Community

Displays of flirty costumes inside local Halloween stores evoke a scene from the 2004 film "Mean Girls," which glibly lampoons the nylon-thin line between "costume" and "lingerie."

Patty Lezama doesn't sugarcoat the ongoing bouts of depression and nightmares that jolt her awake in the dead of night - two long-term side effects triggered by a plague of childhood traumas beginning at age 6, when her 20-year-old uncle molested her.

How's this for a bright idea? Workers are in the midst of installing more than 3,000 solar panels at a Gilroy health clinic, in a move expected to save the facility more than $600,000 in energy costs over the next two decades, county officials said.

After approval by the California Public Utilities Commission Thursday, a new 669 area code will enter the Bay Area telecommunication domain starting November 2012. This means 408 will soon become a novelty linked to past generations of Santa Clara County dwellers.