Up to half of Bay Area households can skip electric water heaters under an updated rule by air regulators. Residents not exempt have one more year to comply.

The unions and Kaiser Permanente are close on a four-year total – 21.5% offered by Kaiser compared to 25% sought over four years by the unions. But the unions want nearly half of those increases – 12% – to occur in the first year.

The hardware giant’s stores in Santa Clara County were burglarized at least 15 times. A Home Depot in Emeryville was hit 24 times.

This week’s unusual and brutal heat wave in California had been expected to cool off starting today, but the forecast was extended early today until 11pm tomorrow.

Forecasters say post frontal rain showers with a slight chance for thunderstorms will continue today. Rain showers are expected to linger into Tuesday before gradually decreasing from north to south.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning today for Northern California coastal areas, including the Bay Area.  A flood watch is in effect for the Bay Area and Central Coast through Friday morning. The weather service forecast for San Jose features rain for at least the next two weeks.

In coastal areas, wind gusts will be as high as 40 mph and on Friday could be as high as 35 mph. 

The more moderate weather this year broke a streak of three straight scorching summers, each ranking among the state’s 10 hottest ever recorded.

This week's warming trend begins today, with inland temperatures hitting the mid-80s to low 90s from the North Bay to southern Monterey County. The National Weather Service issued an Excessive Heat Watch for the interior Bay Area and Central Coast heading into a scorching weekend.

The April 21 downgrading of the credit ratings of 11 regional banks by Moody’s raised new doubts about their stability, while their leaders said the turmoil spurred by last month’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has passed.

The March 27 purchase by First Citizens Bancshares of all assets and liabilities of the failed Silicon Valley Bank did not include a community reinvestment pledge signed by SVB in 2021 as part of an acquisiton of Boston Private Bank.

The atmospheric river will be most severe on Friday, with a flood watch already in effect today through Sunday, a wind advisory today and tomorrow for the entire Bay Area and Gov. Gavin Newsom declaring a state of emergency for Santa Clara and 20 other counties.

San Jose and San Francisco scored well in just one category -- investment -- with the San Jose metro area attracting the most venture capital funding of the 25 measured regions. San Francisco ranked eighth, near Philadelphia and New York.

The alert for Labor Day is the sixth consecutive day that the California Independent System Operator has called for voluntary electricity conservation during peak usage hours, from 4 to 10pm.

Loan arrangement aims to help increase housing opportunities across the Bay Area.

The first count of unsheltered people in three years showed that the overall number of homeless individuals had increased by 3% in Santa Clara County (to 10,028) and increased by 11% (to 6,739) in the city limits of San José.