Sunnyvale’s Planning Commission unanimously backed changes to the city’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance on Oct. 12, recommending higher in-lieu fees while retaining the 15% affordable-unit requirement. The proposal, shaped by a city-commissioned feasibility study, goes to the City Council on Nov. 10.
American Housing Co., a subsidiary of Oakland-based oWow, is pursuing a roughly 25-story, 261-foot residential tower at 439-451 South Fourth Street in San Jose with 368 affordable units plus four manager residences. Project costs are estimated near $159.6 million, and earlier 2024 plans for the site never reached construction.
On Nov. 2, 2026, Amigos de Guadalupe held a get-out-the-vote rally outside Mexican Heritage Plaza in East San Jose, urging Latino and immigrant residents to vote amid immigration enforcement concerns. Speakers included Councilmember Peter Ortiz and Congressman Sam Liccardo, who urged reporting voter intimidation.
Santa Clara County is not intervening as federal immigration agents increasingly stage around its jails, despite county-declared ICE-free zones. Advocates report roughly 10 to 12 agents seen daily at Elmwood and the Main Jail, and the sheriff's office says about 70 people have been detained near county jails since June 2025.
Foundation work has begun on a 10-story affordable building at 825 Berryessa Station Way beside the Berryessa BART station in Northeast San Jose, with roughly 195 income-restricted units. Affirmed Housing is developing the project, which received $38.5 million from a state program and targets completion as early as spring 2028.
Researchers at the University of Osaka describe an electrodeposition method that stacks alternating pectin and cellulose-nanofiber xerogel layers into all-biopolymer films. The reported films reflect over 95% of light at multiple wavelengths and, after chemical tweaking, degraded by up to 80% within two months.
Researchers report that radio energy leaking from satellites can exceed international limits and disrupt radio telescopes, while modeling indicates direct-to-phone satellites already degrade many geodetic measurements used for GPS. The authors call for wider shielding and routine monitoring before satellite numbers grow further.
A finance researcher argues that the price of fireworks leaves out costs imposed on others, citing 123 hospital admissions in England in 2024–25 and brief fine-particle pollution spikes around Bonfire Night. A peer-reviewed Dutch study found about 1,000 times as many birds flying during New Year's Eve displays.
A study in Environmental Research Letters using 13 years of satellite imagery from 12 data centers near Tokyo found little evidence that server waste heat causes widespread ground warming. It reported daytime cooling of 1.8–2.2 °C from reflective roofs and negligible nighttime changes directly over facilities.
Titan OS, a Barcelona-based smart TV operating system maker, raised $46 million in equity and debt from BlackRock-managed funds and existing investors, bringing its total to $110 million. It now serves 30 million users, up from 18 million, and has added Sharp, AOC, Vestel and Skyworth as partners.
A four-month ecological survey of a two-hectare Melbourne site between a waste facility and a shipping container park recorded 45 animal species and over 40 plant types. Records for the site rose from eight to more than 200, and researchers concluded that human-made structures added to habitat and ecological processes.
Google drew criticism after announcing K-12 schools using its education software must opt in to AI tools to keep Google Search. Sen. Bernie Sanders called it extortion and former FTC chair Lina Khan called it anticompetitive; Google said Gemini and Search are off by default.
Researchers led by Michael Schindler at Tübingen University Hospital found that the cell surface protein CD81 restricts replication of the Ebola virus, while two viral proteins, glycoprotein GP and matrix protein VP40, lower CD81 levels. An antibody binding CD81 reduced infection with authentic virus in cell cultures, though the authors say the mechanisms and any treatment potential remain unresolved.
Democrats won Senate races, and in some cases governorships, in Kansas, South Carolina, Texas, Ohio and Iowa, states Donald Trump had won two years earlier, the Associated Press reported. Kansas elected a Democratic senator for the first time since 1932, and Texas Democrats won statewide for the first time since 1994.
Apple released developer betas of iOS 27.3 and watchOS 27.3 with four Audio Intelligence features for Apple Watch Series 12, including sound and song detection plus Live Rewind and Siri Recaps. Testing Siri Recaps, a reviewer found it captured car-repair deductible and rental details but also saved trivial family chatter.
A University of Portsmouth study combining 22 temperature loggers with satellite data found that Kilimanjaro warmed near the summit during daytime while middle slopes cooled roughly 0.13–0.14°C per decade. Researchers suggest upslope heathland expansion may influence that cooling, though other factors likely contribute.
Kimi K3.1 Pro is an open-weight multimodal agentic model with 2.8T total and 104B activated parameters and a 1,048,576-token context. Its publisher reports gains in coding, 3D creation, financial research and factual accuracy, and says the API offers OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible access.
Italian director Tinto Brass, known for bringing erotic cinema to wider audiences with films including Caligula and Salon Kitty, has died at 93. Born in Milan and raised in Venice, he worked as an editor and assistant before moving into politically charged erotic films.
The AP Voter Poll found most midterm voters were exasperated with Donald Trump, while inflation and government corruption weighed heavily on their choices as Democrats won the House and Senate. Roughly seven in ten voters felt Congress was doing too little to check the president.
Sequoia Capital says it raised about $10 billion in new funds while reversing parts of a roughly 20-year expansion: closing its London office, ending Arc and Scouts, merging early-stage and growth teams, and flattening its partnership. It will also stop holding Monday partner meetings.
Researchers at Kanazawa University and Japan's National Institute of Genetics used high-speed atomic force microscopy to watch the Smc5/6 protein complex open and close as it captured DNA and held separate sections together. The Nature Communications study also found Smc5/6 stabilizing twisted DNA into more compact forms.
Anthropic researchers describe FlashProve, an open-source prototype using zkSNARKs to let users verify a response came from the claimed model without revealing its weights. For a 400B-parameter Llama 4 Maverick model, one H100 produced proofs near 110 tokens per second, with roughly 19 MB proofs per 1,024-token request.
Herbert Blomstedt, the conductor whose career spanned seven decades, has died aged 99 at his home in Gothenburg. He was music director of the San Francisco Symphony and continued conducting into his late 90s, with his last concert in that city in May.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is declining to seek support to stay on as House minority leader after Republicans lost the midterm election, according to two people familiar with his decision. He is expected to keep his Louisiana seat, while House Republicans are expected to choose a new leader next week.
Waymo plans to end its Uber partnership in Austin and Atlanta in January 2028, moving riders to its own app, co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana told Bloomberg. She said the tie-up offered scale but left riders unsure of hailing a robotaxi; Uber attributed the lack of direct robotaxi booking in its app to Waymo.
