San Jose lawmakers are cracking down on enforcing stricter workforce protections for construction workers almost two years after the shocking discovery of an unlicensed contractor harboring undocumented immigrants in slave-like conditions at the former Silvery Towers site. On Tuesday, the City Council passed a law that requires contractors to pay workers a prevailing wage while...

A nonprofit group dedicated to securing land for affordable housing is asking the Santa Clara Valley Water District to donate some of its public land for low-income housing  — beginning with San Jose’s Mayfair district. The South Bay Community Land Trust, the region’s first land trust for affordable housing, launched in late April and its leaders...

Santa Clara officials are deciding how the city will spend $5 million earmarked for affordable housing that the city has received from San Jose this week as part of a lawsuit settled last year. Though the money will go toward affordable housing, the city hasn’t yet identified specific projects or initiatives for the funds. San...

For nearly four months, more than a million people flocked to San Jose City Hall to catch a glimpse of the jaw-dropping “Sonic Runway,” a light-art installation that converted music into light patterns on 25 giant arches that stretched an entire city block. The art installation was so wildly popular that city leaders are now...

A federal appeals court upheld a ruling last month that President Donald Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking critics on Twitter — prompting San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo to begin reinstating hundreds of social media users he’s blocked on Twitter and Facebook, a move that one good government advocate said is “better late than...

After a month-long summer recess, San Jose lawmakers on Tuesday will discuss initiatives that strengthen a recently-approved wage law for workers on projects that receive tax breaks and a plan to place two new billboards on city property. Headlining next week’s City Council meeting is a proposal that adds protections for construction workers on city-subsidized...

After several years of raising money by raffling firearms, San Jose’s police union leaders have decided to cancel the raffle indefinitely in the wake of a mass shooting in Gilroy last weekend that killed three people and injured more than a dozen others. “This was planned well in advance of the tragedy in Gilroy,” said...

San Jose officials and two groups suing the city over an alleged lack of transparency in its negotiations with Google for a massive new downtown campus presented their cases to a Santa Clara Superior Court judge on Thursday morning. Now they’re all waiting to see what she’ll decide. “The decision could come tomorrow or two...