Wink Martindale, the genial game-show host and an early TV interviewer of Elvis Presley, dies at 91 15 Apr 2025, 11:51 pm

By BETH HARRIS

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Wink Martindale, the genial host of such hit game shows as “Gambit” and “Tic-Tac-Dough” who also did one of the first recorded television interviews with a young Elvis Presley, has died. He was 91.

Martindale died Tuesday at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage, California, according to his publicist Brian Mayes. Martindale had been battling lymphoma for a year.

“He was doing pretty well up until a couple weeks ago,” Mayes said by phone from Nashville.

“Gambit” debuted on the same day in September 1972 as “The Price is Right” with Bob Barker and “The Joker’s Wild” with Jack Barry.

“From the day it hit the air, ‘Gambit’ spelled winner, and it taught me a basic tenant of any truly successful game show: KISS! Keep It Simple Stupid,” Martindale wrote in his 2000 memoir “Winking at Life.” “Like playing Old Maids as a kid, everybody knows how to play 21, i.e. blackjack.”

“Gambit” had been beating its competition on NBC and ABC for over two years. But a new show debuted in 1975 on NBC called “Wheel of Fortune.” By December 1976, “Gambit” was off the air and “Wheel of Fortune” became an institution that is still going strong today.

Martindale bounced back in 1978 with “Tic-Tac-Dough,” the classic X’s and O’s game on CBS that ran until 1985.

“Overnight I had gone from the outhouse to the penthouse,” he wrote.

He presided over the 88-game winning streak of Navy Lt. Thom McKee, who earned over $300,000 in cash and prizes that included eight cars, three sailboats and 16 vacation trips. At the time, McKee’s winnings were a record for a game show contestant.

“I love working with contestants, interacting with the audience and to a degree, watching lives change,” Martindale wrote. “Winning a lot of cash can cause that to happen.”

Martindale wrote that producer Dan Enright once told him that in the seven years he hosted “Tic-Tac-Dough” he gave away over $7 million in cash and prizes.

Martindale said his many years as a radio DJ were helpful to him as a game show host because radio calls for constant ad-libs and he learned to handle almost any situation in the spur of the moment. He estimated that he hosted nearly two dozen game shows during his career.

Martindale wrote in his memoir that the question he got asked most often was “Is Wink your real name?” The second was “How did you get into game shows?”

He got his nickname from a childhood friend. Martindale is no relation to University of Michigan defensive coordinator Don Martindale, whose college teammates nicknamed him Wink because of their shared last name.

Born Winston Conrad Martindale on Dec. 4, 1933, in Jackson, Tennessee, he loved radio since childhood and at age 6 would read aloud the contents of advertisements in Life magazine.

He began his career as a disc jockey at age 17 at WPLI in his hometown, earning $25 a week.

After moving to WTJS, he was hired away for double the salary by Jackson’s only other station, WDXI. He next hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis while attending Memphis State. He was married and the father of two girls when he graduated in 1957.

Martindale was in the studio, although not working on-air that night, when the first Presley record “That’s All Right” was played on WHBQ on July 8, 1954.

Martindale approached fellow DJ Dewey Phillips, who had given Presley an early break by playing his song, to ask him and Presley to do a joint interview on Martindale’s TV show “Top Ten Dance Party” in 1956. By then, Presley had become a major star and agreed to the appearance.

Martindale and Presley stayed in touch on occasion through the years, and in 1959 he did a trans-Atlantic telephone interview with Presley, who was in the Army in Germany. Martindale’s second wife, Sandy, briefly dated Presley after meeting him on the set of “G.I. Blues” in 1960.

In 1959, Martindale moved to Los Angeles to host a morning show on KHJ. That same year he reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with a cover version of “Deck of Cards,” which sold over 1 million copies. He performed the spoken word wartime story with religious overtones on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“I could easily have thought, ’Wow, this is easy! I come out here, go on radio and TV, make a record and everybody wants to buy it!” he wrote. “Even if I entertained such thoughts, they soon dissipated. I learned in due time that what had happened to me was far from the ordinary.”

A year later he moved to the morning show at KRLA and to KFWB in 1962. Among his many other radio gigs were two separate stints at KMPC, owned by actor Gene Autry.

His first network hosting job was on NBC’s “What’s This Song?” where he was credited as Win Martindale from 1964-65.

He later hosted two Chuck Barris-produced shows on ABC: “Dream Girl ’67” and “How’s Your Mother-in-Law?” The latter lasted just 13 weeks before being canceled.

“I’ve jokingly said it came and went so fast, it seemed more like 13 minutes!” Martindale wrote, explaining that it was the worst show of his career.

Martindale later hosted a Las Vegas-based revival of “Gambit” from 1980-81.

He formed his own production company, Wink Martindale Enterprises, to develop and produce his own game shows. His first venture was “Headline Chasers,” a coproduction with Merv Griffin that debuted in 1985 and was canceled after one season. His next show, “Bumper Stumpers,” ran on U.S. and Canadian television from 1987-1990.

He hosted “Debt” from 1996-98 on Lifetime cable and “Instant Recall” on GSN in 2010.

Martindale returned to his radio roots in 2012 as host of the nationally syndicated “The 100 Greatest Christmas Hits of All Time.” In 2021, he hosted syndicated program “The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

In 2017, Martindale appeared in a KFC ad campaign with actor Rob Lowe.

He is survived by Sandy, his second wife of 49 years, and children Lisa, Madelyn ad Laura and numerous grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his son, Wink Jr. Martindale’s children are from his first marriage which ended in divorce in 1972.

Oakland voters say tight mayoral race came down to experience versus upstart energy 15 Apr 2025, 11:43 pm

As a months-long and sometimes contentious Oakland mayoral campaign ended Tuesday, voters in the special election chose between two familiar faces: former Rep. Barbara Lee, who spent 26 years in Congress representing Oakland and a broad swath of Alameda County, and Oakland-born Loren Taylor, who spent four years on the City Council, in a race that pushed campaign spending past $1.5 million.

For voters polled Tuesday, the race came down to experience versus fresh energy.

“I went with Loren for the fact that I want to see what new, fresh legs in there would be able to do,” said Eric Rivera, a 55-year-old catering chef who voted Tuesday at the Oakland Public Library. “Barbara is great. She’s been around for a long time, but I just want to see what new blood does.”

The city’s next mayor faces a massive budget deficit and waning faith in the office — a difficult start for a new leader following in the footsteps of recalled Mayor Sheng Thao, who was charged with bribery following a lengthy FBI investigation. Both candidates attempted to link the other to Thao over the course of the campaign.

Several voters on Tuesday cited concerns about persistent homelessness and the high cost of living, while others cited the city’s crime rates and the perceived underfunding of the city’s police department amid the city’s budget crisis.

“We’re at an inflection point, and we need to change the trajectory of the city,” said Kevin Pete, a program manager. “I don’t have anything bad to say about Loren (Taylor), but I think at this time in Oakland’s history, the better choice is Barbara Lee.”

Pete and his husband, Kenneth Boozer, each said they voted for Lee on Tuesday because of her history as a “champion” for the gay community, specifically noting the funding she brought back to Alameda County for HIV and AIDs treatment and services. They contended Lee’s commitment to that issue and her resistance to the Iraq War made her uniquely suited to lead Oakland in 2025 and beyond.

But at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in north Oakland, corporate executive Jo Giessler, 65, said Taylor’s work at PWC Consulting, a global business consulting company, made him more prepared to tackle a $129 million budget shortfall that threatens city funding for public services and law enforcement.

“He has the combination of integrity, experience and ability to get Oakland out of its challenges,” Geissler said. “If you want a strong administrator, you vote for Loren (Taylor).”

Down at the corner of International Boulevard and 98th Avenue, 62-year-old Akili Stewart, a case manager for the Oakland nonprofit Black Men Speak, was canvassing votes for Lee from drivers stopping at the intersection. Stewart said he had his right to vote restored this past year after he was incarcerated for 20 years. He said a lot has changed in Oakland since he could last vote, noting the city has lost its three major sports franchises and that he felt his former neighborhoods had deteriorated.

“When I got out and saw the homelessness — you just see the cost of living is astronomical,” Stewart said. “The biggest difference between Barbara and Loren is that she has political clout. If she wasn’t running, then I would be voting for Taylor.”

Few voters had words about the recalled mayor, who had been under FBI investigation since last November for alleged collusion with the Oakland-based waste management company California Waste Solutions. In January, the FBI charged her with bribery for allegedly accepting money in exchange for influencing the city’s waste management contracts.

Lawsuit seeks to halt California’s homeowner-funded FAIR Plan insurance bailout 15 Apr 2025, 11:41 pm

Consumer advocates are suing to halt a massive homeowner-funded bailout of California’s last-resort insurance program after it reported it would run out of money to pay claims arising from the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

In February, the state insurance department allowed the program, known as the FAIR Plan, to collect $1 billion in emergency payments from other insurers — who are expected to pass on a significant portion of those costs to policyholders statewide.

Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica-based group that filed the lawsuit against the insurance department, contends regulators lack the authority to permit insurance companies to put homeowners on the hook for the payments.

“We look forward to defending the rights and pocketbooks of Californians and stopping this socialization of FAIR Plan losses at the public’s expense, while the FAIR Plan’s profits will wholly remain with the insurance companies,” Consumer Watchdog attorney Ryan Mellino said in a statement Thursday.

It’s still unclear how much homeowners might have to pay, which homeowners might be charged, or when they might see a new fee. Under new state regulations, insurers can levy temporary surcharges totaling up to half of the $1 billion emergency assessment, according to the insurance department.

State insurance regulators declined to comment on the lawsuit in detail, but said it will “hurt homeowners, small business and nonprofits who need access to insurance options, while doing nothing to address the insurance crisis.”

The FAIR Plan is a state-mandated, high-risk pool of private insurers for homeowners and other property owners who can’t find traditional coverage. It offers only bare-bones fire damage protection at a much higher premium than standard insurance options. In recent years, the number of policyholders on the FAIR Plan has ballooned to more than 350,000 as insurers ended homeowners’ coverage across the state amid worsening climate-driven wildfire seasons.

The insurance industry contends any price hikes assessed to policyholders are necessary to ensure the FAIR Plan remains a viable option in fire-prone parts of the state, including the East Bay Hills, Wine Country and the Santa Cruz Mountains.

“Blocking recovery of the additional costs insurers have paid to prop up the FAIR Plan would jeopardize the last-resort coverage option for homeowners — and push our fragile insurance market closer to total collapse,” the American Property Casualty Insurance Association said in a statement.

According to the FAIR Plan, the state approved similar bailouts in 1993 after fires in Altadena and Malibu, and again in 1994 and 1995 following the Northridge Earthquake. The total value of those assessments was $260 million, or $563 million adjusted for inflation, well below the current $1 billion requested by the FAIR Plan. Previously, insurers could have tried to recoup those costs by raising premiums instead of charging one-time fees.

The insurance department said providers now seeking to impose a temporary surcharge must first get permission from regulators on a case-by-case basis. Insurers have about another four months to seek approval.

The lawsuit, filed this week in a Los Angeles County court, comes as some of the state’s largest insurers, including State Farm and Allstate, have paused writing new policies anywhere in California despite raising rates. They’ve cited increasing wildfire risks and rising rebuilding costs, as well as the state’s insurance regulations, which are among the strictest in the nation.

State Farm, the largest insurance company in California, has asked state regulators to quickly approve an interim rate hike averaging 17% for homeowners to prevent a “dire situation” for its customers and the broader insurance market in the wake of the disastrous Los Angeles wildfires, in which damages totaled billions of dollars. The insurer initially asked for a 22% increase but has since lowered its request.

State Farm, which previously had issued warnings about the financial stability of its California-only subsidiary, said the emergency increases are necessary to ensure that it can continue to pay out claims after covering more than $1 billion in losses due to the blazes.

To steady California’s faltering home insurance market, state regulators recently finalized a plan that includes allowing insurers to raise rates based on the growing threat of climate change, long an industry demand, in exchange for expanding coverage in parts of the state with the greatest wildfire risk.

In the greater Bay Area, insurers who opt into the plan will be required to write more policies in Marin, Napa and Santa Cruz counties, as well as parts of San Mateo and Sonoma counties and a sliver of Santa Clara County. Insurers would also have to offer new policies for fire-risk homes in more urban areas such as the Oakland Hills and Los Gatos.

Letters: Despite guardrails, Acalanes’ Measure T is a blank check 15 Apr 2025, 11:30 pm

Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

Despite guardrails,
school tax a blank check

Re: “School district plan has ambitious goals” (Page B1, April 11).

Supporters of the Acalanes Union High School District parcel tax measure (Measure T) have not pointed to any cost-saving efforts by the district. The proposed guardrails are illusory. Although the measure states that proceeds may not be used for “District office administrators’ salaries or benefits,” money is fungible, and use of the funds for the measure’s stated purposes frees up money in the general fund that could be used for such administrators’ compensation, or administrators could be moved to other office locations within the district.

With declining enrollment, administration jobs should be consolidated, and the number of administrators should be reduced. The oversight committee is a toothless tiger with no powers. Furthermore, the district is wasting about $800,000 to hold a special election instead of just putting it on the ballot last November, when it would have been considered along with the Lafayette sales tax increase.

Nick Waranoff
Orinda

Earth Day’s importance
grows every year

Californians are experiencing the effects of climate change at every turn.

For years, we have been constantly swinging between periods of extreme drought and flooding. Fossil fuel and factory farm corporate giants are spewing pollution into our communities. Factory farms in particular are harming Californians by contaminating our precious water resources, releasing greenhouse gases like methane into our atmosphere at alarming rates, and pushing family farms out of business through corporate consolidation.

That’s why Earth Day, April 22, for me is not just a celebration of our beautiful planet, but a reminder of how much is still needed to protect it for generations to come.

Isabel Penman
San Francisco

Article makes strong
case against coal

Re: “Trump misrepresents coal safety on executive orders to boost use” (Page A8, April 10).

Thanks for the clear, concise, impartial article refuting Donald Trump’s wildly inaccurate praise of “beautiful, clean coal.” With nonpartisan facts, you exposed his lies and exaggerations about this dirty, expensive and inefficient fossil fuel.

“Untapped coal worth 100 times more than all the gold at Fort Knox”: There is $598 billion of untapped coal (only 43% of it mineable). Fort Knox has $440 billion. So it’s worth approximately 25% more. Compare that to “100 times” more.

“Cheap, incredibly efficient”: Coal is one of the most expensive sources there is — $90 per megawatt-hour. The cheapest? Solar is at $23 per megawatt-hour. Natural gas: $43.

“Incredibly efficient”: Coal power plants operate under 42%. Nobody is building new ones.

“Clean”: While cleaner than 30 years ago (think acid rain, smog), it releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to accelerating climate chaos.

You should run a story like this every day — there’s certainly enough source material.

Rosalie Howarth
Walnut Creek

Support making polluters
pay for climate damage

As a grandmother, I am alarmed by the environmental and economic burden we are leaving our children. There’s no better example of this than the devastation left by the Los Angeles fires, in which taxpayers are expected to pay billions to clean up the toxic mess.

For 50 years Exxon Mobil has known and covered up the fact that burning fossil fuels creates the conditions for such events. It’s past time for the industry to take responsibility for what their policies have caused.

Pending now in our state Legislature are SB 684 and AB 1243, the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act requiring major fossil fuel companies to pay their share of climate-related costs. This act establishes a comprehensive program to assess damages and collect funds from major polluters and distribute these funds to impacted communities.

Please support this bill and join with other states that have successfully passed similar legislation.

Deborah Abraham
Berkeley

Government was never
meant to be business

Here’s a quick review of what many of us seem to have either forgotten or never learned.

Government is not business. A business exists to make a profit. Its source of income is selling a product or service. A government’s only source of income is taxes.

Businesses provide things like automobiles, sewing machines and appliances. Governments provide things like roads, schools and regulations over what businesses produce.

Government regulations came into being to ensure the health and safety of the governed. Citizens can choose to buy a product from either company A or B, but cannot choose from competing police or fire departments.

To those who think that government should be run like a business, I would suggest reading up on civics and economics.

Richard Ackerman
Castro Valley

Letters: San Jose’s threats are no help to the homeless 15 Apr 2025, 11:00 pm

Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

San Jose’s threats are
no help to homeless

With the recent news about San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s approach to deal with homelessness, his “common sense” solutions dangerously treat poverty and mental illnesses as criminal offenses.

His emphasis on the plan to punish those who refuse the shelter opportunity after three offers within 18 months has raised legal and ethical concerns. Homelessness shouldn’t be a crime, and declining an offer for shelter, which can sometimes be unsafe for the individual’s needs, should not be punished with the justice system.

Trisha Bauman of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley emphasized that the criminal legal system never once solved homelessness and that the policies have proven to be failures. Instead of criminalizing them, a right-to-shelter proposal that guarantees shelter without a jail threat should be supported.

Ken Le
San Jose

Safer streets would
garner more cyclists

Living in the suburban sprawl that is San Jose, it is nearly impossible to get around town without a car. With the recent VTA strike affecting the lives of regular commuters, we need to consider the other alternative when traveling on wheels: biking.

Although the city has put in the effort to be more cyclist-friendly in its Better Bike Plan 2025, people are still reluctant to bike because of safety concerns. Quick builds with plastic bollards are an easy solution to putting bikes on the roads, but the lack of a physical barrier and distance between the biker and car still sets off alarm bells to any new, potential riders.

Upgrading our current bike lanes to concrete curbs or metal bollard protection would help with physical safety, while installing more bike lockers in various locations would help prevent bicycle theft and encourage more people to bike.

Catherine Vo
San Jose

Make health care
accessible for all

As the daughter of parents who don’t speak English, I often served as a child interpreter during hospital visits — an arduous and eye-opening experience. This must change. Access to equitable health care is a fundamental right, yet language and cultural barriers continue to hinder many in our community from receiving the care they deserve.

Health care systems should adopt cultural competency training for providers and integrate professional interpreters into their services. Cultural competency equips providers with the ability to understand and respect diverse backgrounds, ensuring more compassionate care. Professional interpreters close language gaps, enhancing communication between patients and providers. Together, these measures improve health care outcomes, reduce errors and foster trust.

I urge policymakers and health care leaders in San Jose to prioritize these changes. By creating a more inclusive and effective health care system, we can ensure equal access for all.

Cassandra Cruz
San Jose

Showdown with China
another Trump mistake

Re: “What Trump just cost America in trust, allies” (Page A7, April 11).

Thomas Friedman’s column was one of his best, a frank analysis of the idiocy of Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Think about the very simple reality we face in a China-U.S. trade war:

• China has four times our population.

• China’s work ethic and brainpower are superior to ours. (It’s no mystery why U.S. tech companies scramble for H-1B visas to hire Chinese talent.)

• China’s government is laser-focused and gets things done. Think bullet trains: China has many; ours from L.A. to S.F. is on track after 15-plus years to take you from Bakersfield to Merced. BART to downtown San Jose? We’ve discussed it for five decades; China would probably have done it in 18 months.

We are not competing with China; we are accommodating China, and Trump is screwing it up.

Kirch DeMartini
Saratoga

Centrist GOP, Dems
could save democracy

I have become increasingly dismayed at the dismantling of the rules and traditions that have been crucial to our functioning democracy for years.

The Democrats by themselves are not in a position to check Donald Trump’s trampling of the norms, but a small cohort of Democrats and Republicans could be a force for positive change. All it would take is a handful (five) of Republicans to declare themselves as independent and to caucus with whichever party was willing to be the most reasonable. To be balanced, an equal number of Democrats could do the same thing.

We have big problems to solve (e.g. climate change, the deficit, immigration, voting and democratic reforms), and a controlling group in the middle could be just the remedy we need to heal America and American democracy.

John Holton
Los Altos

U.S. on dangerously
familiar path to tyranny

Edmund Burke’s admonishment about history repeating itself has come true.

In 1924, a future leader was convicted of an attempted coup. Exactly 100 later, another leader was found guilty of a crime. Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia because he needed “lebensraum,” or living space. Ours needs Canada. They burned books; we ban books. They sent “undesirables” to prison in another country; ours sends them to Central America. A new car, the Volkswagen was enthusiastically endorsed by the leader; Tesla was endorsed by ours.

In Germany, those who should have known better “bought into” the regime. Sadly in America, many buy into ours. Burke’s final word: “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”

Nelson Tandoc
San Jose

Single family residence in San Ramon sells for $2.5 million 15 Apr 2025, 11:00 pm

A 3,376-square-foot house built in 2015 has changed hands. The spacious property located in the 3100 block of Montbretia Way in San Ramon was sold on March 17, 2025. The $2,450,000 purchase price works out to $726 per square foot. This is a two-story house. In addition, the house comes with type not specified. The lot of the property covers a substantial area of 5,532 square feet.

These nearby houses have also recently changed hands:

• A 3,665-square-foot home on the first block of Photinia Court in San Ramon sold in June 2022, for $2,700,000, a price per square foot of $737. The home has 4 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms.
• In March 2025, a 2,908-square-foot home on Ironwood Drive in San Ramon sold for $2,545,000, a price per square foot of $875. The home has 4 bedrooms.
• On Melrose Court, San Ramon, in December 2024, a 4,318-square-foot home was sold for $2,660,000, a price per square foot of $616. The home has 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.

This article was generated by the Bay Area Home Report Bot, software that analyzes home sales or other data and creates an article based on a template created by humans. Our real estate data comes from public records that have been registered and digitized by local county offices. You can report errors or bugs to content@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Pentagon senior adviser Dan Caldwell ousted during investigation into leaks 15 Apr 2025, 10:59 pm

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has been placed on administrative leave and was escorted out of the Pentagon by security on Tuesday, two defense officials said.

The officials said Caldwell’s sudden downfall was tied to an investigation into unauthorized disclosure of department information. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Caldwell, who served in the Marine Corps, was one of several senior advisers who worked closely with Hegseth. Caldwell’s ties to the secretary go back to Hegseth’s time as the head of Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit that fell into financial difficulty during his time there. Caldwell worked at CVA beginning in 2013 as policy director and later as executive director.

He also was the staff member designated as Hegseth’s point person in the Signal messaging chat that top Trump administration national security officials, including Hegseth, used to convey plans for a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen. The chat, set up by national security adviser Michael Waltz, included a number of top Cabinet members and came to light because Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, was added to the group.

The officials did not disclose what leaks are being investigated, but there has been a crackdown across the Pentagon and the Trump administration on the disclosure of sensitive or classified information.

Caldwell’s ouster was first reported by Reuters.

On March 21, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, said in a memo that the Pentagon was investigating what it said were leaks of national security information. Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs.

The memo referred to “recent unauthorized disclosures” but provided no details. Kasper warned that the investigation would begin immediately and result in a report to Hegseth.

“I expect to be informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution,” Kasper said in the memo.

Caldwell, who graduated from Arizona State University in 2011, also worked as a public policy adviser at Defense Priorities, a think tank based in Washington.

New San Jose hotel expands what it means to be downtown 15 Apr 2025, 10:45 pm

There were cheers from many corners Monday at the ribbon cutting for the Townplace Suites by Marriott, a 176-room extended stay hotel that’s definitely a standout building on West San Carlos Street.

With the recent construction slowdown, you can bet Urban Catalyst CEO Erik Hayden — whose career has involved a lot of buildings in the West San Carlos corridor — was happy to see the completion of the second of eight projects the company has in the pipeline. San Jose City Councilmember Michael Mulcahy, whose district includes the new hotel, invited three arts leaders — MACLA’s Anjee Helstrup Alvarez, San Jose Jazz’s Brendan Rawson and CMT San Jose’s Dana Zell — to the opening because the transient occupancy tax the hotel will generate helps fund the arts.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and other city leaders said they were happy to see more hotel rooms open in the downtown area to help ensure the city gets to keep big events like GTC, Nvidia’s big tech conference.

The site of the seven-story hotel on West San Carlos and Josefa streets was home to the Danzi Corner Grocery a century ago — a large, framed photo of the market is in the hotel lobby — and more recently to businesses including Hub Cap City and Keystone Restaurant Supply. I doubt any of them would have considered their locations downtown back in their day, but that’s changed as the footprint of what’s considered downtown these days is a lot bigger than it was in the 1980s or ’90s.

Highway 87 had long been considered the western border of downtown, but that line’s gotten very blurry, starting with the opening of San Jose Arena — now SAP Center — in 1993. The Shark Tank had to be downtown, so downtown had to get bigger. Same for San Jose City Hall, which was built just beyond the traditional Fourth Street boundary, and the San Jose Market Center on Coleman Avenue. This growth was documented in the city’s downtown transportation plan, which expanded downtown to include the Japantown, Spartan-Keyes and Calle Willow neighborhoods, taking the western edge all the way to Diridon Station (which encompasses Google’s still-in-limbo Downtown West project).

The addition of these neighborhoods to downtown adds to its diversity, for sure, and it makes sense geographically. The new hotel is just a 20-minute walk to the San Jose McEnery Convention Center and the arty SoFA district. That’s downtown enough for me.

COURAGEOUS GESTURE: Forty guests raised nearly $12,000 at a private lunch last Saturday to support the American Cancer Society’s Courageous Kids program and pediatric cancer research. The event was held at Sorelle Italian Bistro in Campbell, which Fran Rudé opened in 2013 and passed on to her daughters — Deanna, Teresa and Lori — after she lost her battle with cancer in 2016. They hosted the fundraiser in memory of their mother, who was a big supporter of the Courageous Kids program.

The guest list was almost entirely women, though there were a few men in attendance, including Campbell Vice Mayor Dan Furtado, who stopped by to thank everyone for their generosity. Courageous Kids will again be hosting around 500 kids with cancer and their families from all over the state at California’s Great America on Mother’s Day, May 11, for the 36th year. You can get more information on the event at www.courageouskidsday.org.

CAMPBELL SCRAMBLE: The 45th annual Easter Eggstavaganza returns to the Campbell Community Center on Saturday morning. The free event, sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Campbell, includes face painting, a petting zoo with bunnies, music and photos with the Easter Bunny. Oh, and about 30,000 plastic eggs scattered around the community center’s soccer field that are usually scooped up in less than two minutes by the hordes of basket-wielding kids who make their charge to the opening notes of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” The fun starts at 9 a.m.

Of course, that’s followed by the Bunnies and Bonnets parade through downtown Campbell, which is organized by Bombshell Boutique owner Brooke Ramirez and volunteers from the Downtown Campbell Business Association. It starts at noon at the VTA light rail station at Campbell Avenue.

Underwater robots, great white sharks and glowing jellyfish: New $50 million high-tech ship arrives to unlock ocean mysteries 15 Apr 2025, 10:35 pm

During his lifetime, David Packard was a Silicon Valley pioneer, starting one of the nation’s leading tech companies, Hewlett Packard, in his Palo Also garage with his friend Bill Hewlett and $538, and then using the fortune he earned to explore and preserve the world’s oceans.

Although Packard died in 1996, the latest of his philanthropic efforts is ready to set sail off the Northern California coast.

Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute have unveiled a new $50 million state-of-the-art flagship vessel, named the David Packard, at the marine science center he funded in Moss Landing. The 164-foot long ship, constructed in Spain and funded by the Los Altos-based David and Lucile Packard Foundation, arrived two weeks ago after a two-month journey. It will hold 12 crew members and 18 scientists, focusing on deep sea research off California’s coastline, Monterey Bay and other parts of the world.

“There’s a lot of new technology, a lot of cool things, on this ship,” said Kaya Johnson, the institute’s director of marine operations.

On Tuesday the ship sat in dry dock in Alameda. Crews inspected its hull and equipment. After a range of high-tech gear has been installed and fine-tuned — including multi-beam sonar to map the ocean floor, laboratories that chill water to re-create conditions found in extreme depths, and acoustic sensors that talk to underwater robots gliding through the ocean with high-definition video cameras — the ship will take its maiden voyage in late June, Johnson said.

That will be a four or five-day cruise to collect jellyfish, fish and other specimens for the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s deep-sea exhibition. Afterward, the ship will study everything from climate change to fisheries to discovering new species.

“There’s a lot of buzz,” Johnson said. “People here are excited and already dreaming about different opportunities. I have a tough time getting from one side of the building to the other because so many people have questions about it.”

MBARI, as the Moss Landing-based organization is known, is a separate non-profit organization from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, located 20 miles to the south in Monterey.

Packard built the aquarium in 1984 with a $55 million gift. It receives about 2 million visitors a year who marvel at its sea otters, jellyfish, sea birds and sharks. Although he was proud of the educational opportunities the aquarium affords to thousands of children and the public every year, Packard, an engineer, was most fascinated by deep sea research.

“The oceans are a more important frontier,” Packard said in a 1989 speech, “for research that will bring more tangible benefits to the world than space, or high energy physics, or other areas that have received a high level of public interest and therefore political support. It is about time someone gave ocean science more attention.”

Packard believed America spent too much money on space exploration and not enough on exploring Earth’s oceans. Not only do the oceans cover 71% of the world’s surface, they provide food and impact the weather. Their plankton, kelp and other plants create 50% of the world’s oxygen.

With a $13 million donation, he founded MBARI in 1987 in an effort to create a new marine engineering hub comparable with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts or the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

After Packard died in 1996 at age 83, he left the bulk of his estate to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The foundation has provided $1.2 billion to MBARI over the past 37 years, making the Packard family the world’s leading private benefactors of ocean research.

Packard himself helped design MBARI’s previous flagship, the 117-foot Western Flyer, which MBARI donated to the Florida Institute of Oceanography in St. Petersburg, Fla. in 2023.

The new ship will hold more researchers and stay at sea for 30 days instead of 10. It also will become the main launch point for the Doc Ricketts, MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle that can dive more than 2 miles underwater to the ocean floor.

And it will be able to launch multiple “AUVs” — torpedo-like robot probes that can take underwater video, map the sea floor and collect water samples on days-long journeys and transmit the results back to shore.

In recent decades, MBARI’s engineers and scientists designed unmanned submersibles, once mostly used in oil exploration. They fitted them with high-end cameras and other gear, probing the dark world more than 3,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, and often beaming the video to crowds at the aquarium of white sharks, squid, and deep sea fish that look like space aliens.

MBARI scientists have discovered more than 250 new species of marine creatures never seen before. Among them: a type of giant red jellyfish three feet wide, sponges shaped like umbrellas, and pulsating rope-like creatures with tentacles that glow in the dark called siphonophores that can grow to be 100 feet long.

MBARI scientists also discovered the wreckage of the USS Macon, a 785-foot dirigible that crashed into the ocean off Big Sur in 1935. They explored Davidson Seamount, a dormant undersea volcano 80 miles southwest of Monterey with huge forests of undersea coral. Afterward, federal officials expanded the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to better protect them.

“We’re out to discover our oceans, create new technology and share it with the rest of the world,” Johnson said. “What happens in our ocean affects the whole planet.”

Gene Hackman’s wife may have thought she had COVID-19 before her death 15 Apr 2025, 9:54 pm

As Gene Hackman’s wife was apparently experiencing the symptoms of hantavirus, a rare, potentially deadly disease carried by rodents, she may have feared she had the flu or even COVID-19.

A review of Betsy Arakawa’s internet search history — in the days before her death in mid-February from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) — shows that she was looking for information on COVID-19 systems and breathing techniques, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

It’s believed that Arakawa, 65, died on or around Feb. 12 in the couple’s Santa Fe, New Mexico, home. Meanwhile, her 95-year-old husband was alone in the home for nearly a week before he collapsed and died from cardiovascular disease, with an “advanced” case of Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor.

Given that the longtime couple led a relatively private life in a sprawling property outside of Santa Fe, their bodies weren’t discovered until Feb. 26.

People magazine reported this week that the couple, married since 1991, were laid to rest recently. Hackman’s three children from his first marriage — son Christopher and daughters Elizabeth and Leslie — also held a small, private memorial service for “The French Connection” screen legend and his wife, a classical pianist.

This week, a report from the New Mexico Department of Health furthermore showed that the Hackmans’ property was infested with rodents, which are known to carry hantavirus, TMZ reported. Evidence of the rodents — including a dead rodent, a nest and droppings — were found in three garages, a vehicle, a shed and other outbuildings on their property, TMZ reported.

Arakawa and Hackman were seemingly aware of the infestation because traps had been set up around the property, TMZ said. But the report also showed “no signs” of infestation in the main residence.

People get hantavirus from exposure to infected rats, mice and other rodents, including when they are exposed to their urine, droppings or saliva, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Exposure can occur when people are cleaning up in buildings infested by rodents.

Since Akawara’s death, concerns have grown about the dangers of hantavirus, especially after three people recently died from the illness in the eastern Sierra town of Mammoth Lakes, TMZ said.

It appears that Arakawa didn’t immediately connect her symptoms to the rodent infestation around her property, according to the Daily Mail, citing a newly released report from sheriff’s investigators.

A review of the open bookmarks on Arakawa’s computer, between Feb. 8 and 12, showed that she had questions about whether COVID could cause dizziness or nosebleeds, the Daily Mail said.

Dizziness, fatigue, fever and muscle aches are common symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in the first four to 10 days of the illness, the CDC said. In the later stages of HPS, people may also begin to experience coughing, shortness of breath and a tightness in the chest as the lungs fill with fluid, the CDC said.

In an email Arakawa sent to her masseuse on Feb. 11, she mentioned that Hackman also had awakened in the morning with flu- or cold-like systems, the Daily Mail reported. She said that his COVID test was negative, but told her masseuse that she should reschedule her appointment “out of an abundance of caution.”

It’s believed that Arakawa died on or shortly after Feb 12. Her final search was that day for a health care provider in Santa Fe, the Daily Mail said. That day, she also called Hackman’s cardiologist about scheduling an echocardiogram for him. But the cardiologist said in an interview that Arakawa didn’t bring Hackman in for the appointment that day and they never heard from her again.

Four to 10 days after the initial phase of HPA the late symptoms appear, the CDC said. These symptoms include coughing and shortness of breath. Patients might experience tightness in the chest, as the lungs fill with fluid.

Once people begin to experience the respiratory symptoms of HPS, the disease can be deadly, the CDC said. About 38% of people who develop respiratory symptoms die.

Authorities believe that Hackman died on Feb. 17 or 18, based on the last known activity on his cardiac pacemaker.

Meanwhile, the body of the couple’s beloved 12-year-old dog Zinna also was found in the home. She was in a crate near the bathroom where Arakawa was found. Authorities said that Zinna had likely been placed in the crate for her health and safety while recovering from surgery. The Associated Press also reported that Zinna had apparently died of dehydration and starvation after Arakawa died. The couple’s two other dogs were found alive on the property.