Over the break briefs

By: Kevin Rand and Lindsay Bryant

Posted: 1/23/08

'ROID RAID

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens headlined the names of the Major League Baseball players implicated in Sen. George Mitchell's steroid investigation.

The Mitchell Report listed more than 90 current and former professional baseball players alleged to have taken illegal, performance-enhancing drugs over the past two decades.

--The New York Times

STORM HITS NOR CAL

The biggest storm in two years drenched Northern California earlier this month, causing floods and power outages for more than one million Bay Area residents.

Winds reportedly reached hurricane-force speeds.

--San Jose Mercury News

WHAT'S IN A NAME

Hundreds of Vietnamese-Americans protested in front of San Jose's City Hall, calling for councilwoman Madison Nguyen's resignation.

Nguyen voted to name a strip of mostly Vietnamese-owned businesses "Saigon Business District" despite the demand from many of her constituents to call the area "Little Saigon."

--San Jose Mercury News

SANTA CLARA OKS 49ERS STADIUM TALKS

The Santa Clara City Council voted 6-1 in favor of beginning negotiations with the San Francisco 49ers about building a stadium near Great America.

Officials are scheduled to begin talks on a "term sheet" that would set out terms for a binding agreement that most likely would be put to a vote of city residents.

--San Jose Mercury News

FIRE HITS DOWNTOWN

A fire fueled by a natural gas leak ripped through a historic building and city landmark under renovation in downtown San Jose early in the early morning of Jan. 18.

No one was inside the building at First and San Fernando streets when the fire began, and no injuries were reported.

Power to the Valley Transit Authority light rail system was shut down at 2 a.m. that Thursday.

Jonathan Hodges, who graduated from the SJSU College of Business in December, had to walk a few more blocks to campus that morning when the Winchester/Mountain View light rail dropped him off at the Children's Discovery Museum.

"I got some exercise out of it," Hodges said, who was on his way to sell his textbook, "That's a positive thing, right?"

FORMER SJSU PROF. DEAD AT 87

Acclaimed photographer and world traveler, Jack Fields, died Dec. 13 at his home in Placerville, Calif. from heart failure. Fields was 87.

Fields taught photojournalism at SJSU for three years in the late 1970s. His photography was featured in Look magazine while Fields was still a student at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

Later traveling with his wife Dorothy to the South Pacific, the couple wrote a book about their encounters with people from Micronesia after World War II.

With 50-plus years experience as a photographer, Fields shot for magazines such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, Look and Life.

The Sacramento Bee called Fields "a mentor to many photographers in Northern California."

A photograph by Fields was used as a reference for a commemorative stamp for the U.S. Postal Service in 1999.

Source: American Society of Magazine Photographers

S.J. MAYOR MAKES GANGS A PRIORITY

Mayor Chuck Reed gave the State of the City Address on Jan. 16 and set gang prevention and the cities' deficit as the top priorities for 2008.

Reed detailed plans to reduce San Jose's crime rate, which is up about 25 percent from 2007. San Jose had more homicides in 2007 than it had in 10 years.

He also went over plans to control the budget in city council by capping employee salaries instead of reducing city services. The deficit was reported at $137 million by the San Jose Business Journal.

"We spend two-thirds of our budget on personnel," Reed said, "and we just cannot let personnel costs to increase faster than revenue."

Source: KCBS AM 740

NASA ENGINEER, SJSU ASSOCIATE DEAN DEAD

Engineering professor Kevin Corker, 54, died at his home on Jan. 17 surrounded by his friends and family.

Corker worked at BBN Technologies and the NASA Ames Research Center before teaching at SJSU. He was awarded the Teacher of the Year award for the College of Engineering in 2005.

While receiving cancer treatment in fall 2007, Corker continued to teach at SJSU and served as the associate dean of research for the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering.

Source: The San Jose Mercury News