Santa Clara County Public Safety Digest

A new police chief has been selected for the City of Los Altos and is undergoing vetting and background checks before being named.

The National Transportation Safety Board has determined the probable cause of the August 18, 2022 mid-air fatal collision of two airplanes over Watsonville Municipal Airport as pilot error.

A person trespassing on Caltrain tracks early Sunday died after being hit by a train. Authorities have not determined what caused the collision or why the person was on the tracks.

Mountain View is considering a number of recommendations to reduce injuries and eliminate traffic fatalities in the city by 2030.

The Palo Alto City Council voted 6-1 on a bundle of improvements, including elimination of some parking, to improve safety on El Camino Real.

A United Airlines flight from SFO to Paris was diverted to Denver when the crew of the Boeing 777-200 reported engine trouble.

Hundreds of residents in the Santa Cruz Mountains are facing limited access in and out of the area due to a creeping landslide affecting Mountain Charley Road.

A report commissioned by the City of Palo Alto noted serious safety concerns for users of CalTrans designed bike lanes based on the high speed vehicular traffic on El Camino Real.

A tornado stuck Kings county briefly, and another touched down in Madera county, as favorable conditions came together during a powerful winter storm which swept the region.

A report of a 12 month study which ended in February indicates almost half of those cited for drug usage were not residents of the city, leading to questions about city approaches to drug addiction.

One San Jose high school is stepping up its safety measures following threats to students last year. Parents, teachers and officials hope the improvements will be adopted by other schools in the district.

California’s law that requires background checks when purchasing ammunition is back in place.

A handful of super powerful tropical storms in the last decade and the prospect of more to come has a couple of experts proposing a new category of whopper hurricanes: Category 6.

Los Angeles County flood control network withstands punishing rains—for now.

The storm fed off of unusually warm waters as it grew. It also reached “bomb cyclone” status as it neared California.

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted to allow guns in local government buildings, defying California law.

An updated earthquake hazard map from USGS shows a high shaking risk in California.

Hundreds of San Diego homes and businesses were damaged or ruined in devastating floods after punishing rainfall fell on Jan. 22.

Our understanding and preparedness have come a long way since Southern California’s magnitude 6.7 earthquake in 1994. We’re still learning from that destructive temblor.

A new Los Gatos commission is taking a look into how the town treats people who live and work there, and how it welcomes visitors.

As the field of generative artificial intelligence explodes in popularity, ushering in a torrent of fake photos and videos, state Sen. Josh Becker is sponsoring a bill that would require AI companies to watermark their content.

Michel Moore, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, announced he will resign. The departure of Moore, who has been in the job since 2018, will spur the appointment of an interim chief and a nationwide search for his replacement, according to Mayor Karen Bass.

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.

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, who represents District 28, plans to introduce a bill in the coming weeks to ban political advertising materials deceptively altered through AI.

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.

A five-year data analysis conducted by the Vision Zero Task Force, a San Jose traffic safety program, shows a sharp increase in homeless traffic fatalities from 2018 to 2022, with five deaths in 2018 that grew to a total of 51 by 2022.

California correctional officers train like ‘they are going to war’ to work in state prisons. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to transform San Quentin could require a kinder approach.

Munition boxes, depth charges and smoke floats have been found 3,000 feet underwater off the coast of Los Angeles. More than 100 square miles of ocean might be contaminated.

Heavy snow is projected in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Previously, warmer storms had been bringing precipitation mainly to higher elevations in the Sierras.

In the six years since San Jose made national headlines for losing a pivotal lawsuit that changed state transparency laws, the city's been sued over public records numerous times and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle.

Electric vehicle battery fires are known to burn hot, long and occasionally reignite. But they may have met their match with a new tool specifically designed to put out electric vehicle fires faster.

California state law dictates that property owners are responsible for repairing damaged sidewalks. In Sacramento, this has left some owners facing bills of thousands of dollars or tax assessments from the city.