Free Republic

SAN JOSE -- San Jose State has expelled three of the students charged with the racially tinged bullying of a freshman and extended one other student's suspension, requiring him to go to counseling and to remain on probation for the rest of his college career if he returns to school. All four had been suspended pending final disciplinary action for allegedly subjecting then-17-year-old Donald Williams Jr. to repeated abuse, including wrestling him to the ground and fastening a bike lock around his neck, calling him racially derogatory names, locking him in his room and displaying a Confederate flag. The expelled...

The father of a Santa Clara teen stowaway who survived a 5 1/2-hour flight from San Jose to Hawaii Sunday despite high altitudes, low oxygen and freezing temperatures tells the Voice of America that Allah protected his son. “When I watched the analysis about the extraordinary and dangerous trip of my son on local TVs and that Allah had saved him, I thanked God and I was very happy,” Abdilahi Yusuf Abdi, who lives in Santa Clara, told VOA's Somali service in an interview Wednesday. Abdi said he received the news about his son's trip in a phone call from...

Hayes remembered as pioneer who declared San Jose "feminist Capitol of the world"San Jose is remembering its first female mayor. Janet Gray Hayes died Monday at a retirement home in Saratoga. Her family says she suffered a stroke over the weekend. Hayes was elected mayor of San Jose in 1974, becoming the first woman in the United States to lead a city of more than 500,000 people. “She was a trailblazer who helped open the door for women to serve their communities in public office,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren said in a statement. “She was the one who declared San Jose...

"Kid's lucky to be alive," FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press.A 16-year-old boy stowed away in the wheel well of a flight from California to Hawaii on Sunday, surviving the trip halfway across the Pacific Ocean unharmed despite frigid temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen, FBI and airline officials said. Not only was he unharmed, but officials also said he wasn't even dirty.

It's one of the most famous military mysteries of the past decade, Pat Tillman, the former ASU and Cardinals player turned Army Ranger killed in 2004 after he left the NFL to fight in Afghanistan. The Army said it was friendly fire, but never said whose shots killed Tillman. Three soldiers acknowledged firing at his position, but none have spoken publicly until now. Steven Elliott told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that two convoys entered the mountains, but got separated. He said Tillman's group scaled a ridge line to help fellow rangers under attack, but a squad leader mistakenly thought an...

Catherine Stefani has an article up over at the SacBee talking about how she became the head of the Kaliforniastan chapter of Moms Demand Action… Its not much more than a shameless plug and link bait for the civilian disarmament cult, but I thought it was pretty interesting for a couple of reasons… one, I had never heard of Catherine Stefani before this and two, I thought it was incredibly interesting how she talks about how she became involved in MDA:

Who’s the mystery tenant moving into San Jose's biggest-ever office park? That’s the million-dollar question everyone in Silicon Valley is scrambling to answer. Speculation started flying as soon as San Jose city officials approved the 2-million square-foot office project on North First Street and Brokaw Road in North San Jose on Wednesday. The list of potential occupants includes everybody from Seattle-based Microsoft and Amazon, to locals Apple, Google and Facebook. So far, the only person at City Hall who reportedly knows the name of the company is San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, and he’s not talking. "The company name is...

He’s too young to play the lottery, but one South Bay teen has just beat 1 in 1.56 million odds: Cale McLellan sank back-to-back holes-in-one over the weekend. McLellan, the son of San Jose Sharks head coach Todd McLellan, was playing in a junior golf club tournament on the short course at Santa Teresa Golf Club in San Jose. The 14-year-old aced the 84-yard eighth hole and then scored another hole-in-one on the 116-yard ninth. McLellan finished third overall in the tournament.

Runners ran up to the man, shouting, "Thank you for your service"When Mercury News reporter Julia Prodis Sulek woke up Sunday morning, she wasn't sure why she heard all the clapping and cheering outside her San Jose home. Then she peeked outside. She saw dozens of runners zipping by, up on the sidewalk, as part of the 408k Race to the Row, which benefits the Pat Tillman Foundation. All the commotion outside was for 95-year-old World War II veteran Joe Bell, who came outside in full military dress and stood on the sidewalk to root on the runners. But it...

Facing a growing homeless population, San Jose is ready to try a new strategy to get people off the streets: pay to put some of them up in local hotels and motels, potentially for years. ...housing prices continue to climb and landlords become pickier about renters...100 homeless people roaming San Jose streets have publicly funded vouchers for subsidized housing but cannot find a place that will accept them. "It's just a tough place to live because of how expensive it is," said Leslye Corsiglia, the city's housing director, who called it an opportunity for homeless people "to get themselves settled...

Although the fact that the still-unsolved attack on a power station near San Jose occurred just a handful of hours after the Boston Marathon bombing — and apparently raised a few eyebrows initially — its ride in the public eye has been decidedly under the radar to date.[snip]Here’s what went down: Around 1 a.m. on April 16, two manholes were entered and fiber cables cut around the PG&E Metcalf substation, which killed some local 911 services, landline service to the substation, and cell phone service in the area, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Foreign Policy. More from Foreign Policy:...

Sometime before April 16, 2013, one or more people scouted the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s high-voltage Metcalf substation off Highway 101 near San Jose, California. They went around the unmanned power station at a range of 40-60 yards, marking places from which the transformers’ cooling fins were clearly visible through the chain-link fence with piles of stones. According to a Wall Street Journal report last week, at about 1 a.m. on that April 16, someone cut the telephone lines going to the substation’s location in a manner calculated to be hard to repair. Within about another thirty minutes, shooters...

Damage to South Bay substation triggers power alert About 10,000 gallons of oil began leaking Tuesday morning from a transformer at a San Jose PG&E substation, which authorities said was vandalized, possibly damaged by gunfire. The damage prompted the California Independent Service Operator to issue a "Flex Alert" Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. for Silicon Valley because of the heavy damage at the substation on Metcalf Road. The agency asked everyone in Northern California, but especially in Silicon Valley, to conserve energy as crews are working to fix the substation's damaged equipment. Power is being rerouted as the work is being...

SAN JOSE (CBS SF) — The former head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission believes the attack on a PG&E substation in South San Jose last spring was not an act of vandalism, but instead a terrorist attack. In April of last year, someone shot numerous rounds that damaged equipment at the Metcalf Road substation and also severed underground fiber optic cables nearby. In an interview Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, former FERC chief Jon Wellinghoff called the attack ”the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred.” Wellinghoff told the newspaper he’s going...

San Jose said goodbye to an American hero. He was part of an elite team of soldiers during World War II who received the highest praise from Gen. McCarthur. NBC Bay Area’s Damian Trujillo has the story.

In between bowls of chicken poodle soup and deciding to provide air cover for al-Qaeda in Syria, our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, found time to meet with mayors from our crumbling major cities. From Justin Sink of The Hill: *** "President Obama told a collection of big-city mayors Tuesday at the White House that he would continue to use executive actions to combat gun violence plaguing major cities. In the meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder and the mayors of 18 cities from across the nation, Obama discussed commonly applicable strategies to reduce youth violence. 'He also vowed to...

SAN JOSE -- A San Jose city committee Wednesday poured cold water on a proposal to eliminate soda pop, whole milk and other sugary or fattening beverages at city libraries, community centers and other public facilities. Councilman Ash Kalra's proposal hit a brick wall at the agenda-setting Rules and Open Government committee. Mayor Chuck Reed, who leads the committee, said "this definitely will not make my top 10 list" of potential ordinances to consider. Though he was willing at least to have the council as a whole decide whether to pursue it, none of the other committee members moved to...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A 22-year-old father of six was brutally murdered in broad daylight Saturday while standing in a restaurant parking lot in downtown San Jose and a nearby surveillance camera captured the entire scene. Witnesses too scared to go on camera told KTVU that the shooting stemmed from a fight, saying someone struck the victim, 22-year-old Ramon Garcia with axe-like weapon before he was shot and killed. Later that night, a woman dropped by the scene and lit candles near the spot where Garcia was found. She would not identify herself but she told KTVU that she had...

SAN JOSE -- A Modesto contractor awarded an $11 million contract to build a San Jose environmental center despite finishing two city fire stations late has walked off the job and filed for bankruptcy with the unfinished project more than six months overdue and $1.6 million over budget. Applegate Johnston's team failed to show up at the Las Plumas Avenue job site last month and filed bankruptcy papers two weeks later, jeopardizing the project's completion and complex financing and forcing the city this week to delay occupancy of a key tenant until next year. City officials said the deadlines to...

SAN JOSE -- Want a Coke at the San Jose Library? A root beer for the kids at Happy Hollow Park and Zoo? Maybe some whole milk for the little one? Forget it! That stuff makes you fat. A San Jose councilman wants the city to stop providing sugary drinks and whole milk at city properties and events to promote healthier diets. "We cannot stop the obesity epidemic," City Councilman Ash Kalra said in his proposal. "But as the city of San Jose, we can do our part by being socially responsible and accountable for the products we make available...