News

By AlterNet Staff

The House voted this afternoon to pass a modified version of the Bush-Paulson bailout plan by a 263-171 margin. 172 Democrats and 91 Republicans supported the measure.

Before the vote, CNN reported, "At least 20 House members said Friday they had switched positions and would now support the proposed $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial system.

"Among the 20 converts is Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Illinois, his chief of staff, Kenneth Edmonds, said.

"Edmonds said Jackson is changing his vote because "he received assurances from (Sen. Barack Obama) that, if elected, his administration will aggressively use authority in the bill to prevent foreclosures and stabilize the housing market."

By Chris Treadway

DEVELOPERS, PLANNERS, city officials and community members have tried for years to devise a cohesive and appealing plan for the area along San Pablo Avenue at the Del Norte BART station in El Cerrito. Now, 10 students from Kennedy High School in Richmond have come up with their own ideas for the area as the culmination of their summer internship in a program sponsored by the West Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee.

By Kevin Yamamura

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a landmark bill Tuesday to discourage sprawl in future decades, completing a deal among environmentalists, homebuilders and local governments on the final day of bill signing.

Senate Bill 375, by Democratic Sen. Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, will push California communities to consider climate change impacts of development in regional planning, with an emphasis on reducing car travel.

By Bob Egelko

OAKLAND -- An Oakland landlady who allegedly berated an African American tenant with racial slurs and told him that "you're not going to turn this place into a ghetto" must pay the man and his wife $31,000 in damages, a state civil rights agency has ruled. The remarks - which the landlady has denied making - amounted to racial discrimination in housing, the Fair Employment and Housing Commission said in a ruling last week.

The tenant, Dante Lemons, said he was sitting on the front porch of the Maryland Apartments at 3301 Telegraph Ave. in the spring or early summer of 2005, listening to the radio, when apartment co-owner Marlene O'Neill told him no loitering was allowed. When Lemons pointed out that he lived there, he said, O'Neill, who is white, replied that he shouldn't be outside and was turning the place into a ghetto.

By Rinku Sen, Photo by Brian Palmer

Mamdouh had actually managed to get by for 12 years without noticing American discrimination in a daily way... Now he rewound his history, noticing things that he hadn't clearly seen before.
AT 8 A.M. ON SEPTEMBER 11, 40-year-old Fekkak Mamdouh was asleep, having worked the previous night’s late shift from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. His wife, Fatima, lay beside him; she had dropped off their daughter at kindergarten four blocks away and then climbed back into bed. For six years, Mamdouh, whom everyone knew by his surname, had been a waiter at Windows on the World, the luxury restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower. He had started working there in 1996  when Windows reopened after the 1993 terrorist bombing in the World Trade Center basement. Mamdouh’s wide brown eyes and the round apples of his cheeks gave him a disarming look of innocence. These mellow features hid the scrappiness that had made him a beloved, though sometimes controversial, union leader.

By Matt O'Brien

If the East Bay economy could be judged by Pleasanton's median household income of $113,345, or its poverty rate of 2.1 percent, the region would seem to be doing fine.

The U.S. Census Bureau released statistics Tuesday that show the Tri-Valley city of about 68,000 people has regained its place as the most affluent midsize city in America.

"We're certainly in an enviable position and I'm not complaining," said Pleasanton Mayor Jennifer Hosterman. "We're better poised than most to ride out these rough economic waves."

By Francisco Da Costa

A Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) has been prepared by the United States Navy to supplement the already existing 2000 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The Navy purports that the proposed building of a brand new stadium and other drastic changes - forces the United States Navy to come out with with new ploy. Behind all this nonsense - the Pacific Heights Mafia, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Senator Diane Feinstein, Congressperson Nancy Pelosi, and the many local sell outs the likes of Supervisor Sophina Maxwell and others like Aurelious Walker.

By Brittany Owens

A blog that I monitor called “Only In San Francisco” feeds me photos and musings from the obscure corners of the city. Among the entries is usually some quip about homelessness.

The pictures that appear on my screen often call for consideration. Most of the time they are pictures of the homeless sleeping behind cars or sidewalks. Rarely do they show the human side of these people.

The fact that we are even able to say homeless and add the suffix, -ness, to make it a condition, startles me. Is homelessness a condition and can it be cured? Have we become that immune to what is dark, decrepit and sad, like the graffiti that is scattered across the city?

By Richard Brenneman

Planning commissioners Wednesday confronted what Chair James Samuels called “a chicken/egg problem”: How to define a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route without knowing its full impacts.

The controversial proposal from AC Transit would create a new bus route from Berkeley to San Leandro—running (possibly) from Berkeley’s downtown Bay Area Rapid Transit station to Bayfair BART.

But, as the report from city transportation planners Beth Greene and Kara Vuicich made clear, a great many questions remain unanswered, especially when four different governments are involved.

While the project belong to AC Transit—a public agency with its own elected board drawn from both Alameda and Contra Costa counties (the A and C in its name)—the cities of Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro must all sign off on the final plans.