Killer Cars, COVID & Copyright

In a setback to the reopening of El Camino Real to traffic, the city of Los Altos announced that it has postponed its plans to demolish a shopping center building burned out by a massive fire last month.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recipe for digging the state out of a multibillion-dollar budget hole has “strengths and weaknesses” while his revenue projections are “plausible, but optimistic,” the nonpartisan analyst’s office said.

Sunnyvale residents will vote on a multi-million dollar bond measure to support local school facilities this March.

In another reduction to its global workforce, Google plans to lay off hundreds of workers in the Bay Area this year, with Mountain View experiencing the brunt of the job cuts.

Santa Clara Unified rang in 2024 with a gold star on their audit but with some unhappy youth sports groups as they passed new facility rental fees.

In a sign of continued recovery for Palo Alto retailers, the city’s sales tax revenue is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, although some parts of town and certain business segments are doing better than others.

An ongoing work in progress, the Innovation Campus has benefited from a variety of funding sources.

The city will spend $50 million to subsidize affordable housing construction to bring 400 homes online, and $4.7 million to prevent 1,700 people from falling into homelessness through rent relief and other supportive services.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case related to whether cities and towns can ban camping on public property. The high court could overturn Martin v. Boise, a 2018 federal court decision that keeps western cities and counties from blocking public camping when sufficient shelter space is unavailable.

California’s projected budget deficit of close to $38 billion likely means some cuts are coming. Among them, Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed ending the California State Park Adventure Pass, which offers free access to some state parks for fourth graders.

Pea Soup Andersen’s, a Buellton, Calif., restaurant just shy of its 100th birthday, closed suddenly. The restaurant's other location, near Interstate 5 in Santa Nella, remains open.

Sacramento attorney Mark Merin has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family of a man who died in May after being held at the county jail. Other inmates have died in recent years, and the jail is under a federal consent decree to improve its health care.

Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism found that hate crimes rose 12.9% between 2022 and 2023. The spike follows a particularly stark increase in crimes against Jewish people.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for a March 19 primary to elect a replacement for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who resigned from Congress in December. If a candidate doesn’t win outright, a runoff will be held on May 21.

Caltrans has set a Jan. 25 deadline for tech companies to show how generative artificial intelligence might reduce traffic congestion in the state. This follows an executive order that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in September related to this type of AI.

New rules took effect Jan. 1 permanently protecting the most fragile deep sea corals off Southern California. Simultaneously, more than 4,500 square miles of ocean waters are now reopened to fishing after more than 20 years of closures.