Latest news with #SanJoseStateUniversity
Business Journals
19-06-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Congressman warns ‘innovation economy is under threat,' calls for bipartisan approach
Expand Chris Thornberg and Sam Liccardo at the 2025 San Jose State University Economic Summit. Robert C. Bain
San Francisco Chronicle
12-06-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Low-income, first-generation students could lose vital college resource under Trump's budget cuts
Mission High School graduating senior Mariana Aguilar, the daughter of working-class Colombian immigrants, had always wanted to make her parents proud by becoming one of the first in their family to go to college. But she doesn't know whether she'd have been able to earn a spot at San Jose State University — where she'll enroll with a full scholarship this fall –—without the help of her college access counselor, Alexis Lopez. 'Alexis just changed my life,' Aguilar said last week after she celebrated alongside 44 other high school seniors from low-income families who participated in a program that provides intensive coaching for disadvantaged teens to become first-generation college students. But hers might be the last class to benefit from Upward Bound. The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget slashes all $1.2 billion for a suite of college access programs for low-income, first-generation college students called TRIO, which includes Upward Bound. Congress is still negotiating the budget, which the Senate has not yet passed. The budget would also cut from social safety nets like Medicaid and the federal food stamps program while spending on border security, deportations and tax cuts. The Trump administration's budget document, submitted May 2 by White House budget director, Russell Vought, states college access programs are 'a relic of the past' and that it's 'engaging in woke ideology with federal taxpayer subsidies.' 'Today, the pendulum has swung and access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means,' stated Vought's budget document. It added that colleges and universities 'should be using their own resources' to recruit students. The TRIO programs were created in the 1960s as part of a federal 'war on poverty.' While inequality in college attainment has slightly decreased since 1970, it persists, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by Pell Institute researchers. In 2022, students from families in the lowest-earning quarter were almost four times less likely to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24 than those from the highest-earning quarter, according to the analysis. A Pew Research Center report on 2019 data also found that children of college-educated parents are far more likely to graduate from college. About 70% of adults aged 22 to 59 with at least one parent who has a bachelor's degree or more have obtained a bachelor's degree as well, compared to only 26% of their peers who do not have a college-educated parent. In San Francisco, the nonprofit Japanese Community Youth Council receives $2.6 million annually to pay for about 25 staff who help 3,000-odd students at 13 SFUSD schools a year through Upward Bound and another TRIO program, Talent Search, that casts a wider net. Federal rules stipulate that two-thirds of those students must come from families that make less than 150% of the federal poverty level, about $48,000 for a family of four. 'The outcome of the elimination of these programs is the already staggering racial wealth gap in this country is going to continue to widen,' said the nonprofit's executive director, Jon Osaki. 'Those who have less access, less means, to pursue higher education, are going to fall further behind in this country.' The programs have historically had bipartisan support. Both Republicans and Democrats voiced support at recent congressional hearings, including Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who chairs the Senate appropriations committee. 'I have seen the lives of countless first-generation and low income students … who often face barriers to accessing a college education changed by the TRIO program,' Collins said, questioning why Trump's budget eliminated it. Education secretary Linda McMahon said in response that the department had no way to hold the program administrators accountable based on whether they were effective or not. Collins said the government could reform the programs, not abolish them. Kimberly Jones, president of the Washington-based nonprofit Council for Opportunity in Education that has been active in lobbying Congress to keep funding TRIO, said that the programs are effective. Upward Bound students are more than twice as likely to earn a bachelor's degree by age 24 than students from the lowest earning quarter of families, according to the council. 'These tools are invaluable as many first-generation college students go on to become the first homeowners in their families, the first to work in 'white-collar' industries, and many other firsts throughout their lifetimes,' Jones said. Aguilar, the Mission High School graduating senior, said that her family was forced to move to the East Bay in her junior year when her mom, who works as a nanny, could no longer afford to live in San Francisco. Thrust into a new school in a new city where she knew no one, she fell into a severe depression, she said. Her mom transferred her back to Mission High midway through junior year, where Lopez, the adviser, quickly connected with her. Lopez arranged for Aguilar to go on a field trip to San Jose State University. They decided that the school and its big business program would be perfect for her. Lopez helped her apply for scholarships that would give her a full ride. 'Without her, I don't know what I'd be doing now,' she said. Balboa High School graduating senior Caryn Dea, the child of blue-collar Chinese immigrants, said that she's always wanted to go to college but didn't know how. Her parents, who didn't attend college, worked long hours. 'Throughout applying for college, I was scared,' Dea said. Her dream school, which she visited through an Upward Bound trip to Southern California colleges, was UCLA. 'But I found myself thinking I wouldn't get in anywhere.' Her Upward Bound adviser, Karen Coreas Diaz, frequently reassured her, saying, 'You got this,' Dea remembered, and helped her with her essays. 'She's been the best support system I've had,' Dea said. She will be attending UCLA, where she hopes to study human biology or a healthcare field. Coreas Diaz said that mentoring the Upward Bound students felt like healing her own 'inner child.' The child of Salvadoran immigrants who didn't go to college, Coreas Diaz said she struggled in high school as well, eventually enrolling in community college because her grades weren't good enough before ultimately transferring to UC Berkeley. But unlike her students, she didn't have a mentor. 'Supporting you felt like taking care of a younger version of myself,' Coreas Diaz said to her students during a tearful speech at the graduation ceremony. Unlike students with wealthy parents, her students cannot afford pricey private college counseling. Her work, she said, gives them the same advantages: help with essays, deadlines and college application. Jackie Lam, associate director of JCYC's Upward Bound program, said students with low-income parents who didn't attend college often lack access to crucial information. They may not be aware, for example, that they can apply to Stanford University and possibly get a full ride if their parents make less than six figures, he said. More than 80% of the high schoolers in JCYC's program who graduate high school enrolled in college every year, Lam said, with the exception of 2020, when they came close. 'Being a teenager is hard because you feel lost,' said Halima Cherif, a graduating senior from San Francisco International High School who participated in Upward Bound. She credited her adviser, Atokena Abe, with helping her get into her dream college, UC Berkeley, where she hopes to study biology or psychology. 'When students aren't guided, most won't have the ability or courage to go to college, work hard and have their dreams and goals,' she said. 'And more importantly, to get a job to help themselves and contribute to the people of this country.'
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Why There Are So Many Car-Ramming Attacks—and What to Do About It
A tent is erected by police on Water Street in Liverpool after a car collided with pedestrians during the Premier League winners parade on May 26, 2025. Credit - Danny Lawson—A driver on Monday evening plowed a minivan into a sea of hundreds of thousands of soccer fans celebrating Liverpool's victory in the Premier League, injuring more than 45 people, including at least four children. Fans wrapped in red scarves and dressed in the English team's jerseys were at a victory parade the day after the season's end when a grey minivan turned onto the parade route around 6 p.m. local time. The vehicle struck a man, throwing him into the air, then plowed through a larger group of people before coming to a stop, video on social media shows. The crowd reportedly charged the stopped vehicle and smashed its windows, but the driver continued driving through the rest of the crowd. In total, 27 people were taken to the hospital, including two with serious injuries, and 20 others were treated at the scene for minor injuries, according to Dave Kitchin of North West Ambulance Service. Police arrested a 53-year old white British man from the Liverpool area. Police say they do not believe the incident is terrorism-related but asked that people not speculate or share 'distressing content online' while the investigation proceeds. 'Everyone, especially children, should be able to celebrate their heroes without this horror,' British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement from Downing Street. It's the latest major vehicle-ramming incident to happen across the globe. In April, a 30-year-old man sped an SUV down a closed street into a crowd of people attending a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, Canada, killing 11. In February, a 24-year-old man killed a mother and her daughter and injured 37 others when he rammed his car into a union rallydemonstration in Munich, Germany. In January, a 42-year-old man drove a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans, La., in the early hours of New Year's Day, killing at least 15 in what police called an act of terrorism. In December, at least five people were killed and over 200 injured when a 50-year-old man rammed an SUV into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. And in November, a 62-year-old man slammed a car into people exercising at a sports complex in Zhuhai, southern China, killing 35. Here's what to know about vehicle-rammings, why they're so dangerous, and what to do in case of an attack. Comprehensive data is limited, but according to a 2019 study from San Jose State University researchers, 70% of vehicle-ramming incidents up to that point had happened in the last five years. In 2016, vehicle-ramming attacks were the most lethal form of attack and accounted for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths that year. A string of high-profile attacks in 2016 and 2017 killed more than 100 people, the deadliest of which happened in Nice, France, on Bastille Day, July 14, 2016, when a man drove a rented truck through a seaside promenade, killing 86. In the past six months alone, there have been 15 vehicle-ramming attacks worldwide, not counting the latest in Liverpool, killing 71 people, according to the National Transportation Security Center. Part of why vehicle-ramming has become a more frequent method of choice for mass-casualty attacks is due to the relative ease in carrying it out. 'This tactic requires little or no training, no specific skillset, and carries a relatively low risk of early detection,' nonprofit global policy think tank Rand said. 'A car, a knife—these are everyday items, often it's very unclear that someone has bad intentions with them until it's too late,' Bart Schuurman, professor of terrorism and political violence at Leiden University, told Euronews in April. In cases of orchestrated terror attacks, using a vehicle lets people get around counter-terrorism efforts that make access to firearms and explosives difficult, Schuurman added. But not all cases are orchestrated by terrorist groups. Some incidents are mental health-related, like in Zhuhai, China, or they are ideologically-affiliated but committed by an individual. It's become a 'quickly adopted' method by right-wing extremists, for example, Schuurman said, such as when a white supremacist killed one and injured 35 people who were protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2016 and when a 25-year old self-described 'incel,' drove a rental van into a crowd of mainly women in Toronto in 2018, killing 10 people and injuring 16. The diversity in perpetrators and their motivations poses an additional challenge to preventing attacks. A 2018 study on the 'imitative' quality of vehicle rammings found that car-ramming incidents offer a model in terms of 'the act itself, as something that is not merely an expression of an individual or an ideology, but something that has a lure and force all of its own.' 'It subconsciously becomes part of the repertoire of options for people to express their anger in some way and they get exposed to it through the vectors of the media and social media,' sociologist Vincent Miller, who co-authored the study, told DW News. 'The profile of the perpetrator is very hard to define. The main thing they have in common is the act,' he added. A 2021 report by Rand looked into how rental or vehicle-sharing schemes have been used in some attacks, such as was the case in the New Year's Day ramming in New Orleans. It suggested that limited collaboration between industry and law enforcement due to data protection constraints, a lack of industry-wide training when it comes to identifying a potential attacker, and insufficient security procedures during online booking can all make it harder to mitigate an attack. Pauline Paille, a Rand researcher focused on international security, told DW News that certain barriers to vehicle rentals could be implemented to mitigate against such attacks. These include stronger background checks and financial deposits, as well as geofencing—which uses location data to create virtual boundaries for cars—to block smart cars from turning into pedestrianized areas. Paille also said that urban areas could be redesigned to separate roads from footpaths. Vehicle barriers are already commonly used during large-scale outdoor pedestrian events such as festivals or parades as a mitigation strategy. The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency offers some guidance on how to prevent an attack or what to do if one happens. While the use of a car or other vehicle often means there are fewer indicators of an attack plot, CISA suggests looking out for the following and reporting them to authorities if they seem suspicious, particularly for vehicle rental business workers: Reported theft of large or heavy-duty vehicles Difficulty explaining the planned use of a rented vehicle Nervousness or other suspicious behaviour during a vehicle rental discussion, for example insistence on paying in cash Lack of or refusal to produce required documentation for a vehicle rental Difficulty operating, or apparent lack of familiarity or experience with, a rented vehicle Loitering, parking, or standing in the same area over multiple days with no clear explanation Unexplained use of binoculars, cameras, or recording devices around a certain area In case of a vehicle-ramming attack, pedestrians should: Run away from the vehicle and towards the nearest safe area If you fall, curl into a protected position and try to get up as soon as possible to avoid being trampled Seek cover behind any objects that eliminate the direct line of sight from the vehicle Call 9-1-1 and follow instructions from law enforcement and first responders Organizers of events should: Include clear signage for emergency entry and exit points, first-aid stations, and shelter locations Define the perimeter that requires access control for pedestrians and vehicles Restrict vehicular traffic through pedestrianized areas Use remote parking and shuttle services Use physical barriers like bollards, heavy planters, and barricades, to create standoff distances between large crowds and vehicles Consider positioning heavy vehicles around the perimeter of crowded areas to serve as an additional physical barrier Contact us at letters@
Time Magazine
27-05-2025
- Time Magazine
Car-Ramming Attacks Have Increased Over the Years. Here's Why They're So Hard to Prevent
A driver on Monday evening plowed a minivan into a sea of hundreds of thousands of soccer fans celebrating Liverpool's victory in the Premier League, injuring more than 45 people, including at least four children. Fans wrapped in red scarves and dressed in the English team's jerseys were at a victory parade the day after the season's end when a grey minivan turned onto the parade route around 6 p.m. local time. The vehicle struck a man, throwing him into the air, then plowed through a larger group of people before coming to a stop, video on social media shows. The crowd reportedly charged the stopped vehicle and smashed its windows, but the driver continued driving through the rest of the crowd. In total, 27 people were taken to the hospital, including two with serious injuries, and 20 others were treated at the scene for minor injuries, according to Dave Kitchin of North West Ambulance Service. Police arrested a 53-year old white British man from the Liverpool area. Police say they do not believe the incident is terrorism-related but asked that people not speculate or share 'distressing content online' while the investigation proceeds. 'Everyone, especially children, should be able to celebrate their heroes without this horror,' British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement from Downing Street. It's the latest major vehicle-ramming incident to happen across the globe. In April, a 30-year-old man sped an SUV down a closed street into a crowd of people attending a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, Canada, killing 11. In February, a 24-year-old man killed a mother and her daughter and injured 37 others when he rammed his car into a union rallydemonstration in Munich, Germany. In January, a 42-year-old man drove a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans, La., in the early hours of New Year's Day, killing at least 15 in what police called an act of terrorism. In December, at least five people were killed and over 200 injured when a 50-year-old man rammed an SUV into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. And in November, a 62-year-old man slammed a car into people exercising at a sports complex in Zhuhai, southern China, killing 35. Here's what to know about vehicle-rammings, why they're so dangerous, and what to do in case of an attack. Vehicle-ramming attacks on the rise Comprehensive data is limited, but according to a 2019 study from San Jose State University researchers, 70% of vehicle-ramming incidents up to that point had happened in the last five years. In 2016, vehicle-ramming attacks were the most lethal form of attack and accounted for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths that year. A string of high-profile attacks in 2016 and 2017 killed more than 100 people, the deadliest of which happened in Nice, France, on Bastille Day, July 14, 2016, when a man drove a rented truck through a seaside promenade, killing 86. In the past six months alone, there have been 15 vehicle-ramming attacks worldwide, not counting the latest in Liverpool, killing 71 people, according to the National Transportation Security Center. Why it's so hard to prevent these attacks Part of why vehicle-ramming has become a more frequent method of choice for mass-casualty attacks is due to the relative ease in carrying it out. 'This tactic requires little or no training, no specific skillset, and carries a relatively low risk of early detection,' nonprofit global policy think tank Rand said. 'A car, a knife—these are everyday items, often it's very unclear that someone has bad intentions with them until it's too late,' Bart Schuurman, professor of terrorism and political violence at Leiden University, told Euronews in April. In cases of orchestrated terror attacks, using a vehicle lets people get around counter-terrorism efforts that make access to firearms and explosives difficult, Schuurman added. But not all cases are orchestrated by terrorist groups. Some incidents are mental health-related, like in Zhuhai, China, or they are ideologically-affiliated but committed by an individual. It's become a 'quickly adopted' method by right-wing extremists, for example, Schuurman said, such as when a white supremacist killed one and injured 35 people who were protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2016 and when a 25-year old self-described 'incel,' drove a rental van into a crowd of mainly women in Toronto in 2018, killing 10 people and injuring 16. The diversity in perpetrators and their motivations poses an additional challenge to preventing attacks. A 2018 study on the 'imitative' quality of vehicle rammings found that car-ramming incidents offer a model in terms of 'the act itself, as something that is not merely an expression of an individual or an ideology, but something that has a lure and force all of its own.' 'It subconsciously becomes part of the repertoire of options for people to express their anger in some way and they get exposed to it through the vectors of the media and social media,' sociologist Vincent Miller, who co-authored the study, told DW News. 'The profile of the perpetrator is very hard to define. The main thing they have in common is the act,' he added. A 2021 report by Rand looked into how rental or vehicle-sharing schemes have been used in some attacks, such as was the case in the New Year's Day ramming in New Orleans. It suggested that limited collaboration between industry and law enforcement due to data protection constraints, a lack of industry-wide training when it comes to identifying a potential attacker, and insufficient security procedures during online booking can all make it harder to mitigate an attack. Pauline Paille, a Rand researcher focused on international security, told DW News that certain barriers to vehicle rentals could be implemented to mitigate against such attacks. These include stronger background checks and financial deposits, as well as geofencing—which uses location data to create virtual boundaries for cars—to block smart cars from turning into pedestrianized areas. Paille also said that urban areas could be redesigned to separate roads from footpaths. Vehicle barriers are already commonly used during large-scale outdoor pedestrian events such as festivals or parades as a mitigation strategy. What to do in case of an attack The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency offers some guidance on how to prevent an attack or what to do if one happens. While the use of a car or other vehicle often means there are fewer indicators of an attack plot, CISA suggests looking out for the following and reporting them to authorities if they seem suspicious, particularly for vehicle rental business workers: Reported theft of large or heavy-duty vehicles Difficulty explaining the planned use of a rented vehicle Nervousness or other suspicious behaviour during a vehicle rental discussion, for example insistence on paying in cash Lack of or refusal to produce required documentation for a vehicle rental Difficulty operating, or apparent lack of familiarity or experience with, a rented vehicle Loitering, parking, or standing in the same area over multiple days with no clear explanation Unexplained use of binoculars, cameras, or recording devices around a certain area In case of a vehicle-ramming attack, pedestrians should: Organizers of events should:
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Yosemite's ultra-deep canyon may have been carved in part by a ghost volcano and river, provocative research suggests
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A provocative new hypothesis suggests that Yosemite Valley was carved by an ancient volcano and a disappearing river, both of which have long since eroded away. Geologists have long debated why Yosemite Valley is so deep, with walls that tower up to 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) above the valley floor. The prevailing explanation is that in the last 10 million years, the Sierra Nevada mountains of California experienced a period of uplift, steepening their slope and causing the rivers to flow more quickly and erode more quickly into the granite around them. But a new study, published April 3 in the journal Geosphere, suggests uplift wasn't the real reason Yosemite exists. Instead, said study co-author Manny Gabet, a geomorphologist at San Jose State University, the landscape of Yosemite and the surrounding Sierras is better explained by a long-vanished river. Millions of years ago, this river would have increased the flow to the modern day Merced River and Tenaya Creek, which would have then had enough power to slice through the Sierras to create Yosemite Valley and nearby Tenaya Canyon. "At some point in time," Gabet told Live Science, "there was a big river here. And now that river is gone." Geologists agree that in the last 2 to 3 million years, Yosemite was under a glacier that helped deepen the valley. But they also believe that this glacier filled a pre-existing deep valley, said Kurt Cuffey, a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the new research. "So why did the canyon form in the first place?" Cuffey said. There are a lot of faults on the east side of the Sierra Nevada that likely would have caused the mountains to rise and get steeper, Cuffey told Live Science. But geologists can't say how much higher the mountain range got, or if it was high enough to substantially increase the erosive power of the rivers. It's a controversial topic, he said. Uplift also doesn't explain three odd observations, Cuffey said. The first is that Tenaya Canyon, a steep and treacherous canyon that runs from Tenaya Lake into Yosemite Valley, is way too deep to have been cut by the stream that runs through it today, Tenaya Creek. "It's just a really small river," Gabet said. "You can jump across it. The mystery is, how did this tiny creek cut through thousands of feet of very resistant, very massive granite?" The second mystery is that in California's Central Valley, where the Merced River spills out of Yosemite and creates a fan-shaped layer of sediment it has carried from the mountains, there are huge deposits of volcanic rock that shouldn't be there. "You've got 8 cubic miles [33.3 cubic kilometers] of volcanic sediment deposited in the Central Valley by the Merced River, but you can't find a scrap of these volcanic rocks," in the area around the river, Gabet said. The third mystery has to do with the uneven shape of the valley cut by the Tuolumne River just north of the Merced, Cuffey said. This valley is much larger on one side than the other. It's a relatively subtle point to a non-geologist, but "that needs an explanation," he said. Gabet's hypothesis harkens back to 5 to 10 million years ago, when a chain of volcanoes had buried the northern Sierra Nevada in huge mudflows, creating a gently sloping volcanic plain with only a few mountain peaks poking out of it. These deposits are still seen north of Yosemite, but not in the area around the Merced River. "I realized these volcanic rocks that had been transported by the Merced River must have come from this chain of volcanoes," Gabet said. The peaks of such a volcanic chain would have been drained by a large, now lost river, he said. This river would have flowed from now-vanished volcanic slopes north of where the National Park is today and then gushed into the ancient Merced and Tenaya Creek, enabling them to carve out Yosemite Valley and Tenaya Canyon. RELATED STORIES —Flowing fire? Yosemite's burning waterfall explained —Photos: Take a tour of spectacular Yosemite —Earth's crust is peeling away under California The influence of this river would have made both the Merced and Tenaya Creek much larger than today's relative trickle — so large that they could have cut down the canyons. The drainage patterns from this ghost river would also explain the lopsided topography around the Tuolumne River , Cuffey said. Finally, the river would have carried the volcanic rock now found in the Central Valley down from the northern Sierra Nevada, a journey that is hard to explain otherwise. The river and volcano would have themselves eventually eroded to nothing, so there is no way to check if they ever existed. One of Gabet's students is now working on a project to try to recreate the ancient topography of the Sierra Nevada to better understand how the geology of the mountains evolved and perhaps shed more light on the possibility. "He's got a really interesting thing going," Cuffey said of Gabet. "I really don't know if it's true or not at this point, but it's a great hypothesis that we should think about."
