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Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Daily Mail
I fled California and now live on $1,100 a month in quaint European city... it's the best decision I've made
A young American has revealed how he escaped California's crippling cost of living to build a new life in a quaint European city - where he now lives comfortably on just $1,100 a month. Colby Grey, 24, grew up in rural San Luis Obispo, California, where international travel was so rare that 'not many people in my town had passports,' he told CNBC Make It. 'You didn't really travel much and you didn't go to school very far either,' he told the outlet. 'I was one of the ones that went further and then when I studied abroad, I was one of the first to leave the country.' Now the university graduate has left the Golden State's astronomical rents and education costs for an idyllic European lifestyle in Leuven, Belgium. Leuven comes with affordable housing, universal healthcare, and the freedom to explore nearby countries on a whim. 'As a student, though, there is no better cost of living,' he said. 'There is nothing better economically than being in Europe. There's no reason to go into debt here, so it just makes sense at this stage in my life.' Grey's journey began when he left his hometown to attend the University of California, Santa Cruz - a two-hour drive that at the time was the furthest he'd ever traveled at that point. The COVID-19 pandemic forced him to go back to his parents' home during college before he finally got an opportunity to study abroad in Copenhagen. A young American has revealed how he escaped California's crippling cost of living to build a new life in a quaint European city - where he now lives comfortably on just $1,100 a month Now the university graduate has left the Golden State's astronomical rents and education costs for an idyllic European lifestyle in Leuven, Belgium (Pictured: View of the city of Leuven) ″[Denmark] managed the pandemic really well and had a very high vaccination rate,' he said. 'I fell in love with it and decided I wanted to do more. Those six months in Denmark ultimately changed the trajectory of his life. When he arrived back in Santa Cruz after traveling, Grey experienced what he described as 'reverse culture shock' - along with a brutal housing market. He was left to share a two-bedroom apartment with three roommates at $1,340 per month for his portion alone. But the final straw came when he realized the staggering cost of his education wasn't worth the price. The average annual cost of in-state tuition at UC Santa Cruz was $44,160 for the 2024-2025 academic year and many of the classes had gone entirely online. 'It just didn't seem like I was getting what I paid for even with a ton of federal and state funding,' Grey said. 'I knew there had to be a better system and a better way to get an education. Through my study abroad job, I realized I could just get a visa and study as an international student for a sixth of the price.' 'I wanted to continue my education, but I wanted to use that as a pathway towards residency.' Grey found out that he could pursue a master's degree in Europe 'for a sixth of the price' while using it as a pathway to residency. Colby Grey, 24, grew up in rural San Luis Obispo, California, where international travel was so rare that 'not many people in my town had passports,' he told CNBC Make It Grey's journey began when he left his hometown to attend the University of California, Santa Cruz - a two-hour drive that at the time was the furthest he'd ever traveled at that point (Pictured: San Luis Obispo, California) He decided on Belgium's KU Leuven university, where annual tuition runs approximately €3,800 ($4,310) - less than 10 percent of what he'd pay in California. Grey arrived in Belgium with just two checked bags and a backpack. He settled into a four-bedroom house with three housemates for just €500 ($567) monthly - 'a third of the price' he paid in California. 'It was fantastic. I mean I was paying a third of the price to get my own room. 'When I first got here, it was daunting. I was aware of the fact that I had no friends here and I was totally on my own,' he continued. 'I think that was the first time I ever felt like that in my life. I worked really hard to make friends and make a community here.' After graduating last summer, he moved to an even more affordable home just outside the city center, where he now pays just €420 ($477) monthly including utilities, with some toiletries and food included. His total monthly expenses come to approximately €998 ($1,132), allowing him a comfortable lifestyle that includes regular dining out, gym membership, and wellness activities. Grey emphasized his love for Leuven's car-free city center with '15-minute city' design, where most daily necessities can be reached within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. 'That was one of the things that I loved about living in Europe, I never felt like I needed a car to live,' he said, adding that Belgium's central location means 'there are four different countries around me within a three-hour train ride.' Grey emphasized his love for Leuven's car-free city center with '15-minute city' design, where most daily necessities can be reached within a 15-minute walk or bike ride Since first visiting Europe in 2021 and relocating in 2023, Grey has traveled to 20 different countries, while hosting visits from family and friends He also expressed his fondness over the city's work-life balance and easy access to other countries. Since first visiting Europe in 2021 and relocating in 2023, Grey has traveled to 20 different countries, while hosting visits from family and friends. 'The community feels so strong here and I have a really great balance between my work life and my home life,' he said. 'It's such a slower pace of life here and it's really beautiful.'
The Star
07-05-2025
- General
- The Star
Burned but unbowed in Malibu
DEAN and Denise Wenner were smitten the moment they found the Cape Cod-style home in 2019. Perched above Santa Monica Bay in California, its five bedrooms stretched across three levels, with decks hanging so close to the Pacific that it felt like an ocean liner. On a good day, the view swept from Palos Verdes to Point Dume. But the Wenners are now among more than 300 families who lost homes in the January firestorms along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu – and their path to rebuilding may be even more daunting than that of inland neighbours. The reason? The very features that made these properties so special – a precarious foothold on the coast – now pose the biggest challenge. Burned by fire from the north and east, owners must now build back stronger, higher and better prepared for an increasingly volatile ocean to the south and west. That means not only meeting stringent fireproofing standards, but also elevating homes several metres, reinforcing foundations and installing new or upgraded seawalls. These steps are essential to protect properties – and their ageing septic systems – from rising seas and intensified storms driven by climate change. The coastal rebuilding effort reflects a broader California tension: nature may warn us this land is unsafe, but politics, emotion and property rights push families to reclaim what's been lost. 'Right now it would be political suicide for anyone in public office to talk about not rebuilding everything and anything after the fires,' said one veteran observer of coastal development, who declined to be named for fear of alienating locals. 'This is not a time that invites the most thoughtful policy discussion.' Which is why alternatives, such as removing homes from the shoreline to accommodate the advancing sea, remain politically off-limits – despite growing support among climate experts. 'I think we suffer from what I call a short disaster memory,' said Gary Griggs, an oceanographer and coastal geologist at UC Santa Cruz. 'We want to rebuild as fast as we can, but the impermanence of coastal construction is not something most people are interested in hearing about.' Many of the fire victims along Malibu's eastern edge inherited their homes, with most of their wealth tied up in the property. What they want, they say, is no different from inland residents: a chance to restore their lives. 'The reality is, the fire should never have made it over here,' said Wenner, a 57-year-old engineer, blaming slow initial firefighting efforts. 'Somebody took something from us. That never should have happened. And now we just want it back.' 'For us, Malibu is in our bones – especially the ocean,' said Julie Sutton Bacino, whose parents lost their home on Big Rock Beach after living there since the 1950s. 'We just want to rebuild what we had.' Unlike inland areas, the damage here has continued. With little dry sand and protective shore, waves still wash charred debris into Santa Monica Bay months after the fire swept from Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Carbon Canyon. Weakened seawalls and missing homes have left even Highway 1 more exposed to erosion. And buried under the rubble are hundreds of septic tanks – many unexamined and unpumped since the fire. There are growing fears of waste leakage into the sea. 'It's really top of mind, because it's Malibu and protecting the environment is part of our mission statement,' said Malibu mayor Doug Stewart. 'Every day that goes by, it just hurts us a little bit more.' The Army Corps of Engineers has begun clearing debris from some sites, but progress is slow. Steeper lots will require extra care to avoid damaging buried infrastructure. Meanwhile, the prospect of replacing or upgrading individual wastewater systems has stoked anxiety. Some residents may need to install larger tanks with better protective systems – a process that could cost upwards of US$250,000. Fearing such bills, some are reviving the idea of a sewer system – long opposed in Malibu. In fact, the city's 1991 incorporation was partly motivated by a desire to prevent Los Angeles County from building one, amid concerns it would fuel overdevelopment. Mayor Stewart said he sympathised but feared that debating and building such a system would take years. 'Let's not kid ourselves and think we can wait three or four or five years to get a sewer system and then start rebuilding homes,' he said. 'We want to get people back in their houses.' Homeowners are exploring cost-sharing solutions. Some have proposed joint seawalls to protect clusters of homes. But not everyone can share defences, and full coastal 'armouring' – including concrete pilings and new foundations – can cost millions. 'It's easy to require all this,' said local architect Doug Burdge. 'But who is paying for it?' Costs might be somewhat reduced after Governor Gavin Newsom waived the California Environmental Quality Act and the state Coastal Act, both of which had often delayed rebuilding. The Coastal Commission has long discouraged seawalls, citing their role in accelerating beach erosion, but Newsom's executive action has put that resistance on pause. Contrary to Malibu's celebrity image, many of the fire victims are not wealthy. Some live on modest incomes and are unsure if insurance will cover rebuilding. Wenner said his policy through the California Fair Plan offers up to US$3mil, but with rebuild costs now hitting US$10,700 per square metre, he doubts it will be enough. 'The longer it takes you to rebuild, the more it's going to cost,' he said. 'It just mounts and the whole challenge becomes steeper.' Many of the destroyed homes date back to the 1940s or earlier – built long before rising seas and coastal regulations were part of the equation. Today, some scientists warn sea levels could rise nearly 3m by century's end. But stronger storms and more powerful waves could be the more immediate threat, said Griggs. Despite this, few public officials are talking about 'managed retreat' – the removal of properties from high-risk areas. But some suggest now might be the right moment. 'There are people who will feel it's too risky to stay in place,' said Michael Wellborn, board president of the California Watershed Network. 'So it might be prime time for (a non-profit) to acquire some of that land for open space and preservation.' For now, the Wenners remain focused on rebuilding. They vividly remember the storm of 2019 that battered their seawall, sent waves crashing through the deck and first-floor windows. 'The house was rattling so much it scared the hell out of us,' Wenner recalled. But he also remembers peaceful mornings with coffee on the deck, watching seals bask on nearby rocks. 'When you're out on the deck or down on the beach, everything just disappears,' he said. 'It's the best.' — Los Angeles Times/TNS
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
This Adorable Sea Lion Can Keep a Beat Better Than Some Humans
A feel for the groove isn't restricted to humans, but it does seem pretty limited across the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees can keep a beat, but their ability to do so is low compared to Homo sapiens. One species of lemur is better. A 16-year-old California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) named Ronan blows them all out of the water – even some humans. A new study shows that her ability to bop along to a rhythm isn't just a learned response to some tempos: she can synchronize her movements with new rhythms, suggesting that, once she was trained in what to do, she could adapt and keep a beat to multiple tempos. "She is incredibly precise, with variability of only about a tenth of an eyeblink from cycle to cycle," says comparative neuroscientist Peter Cook of the University of California Santa Cruz and New College of Florida. "Sometimes, she might hit the beat five milliseconds early, sometimes she might hit it 10 milliseconds late. But she's basically hitting the rhythmic bullseye over and over and over again." Ronan, a resident of UC Santa Cruz's Long Marine Laboratory, was the subject of a paper published in 2013 that described her remarkable ability to keep time. At three years of age, when just a juvenile, she was trained to bob her head along with a ticking metronome, and later music, adjusting her beat-keeping as the tempo of the metronome changed. Later studies questioned whether Ronan's abilities could be as accurate as those of a human, since the initial results showed slightly higher variability in timing than is typically seen in human studies. Other scientists also queried the extensive training Ronan underwent, and whether her time-keeping is the product of the same neurobiological mechanisms as human rhythm. In the intervening 12 years, Cook and his colleagues occasionally gave Ronan a little practice at the boogie – not much, just 10 to 15 seconds at a time, now and again, for a total of around 2,000 sessions. "She definitely wasn't overtrained," Cook explains. "Realistically, if you added up the amount of rhythmic exposure Ronan has had since she's been with us, it is probably dwarfed by what a typical one-year-old kid has heard." Now, as a mature adult, her ability to keep the beat has not only improved – it has outstripped that of some humans. In a follow-up study, the researchers tested Ronan's ability to bop in time with a snare drum tapping at tempos of 112, 120, and 128 beats per minute – the higher and lower of which were tempos to which she had not previously been exposed. They then tested 10 undergraduate university students with the same sounds, tasking them to keep the beat with movements of their forearms. "We compared Ronan's performance to that of the adults we tested," the researchers write, "providing the first apples-to-apples comparative assessment of rhythmic entrainment between humans and non-humans with established beatkeeping ability." Not a single human outperformed Ronan in all of the tests. Her tempo interval, movement interval, and phase-angle – the measures of how close her movements were to the beat – were closer to perfect synchronization than at least some of the humans in all tests. Her time-keeping was noticeably more accurate at faster tempos, too. At 112, 120, and 128 beats per minute, Ronan's performed average tempo was 113.1, 121.6, and 129.0 beats per minute. The humans' average tempos for the same were 112.4, 119.3, and 126.2, respectively. The results suggest that non-human animals can be trained to keep a rhythm, if they feel motivated to do so. Many of them probably have little reason to do so in the wild, but doing it in a lab where treats and praise are dispensed can help scientists understand animal intelligence and the way they process information, particularly as they grow into adults. "One of the most important outcomes of the study is the fact that maturation and experience matter," says animal behaviorist Colleen Reichmuth of UC Santa Cruz. " It's not just a test of rhythmic performance. It reflects her cognitive behavior and her ability to remember and refine it over time." It's important to note that Ronan was well rewarded for her participation in the study: "When the test session was complete, human participants were thanked and given further details on the nature of the study. Ronan received a toy filled with fish and ice." The research has been published in Scientific Reports. Mysterious Critters Set to Return After 17 Years Underground Plants Really Do 'Scream'. We Just Never Heard Them Until Now. 'Zombie' Volcano in Bolivia Appears to Be Stirring Deep Underground
Yomiuri Shimbun
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Scientists Once Thought Only Humans Could Bob to Music. Ronan the Sea Lion Helped Prove Them Wrong
Carson Hood/UC Santa Cruz via AP This photo provided by researchers shows California sea lion Ronan in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 2023, under an NMFS 23554 permit. Ronan the sea lion can still keep a beat after all these years. She can groove to rock and electronica. But the 15-year-old California sea lion's talent shines most in bobbing to disco hits like 'Boogie Wonderland.' 'She just nails that one,' swaying her head in time to the tempo changes, said Peter Cook, a behavioral neuroscientist at New College of Florida who has spent a decade studying Ronan's rhythmic abilities. Not many animals show a clear ability to identify and move to a beat aside from humans, parrots and some primates. But then there's Ronan, a bright-eyed sea lion that has scientists rethinking the meaning of music. A former rescue sea lion, she burst to fame around a decade ago after scientists reported her musical skills. From age 3, she has been a resident at the University of California, Santa Cruz's Long Marine Laboratory, where researchers including Cook have tested and honed her ability to recognize rhythms. Ronan joined a select group of animal movers and shakers — which also includes Snowball the famed dancing cockatoo — that together upended the long-held idea that the ability to respond to music and recognize a beat was distinctly human. What is particularly notable about Ronan is that she can learn to dance to a beat without learning to sing or talk musically. 'Scientists once believed that only animals who were vocal learners — like humans and parrots — could learn to find a beat,' said Hugo Merchant, a researcher at Mexico's Institute of Neurobiology, who was not involved in the Ronan research. But in the years since since Ronan came into the spotlight, questions emerged about whether she still had it. Was her past dancing a fluke? Was Ronan better than people at keeping a beat? To answer the challenge, Cook and colleagues devised a new study, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. The result: Ronan still has it. She's back and she's better than ever. This time the researchers focused not on studio music but on percussion beats in a laboratory. They filmed Ronan bobbing her head as the drummer played three different tempos — 112, 120, and 128 beats per minute. Two of those beats Ronan had never been exposed to, allowing scientists to test her flexibility in recognizing new rhythms. And the researchers asked 10 college students to do the same, waving their forearm to changing beats. Ronan was the top diva. 'No human was better than Ronan at all the different ways we test quality of beat-keeping,' said Cook, adding that 'she's much better than when she was a kid,' indicating lifetime learning. The new study confirms Ronan's place as one of the 'top ambassadors' of animal musicality, said University of Amsterdam music cognition researcher Henkjan Honing, who was not involved in the study. Researchers plan to train and test other sea lions. Cook suspects other sea lions can also bob to a beat — but that Ronan will still stand out as a star performer.
Yahoo
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Police military equipment requires public scrutiny. Fresno fails transparency test
Fresno residents who ignore or sidestep the law risk being placed under arrest. But what happens when laws that govern police are ignored or sidestepped by city leaders? Not a thing. They simply adjourn for lunch. Over the last few months, dozens of cities, counties and even universities throughout California held community meetings required by a three-year-old state law that provides public oversight over the use of military equipment by local law enforcement agencies. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San José, San Diego, Sacramento, Burbank, Santa Clara, Tustin, Salinas, Orange County, Alameda County, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and my leafy hometown of Los Altos all turned up in a simple Google search. Opinion Even Huntington Beach, California's least likely city to comply with state laws. Noticeably absent from the list of law-abiders: Fresno. Born out of local law enforcement agencies rolling up in armored vehicles and riot gear in response to largely peaceful protests during the summer of 2020, AB 481 mandates police and sheriff's departments gain prior approval before purchasing specified types of 'military equipment' and compile an annual report of their existing inventories that describes every item and their authorized uses. Those reports must be made publicly available and within 30 days accompanied by 'at least one well-publicized and conveniently located community engagement meeting' to provide residents with an open forum for questions about its contents as well as the agency's funding, acquisition or use of military equipment. The idea isn't to stifle local law enforcement. It's to ensure transparency, which creates increased trust. In Fresno, the public is getting the short end of the baton. The Fresno Police Department's annual military equipment inventory and use report can be found online – at least by those who can successfully navigate the city's website – but no community engagement forums have taken place since AB 481 went into effect. A handful of Fresno residents attended Thursday's council meeting and submitted public comments to remind city leaders of their responsibility. They were summarily ignored. The city council's approval of its police department's military equipment survey and use policy was contained in the consent calendar portion of the meeting agenda. Had the item not been pulled by Councilmember Miguel Arias, who posed a few rudimentary questions to Chief Mindy Casto, there would've been zero discussion of the subject aside from what was aired during public comment. This meager discourse nowhere near clears the bar of a 'well-publicized and conveniently located community engagement meeting' mandated by AB 481 – regardless of any specious claim or legal interpretation made by City Manager Georgeanne White and City Attorney Andrew Janz. What's more, both know better. In response to public comment, White strongly asserted (and sounded overly defensive) that the city has a responsibility not to send police officers into a situation where they are outgunned and in undue danger. I agree, except that's not really the point. Regardless of how one feels about Fresno police spending $435,000 on a new armored vehicle or having 517 AR-15 assault rifles and 158 canisters of tear gas at their disposal, the law is plain. And in California's fifth-largest city, plainly ignored. Trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve requires openness and effort by both parties. Fitting that Fresno City Hall is located on a one-way street.
