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Q&A: Meet Santa Clara County’s new executive, James Williams

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

After more than a decade at the helm of Santa Clara County, longtime public servant and now-former county executive Jeff Smith retired earlier this month, thrusting previous county counsel James Williams into the county’s top role.On July 10, Williams was sworn in to oversee Santa Clara County’s 23,000 employees and a $11.3 billion budget at a time when the county is facing fiscal uncertainty with a growing deficit that could balloon to $158 million by the 2024-2025 fiscal year.Williams has been with the county for almost 13 years now, starting off in the county counsel’s office before moving to the county executive’s office. In 2016, he was appointed to his most recent role as the county counsel.The Mercury News caught up with Williams to chat more about the challenges the county is facing and what he’s most looking forward to about his new job serving the 1.9 million residents living in Santa Clara County.Q: What do you think the biggest issues are fa...

Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

At a lofty warehouse in East Oakland, a dozen students have spent their summer days tinkering with laptops. The teens, who are part of Oakland Unified’s tech repair internship, have fixed broken screens, faulty keyboards and tangled wiring, mending whatever they can.But despite their technological prowess, there’s one mechanical issue the tech interns haven’t been able to crack: expired Chromebooks.With a software death date baked into each model, older versions of these inexpensive computers are set to expire three to six years after their release. Despite having fully functioning hardware, an expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use.“They’re designed to be disposable,” said Sam Berg, Oakland Unified’s computer science coordinator and designer of the district’s tech repair internship. “It’s like planned obsolescence.”Chromebook sales soared after the start of the pandemic...

Did Taylor Swift’s latest surprise song hint to the next potential ‘Taylor’s Version’ album

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

The inimitable Taylor Swift has been on her record-breaking “Eras” tour and along the way, she’s played a different “surprise song” to change up the setlist at every concert.Taylor Swift performing in Ireland during a 2018 ‘Reputation’ tour concert. On Saturday during her Seattle concert, Swift’s surprise song was an acoustic version of “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” a “Reputation” album track that’s been long-speculated by Swifties to be about Kanye West, who has notoriously clashed in public with the singer through the years.It all started, as if we could forget, when the “Gold Digger” rapper notoriously interrupted Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards while she was accepting the award for best female video.The artists clashed again in a 2016 dispute over whether or not the rapper cleared lyrics with Swift for his song “Famous,” wherein he calls Swift a “b—” and takes credit for her fame.Despite the fact that a handful of songs from the 2017 album are played reg...

Pedestrian dies in San Jose crash near Hwy 85

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

(KRON) -- A fatal crash took place on a Highway 85 offramp Monday morning, according to the San Jose Police Department. Car veers off dead end at Sanchez Street Stairs in SF The crash happened in the area of Camden Avenue and Highway 85. A man who was walking nearby was pronounced dead the the scene. The driver in the crash is cooperating with police. This is the 28th fatal crash and the 29th person to die in a traffic accident on San Jose streets in 2023. SJPD says morning traffic will be impacted by the crash. Drivers are asked to use caution or consider an alternate route.

Fin de semana violento en Ecuador: matan a un alcalde y seis presos mueren en una cárcel

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

(CNN) — El alcalde de Manta, sexta ciudad más grande de Ecuador, Agustín Intriago, fue asesinado este domingo en un atentado dirigido contra él, según un comunicado del ministro del Interior del país, Juan Zapata.Una mujer, Ariana Chancay, también murió en el ataque, según las autoridades. Cuatro personas resultaron heridas, entre ellas dos presuntos participantes en el asesinato selectivo que se encuentran ahora bajo custodia policial.Las autoridades expresaron sus condolencias y ordenaron una investigación exhaustiva por parte de la Policía Nacional.El presidente de Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, condenó el ataque en Twitter: “Lamentable noticia para el país, ordené al comandante general activar los recursos necesarios para que los responsables de este crimen sean encontrados y llevados ante la justicia. Nuestros pensamientos están con la familia del alcalde y la de la otra víctima”.Manta es un puerto clave en la costa ecuatoriana del Pacífico y uno de los mayores pue...

China wins two gold medals at the swimming worlds. Americans finish 1-2 in women’s 200-meter medley

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

FUKUOKA, Japan (AP) — China dominated the second day of the swimming world championships on Monday, winning back-to-back gold medals in the first 10 minutes of the session.Zhang Yufei won the women’s 100-meter butterfly and Qin Haiyang went wire-to-wire in the men’s 100 breaststroke.Zhang rallied over the final 15 meters, touching in 56.12 seconds. Margaret MacNeil of Canada finished second in 56.45, while Torri Huske of the United States clocked 56.61 for third two years after placing fourth in the event at the Tokyo Olympics.The women’s race was a repeat of the final two years ago at the Tokyo Games. The top four finishers in Tokyo were separated by only 14 hundredths of a second. That race went to MacNeil, followed by Zhang and Australian swimmer Emma McKeon. Huske was .01 behind McKeon and missed out on a medal.Qin won his race only a few minutes before Zhang’s triumph. After topping all other swimmers by more than one second in the semifinals, Qin was never challenged in the fi...

New Commanders owner Josh Harris aims to earn trust, win back disgruntled fans

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

Josh Harris, the leader of a group buying the Washington Commanders, speaks at an introductory NFL football news conference at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., Friday, July 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)(AP/Alex Brandon) Josh Harris, the leader of a group buying the Washington Commanders, speaks at an introductory NFL football news conference at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., Friday, July 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)(AP/Alex Brandon) New Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris knows there’s a big challenge ahead as he seeks to reengage long-frustrated fans.“Most importantly, we hope to earn your trust,” Harris wrote in a letter to Commanders fans that the team shared on social media.Magic Joh...

Northwest Bancshares: Q2 Earnings Snapshot

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Northwest Bancshares Inc. (NWBI) on Monday reported second-quarter earnings of $33 million.The Columbus, Ohio-based company said it had profit of 26 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for costs related to mergers and acquisitions, were 27 cents per share.The results matched Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was also for earnings of 27 cents per share.The holding company for Northwest Savings Bank posted revenue of $173.8 million in the period. Its adjusted revenue was $138.3 million._____This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on NWBI at https://www.zacks.com/ap/NWBISource

Cheesy, oven-baked potato tacos evoke Los Angeles’ innovative tortilla scene

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

While exploring the taco scene in Los Angeles, we learned just how wide of a world filled tortillas could be.Corn tortillas filled with stingray. Hard-shell tacos shaped like baskets. Middle Eastern-­influenced tacos Árabes with meat cooked on a spit with onion, Oaxacan cheese, avocado and chili salsa.Particularly memorable were the flautas, deep-fried flute-shaped tacos with lamb, chicken, chorizo or potato that are also called tacos dorados (which means golden). Crunchy and satisfying, the flautas came topped with salsa roja, guacamole and cotija cheese.For weeknights, however, we typically avoid the mess of deep-frying. So for this recipe from our book “Cook What You Have,” which draws on pantry staples to assemble easy, weeknight meals, we experimented with swapping deep-frying for the oven. And we were delighted with the crispy results.We keep the filling simple, with roughly mashed potatoes and shredded cheese, but we amp it with two flavor-packed pantry ingredients — canned c...

Salesforce CEO shares his predictions for AI and the future of work

Published Thu, 06 Feb 2025 13:45:08 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff has become something of a vanishing breed during the nearly quarter century he has been running the company that pioneered the concept of selling software as an online subscription. While Benioff remains in charge at Salesforce, other billionaire founder/CEOs such Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Larry Page and Netflix’s Reed Hastings have all stepped away from groundbreaking companies born during the 1990s.Benioff, 58, isn’t ready to leave Salesforce yet, even though he has amassed an $8 billion fortune and just went through a challenging stretch that might have caused many CEOs to head for the exit. In January, Benioff decided to lay off 8,000 Salesforce employees after overseeing a pandemic-driven expansion that included a nearly $28 billion acquisition of the popular workplace tool Slack and then grappled with an investor backlash triggered by a nearly 50% drop in the company’s stock price la...