Valley Water provides safe, clean water to homes, businesses and farms throughout Santa Clara County. A dependable water supply is something we rely on every day, even if we don’t always think about it. Safe, clean water is essential to our health, economy and the innovation that drives Silicon Valley. However, much of our water...

Last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in City of Grants Pass v Johnson ruled city governments could sweep homeless encampments without violating individuals’ rights. Before this ruling, cities were prohibited from removing unhoused people from public spaces if they had no shelters available. In Silicon Valley, the debate following the Grants Pass decision focused on...

Sleight-of-hand. It’s the trick of making something appear and disappear without the object traveling anywhere. You may have experienced your grandfather pulling a quarter out of your ear when you were a kid or watched a skilled magician pull a rabbit out of a hat at a circus. But neither your grandfather or a magician...

When it comes to the Bay Area’s air quality report card, there’s little to smile about. The grades show failure across the board. Again. The American Lung Association has ranked the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area among the nation’s worst for air pollution: 14th for ozone pollution, 11th for short-term particle pollution and sixth for year-round particle...

I am sitting with a group of second graders at a rainbow table. I’m a reading interventionist and these students have been selected to work with me because of their reading difficulties. I pass out a sheet personalized with their first name so they can practice letter formation. One by one, I ask each student...

Infrastructure isn’t often associated with beauty or inspiration — but in the case of nature, it’s both. The natural environment does more for us than most of us understand. Earth Month reminds us nature isn’t an abstract concept, it’s an asset we must steward and invest in because nature is the most resilient, cost-effective and...

It was 1998, the year of the Ask Jeeves search engine, Titanic and the Spice Girls. California elected Gray Davis to succeed Pete Wilson as governor, and Santa Clara County voters adopted ranked choice voting (RCV) for local elections. More than 25 years later, the Spice Girls have had a reunion tour and no one...

Across California, school districts are grappling with an uncomfortable truth: fewer students, shrinking budgets, and tough decisions about school closures. The Alum Rock Union School District (ARUSD) is no exception. But within this crisis lies an opportunity — one that could transform East San Jose’s future. The closures, while painful, have created a rare opening:...

Efforts to improve Black maternal health outcomes have been doggedly pursued for decades. While there has been some encouraging data, there is still much to do to reduce instances of mortality and morbidity for Black infants and mothers (to include all pregnant and birthing people). Black mothers and infants have the highest rates for preterm...

Will you or your landlord need to replace your gas-fired furnace or water heater? Starting in less than two years, it may cost tens of thousands of dollars if the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has its way. And it’s unlikely to make much difference to air quality. A district report notes that some...