Month: February 2026

KPIX

By John Ramos

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    SANTA CLARA, California (KPIX) — Businesses in San Francisco and Santa Clara are gearing up for what they hope is an influx of customers during Super Bowl week. But one long-time vendor in the South Bay has been shut down, a casualty of what the NFL calls its “clean zone.”

Howard Gibbons knows a good hot dog when he sees it. Known as “The Hot Dog Dude” of Santa Clara, he takes pride in his product.

“Freshly chopped onions. None of that fake bagged stuff,” he said, as he set up his condiments table.

But for Gibbons, the success of his business has always depended on three things: location, location, location. For the last 12 years, his hot dog cart has called the underpass to the Great America VTA station home. But unfortunately, it’s right next to Levi’s Stadium, the home of Super Bowl LX.

“They shut down all vendors,” Howard said. “All street vendors are not allowed within what they call their ‘clean zone.’ Why it’s called the ‘clean zone,’ I don’t know. I didn’t know I was dirty. I thought I was a pretty clean guy.”

On Saturday, he was hired for a private event, providing lunch at a local Adult Education Center.

But as of last Thursday, he’s been kicked out of his normal location, where he serves commuters walking to and from the VTA train station. And for the last three weeks, he’s lost about half his business as the VTA commuter parking lot was closed for the exclusive use of the NFL.

Gibbons finds that ironic since for the last eight years, he said the city has been trying to attract vendors to the area.

“And now they’re being closed down for this event,” he said. “It’s kind of like, you got ’em out of the closet, you got ’em to come out and be clean, and then you tell ’em, well, you don’t get to play in the big game. You’re sitting the big game out.”

As he hung up his “Hot Dog Dude” banner above the serving area, Gibbons said that when the Super Bowl comes to town, the NFL basically owns the area around the stadium, including banning any advertising within the clean zone.

“Me putting this up during the Super Bowl would be, ‘Call the FBI. We got an advertisement violator here,'” he said, laughing.

But Howard is luckier than most. The Bay Area Host Committee has offered to subsidize some of his losses for the weeks before and after the game. His daughter, Wendy Rogers, said it helps that he’s so well-connected in the community.

“He’s pretty well known. I mean, he knows the mayor, he knows everybody,” she said. “You know, I try to call him sometimes and he’s like, ‘I can’t talk, I’m in a meeting.’ He’s at a City Hall meeting, letting ’em know, and fighting for what’s right.”

What doesn’t feel right to Gibbons is what’s happening to all the other vendors, especially with all the big talk about the economic boost of hosting the Super Bowl.

“I guess they’ll play,” he said. “The billionaires will make their money. And they’ll leave a mess, and ‘Y’all have a nice day.'”

Gibbons said he used to operate a full-sized food truck 12 years ago but switched to a hot dog cart when they began building Levi’s Stadium, so he could stay in the area. He said he was allowed to operate when the Super Bowl was last played there in 2016, but this time he’s been completely shut down.

Super Bowl organizers say there are closures to streets and public infrastructure surrounding Levi’s Stadium for safety and security reasons for the event. There are similar closures around the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

All closures for the Super Bowl are available on Santa Clara’s website.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By John Ramos

Click here for updates on this story

    SANTA CLARA, California (KPIX) — Businesses in San Francisco and Santa Clara are gearing up for what they hope is an influx of customers during Super Bowl week. But one long-time vendor in the South Bay has been shut down, a casualty of what the NFL calls its “clean zone.”

Howard Gibbons knows a good hot dog when he sees it. Known as “The Hot Dog Dude” of Santa Clara, he takes pride in his product.

“Freshly chopped onions. None of that fake bagged stuff,” he said, as he set up his condiments table.

But for Gibbons, the success of his business has always depended on three things: location, location, location. For the last 12 years, his hot dog cart has called the underpass to the Great America VTA station home. But unfortunately, it’s right next to Levi’s Stadium, the home of Super Bowl LX.

“They shut down all vendors,” Howard said. “All street vendors are not allowed within what they call their ‘clean zone.’ Why it’s called the ‘clean zone,’ I don’t know. I didn’t know I was dirty. I thought I was a pretty clean guy.”

On Saturday, he was hired for a private event, providing lunch at a local Adult Education Center.

But as of last Thursday, he’s been kicked out of his normal location, where he serves commuters walking to and from the VTA train station. And for the last three weeks, he’s lost about half his business as the VTA commuter parking lot was closed for the exclusive use of the NFL.

Gibbons finds that ironic since for the last eight years, he said the city has been trying to attract vendors to the area.

“And now they’re being closed down for this event,” he said. “It’s kind of like, you got ’em out of the closet, you got ’em to come out and be clean, and then you tell ’em, well, you don’t get to play in the big game. You’re sitting the big game out.”

As he hung up his “Hot Dog Dude” banner above the serving area, Gibbons said that when the Super Bowl comes to town, the NFL basically owns the area around the stadium, including banning any advertising within the clean zone.

“Me putting this up during the Super Bowl would be, ‘Call the FBI. We got an advertisement violator here,'” he said, laughing.

But Howard is luckier than most. The Bay Area Host Committee has offered to subsidize some of his losses for the weeks before and after the game. His daughter, Wendy Rogers, said it helps that he’s so well-connected in the community.

“He’s pretty well known. I mean, he knows the mayor, he knows everybody,” she said. “You know, I try to call him sometimes and he’s like, ‘I can’t talk, I’m in a meeting.’ He’s at a City Hall meeting, letting ’em know, and fighting for what’s right.”

What doesn’t feel right to Gibbons is what’s happening to all the other vendors, especially with all the big talk about the economic boost of hosting the Super Bowl.

“I guess they’ll play,” he said. “The billionaires will make their money. And they’ll leave a mess, and ‘Y’all have a nice day.'”

Gibbons said he used to operate a full-sized food truck 12 years ago but switched to a hot dog cart when they began building Levi’s Stadium, so he could stay in the area. He said he was allowed to operate when the Super Bowl was last played there in 2016, but this time he’s been completely shut down.

Super Bowl organizers say there are closures to streets and public infrastructure surrounding Levi’s Stadium for safety and security reasons for the event. There are similar closures around the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

All closures for the Super Bowl are available on Santa Clara’s website.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Kennedy Cook

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    BOULDER, Colorado (KCNC) — For the past eight years, Louis “Lou” Cicio has celebrated Jan. 30 as his “birthday.” Not because it’s the day he was born, but because it’s the day he nearly died — and survived.

On Friday, the Boulder man was reunited with the doctor and medical staff who saved his life.

“I was brought to Good Samaritan because I had a cardiac arrest,” he said. “I was resuscitated in my office and brought here, and that started this journey where they saved my life.”

Doctors told him he had only about a 40% chance of surviving that day.

“When you’ve had cardiac arrest, that means you’ve already died once,” said Dr. Shaheer Zulfiqar, an interventional cardiologist with Intermountain Health. “So the mortality with cardiac arrest is pretty high.”

But Cicio’s story beat the odds.

Not only did he survive — he returned to his everyday routine, riding his bike, exercising, and living a healthy life. And every year on the anniversary of his cardiac arrest, he comes back to the hospital where his life was saved.

“I come back every year on the anniversary day,” Cicio said. “Thank you to the staff.”

His way of saying thanks? Delivering fresh fruit to every department that helped save his life.

“Generally, when physicians come across a story like this, it makes you feel good about your profession,” Zulfiqar said. “Somebody who probably otherwise would not be around is biking, surviving, and living a healthy life — that’s the good outcome you hope for in medicine.”

Hospital staff say patient visits like Cicio’s are rare and deeply meaningful.

“They don’t get too many patients visiting them,” one staff member said.

For Cicio, the gratitude runs deep.

“It is amazing what we have as a health system to take care of someone like me,” he said.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Joe Donlon

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — A simple object can symbolize both despair and promise. That’s just what happened for survivors of the holocaust and other genocides, who brought pieces of their past to America.

They left their homes with little or next to nothing, but found ways to keep the connection.

“It’s unbelievable that people had kept these things,” said Holocaust survivor Ralph Rehbock.

They fled unspeakable horror through sheer will. Now, 60 survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides are sharing some of their most prized possessions.

They are in the exhibition “Stories of Survival: Object, Image, Memory” at the Illinois Holocaust Museum presents Experience360 at 360 N. State St. in Chicago.

It features objects that survivors were able to bring with them when they started their new lives in America.

Kelley Szany, VP of education and exhibitions at the museum, gave a tour of the exhibit.

“To me, the stories that stand out are the basic everyday items like teacups, a teddy bear, or wedding announcement that might seem like a mundane everyday object but really have these profound personal stories,” she said.

There are actual objects, like a suitcase belonging to a man who served in the Belgian underground in World War II, a uniform donated by a man who survived four concentration camps. Airline tickets saved by an Iraqi refugee symbolize his freedom.

There are also images of objects created by photographer Jim Lommasson.

Prisoners wrote recipes in secret during the war in Bosnia in hopes that imagining food would ease their hunger.

A son got a Russian towel from his parents, who were later burned alive by Nazis. Some items were smuggled out.

“There is a coin in the exhibition from an Armenian genocide survivor who brought the coin sewed into the seam of her dress,” Szany said.

Other objects, like the teddy bear, were kept safe thanks to the kindness of others.

“Before this family left, they actually turned objects over to their non-Jewish neighbors, who were able to bury them during the Holocaust. Luckily, the family survived, and they were able to come back and retrieve their items,” Szany said.

Still other possessions were sent ahead to relatives already in the U.S.

Rehbock, now 91, was just four when his father bought this electric train set for him. It was 1938, and German Jews were square in Adolph Hitler’s line of fire.

“The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 took away our citizenship, and my parents decided it was time to leave Germany for America,” he said.

So, Ralph’s father shipped the train set to his cousins in Chicago. It was waiting for Ralph when he arrived. In time, it became part of the Rehbock family story.

“It was a great toy which was appreciated by me, and my children, and my grandchildren through the years,” he said.

Each image in the collection includes a story written by hand, either by the survivor or a family member.

There’s a wedding announcement of a man who fled Austria to escape the Nazis and the Chicago woman he married in 1948. Years later, they added the handprints of their children and grandchildren.

“Because of this uniting and marriage, look at the generations that were able to happen,” Szany said.

Dresses that are also on display belonged to the daughters of a woman named Immaculee, who survived the genocide in Rwanda. Her husband and their daughters did not.

“And the only way she was able to identify her young daughters was by their clothing,” Szany said.

Whether it be an urn from Cambodia or a prayer book that made it to the promised land, all of the objects and images send a message.

“There are several ways to keep memories alive. This is another step,” Rehbock said.

“No matter our background, no matter our religion or our race, whatever our story is, there is still something that unites us as human beings,” Szany said.

That, she said, is love, hope, and the need to tell these stories.

“Stories of Survival: Object, Image, Memory” will be on display through June.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.