this to your hair. Answers for today's Connections: Sports Edition groups Yellow group: Hockey statistics. Green group: Southern California teams. Blue group: Teams Jerry Rice played for. Purple group: What "cut" could mean. Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words What are today's Connections: Sports Edition answers? The completed NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 25, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNET The yellow words in today's Connections The theme is hockey statistics. The four answers are goals, penalty minutes, plus/minus and shots. The green words in today's Connections The theme is Southern California teams. The four answers are Angels, Clippers, Ducks and Sparks. The blue words in today's Connections The theme is teams Jerry Rice played for. The four answers are 49ers, Mississippi Valley State, Raiders and Seahawks. The purple words in today's Connections The theme is what "cut" could mean. The four answers are change direction, gash, release and swing.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
She lost her arm in a train accident. She was shocked by what happened next.
Elieah Boyd describes herself as an active and creative person. The Southern California cafe manager loves to surf, to hike, to take her Australian cattle dog running. She paints, travels as often as possible, and makes jewelry and bags. She's also right-handed. Now, she's looking at a long road to recovery after her right arm was severed — and then reattached — in early July. But the 24-year-old sees the future not as a difficult process but as a "fun challenge." "I might be left-handed for a little while," she told USA TODAY from UC Irvine Medical Center, where she's already undergone multiple surgeries, with more to come. "I'll have learn how to live my life left-handed." Boyd was riding a friend's e-bike to meet her boyfriend on July 7 when she came upon railroad tracks that cut through two neighborhoods in Ventura. As she tried to wrangle the heavy bike across the tracks, a passerby offered to help. They were lifting the bike together when Boyd saw an oncoming train. Tracking the dangers: Cross with caution: Lack of oversight creates safety risks at private railroad crossings "I've gone this way hundreds of times," she recalled. "People around here do it all the time to get from one side of town to the other. Everybody in the city uses this crossway all the time. This just happened to be an unsafe time." She saw the train. She (and the man who stopped to help her) tried to get out of the way. But Boyd estimated she had about 3 seconds to react before the train bore down on them. 'Everything went silent' "I remember looking down at my arm, and everything went silent for a moment," she remembered. "I think I was in disbelief and I was still standing there. The train was gone so fast... I remember looking at my right arm, grabbing it, and there was nothing there." The man who'd helped her with the bike called for help. He is a retired firefighter, Boyd said, so he knew what to do, making sure she was stabilized and telling first responders to find her arm, which was severed cleanly. "He saw that, and he knew (the arm) was probably still viable," Boyd said. Boyd was taken to the nearest hospital, and then taken by helicopter to UC Irvine Medical Center. After 10 hours in surgery, the arm was reattached. She's had four surgeries since, and more are planned. But her outlook hasn't required any help. "I feel OK, and I'm trying to stay as positive as I can," she said. The pain has been minimal and she's been able to mostly avoid heavy painkillers, while expressing how impressive and compassionate medical professionals at the hospital have been. (A request for comment from UC Irvine was not immediately returned.) According to Massachusetts General Hospital, replantation (or the surgical reattachment of a limb) is a complicated process requiring several steps including removal of damaged tissue, shortening bones, reattaching with pins or plates, and repairing muscles, tendons, blood vessels and nerves. "The patient has the most important role in the recovery process," the hospital notes, and Boyd may have some advantages: Younger patients have better odds of regaining nerve function and feeling, and cleanly-cut limbs like her arm are more likely to recover. Doctors generally consider restoring 60% to 80% of function as an excellent outcome. Community steps up to help a woman with 'an undeniable spark' Her community has stepped up to support her as well, with a GoFundMe that's raised more than $50,000 so far. "She radiates joy, warmth and inclusivity in and out of the water," said photographer Amber Jenks, a friend who met Boyd through the local surf community. "She's not just an incredible longboarder, but someone who genuinely lifts everyone around her." Jenks mentioned Boyd's "undeniable spark," and added, "Her recovery is something we're all rooting for, every single day." Doctors haven't given Boyd a date when she can be released, nor are they certain how much function can be restored to the arm. She's has at least 18 months of physical and occupational therapy ahead, she said. "The amount of support, donations, texts and messages, even from people I don't know ... all their positive words have kept me going," she said. Once she's released from the hospital, she's looking forward to getting back to as much normalcy as possible: all the things she'd done before the accident, like surfing and going to the beach, playing with her dog and hanging out with friends and family. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Crowdfunding campaign aims to help surfer injured in train accident Solve the daily Crossword
