San Jose Inside

The Florida-based foundation and Springboard for the Arts partner to connect communities with $3.5 million in grants for locally driven arts strategies.

After a spike in fraudulent applications to California’s community colleges, school officials say they are getting better at detecting and preventing fraud, though it still happens.

Prosecutors said Francisco Castillo, a county jail guard, approved the beating in the jail beforehand, provided rubber gloves to one attacker, opened the victim’s cell, watched as the beating took place, and then covered it up.

Campbell Union School District Superintendent Shelly Viramontez has announced her retirement, and Campbell’s Chief Improvement Officer Whitney Holton has been named interim superintendent.

Brandon Sanchez, Deputy Chief of Field Operations for San Jose, is a second-generation law enforcement officer with more than 26 years of experience in command-level leadership, patrol, investigations, administration, internal affairs, criminal intelligence, and homeland security training.

The men were indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco for conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, attempted robbery, and attempted kidnapping.

Polls released earlier this week showed some separation of three candidates – Democrats Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer and Republican Steve Hilton – from the others, and the trio were on the receiving end of most of the barbs at the May 14 debate. 

The debate comes at a pivotal moment in the top-two primary campaign – as mail ballots are returned and new polls show the number of undecided voters are dwindling with less than three weeks until the official June 2 Election Day.

Santa Clara County is going after Menlo Park-based Meta Platforms Inc., accusing the social media giant of facilitating 15 billion scam ads daily on Facebook and Instagram, accounting for $7 billion in revenues per year.

California State University leaders took a first step in creating new bachelor’s degrees that can be completed in as little as three years, taking work experience into account.

The officer, who was struck by a bullet fired from an arm’s length away, has since recovered from the injuries and is back on duty.

The settlement resolves claims filed by a whistleblower, Blockquote Inc., alleging that Innodisk Corp USA violated provisions of the federal Paycheck Protection Program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Opponents argue that the 2-cents-per-square-foot tax would add too much to property tax bills.

Last November, county officials  and proponents of Measure A estimated that the sales tax boost would generate about $330 million per year to help offset an estimated $1 billion annual shortfall caused by aid cuts in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who was still polling at single digits last week, was spared most of the vitriol, but didn’t hesitate to criticize each of the other candidates at every opportunity.
His favorite debate target was Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra.