Sure, unemployment is still high, but if you already have a job, there’s no better place to have it than in San Jose. CareerBliss.com ranked 50 American cities, based on eight “happiness factors.” San Jose came out on top in each category. Now all San Jose needs is more jobs.
Articles by Danny Wool
Three local companies have received a total of $6 million dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop technologies that would reduce the cost of solar energy production by as much as 75 percent by 2020.
An Egyptian businessman who has been negotiating between the Tahrir Square protesters and the Egyptian government says that Google exec Wael Ghonim, believed to be held by the Egyptian government, could be released this afternoon. It remains to be seen how he was treated after two weeks of administrative detention by the Mukhabarat secret police.
Archeology has come a long way since the the days of Indiana Jones, thanks to satellite technology and Google Earth. One Australian archeologist, David Kennedy, was able to scan 1,240 square miles of the forbidding Saudi Arabian peninsula from the comfort of his office in Perth. He found 1,977 potential archeological sites there.
Faced with a $30 million deficit, sharp cuts in service are looming for Caltrain. Weekend services might be eliminated entirely, and weekday services could be limited to commute times only. Other possibilities include suspending service at seven to 10 stations, and eliminating all service south of Diridon Station.
Google’s Middle East marketing executive Wael Ghonim has been missing in Egypt since Jan. 25. His family believes that he is in police custody and reports receiving phone calls that he is “being taught a lesson.” Google will not comment in order to protect his safety.
While food banks struggle to keep local people fed, funding for the federal food stamp program goes unclaimed. The problem, says Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), is that the application process is too complicated and involves being fingerprinted. Until it can be simplified, Second Harvest is helping people fill out the forms, hoping to reduce some of the strain.
A local family that participated in the Minute to Win It game show came away $500,000 richer. The Bishops of Willow Glen had five children, ages 10 to 19, participate in a series of challenging games, each one bringing them one step closer to the grand prize of $1 million dollars. The family went farther than any of the show’s other contestants. Now they have to decide what to do with the money they’ve won.
A fundraising effort is underway to repair the downtown Veterans Memorial, after vandals smashed its glass plates. The memorial has been a regular target of vandalism for the past six years, and the glass plates that are an integral part of the site, have been boarded up with plywood. Over 10 percent of San Jose’s population consists of veterans.
“Friends of Caltrain” held a summit this Saturday to discuss ways to keep the service running despite its $30 million debt. The strategy focused on increasing ridership, containing costs, and identifying a steady source of income for the rail line. Of all the 28 transit agencies operating in the Bay Area, Caltrain is the only one to lack a dedicated source of funding.
