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Wish Book: Bay Area homelessness organization provides the necessities to ‘reduce stress and anxiety’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

These days, Fred Pena strains to remember the years he lived out of his car in the Bay Area.Feelings are easier to access.“There’s a sense of dread,” Pena said in a recent interview, sitting on his bed in a studio apartment on the fifth floor of an affordable housing complex in Santa Clara. “It’s cold, or it’s too hot. And the police hassle you.”Pena had been living in his gold Honda Accord in Mountain View, where he said he stayed in a church parking lot.Now, Pena, 63, has his own apartment at Calabazas Community Apartments, which features more than 140 rental studio units designated for unhoused and low-income people. He’s been living there since the fall of 2021.An exterior view of Calabazas Community Apartments on Oct. 19, 2023, in Santa Clara, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group) His move there was facilitated by Abode, a Bay Area nonprofit that helps homeless and low-income people gain stable housing. The building was developed through the...

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate these Bay Area universities’ code of conduct?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

At a congressional hearing last week on antisemitism at college campuses, the presidents of three leading universities were asked a question: Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate their institutions’ code of conduct?Their answers — which centered on the words “it depends on the context” — sparked outrage nationwide. One of those leaders, the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill, stepped down. Another, Harvard University’s Claudine Gay, apologized. The third, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sally Kornbluth, was backed up by MIT’s board, which came to her defense. One thing is clear: Universities have been left to find their footing amid the Israel-Hamas war — and to balance free speech within the bounds of the First Amendment.The Bay Area News Group posed the same question to six of the region’s universities and two community colleges: San Francisco State, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Cal State East Bay, Santa Clara University, San Jose Stat...

‘I don’t want a ticket. When does northbound 85 carpool lane become an express lane?’ reader asks: Roadshow

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

Q: Diamond lane signs along northbound Highway 85 are extremely confusing. I enter at Interstate 280. The signs on 85 say the lane is for 2+ passengers. Then it goes to 3+ passengers and references a toll lane. Then there is a sign that says 2+ passengers and the next one is 3+.When does it really change to a 3+ toll lane? Toll signs don’t appear until after the overpass to the merge with Highway 101 north. Logically, it seems like it is 2+ until you go onto 101, but I don’t want to get a ticket.Can you help sort this out for me?— Peggy GrahamA: I checked with John-the-MTC-spokesman on your question. For those traveling northbound on 85, the express lane begins at the Moffett Boulevard exit in Mountainn View. Until a driver on northbound 85 gets to that exit, the occupancy requirement for use of the carpool lane is two or more people and no FasTrak tag is required.Once drivers cross that point, they must have a FasTrak tag to use the express lane. To qualify for fr...

Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: AJ Minyard, Los Gatos football

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

Editor’s note: Thank you for voting in this week’s poll. The Athlete of the Week poll will return after the Holiday season on Jan. 8.Los Gatos football player AJ Minyard is the Bay Area News Group’s boys athlete of the week for Dec. 4-9 after he received 43.70% of the vote by the deadline Wednesday.Serra soccer player Nate Coughlin finished second.Congratulations to all the candidates for this week’s recognition.Related ArticlesHigh School Sports | Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Terren Davis, Berkeley soccer High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week High School Sports | Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Nat Javier, Christopher basketball High School Sports | Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: Matthew Tahir, Foothill soccer Minyard, a seni...

49ers’ Purdy for MVP: Since when is being a ‘system’ QB or ‘game manager’ a bad thing?

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

SANTA CLARA — Of all the arguments against Brock Purdy being a viable candidate for this year’s Most Valuable Player award, one of them is ridiculous because it applies to every other quarterback and another is used as a slight even though it’s actually a compliment.Argument No. 1: Purdy is a system quarterback.Kind of hard to refute. The 49ers under Kyle Shanahan have devised a system that establishes plays, strategies, and philosophy on how they want their quarterback to play. The other 31 teams have done the same, whether it’s formulated by their head coach or offensive coordinator.The next team that sends its quarterback into the huddle without a general guideline and unique language that details the operation will be the first. This isn’t street football as a youth, using bottle caps to simulate position players on concrete, or sending a quarterback to simply run around and make something happen.Purdy is a system quarterback, all right, and it̵...

How to watch and what to know as Bay FC picks first in NWSL expansion draft

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

A week ago, Bay FC had just two players on its roster: midfielder Alex Loera and outside back Caprice Dydasco.After making five trades on Tuesday, the newest expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer League now has seven players.Friday night, the club will get another chance to bolster its lineup when the league’s expansion draft kicks off at 4 p.m. PT. It will be aired live on CBS Sports Network.It will be the first draft for general manager Lucy Rushton, who was previously the general manager for D.C. United of Major League Soccer.Learning the rules of the NWSL after coming from MLS “wasn’t easy,” Rushton said.“The biggest thing was learning the quality and level of the women’s game,” she said. “That for me was the thing that took more time and I had to immerse myself in the game and watch and watch to make sure I understood the quality of a player, the value of a player, what does a transfer fee look like and what does a salary look like. Those are the things that...

Walters: In deep-blue California, progressives growing frustrated

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

Seemingly, California is a deeply blue state in which Democrats hold virtually all of the levers of political power, including all statewide offices and three-fourths of the Legislature’s seats.However, California’s most frustrated political bloc these days are the progressives who yearn to remake the state into a model of economic and social egalitarianism with an extensive array of free or low-cost services ranging from universal health care and family income supports to child care and higher education.Their movement seemed to be making some gains last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom, outwardly the most progressive governor in history, was bragging about a $97 billion state budget surplus and approving expansions of child care, health coverage for undocumented immigrants and other points of the progressive agenda.It was a fleeting moment at best.The massive surplus has since become a massive deficit — $68 billion according to the Legislature’s budget analyst — while Newsom...

Review: ‘Zone of Interest’ is harrowing, evil and mundane

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

By Jocelyn Noveck | Associated PressIt’s just a woman trying on a fur coat alone in her room, and sampling a lipstick. It’s just a few friends discussing toothpaste orders over coffee in the kitchen. It’s just a housewife showing off her new garden and children’s pool, or a dad taking his kids fishing in a river.The crucial context is that these scenes are occurring only a stone wall away from the gas chambers and crematoriums of Auschwitz. And it’s their very mundanity that makes them evil — the “banality of evil,” to use Hannah Arendt’s well-known phrase. In his meticulous and harrowing film “The Zone of Interest,” writer-director Jonathan Glazer has found a way to convey evil without ever depicting the horror itself. But though it escapes our eyes, the horror assaults our senses in other, deeper ways.How does one even begin to depict the Holocaust? The question has challenged filmmakers for eight decades. Attempts to hum...

Chevron slashes California spending on ‘adversarial’ fossil-fuel policies

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

By Kevin Crowley and Chunzi Xu | BloombergChevron Corp. is slashing oil-refinery investments in California because of “adversarial” policies toward fossil fuels, a move that may boost what already are the highest pump prices in the nation.The oil giant headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area has cut spending in the Golden State by “hundreds of millions of dollars since 2022,” according to comments filed with the California Energy Commission this week. Chevron is a key supplier of jet fuel to the San Francisco and Los Angeles airports.The comments come as California lawmakers consider limiting the profits in-state refiners can reap. The most-populous US state already has the nation’s toughest fuel standards as well as a carbon cap-and-trade program that critics say forces consumers to pay more at the pump.“California’s policies have made it a difficult place to invest so we have rejected capital projects in the state,” Andy Walz, president of Chevron’s Americas Products business,...

Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Terren Davis, Berkeley soccer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:13 GMT

Editor’s note: Thank you for voting in this week’s poll. The Athlete of the Week poll will return after the Holiday season on Jan. 8.Berkeley soccer player Terren Davis is the Bay Area News Group’s girls athlete of the week for Dec. 4-9 after she received 43.98% of the vote by the deadline Wednesday.Washington-Fremont basketball player Mikaela Dumagan finished second.Congratulations to all the candidates for this week’s recognition.Related ArticlesHigh School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week High School Sports | Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Nat Javier, Christopher basketball High School Sports | Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: Matthew Tahir, Foothill soccer High School Sports | Poll closed: Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week Davis, a sopho...