At the East Palo Alto Library, shelves near the DVD section now hold not books, but seeds: heirloom squash seeds, strawberry seeds and pea seeds, among others. Visitors can pick up a few and learn how to plant them in their home gardens. The library plans to teach patrons how to save seeds from the plants they grow to return them to the library. East Palo Alto is often described as ......

A man who was found shot to death in his trailer in Richmond this morning has been identified as 50-year-old Richard Lovato, Richmond police Lt. Bisa French said. Police received a call at about 9:50 a.m. from a man who had stopped by the trailer, which was parked in the driveway of a house in the 1800 block of Virginia Avenue, and found Lovato dead inside. It appeared that he died ......

A malfunction caused an emergency warning siren to sound for about half an hour in Richmond this morning, Contra Costa Health Services officials said. The siren, located at Regatta Boulevard and South 32nd Street, began sounding at about 7:10 a.m. Katherine Hern, the county's community warning system manager, said a crew was sent to investigate the problem, and the siren has since been deactivated. The siren is one of 17 ......

Good news for the Bay Area and beyond: Drops in violent crime and homicides are not just local trends. Nationwide, overall violent crime has dropped to its lowest level since 1973, reports USA Today. In addition to the decreases in Oakland and San Francisco reported by The Bay Citizen, Richmond murders dropped from 44 in 2009 to 21 in 2010, with a 27 percent drop in assaults with firearms.  San Jose ......

The annual ranking of crime in America's cities from CQ Press was released today, and apparently Oakland's spot on the list improved. According to the study of FBI stats from 2009, the city is now considered the fifth most dangerous in America. Last year, Oakland was ranked third. Richmond also garnered a spot high up on the list, coming in at sixth most dangerous. A few other Bay Area cities ......