Story and photos by Tyler Sipe
The tradition of sending funds back home, called remittances, is a longstanding tradition among immigrants living abroad in the U.S. – including in Fremont.  
However, faced with a domestic and global economic downturn, foreign-born immigrants have been forced to tighten their wallets and decrease the amount of money they send back to friends and family in their native countries.

 
Story and photo by Tyler Sipe
The recent precipitous decline of the stock market is hitting Fremont seniors particularly hard.
In the past 15 months alone, Americans’ retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion – or about 20 percent overall, according to Congressional budget analysts and reported by the Associated Press.

Video by Tyler Sipe

Story and Photos by Tyler Sipe
Copper metal has become the new gold standard in the underground economy.
Fremont and other East Bay cities have seen a dramatic increase in copper theft, especially since the commodity has risen above $3 a pound.
Fremont Police Detective Bill Veteran said the theft of copper and other metals has reached epidemic proportions, and said he believes most of the offenders in the Tri-City area are drug addicts.

Story by Linsay Rousseau Burnett  – 
Efforts to relocate the Oakland A’s baseball team to the city of Fremont by 2012 are underway. Employees at the Pacific Commons shopping center have mixed opinions about the A’s moving in next door.

By Karen Weise
With little fanfare and no opposition, the Fremont City Council approved a $3 million loan for a once-controversial affordable housing project in Irvington. The loan will allow non-profit developer Allied Housing to purchase a 1.6-acre vacant site to build Main Street Village, with 55 to 63 affordable housing apartments and six to eight ground-floor commercial spaces.

By Karen Weise
While supporters hailed the government’s Federal bailout plan as an effort to benefit both Main Street and Wall Street, Fremont’s community banks, credit unions, and small business owners are not convinced.

Radio and print stories by Linsay Rousseau Burnett
Listen to the radio story

In the heart of Fremont’s historic Niles District, the Essanay Café is a go-to place for fine dining and good wine. But on the first Tuesday of each month, the café swaps out its china with paper plates, for what owner Bruce Cates has themed, the “Recession Dinner.”

Photos, Video and Story by Linsay Rousseau Burnett
Fremont’s Niles community — a historic, quaint and close-knit neighborhood — proved once again that it is not afraid to show some flare, after residents held the 10th annual Pink Flamingo Pee-Wee Golf Classic. The “wacky and tacky” event raised over $2,000 for the Niles Main Street non-profit association.

By Mateen Kaul
On the roof of the blue-domed mosque at the Islamic Society of the East Bay, a group of men peered toward the horizon out west, searching for a glimmer of the new moon in the fading daylight of Tuesday, September 30.