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Letters: Fiscal cliff | Preservation is the point | Neutral language | Truth-teller | Guilty of honor

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.BART’s fiscal cliff due tomyriad, solvable issuesRe: “BART ‘fiscal cliff’ reflects board’s denial of reality” (Page A12, May 28).BART’s cliff is even worse than we know.BART has huge ambitions including building a second transbay tunnel. They increase the system for the riders who will never come back.Daniel Borenstein correctly identified much of BART’s mismanagement.But why don’t people want to ride? Many no longer need to, due to the ability to work from home. Others simply can’t afford it. I always wondered how airport workers could afford the steep cost to commute to their jobs. The price is too high, relative to comparable systems, such as the Paris Metro or the Tokyo Subway, both of which are cleaner, more reliable and safer. And then there’s the crime issue. Creeps and crooks are rife in the system.We need to downsize the system and stop investing in pretty stations. Get t...

Twitter’s lawyers refute Musk claims about ‘Twitter Files’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

By Brian Fung | CNNFor months, Twitter owner Elon Musk and his allies have amplified baseless claims that the US government illegally coerced Twitter into censoring a 2020 New York Post article about Hunter Biden. The foundation for those claims rests on the so-called “Twitter Files,” a series of reports by a set of handpicked journalists who, at Musk’s discretion, were given selective access to historical company archives.Now, though, Twitter’s own lawyers are disputing those claims in a case involving former President Donald Trump — forcefully rejecting any suggestion that the Twitter Files show what Musk and many Republicans assert they contain.In a court filing last week, Twitter’s attorneys contested one of the most central allegations to emerge from the Twitter Files: that regular communications between the FBI and Twitter ahead of the 2020 election amounted to government coercion to censor content or, worse, that Twitter had become an actual arm of the US government.In tweets...

Largest-ever RV safe parking site approved by San Jose city council for $18.9m

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

San Jose’s Berryessa neighborhood will be the site of a massive RV parking lot after city councilmembers approved an $18.9 million lease on Tuesday for the project as part of a strategy to offer faster, interim options to combat the homelessness crisis.The site — which will host up to 85 vehicles — will be the largest of its kind in the city and is located along Coyote Creek at 1300 Berryessa Road, allowing RV dwellers to legally park with no maximum stay in an area mostly surrounded by industrial buildings.In a unanimous vote, councilmembers approved a 10-year lease for the 6.3-acre parcel — and the city expects that all expenses for the site, including services, will amount to over $24 million over a five-year period. The project — about a mile from the nearby Berryessa BART station — currently doesn’t have an opening date.The city will lease the Berryessa site from Terreno Realty, which bought it in 2021 for $23 million. RV dwellers on th...

Water bills will spike for 140,000 San Jose residents starting July 1

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

Water bills will be rising for nearly a tenth of San Jose’s residents starting July 1 after San Jose councilmembers approved the rate hike on Tuesday — one of the largest increases in the region this year.Customers under the city-run San Jose Municipal Water System (SJMWS) will see a 14% rise in their bills — about $16 extra per month. SJMWS serves roughly 140,000 residents in North San Jose, Alviso, Evergreen, Edenvale and Coyote Valley.Officials blame the rising costs on increased prices from third-party water providers, supply and usage issues related to drought conditions and future infrastructure projects. In total, SJMWS expects to receive $8.9 million from the increase.Councilmembers voted 9-2 for the price increase, with Councilmembers Domingo Candelas and Bien Doan voting against it.Water usage is expected to remain the same this coming year — and costs are expected to rise in the years ahead. By 2024, water bills could go up by 15%, 11.5% in 2025 an...

A first: Oakland will host Michelin 2023 restaurant stars ceremony

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

The Michelin Guide International has dropped a surprise announcement:For the first time, its annual California stars ceremony to honor restaurant excellence will be held not in recent host city Los Angeles or perennial host city San Francisco but in Oakland — a city renowned for innovative culinary concepts but home to a single Michelin-starred restaurant, the two-star Commis.The star-studded event will be held, appropriately, at the Chabot astronomy center. The scheduled date is July 18, about seven months after the last ceremony.The news was slipped Tuesday into one of the guide’s occasional lists of restaurants that have impressed the Michelin inspectors:“These establishments are highlighted as “New” on guide.michelin.com to help food lovers enjoy new discoveries before the full selection is revealed July 18 at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland. During the Michelin Guide Ceremony, chefs and restaurant teams will learn in real time whether their es...

Dramatic Oakland road rage incident caught on video

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

(KRON) -- Police are investigating a dramatic road rage incident that occurred in Oakland Monday in which a man brandishing a gun was caught on video. The altercation showed a man and a woman confronting each other on the side of the road. The man approaches the woman's car and lowers his head into it to yell at the woman. He then appears to draw a gun and point it into the car. The woman responds by opening the car door into him and slapping him in the face. The two then struggle physically before the shot cuts away. It is unclear from the video whether the two people know each other or what their relationship is. Harrowing details of San Jose and Milpitas killing rampage released The incident occurred in the area of Stanley Avenue and Truman Avenue, according to the Oakland Police Department, which is investigating the incident.OPD officers responded to a report of an individual armed with a firearm just before 8:15 p.m., police said. When officers arrived on the scene, they wer...

San Rafael man gets 5 years for child porn, grooming of 11-year-old

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

(KRON) -- A Bay Area man was sentenced to five years in prison for soliciting child pornography from a child victim he groomed over the internet, the United States Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Robert Haeuser, 33, of San Rafael, pleaded guilty to the charge last December, according to U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey and Federal Bureau of Investigations Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp. Harrowing details of San Jose and Milpitas killing rampage released Haeuser began communicating with a victim he would learn was 11 years old through the chat function of a mobile game in 2015, according to a DOJ press release. The victim lived with her parents in Houston. Haeuser lived in Marin County.By November of 2015, he knew the victim was not yet in high school. By 2016, he engaged in an exchange in which he acknowledged she was not older than 12 and that if their conversations became public, "I would be in jail."Eventually, Haeuser and the victim began communicating via email. ...

Boeing halts shipments of the 787 Dreamliner for a flaw in the tail section of the planes

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

Boeing said Tuesday that deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner have been halted again by another manufacturing issue, the latest in a string of setbacks affecting the two-aisle jet.The company said it is inspecting fittings on part of the tail called the horizontal stabilizer “for a nonconforming condition.” The inspections and repairs will affect near-term deliveries but won’t alter the company’s forecast of deliveries for the full year. Boeing did not say how many planes are affected by the new defect.Boeing said the flaw in the tail is not a safety issue and planes already in airline fleets can keep flying. The company said it notified the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines.The 787 and the 737 Max have both been plagued by production defects that have sporadically held up deliveries and left airlines without planes that they expected to have for the peak summer season.In April, Boeing found a problem with fittings on Max jets were the fuselage meets the vertical section of t...

Wife of slain man says police didn’t respond to her 911 report that he had been taken hostage

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

DENVER (AP) — A woman who received a desperate text from her husband indicating he had been taken hostage said Tuesday that she called 911 but that police did not respond until about an hour later, by which time he had been shot and killed.On its online police blotter, the Colorado Springs Police Department said it found two deceased adult males on Friday at the location that Talija Campbell said she feared her husband Qualin Campbell was being held by another man. It said the officers responded to a report of a shooting there at 2:09 p.m. Talija Campbell said she called 911 just after 1 p.m. when her husband, a father of two, l texted his location and a photo of a man sitting next to him in his car. Then he sent messages saying “911″ and “Send Please!” She called the emergency number.Campbell said she told one dispatcher that she believed her husband had been taken hostage, described his car and his location, which was about a mile away from the headquarters of the Colo...

Jacob deGrom, oft-injured Rangers ace, to have season-ending right elbow surgery

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:28:24 GMT

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Texas ace Jacob deGrom will have season-ending surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, cutting short his first season with the AL West-leading Rangers after the oft-injured right-hander signed a $185 million, five-year contract.“We’ve got a special group here and to not be able to be out there and help them win, that stinks,” deGrom said, with tears in his eyes and pausing several times. “Wanting to be out there and helping the team, it’s a disappointment.”General manager Chris Young said Tuesday the decision on surgery came after an MRI on deGrom’s ailing right elbow, but the extent of what is required might not be determined until surgery next week.Tommy John surgery is often needed to fix a torn UCL, but Young and the Rangers didn’t go as far as saying the pitcher would have that particular procedure. After being drafted by the New York Mets in 2010, deGrom made six starts in the minors that summer before needing ...