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Pallesen affordable housing project inches along in San Jose

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

Two years ago, I was among the hundreds of people who watched as the historic Pallesen apartment building was trucked from Reed and South First streets to a new location on Fourth and Reed. Applauded as a huge victory for preservation and affordable housing, the move was made possible by key donors and then-Councilmember Raul Peralez’s office, the Preservation Action Council, and Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley.To casual observers, not much has appeared to have happened since with the 1910 Italianate two-story building. But that should be changing very soon.The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to allocate $1 million in Measure A funds to Habitat for Humanity to get the ball rolling on bringing the building up to code and making the building’s four units available for purchase by low-income buyers. Kevin Elliott, Habitat for Humanity’s chief real estate officer, said a number of delays pushed back the work — not an uncommon st...

Steve Kerr, with one year left on contract, downplays extension talks with Warriors

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — Whether Bob Myers will be resigned to navigate the waning years of a dynasty is the most pressing offseason matter following the Warriors’ early playoff exit. Head coach Steve Kerr’s future is also up for discussion as he comes into the final year of his contract for the 2023-24 season.That final contract year is when two sides typically start discussing extensions. But Kerr said on Tuesday that those talks are on the backburner while the organization sorts through the president of basketball operations potential exit and Draymond Green’s future with the team.Kerr signed an extension at the end of the 2018 championship season and is going into his ninth season as Warriors head coach.“Our organization has a lot to sort through this summer,” he said at an end-of-season press conference on Tuesday. “My contract situation is not, nor should it be, at the top of the list. Right now Bob’s contract situation is number one beca...

Three-bedroom home sells for $3.9 million in Saratoga

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

20575 Reid Lane – Google Street ViewThe spacious property located in the 20500 block of Reid Lane in Saratoga was sold on April 28, 2023. The $3,850,000 purchase price works out to $1,492 per square foot. The house, built in 1962, has an interior space of 2,580 square feet. The property features three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a garage as well as two parking spaces. The unit sits on a 10,005-square-foot lot.Additional houses have recently been sold nearby:In August 2022, a 3,475-square-foot home on Marion Road in Saratoga sold for $5,075,000, a price per square foot of $1,460. The home has 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms.A 2,819-square-foot home on the 20700 block of Seaton Avenue in Saratoga sold in December 2022, for $4,531,000, a price per square foot of $1,607. The home has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.On Marion Road, Saratoga, in April 2023, a 3,324-square-foot home was sold for $4,575,000, a price per square foot of $1,376. The home has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. 

ChatGPT chief says AI should be regulated by US, global agency

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

By Matt O’Brien | Associated PressThe head of the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT told Congress on Tuesday that government intervention will be critical to mitigating the risks of increasingly powerful AI systems.“As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live. We are too,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at a Senate hearing.Altman proposed the formation of a U.S. or global agency that would license the most powerful AI systems and have the authority to “take that license away and ensure compliance with safety standards.”His San Francisco-based startup rocketed to public attention after it released ChatGPT late last year. ChatGPT is a free chatbot tool that answers questions with convincingly human-like responses.What started out as a panic among educators about ChatGPT’s use to cheat on homework assignments has expanded to broader concerns about the ability of the latest ...

Brentwood: Manslaughter charge filed in Thanksgiving 2021 fatal crash

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

MARTINEZ — A 38-year-old man has been arrested and charged with killing a Vallejo resident in a crash that occurred on Thanksgiving 2021, court records show.Austin Landers was charged in late March with one count of vehicular manslaughter involving gross negligence, a felony. He is accused of killing 22-year-old Bryan Lopez-Islas, the driver of a vehicle that was struck head-on after Landers’ car allegedly swerved into oncoming traffic.Landers pleaded not guilty in April. Earlier this month, he posted $50,000 bail and was released from jail, court records show. He is next due in court on June 16 for a preliminary hearing, where a judge will review evidence against him and determine whether there is enough to send the case to trial.Lopez-Islas was killed a little before 6 a.m. on Nov. 25, 2021. The crash occurred in unincorporated Contra Costa County, near Brentwood, at Vasco Road and Walnut Boulevard, police said at the time. Lopez-Islas was driving a Toyota Corolla that...

‘Abysmal’: Lies, neglect led to costly Santa Clara County jail injury, new report says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

A new report on a high-profile jail injury case in Santa Clara County details how deputies and medical staff let a mentally ill man lay paralyzed in his cell for more than 24 hours, then lied about the care they gave him to cover up their neglect — all of which led to a $7 million county payout.The report on the treatment of Juan Martin Nuñez in a Main Jail psychiatric unit, which was heard by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, coincided with a unanimous board vote to require the county to publicly report, on a quarterly basis, large tort settlements.At the top of the report, the county’s Office of Correction and Law Enforcement Monitoring — a civilian police auditing arm — called the way jail staff handled Nuñez “abysmal,” particularly with how they dismissed his repeated cries that he was paralyzed and needed medical attention, and called out how deputies and jail nurses refused to believe him.“It cannot be underestimated or understated how ho...

Florida woman to face charges in Peninsula death of Kardashian lookalike model after hotel-room cosmetic procedure

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

The April death of a social-media model will result in felony charges for the woman who performed a cosmetic operation in a Burlingame hotel room,  leading to the victim’s death, according to San Mateo District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe.Christina Ashten Gourkani, 34, died around April 20 due to complications from a cosmetic procedure, according to her website. Gourkani, who described herself as a “big fan” of socialite Kim Kardashian in an online profile, had a significant social-media following for her Kardashian-like looks and exaggerated physique, which garnered nearly 140,000 Instagram and more than 200,000 Twitter followers.According to an online fundraiser, which raised about $6,600 to pay medical and funeral expenses, Gourkani suffered cardiac arrest following the procedure.Royal Palm Beach, Fla. resident Vivian Gomez will face felony charges including involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without certification, according to a complaint filed on ...

Would new Oakland A’s ballpark lead to more spending? John Fisher’s other team shows that may not be the case

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

As the Oakland A’s have pursued a ballpark over the last two decades, team ownership’s common refrain has boiled down to this:If we can build a new stadium, the spending on the team will come.But team owner John Fisher’s other major professional sports team, the San Jose Earthquakes, continues to show why that might not be the case.The Major League Soccer Players Association released salary information for the 2023 season on Tuesday, and the data shows that the Earthquakes still rank in the bottom third in spending across the MLS.Out of the 29 MLS teams, the Earthquakes rank 21st in guaranteed player compensation and base salary, both on a per-player and teamwide basis.The Earthquakes’ average salary came in at $434,079, nearly $100,000 lower than the overall average salary for an MLS player ($530,467). San Jose’s total spending ($13.022 million) comes in at more than $2.8 million below the average team spending across the league (15.822 million).It’s a continued trend for the...

TikTok content moderators force-fed gruesome videos allowed to sue

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

If a science fiction writer were to devise a digital age torture, it might be the one that Reece Young and Ashley Velez experienced in their work for TikTok and for which they seek class action relief. Young and Velez prevailed Monday on the first leg of their quest to hold TikTok Inc. and its Mountain View parent company Bytedance Inc. accountable for allegedly failing to protect them from the psychological injuries they suffered from "moderating" gruesome content on the TikTok platform. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged facts that, if proven to be true, would be sufficient to hold defendants liable for the injuries plaintiffs suffered, even though Young and Velez were "contracted employees," not directly employed by the platform companies. Elon Musk blames ‘woke mind virus’ for downtown San Francisco’s woes TikTok operates a social media platform on which users post, view and share short videos. The platform is massive. ...

Convicted San Franciscans can achieve 'clean slate' under new law

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:35:46 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju is encouraging an estimated 25,000 San Franciscans to permanently expunge or seal their old conviction records under a new state law that went into effect this year. The "groundbreaking" law made California the first state America's history to allow most old convictions on a person’s criminal record to be permanently expunged, the San Francisco Public Defender's Office stated. SB 731 was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last October.SB 731 gives people who have already paid their debt to society the opportunity to reenter into their communities with a clean slate. The law dramatically expanded the list of convictions that are eligible for expungement. It also created a legal process allowing people to expunge old conviction and arrest records once a person has fully completed their sentence, and successfully gone four years without further contact with the justice system. "SB 731 is a powerful new tool that organiza...