California

California

Aiming to clear roadblocks to building housing in Berkeley, the city may soon create stricter requirements for its landmark designations process. In a city of about 120,000 residents, it takes only about 50 to trigger the process. If that designation is issued on the grounds that the site has some historic value, future attempts to alter the property become much more challenging. It's a tool councilmembers and housing advocates say has been weaponized to prevent or delay housing development in the city.

SANTA CRUZ - One law enforcement official escaped without significant injuries after a tree fell onto his car while driving along Highway 17 at the tail end of this past week's powerful atmospheric river storm. At about 5:40 p.m. Thursday, California Highway Patrol officers were called to a crash south of Summit Road along the notoriously dangerous highway and discovered two vehicles at the scene. A Los Gatos woman was driving a black 2013 Audi Q5 southbound on the busy thoroughfare while the CHP officer was driving northbound in a black-and-white 2021 Ford Explorer patrol vehicle. Both cars were moving at an undetermined speed, according to a CHP release. Because of the heavy rainfall and stormy conditions, a tree on the west side of the southbound lanes fell and landed on top of both the Audi and the CHP vehicle. The officer suffered minor injuries and was transported to a local hospital, while the woman driving the Audi left without any injuries.

One law enforcement official escaped without significant injuries after a tree fell onto his car while driving along Highway 17 at the tail end of this past week's powerful atmospheric river storm. At about 5:40 p.m. Thursday, California Highway Patrol officers were called to a crash south of Summit Road along the notoriously dangerous highway and discovered two vehicles at the scene.

MENLO PARK - San Mateo County Sheriff's deputies arrested two men during a traffic stop Friday morning in Menlo Park who were reportedly in possession of an explosive device, as well as stolen guns and tools from another burglary, according to officials. Deputies stopped the two men reportedly in a "suspicious vehicle" traveling northbound on Interstate 280 onto Sand Hill Road, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The building's residents evacuated themselves prior to the arrival of firefighters at 9:32 p.m., authorities said. When the firefighters arrived, they saw smoke coming from a condo on the second floor of a three-story building. Water was also flowing from two sprinkler heads. Firefighters used thermal imaging to make sure that the fire did not spread, authorities said. The firefighters also shut off the sprinkler heads and carried out salvage operations to remove excess water from the building and prevent further property damage.

On Friday, a family of four, among them 39-year-old Yuji Hu of Calgary, Canada, visited Garrapata State Beach, south of Carmel. Amid 15 to 20-foot waves, Hu's daughter was "swept off the shoreline" and into the ocean, the Monterey County Sheriff's Office said. Both Hu and the girl's mother entered the water to attempt to rescue her, but only the mother was able to swim back to the shore.

The Department of Education notified the state and 16 others in March that the Trump administration had rescinded access to millions in federal money earmarked to combat the pandemic's impact on students across the nation. The recovery funds had been previously approved and awarded to the states from the department and were supposed to be available until March 2026, but the Department of Education abruptly changed course, a lawsuit from the 17 impacted states alleged.

County leaders chiefly characterized the five-eighths-cent sales tax increase, known as Measure A, as a lifeline for their massive public hospital system, which they warned was at risk of falling apart amid unprecedented federal spending cuts under President Donald Trump. But county law enforcement officials and workers only endorsed the tax after saying they gained assurances from the county that their budgets would get a portion of the funds.

"I don't know, I think I was just in shock," Smith said. "Literally we had just moved our family 2,000 miles... and then this."

SAN JOSE - For nearly two decades, frustrations between residents of Country View Custom Estates and the city have festered. Residents of the wealthy "restrictive access" Almaden Valley enclave has long sought to install gates around their community, pointing to brazen criminals who have tormented the neighborhood with waves of home invasions, burglaries, robberies, car break-ins, hate crimes, mail and package thefts, and trespassing on their private streets. San Jose's planning department, however, has denied their requests three times - most recently last year.

The shooting was reported around 11:05 p.m. on Aug. 4 in the area of Dry Creek Road and Marques Avenue, San Jose police Officer Tanya Hernandez said in a news release Friday. Officers learned a group of five teenagers got into a verbal altercation and fired a gun multiple times, Hernandez said. The suspects were gone by the time officers arrived at the scene. No one was injured, but an unoccupied vehicle parked in the area was struck by a bullet.

"There was literally a murderer on the loose in the Fresno area..." Juju Chang says.

California made incremental gains in boosting student graduation rates, reducing chronic absenteeism and seeing more students ready for college or careers, according to newly released state data. But the state's slow progress means the majority of California's students may not reach proficiency in English Language Arts and math for many years. "At the current pace of progress it will take many, many more decades and leave behind multiple generations of students," said Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, the director of P-16 research at EdTrust-West, an educational advocacy nonprofit.

With the government shutdown over, school communities will grapple in the coming weeks with the upheaval and uncertainty the 43-day shutdown caused. Students from preschool to college were affected by the loss of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal program that helps feed low-income families. In addition, schools were left without guidance for helping students with disabilities, homeless students, and children of migrant farmworkers after many U.S. Department of Education employees were laid off.

At the reconsideration hearing held Friday in a San Jose courtroom, Ramon rejected pleas from the district attorney's office to give more weight to the allegations in the murder charges. He ultimately sided with public defense attorneys who argued that the defendants' lack of violent histories, as well as their local family ties and community contributions, did not make them imminent public dangers or flight risks.