SAN JOSE – The site of a women's volleyball game between Nevada and San Jose State on Saturday has been moved from Reno, Nevada to San Jose.

The schools announced the choice in a joint statement Tuesday, with the Mountain West Conference concurring with the choice.

In the statement, the colleges said: “The decision to move the venue was made in the best interests of both programs and in the interest of the well-being of the student-athletes, coaches, athletic staff and spectators.”

Before the venue change, a bunch of Nevada players recently made an announcement that they’d not be taking the ground at their home game against the Spartans. The players referred to their “right to safety and fair competition”. However, the college reiterated that on the time the sport was still scheduled, the sport was still scheduled and that state law prohibits forfeiture “for reasons related to gender identity or gender expression.”

There continues to be a likelihood that the sport will probably be lost if the Wolf Pack decides to not play. Nevada plays at Fresno State on Thursday.

San Jose State has already had 4 teams cancel games this season – Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming and Utah State. Neither school explicitly explained why it fell into disrepair. All of those schools, aside from Southern Utah, are within the Mountain West.

Political figures from Wyoming, Idaho and Utah have spoken out, suggesting the cancellations are focused on protecting women's sports.

Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez said last week that she was heartbroken about what has transpired across the Spartans and their opponents this season.

Originally published: October 22, 2024 at 5:45 p.m

National News

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge on Friday agreed to delay sentencing in Donald Trump's hush money case until after the November election, granting him a hard-fought reprieve as he deals with the aftermath of his criminal conviction and heads into the house stretch of his presidential campaign.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan, who can also be considering a defense motion to overturn the decision on immunity grounds, postponed Trump's sentencing until November 26, several weeks after the ultimate votes are solid within the presidential election.

The meeting was scheduled for September 18, about seven weeks before election day.

Merchan wrote that he was postponing sentencing “to avoid any appearance, however unjustified, that the proceedings have been influenced or are attempting to be influenced by the upcoming presidential election in which the defendant is a candidate.”

“The court is a fair, impartial and non-political institution,” he added.

Trump's lawyers pushed for the delay on several fronts. Petition to the judge and asks for a Federal Court should interveneThey argued that punishing the previous president and current Republican candidate within the midst of his campaign to recapture the White House would amount to election interference.

Trump's lawyers argued that postponing the sentencing until after the election would also give him time to think about the following steps after Merchan rules on the defense's motion to overturn his conviction and dismiss the case attributable to the choice of the US Supreme Court in July Presidential immunity decision.

In his order on Friday, Merchan postponed a call on this until November 12.

A Federal judge rejected Trump's request on Tuesday to have the U.S. District Court in Manhattan take over the case from Merchan's state court. If this had been successful, Trump's lawyers said They then tried to overturn the decision and dismiss the lawsuit on immunity grounds.

Trump has appealed the federal court's ruling.

The Manhattan district attorney's office, which prosecuted Trump's case, agreed with Merchan's decision and didn’t comment on the defense's request for a delay.

Messages were left for Trump's lawyers and prosecutors looking for comment.

Election Day is November 5, but many states allow voters to solid their ballots earlier, and a few states are even planning to attend until just a few days before or after September 18.

Trump was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels claims she and Trump had a sexual encounter 10 years earlier after meeting at a celeb golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.

Prosecutors described the payment as a part of an effort initiated by Trump to stop voters from hearing salacious stories about him during his first presidential campaign. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels and was later reimbursed by Trump, whose company recorded the reimbursements as legal expenses.

Trump insists the stories are false, that the reimbursements for legal work were made and recorded accurately, and that the case – brought by Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – is a component of a politically motivated “witch hunt” geared toward damaging his current campaign.

Democrats, who support their party's nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, have made his beliefs a spotlight of their messaging.

In speeches on the party's condemnation in Chicago last month, President Joe Biden called Trump a “convicted felon” running against a former prosecutor. Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett called Trump a “career criminal with 34 felonies, two articles of impeachment and a porn star record.”

Trump's Democratic opponent on the 2016 convention, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, drew chants of “lock him up” from the group when she joked that Trump “fell asleep at his own trial, and when he woke up, he made history in his own way: He became the first presidential candidate to have 34 convictions for a serious crime.”

Falsifying business records will be punished with as much as 4 years in prison. Other possible penalties include probation, a nice or conditional release. Trump would need to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the primary ex-president to be convicted of against the law.

Trump has announced that he’ll appeal, but this may only occur once the decision is final.

In their request for a delay, Trump's lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued that the short time period between the immunity decision scheduled for September 16 and the decision, which was speculated to have taken place two days later, was unfair to Trump.

To prepare for the Sept. 18 sentencing, prosecutors will make their sentencing recommendations while Merchan considers whether to dismiss the case, the lawyers said. If Merchan rules against Trump, he would wish “sufficient time to consider and pursue federal and state appeal options,” they said.

The Supreme Court's immunity decision limits the prosecution of former presidents for official acts and prevents prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president's unofficial actions were illegal.

Trump's lawyers argue that, given the decision, the jury within the hush money trial shouldn’t have heard evidence reminiscent of accounts by former White House staff of how the then-president reacted to reports in regards to the Daniels deal.

Unable to agree on how one can address widespread pollution and threats to its employees without treating the homeless fairly, the board of Silicon Valley's largest water utility postponed a vote Tuesday on a brand new ordinance banning camping along 295 miles of streams in San Jose and other parts of Santa Clara County.

After 4 hours of public hearings, the seven-member Santa Clara Valley Water District board voted to send the matter back to considered one of its committees for reconsideration. A brand new vote could happen later this fall.

“It’s not how you start that matters, but how you finish,” said board member Dick Santos.

The district, a government agency based in San Jose, has spent $3.4 million since July to remove 15,050 cubic yards of debris – enough to fill 1,500 dump trucks – from Coyote Creek, Guadalupe River, Los Gatos Creek and other South Bay waterways.

Water district officials say a growing variety of encampments are polluting South Bay streams with hazardous materials, piles of trash, batteries, propane tanks and human waste. Camp residents have caught endangered steelhead trout with shopping carts, cut down trees, began wildfires that threatened nearby homes, discarded needles and built makeshift structures in areas that steadily flood within the winter.

Water district employees also report increasing threats once they travel to the streams to take water quality samples, conduct flood control work or perform other tasks.

“People have been pointing knives, machetes and guns at them,” said Jennifer Codianne, the county's watershed operations and maintenance commissioner. “It's not safe for our employees to be doing flood protection work.”

The district estimates that about 700 people live along the streams it manages. Proposed regulation would have banned the establishing of tent camps, the polluting of waterways with “garbage, debris and dangerous contaminants,” the setting off of explosives or fireworks, and the harassment of district employees.

After a verbal and written warning with a 72-hour deadline to vacate the camp, violations would have been punishable by fines of as much as $500 and 30 days in jail. The latest law would have been enforced by local police and sheriff's deputies.

Dozens of individuals made passionate statements at Tuesday's debate, with some residents who live near streams saying the measure was long overdue.

Yamini Sadasivam, a San Jose resident who lives near Los Gatos Creek within the Willow Glen neighborhood, told the panel that she was attacked outside her home by a homeless man with a bow and arrow.

“After this horrific experience, I felt extremely unsafe in my own neighborhood,” she said.

“Seven fires have been reported near our neighborhood, putting our lives and homes at risk,” she said, adding that open drug dealing, automobile break-ins and other problems are coming from people living within the nearby creek. “This is unacceptable. This constant threat is not something a community should endure.”

Others said the proposed rules were unfair and counterproductive.

“We can address these problems without criminalizing people for their struggle to survive,” says Jan Bernstein Chargin, CEO of PitStop Outreach, a Gilroy-based nonprofit that delivers food to the homeless. “That would make people's lives worse, clog up the courts and make it harder for them to find housing.”

Board members discussed the role the water district, whose primary mission is to offer drinking water and flood protection to 2 million people within the Santa Clara Valley, plays in providing housing.

“We're not a housing authority,” said Tony Estremera, a longtime water district board member. “We don't build houses, and that's the real solution. We can't relocate people because we don't have police powers.”

“We will protect our employees,” he added. “I'll tell you that right now. We are committed to that.”

But board member Jim Beall, a former state senator, said the water district should do more to offer housing.

“We are not a housing authority, but we work with people who can provide housing,” he said. “We can provide land and we can provide assistance.”

Last month, the San Jose City Council approved a plan to relocate about 500 homeless people living along creeks to approved encampments on public lands throughout town. Of the eight sites chosen, five are owned by the water district. Each is 1 to 2 acres in size. They are positioned on Lelong Street, Willow Street, 14020 Almaden Road, 3278 Almaden Road and Almaden Road at Canoas Garden Avenue.

Some have suggested these sites will provide tents for 100 or more individuals with supervision, but details still must be worked out between town and the water district.

Helen Hutchings, a Willow Glen resident, said such sites ought to be built on county land and away from residential areas.

“We don't think it's appropriate to house people in tent camps in neighborhoods when the county has so much land that could be used,” she said.

A coalition of eight environmental groups supported the foundations, including the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, the California Native Plant Society and Green Foothills.

“When we're out there cleaning up the creek, we encounter feces, needles and even fire, as well as guns and dogs,” said Deb Kramer, executive director of Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful.

Several speakers stated that they’d been or were currently homeless.

“It's inhumane to punish people and put them in jail,” said James Campbell, who lives in his automobile in San Jose. “My car is broken. I got a ticket, the police are harassing me.”

Board member John Varela said the difficulty ought to be delayed until after Oct. 11, when the water district plans to fulfill with other agencies and the general public to debate solutions.

Rebecca Eisenberg, the water company's board member who’s the strongest opponent of the ordinance, said: “After they are released from prison, there is no place for homeless people to go.”

“It is not only arrogant but also irrational of us to say that we know more than the homeless people who are speaking before us,” she said. “We also know that the homeless are not the biggest polluters of the rivers. We are causing more damage to the ecosystem than the homeless through our terrible, ecologically irresponsible projects, for which we use huge amounts of cement and concrete.”