Newsmaker
President Obama will address the nation tonight about ending combat in Iraq. The speech begins at 5 p.m. …
The Commander-in-Chief may be taking guns out of Iraq, but the State Senate is allowing guns to stay in the hands of licensed Californians. A bill to ban open-carry was defeated yesterday by a...
Deep-water rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are so complex that some experts are questioning whether they are safe…
Safety was on the minds of a nine-member review panel charged with reviewing toxic chemicals – that is, before five of them were dismissed from their positions. An anti-environmental...
Transportation Watch
Friday transpo roundup
Can your car drive on Flex Fuel? Head on down to Oakland’s new biofuel station on Grand Avenue. If you prefer electric cars, you might have to wait a little longer, but expect to see charging stations popping up around the Bay over the next few years. Either choice might make...
Transportation Watch
Here at KALW News, we’ve been enjoying the sudden summer weather by taking our laptops outside. But the heat hasn’t been so kind to everyone. Yesterday, both BART and Caltrain experienced heat-related equipment malfunctions that led to long delays: computer failures on BART forced conductors to...
San Francisco made the top five of the worst U.S. cities for traffic. San Francisco came in trailing – or beating – Houston, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles…
While you were busy with the rat race yesterday, California public education lost a race of its own – Race to the Top. The state isn...
Transportation Watch
When we talk about getting people out of their cars and onto public transportation, we’re usually talking about ways to make them do it: incentives to make transit more attractive, taxes and tolls to make driving less so. Both of these strategies stem from the assumption that driving is what people...
By now, you’ve surely heard about Manhattan’s Cordoba House: the Muslim community center that may be built two blocks from where the former World Trade Center once stood. As the community center sparks controversy around the world, some young Muslim-Americans are debating the issue in unexpected...
Newsmaker
Yesterday, a U.S. district judge halted all federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. The decision could return the field to that of the Bush administration…
Civil rights groups in California have some strong opinions about federal policy as well. Many organizations feel that...
OPINION: Community Correspondent
WILL DURST: Will Durst here with one very good reason why a mosque should be allowed to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero in New York. It’s called the First Amendment. You’ve heard of it: freedom of religion.
There’s also one very good reason why a mosque shouldn’t be built two blocks away...
Bay Area homeowners beware: some real estate experts are saying that home ownership will never again be as valuable as it was before the housing market peaked in 2005.
As if this wasn't enough bad economic news, the number of restaurants operating nationally dropped this year for the...
Transportation Watch
Lots of subway art this week. Art in Tokyo … (modified) art on Muni … even art on BART!
Then, some food for thought: Should the government require seatbelts on buses? Would you move to a totally car-free community? How would you get around if future cities looked more like the suburbs? Can you...
Newsmaker
The ongoing disaster in the South Asian nation of Pakistan continues to worsen. The United Nations estimates 4 million people are homeless as a result of catastrophic flooding — the worst ever of its kind in the country.
Today, the United Nations met to discuss boosting aid, and many Bay Area...
Kenneth Feinberg, the guy who controlled the compensation fund for the victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks, is taking over BP's $20-billion fund for Gulf oil spill compensation claims...
In Pakistan, militant groups are looking to take advantage of the misery created by the floods that...
Mortgage lenders are coming clean to borrowers in order to avoid penalties, according to a report by interest-rate tracker Bankrate.com. And boy do they have an incentive: lenders have to pay the difference on any mortgage costs they underestimate. The result? A whopping 36% increase in closing...
Transportation Watch
It was nearly a year ago that local transportation advocates filed a complaint against BART, alleging that the agency had not complied with federal civil rights legislation when making plans for the Oakland Airport Connector. The Federal Transit Administration agreed, and BART lost $70 million in...
Things are hush-hush around the Obama Administration, but word has it that expanded travel to Cuba is on the horizon. Not everyone is happy about the potential move, so don’t plan your Havana nights until after midterm elections…
Something everyone does seem to be happy about is the $1.2 billion in...
Transportation Watch
If you’re in Oakland, try the new “B Shuttle” to get around downtown—it’s free!
Across the Bay, make sure you pay your MUNI fare: SFMTA fare enforcers are out in, uh, force as of this week and issuing citations to evaders... (Info straight from MUNI)
The convenience of driving meets the perks of...
Transportation Watch
One thing many Oaklanders would have something to say about is crossing the Bay Bridge. You probably remember back last month when a little financial matter flared a media firestorm.
As of July 1, the toll during commute hours rose from $4.00 to $6.00. For carpoolers, it rose to $2.50 from, well,...
Last week, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums made a not-too-surprising announcement: he will not run for reelection. That makes him the first mayor in Oakland history to not seek a second term. This move assured, though, that the search for Oakland's next mayor will be an exciting one.
The deadline to file...
Transportation Watch
We reported a few weeks back that after implementing severe service cuts in March, AC Transit was gearing up for another round this month. Now the agency says it’s holding off on implementing the new cuts. Don’t get too excited though: agency spokesman Clarence Johnson told me that many of the cuts...
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