SF News

Trump Pardons Ross Ulbricht, Kingpin of the Bitcoin Drugs-and-Murder Online Market Silk Road

In another sop to the libertarian crypto bros, President Trump has pardoned the San Francisco founder of the Silk Road online drug marketplace, indicating Trump’s increasing fondness for crime among the cryptocurrency crowd.

SF News

Day Around the Bay: Books Inc. Files for Bankruptcy, Will Close Berkeley Store

We’re getting more information on Sunday’s mass-casualty crash in SoMa; Vans has closed its Marina District store; and the 174-year-old Bay Area bookstore chain Books Inc. has filed for bankruptcy and will close its Berkeley location.

SF News

San Jose Police Union Exec Gets Probation for Dealing Opioids, SF Officer Who Robbed Rite-Aid Resurfaces

Two high-profile examples of Bay Area law enforcement personnel being on the wrong side of the opioid trade are back in the news, just with lighter sentencing than what law enforcement usually clamors for in the newspapers.

SF Politics

Bay Area Trans Community Braces for Civil Rights Onslaught After Trump Remarks ‘There are Two Genders, Male and Female’

Donald Trump’s inaugural speech seemed to be an opening salvo of war against the trans and non-binary communities, who are gearing up for legal attacks on their passports and driver's licenses, and the potential for widespread discrimination.

SF News

Federal Employees Ordered Back to Office Five Days a Week, Including in SF

One of Trump’s Day One executive fiats was to order all federal employees back to the office five days a week, which seems more like an attempt to manufacture excuses to fire career civil servants who are not Trump loyalists.

Business & Tech

Big Tech Bigwigs Agree to Strict New EU Hate Speech Moderation Rules, But They’re Free to Just Ignore Them

Xitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have signed on to a European Union agreement to prevent and remove hate speech from their platforms, which seems meaningless, because all of their CEOs and founders were at Trump’s inauguration today.

SF News

In 2024, SF Saw Fewest Fatal Drug Overdoses In Five Years

San Francisco may have turned the corner on its fentanyl overdose crisis, or at least, we saw substantially fewer overdose deaths in 2024 than in the record year of 2023, and 2024 had fewer SF overdose deaths than any year of the last five years.

SF Politics

Feds’ Sheng Thao Indictment Says She Actually Tried to Solicit $3 Million Bribe

When the Department of Justice announced their indictment of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao last week, they said her live-in boyfriend was bribed to the tune of $95,000. But the full indictment says Thao actually asked for $3 million, though didn’t get it.

SF News

Tesla Reportedly In Autopilot Mode Plows Into Mission District Plant Store

A plant store called Mellow SF was hit by a Tesla that was reportedly in autopilot mode early Sunday afternoon, but the car seems to have taken more damage than the shop, and no people or plants were harmed.

Bay Area Sports

Charles Barkley Claims He Will Refuse to Attend NBA All-Star Game Because It’s in SF, Though He Absolutely Will Be Here

The latest SF provocation from TNT jokester-analyst Charles Barkley was him claiming Thursday night that “I’m not going to that rat-infested place out in San Francisco” for the All-Star Game, though he has contractual obligations to attend and he surely will.

SF News

Nob Hill’s Posh Stanford Court Hotel Hit With Foreclosure Lawsuit Over Claims of Missed Mortgage Payments

In the latest debt trouble for a San Francisco hotel, lender Deutsche Bank AG just sued the owners of the Stanford Court Hotel for allegedly missing payments on their $105 million mortgage, and for supposedly allowing elevators to go unrepaired.

SF News

Fire Raged Thursday Night at Monterey County's Moss Landing Battery Plant, At Least 1,200 Evacuated

The fire is still going as of Friday at the Moss Landing Power Plant in northern Monterey County, though it is largely contained — but parts of Highway 1 remain closed and at least 1,200 residents had to be evacuated.

SF News

Sheng Thao (and Her Boyfriend) Indicted on Eight Federal Counts of Bribery and Corruption

The hammer finally came down on former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao seven months after the FBI raided her home, and she now faces charges that she received kickbacks from major political donors, including the offer of a $95,000 no-show job for her romantic partner.

SF News

Day Around the Bay: Man Who Allegedly Fired Gun at Muni Bus Arraigned and Charged

A police dog was shot in Vacaville and had his leg amputated; Facebook's new looser moderation policies apparently don't apply to marijuana content; and the guy who allegedly fired gunshots at a Muni bus has been charged with a large number of felonies.

SF Restaurants, Food & Drink

Mission Street Pollo Campero to Double in Size, and Get a Huge Makeover

The “KFC of Guatemala” Pollo Campero has been drawing long lines at their Mission Street location for a decade. But the lines shouldn’t be so long anymore, as the SF Planning Commission just approved the restaurant’s request to expand and take over the neighboring address.

SF News

Dr. Grant Colfax Out the Door as SF DPH Director, as Daniel Lurie Takes Office

Yet another key figure from the London Breed administration will not be sticking around for the Daniel Lurie administration, as SF Department of Public Health director Dr. Grant Colfax announced his resignation Thursday morning.

Business & Tech

SEC Gets In Parting Shot at Elon Musk, Sues Him For Swindling Investors by Hiding His Twitter Shares Purchase

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is accusing Elon Musk of cheating shareholders out of $150 million by not disclosing his secret 2022 purchase of 10% of Twitter shares, as was legally required.

SF News

The Winter COVID Surge Did Not Materialize This Year, or At Least, It Hasn't Yet

Both the Bay Area and the whole nation are enjoying the lowest mid-January positive COVID testing rate in four years, and no discernible winter surge, though experts caution the surge could just come late.

Business & Tech

Walgreens CEO Admits Locking Up Items Was a Mistake: ‘When You Lock Things Up… You Don’t Sell as Many of Them’

On a quarterly earnings call, the CEO of Walgreens conceded that putting items behind lock and key has hurt the company’s sales, because no one wants to shop in a store where even the toothpaste is behind glass.

SF News

Car Crashed Into Front of Dovre Club Wednesday Morning, But Bar Insists They Will Reopen ‘Soon'

A two-car accident resulted in a car ramming into the front of the Valencia Street bar Dovre Club. But the repair job is already well underway, and staff insist the bar will reopen “soon,” possibly even this week.

SF Politics

Elon Musk Repeats Tall Tale That SF Twitter Employees Were Threatened By Axe Murderer, SFPD Says It’s All Bunk

Dark MAGA’s premier San Francisco antagonist Elon Musk repeated his constantly changing story that his SF employees were threatened by an axe murderer, and that SFPD did “nothing.” SFPD points out that no such thing was ever reported to them.

SF Politics

Lurie Rolls Out Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance, But Supervisors’ Dissent Already Brewing

New SF Mayor Daniel Lurie introduced his "Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance" on Tuesday, but there’s already some pushback, as it hands out no-oversight money to department heads to create potential for Mohammed Nuru-type self-dealing.

SF News

Day Around the Bay: Tuesday Morning Tenderloin Apartment Fire Blamed on Scooter Battery

The death toll now stands at 25 in the Los Angeles-area wildfires; a man was shot and killed at an East Oakland encampment; and a scooter battery is being blamed for causing a Tuesday apartment fire at Ellis and Hyde streets.

SF News

Mother’s Car Ends Up Trapped in Vallejo Gunfight, Four-Year-Old Daughter Seriously Injured

A mother driving in Vallejo found her car unwittingly in the middle of a gunfight Sunday night, when her four-year-old daughter was hit by a bullet, and is now in serious condition at Children's Hospital in Oakland.

Arts & Entertainment

Brace Yourselves: SF’s NBA All-Star Game and Chinese New Year Parade Are on the Same Weekend In Mid-February

Get set for ramped-up security, surge pricing, price-gouging, and throngs of crowds, as both the Lunar New Year Parade and the NBA All-Star Game are in SF the same weekend February 14-16, and will double-team SF for perhaps the biggest tourism weekend in years.