Selected stories from the Mercury News and San Francisco Magazine
Fry’s Electronics still hanging on, but for how long?
Walking into a Fry’s Electronics nowadays is nothing like it was during its heyday in the 1980s and ’90s. There are no long lines at the cash registers. The cafes sit mostly empty, like the store shelves and parking lots. Read story
Bay Area minorities struggle with racism in the age of Trump
For some, it’s a familiar feeling. But for many non-white residents of the diverse region, it’s new and unsettling: feeling unwelcome in their own country. Read story
Dictionary.com: Noun. Oakland company, master of trolling Trump
In the age of social media and a tweet-happy president, online dictionaries aren’t just sitting back and waiting for people to look up words. Dictionary.com is pointing out connotations of the words President Donald Trump uses, correcting his misspellings and calling out other famous people in the news. Read story
Big score at Chase Center: A chance to sell tamales at Warriors’ arena
Alicia Villanueva used to make tamales at night, after cleaning houses or taking care of the disabled during the day. Now she has a Hayward factory that makes about 40,000 tamales a month. Read story
PG&E to file for bankruptcy due to wildfire lawsuits
Because it faces outsized liability costs and lawsuits over the wildfires, PG&E said filing for bankruptcy protection is the best way to “enable continued safe delivery of natural gas and electric service to PG&E’s millions of customers.” Read story
Tech-support scams on the rise, with elderly as targets
Arzella “Sally” Moser is a retired banker in Hayward who said she should’ve known better than to be sucked in by a tech support scam. Yet she and others — many of them elderly — are among a large number of people targeted by companies pushing a growing scam: bogus tech support. Read story
The secret sauce to Papalote founder’s success
When 12-year-old Victor Escobedo immigrated to the United States from Mexico with his family in 1980, he vowed he would be an “ambassador of Mexico.” For a time, he thought it would be through his mastery of different languages and his work as a translator. Never did he imagine it would be through a burrito and a version of his Aunt Celia’s salsa, both of which became famous after his burrito beat celebrity chef Bobby Flay’s on an episode of Throwdown With Bobby Flay. Read story
California becomes first state to require a woman on boards
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill making California the first state to require public companies to have at least one woman on their board of directors to advance gender equality and help break the corporate glass ceiling. Read story