A 35-year-old suspect was arrested in Berkeley Monday morning after police received several reports of a man running naked down the street, smashing windows, and he was later found screaming and waving a shotgun inside the Tesla Service Center.

The Berkeley Police Department began receiving calls about the incident around 7:20 am Monday from residents reporting the man running naked down the street and breaking windows near Eighth and Gilman streets, as the Berkeley Scanner reports.

While police were en route, the department received additional reports that the man was seen entering the Tesla Service Center at 901 Gilman Street with a shotgun, which he reportedly pointed at people inside. According to authorities, as police were securing the perimeter, the suspect rushed outside screaming with the shotgun still in hand.

The suspect allegedly began charging at police officers who eventually restrained and handcuffed him. According to the Berkeley Scanner, police said no one was injured during the incident, but Tesla employees in the repair shop were in shock.

"It all worked out, but it could have gone differently," said spokesman Officer Byron White with the Berkeley Police Department.

Police obtained a search warrant for the suspect’s warehouse about a block away and reportedly found evidence of several gunshots inside the building. The suspect, identified as Edward Teece, 35, of Berkeley, was arrested and taken into custody.

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office charged Teece with discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, resisting arrest and two counts of assault with a firearm, and he’s being held at Santa Rita Jail on $175,000 bail, per the Scanner.

Based on Teece’s social media, he’s an angel investor in Berkeley who attended Ivy League schools on the East Coast.

Image: Eric T./Google Maps

The Friday night dance party takes place on an I-80 overpass in Berkeley, a daytime protest hotspot, transforming the bridge into a glowing display of support for the Bay Area community and those protecting democracy, while urging an estimated 12,000 cars per hour to "honk" in solidarity.

Since January, a group of local residents of all ages called NICE (Not ICE), spearheaded by activist Jennifer Quinn, have been donning their frog costumes and glo-sticks and heading to the I-80 pedestrian overpass in Berkeley (at University Avenue) for a weekly, disco-style "Visibility Dance Party" every Friday night.

“Bring the kids, snacks to share, a community spirit, bubbles, delights, twinkle lights, bring your art, and come as you are,” says the group’s Indivisible page.

​​

As the SF Standard reports, the overpass is a popular, long-held hotspot for holding protests due to its high visibility — the group’s Indivisible page estimates 12,000 cars fly under the bridge every hour.

“Every honk is somebody saying, ‘Yes, we agree,’” Quinn told KPIX. “We are here to protect our democracy and our community, and this is just a really fun way to do that.”

Quinn told KPIX the concept was first spawned by a costume joke last Halloween. She then attended a daytime protest on the bridge in January and met Indivisible East Bay volunteer Maria Shanle. The two came up with the idea to transform the space at night when the bridge is essentially empty, but the freeway below is highly active, per the Standard.

The organizers aim to keep the event bright and accessible for everyone, especially families.

It’s “something new and fresh for the drivers,” Shanle told the Standard, as she handed out treats and strobe lights to attendees. “A very positive, open, welcoming and family-friendly environment.”

The dance party format helps bring people together from all walks of life.

“There’s an interesting confluence of energy that’s taking place here,” Vera Chang, a professor of environmental justice at St. Mary’s College, who attended the dance party with her family, told the Standard. “People are reaching deep inside themselves for reasons to have hope and to generate change.”

“The idea of going to protest is really intimidating to a lot of people, even if people feel strongly about the encroachment of tyranny,” said Quinn.

Quinn told the Standard she’s looking to hire a DJ who can “make teenagers dance,” and she hopes to inspire people to make new connections at the dance party.

“NICE stands for ‘now it counts everyone.’ Now, everyone's got to show up. Got to show up for community,” Quinn told KPIX. “And you can start here and make some friends.”

Image: Indivisible

The body of a 22-year-old UC Berkeley graduate student who had reportedly been struggling with mental health issues was found by a dive team Saturday in Lake Anza, a reservoir in Tilden Regional Park.

Saketh Sreenivasaiah, a 22-year-old graduate student from India who was working toward a master’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering, was found dead on February 14 after being reported missing two days earlier. As the Daily Californian reports, Sreenivasaiah had last been seen on February 10.

Sreenivasaiah's roommate, Baneet Singh, wrote in a LinkedIn post that Sreenivasaiah had invited him to come along on a hike to Lake Anza a couple weeks earlier, on January 21, after struggles with his mental health — adding that he wanted this to be "a reminder to please reach out to your loved ones and make sure they’re okay."

Singh also said that in the last conversation he'd had with Sreenivasaiah, he had said he'd given up caring what people thought of him, and he'd just come back from class wearing a bathrobe.

Singh added, "I didn’t expect this from a friend who lived, ate, travelled, laughed and joked with me."

The Consulate General of India in San Francisco confirmed Sreenivasaiah's identity on Monday, and issued a statement saying, "We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones during this profoundly difficult time. The Consulate stands ready to provide all necessary assistance to the family, including coordination with local authorities and arrangements for the repatriation of mortal remains to India at the earliest."

Singh also told the Daily Cal that he was working to help get Sreenivasaiah’s family an emergency visa to fly to the US.

As Bay Area News Group reports, divers with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office made the discovery of the body at 2 pm Saturday, and a cause of death determination will be made by the Contra Costa County coroner’s office.

If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline offers free, round-the-clock support, information and resources for help. Call or text the lifeline at 988, or see the 988lifeline.org website, where chat is available.

Top image via ljon/Wikimedia Creative Commons

• Laura X, a prolific 85-year-old women’s rights activist and organizer in Berkeley who’s credited with getting spousal rape banned in California, lost all of her money to a Ponzi scheme while creating a million-page women’s history archive, and her friends have launched a couple fundraisers to help her get back on her feet. [Berkeleyside]
• A 66-year-old nanny in SF’s Diamond Heights was detained Friday morning by ICE agents in an unmarked car, and a judge ordered her release ten hours later, largely due to the work of immigration advocates. [Mission Local]
• Gay and lesbian couples and activists commemorated the 22nd anniversary of “the Winter of Love” at City Hall Friday, marking the landmark month in 2004 when then-mayor Gavin Newsom issued same-sex marriage licenses before the state Supreme Court later invalidated them — four years prior to the legalization of same-sex marriage federally in 2008. [KRON4]

• A woman whose car got stuck on the railroad tracks in Emeryville early Saturday morning narrowly managed to escape the vehicle before an oncoming train struck it, causing it to catch fire. [Bay Area News Group]
• The first in a series of storms is expected to hit Northern and Central California Sunday night, bringing moderate to heavy rain, followed by a colder storm Tuesday and yet another storm system Thursday. [Chronicle]

Image: Stockton Street during Chinatown's Flower Market Fair; Leanne Maxwell/SFist

The fire is now out, but a warehouse in Berkeley is now “completely destroyed” after a Tuesday morning fire ripped through the place, a fire that was visible from Interstate 80.

The Berkeley Fire Department got a call just after 4:30 am Tuesday morning about a giant warehouse fire in the Gilman District that pretty much destroyed that warehouse, as KTVU reports. Berkeley Fire Department deputy district chief Keith May told that station that crews found the building "fully engulfed in fire" upon their arrival. And as the KTVU news segment below shows, the fire was producing huge flames that were not only visible from I-80, but were right next to I-80 as early morning commuters drove by.

The two-alarm fire broke out at Second and Camelia streets in Berkeley. While crews had the fire out in just over an hour, KTVU described the current condition of the warehouse as “completely destroyed.”

That warehouse has been long vacant, and was last occupied in 2018 by a steel foundry called Pacific Steel Casting. But the now-burnt and destroyed warehouse is directly adjacent to Forge and Tool warehouse (also currently vacant), so this could have spread and been worse.

NBC Bay Area reports the fire was under control as of 5:35 am. And the warehouse being long-vacant, fortunately, no one was inside, and there are no injuries associated with this fire.

According to Berkeley fire officials, the cause of this fire remains unclear.

Related: East Bay Media Center Burns In Monday Morning Fire [SFist]

Image: berkeleyfiredept via Instagram

A yet-unidentified man was hit by a freight train and killed in West Berkeley Monday morning, though the railroad’s operator Union Pacific says the man was trespassing on the tracks.

The East Bay has been on a particularly tragic run with train accidents over the last couple of months. Back in mid-November, we saw two separate fatal train fatalities within a 24-hour period in Oakland, killing two different people. Then in early December, another man was hit on the tracks by a train and killed in West Berkeley at Bancroft Way and Fourth Street.

Now the Chronicle reports that on Monday, at nearly the exact same Bancroft Way and Fourth Street location, a man was hit by a train on those tracks and killed at around 11:37 am.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Alameda County Coroner's Office has not identified the victim.  

Railroad operator Union Pacific insists the man was trespassing on the tracks. "The train crew was not hurt, but witnessed the incident and is being offered support," Union Pacific said in a  statement to the Berkeley Scanner. "No information is available about the trespasser."

According to Berkeleyside, the Federal Railroad Administration, trespassing on railroad tracks is “the leading cause of rail-related deaths.”

Related: Two Men Killed By Trains In Separate Oakland Incidents In Less Than 24 Hours [SFist]

Image: ROUND ROCK, TEXAS - APRIL 21: A Union Pacific freight train is seen traveling on April 21, 2023 in Round Rock, Texas. Union Pacific Railroad reported low quarterly earnings, signaling an economic slowdown. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

This week: tamales in a Union City parking lot, a rush hour happy hour standby, an urban farm, and a mid-century modern roundhouse. Plus, filling suitcases for foster kids, spotting birds in the city of Richmond, and seeing Berkeley in its heyday through a young artist’s eye.

Where commuters find a bar stool

At the base of San Francisco’s Fourth Street exit, the Hotel Utah Saloon has turned Bay Bridge gridlock into an accidental happy hour, drawing in drivers who decide waiting it out is better with a drink in hand.

The century-old bar and inn still remains affordable, from budget hotel rooms upstairs to food specials that feel almost unreal in 2026. Its $1 Wing Wednesdays, Taco Tuesday deals, and the “Hard Hat Special” keep construction workers, neighbors, and stranded commuters crossing paths. — SFGate

Hidden orchard

Behind a turquoise house in Oakland’s Laurel District, a backyard has grown into a thriving urban garden. Fruit trees, vegetables, bees, and chickens fill the long, sloped lot, which also hosts community gatherings and workshops. The space continues a decades-old vision, blending hands-on urban agriculture with shared meals and seasonal events.

Visitors can learn fruit tree pruning, composting, or other gardening skills while exploring the paths lined with persimmons, papayas, and peppers. Monthly events keep the garden active and open to the neighborhood. — The Oaklandside

Marsh mornings

Richmond’s Dotson Family Marsh drew a record crowd of birders for the city’s fifth annual Christmas Bird Count, despite heavy rain and flood warnings. Volunteers fanned out across the restored shoreline, scanning water and trees for ducks, raptors, and songbirds and spotting rare species like Canvasback ducks and Northern Rough-winged Swallows.

The marsh, protected and nurtured since the 1970s, provides vital habitat that’s slowly bringing back more birds to the area. Citizen scientists kept notes, scopes, and guides close, tracking hundreds of sightings and contributing to a century-old tradition that helps researchers monitor bird populations. The event wrapped with a tally of 178 species across Richmond’s parks and shorelines. — Richmondside

Parking lot tamales

A Bay Area food lover shared a chance lunch stop in Union City, where a couple was selling Guatemalan tamales from a van in a Ross parking lot. Wrapped in banana leaves and made with achiote, they were noticeably larger and heavier than the usual corn husk tamales.

The chicken and pork versions leaned closer to a full meal than a quick bite. A brief conversation placed their roots in Huehuetenango, in Guatemala’s highlands near the Chiapas border. The tamales are $5 each, sold outside the Ross off I-880 in Union City. — Hungry Onion

Color on every block

For decades, Bob Buckter, known around the city as Dr. Color, has shaped how San Francisco looks from the sidewalk up, painting and consulting on thousands of Victorians, churches, and storefronts. His palettes pull out the small architectural details most people pass without noticing, turning facades into layered compositions.

Working largely by instinct and experience, he helped define the bright, playful look that now feels inseparable from the city’s identity. Buckter now focuses on color consulting and recently released a book, Bob Buckter: Architectural Color Design, documenting his work across San Francisco and beyond. — KQED

A round among rectangles

Tucked into a wooded corner of Piedmont, the Leon Meyer house on Echo Lane curves where most homes draw straight lines. Built in 1972, it uses a circular floor plan to open up light, views, and space on a sloped lot, with rooms radiating outward instead of stacking into boxes.

It’s one of the few remaining round houses by Meyer in the Bay Area, and a clear example of his approach to building on difficult terrain. — Eichler Network

Fragments and echoes

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s work feels impossible to pin down — poetry, performance, film, and visual art all fold into one restless, searching practice. She arrived in Berkeley from South Korea as a teenager and grew up alongside the city’s radical energy in the ’60s and ’70s, letting language, memory, and displacement shape her art.

Multiple Offerings at BAMPFA gathers over a hundred works, including early ceramics and fiber pieces never before seen, alongside newer artists responding to her influence.  The retrospective opens January 24 and runs through April 19, with talks, film screenings, performances, and a full reading of her hybrid literary work, Dictée. — Berkeleyside

Traveling light

In the East Bay, foster children often move with little more than a backpack, but a local volunteer is changing that. Margie Morris and her team pack brand-new suitcases with bedding, toys, and essentials for kids entering or shifting between homes, making each transition a bit steadier.

Over the past five years, hundreds of children in Contra Costa County have received these suitcases, tailored to age and needs. The effort relies on donations and volunteers, and the suitcases are distributed through the county’s social services to children in care, on field trips, or reuniting with family. — KPIX

Top Image: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Other Things Seen, Other Things Heard, 1978. Gift of the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation.

Previously: Field Notes: Ferry Concerts, Donkey Appreciation, Public Domain Day, and Celebrating Rave Culture

• Community advocates gathered outside the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office Friday in protest of the DA’s decision to not pursue charges against the 19-year-old driver who struck and killed four-year-old Ayden Fang in Burlingame last year. [San Mateo Daily Journal]
• The US Coast Guard San Francisco Sector posted on Facebook asking for information on the owner of a surfboard that was found Friday evening at Ocean Beach, presumably to verify they’re safe. [USCG SF/Facebook]

• A federal judge ruled Friday that federal agents in Minneapolis are prohibited from detaining or throwing tear gas at peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities. [Associated Press]
• A fire hydrant at Broadway and Powell streets in San Francisco began gushing water Friday evening when a car crashed into it around 7:06 pm; no injuries were reported. [KRON4]

• A group of San Francisco elementary school students were spotted protesting ICE in the Haight Friday. [David Robinson/Threads]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Berkeley residents are now going to have to learn about a deadly bacterial disease called leptospirosis, which has broken out at an encampment there and already killed two dogs, and it could also spread to and kill humans.

There has long been a persistent and potentially dangerous homeless encampment at Harrison and Eighth streets in Berkeley, one which occupies about three whole city blocks. But the level of potential danger there has just escalated to DEFCON One, as the Chronicle reports that encampment is now the site of an outbreak of a deadly disease called leptospirosis, a tropical disease that is not common in the US, which has killed two dogs at the encampment, and could potentially spread to and kill humans as well.

Leptospirosis (casually known as “lepto”) is a bacterial disease that the CDC says “can lead to kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, trouble breathing, and even death.” The Chronicle says that two dogs at that encampment have been confirmed to have been killed by the disease, and their testing has confirmed it has spread among rats in the area — with rats being the disease's main transmission vector. Now that the disease is there, it could potentially spread to and kill a person or multiple people.

"The absence of confirmed human cases is reassuring but does not remove the risk of undiagnosed cases or future cases," Berkeley Public Health Officer Noemi Doohan said in a court filing and subsequent public health alert. "If a human case were confirmed, that would elevate the urgency of the recommended response to protect human life and other animal life in the city of Berkeley."

And so the City of Berkeley is recommending that all encampment residents clear the “red zone” shown in the map above, allowing public health officials to clean and disinfect the area. KTVU reports they’re also urging pet owners to vaccinate their dogs and cats for leptospirosis, noting that pets suffering from lepto can suffer from "excessive thirst, vomiting, shivering, and lethargy, and can progress to liver failure if untreated. Lepto can also be fatal to dogs."

KTVU also adds that for humans, leptospirosis can cause sudden fevers, headaches, severe calf or leg pain, kidney or liver failure, meningitis, liver failure, and possibly even death.

So people are being ordered to move out of the encampment, something Berkeley has been unable to get them to do for years. That is going to be hard enough, but then you have the issue that any infected RVs must also be fully destroyed. You try explaining to a homeless person living in an RV that they have to destroy their vehicle, for absolutely nothing in return.

Eighth and Harrison is already a particularly complicated encampment situation, where the residents currently have the legal upper hand to stay put. Berkeley has been trying to sweep this encampment for more than nine months, even before the deadly disease outbreak. But a federal judge ruled last June that they must halt all encampment sweeps at the site, in response to a lawsuit brought by the Berkeley Homeless Union.

That judge, US District Judge Edward Chen, just had an emergency hearing on the matter Tuesday, in response to the outbreak. Chen still kept the restraining order against forced clearing of the encampment in place. That is a legal win for the encampment residents.  

“The city has only exacerbated health and safety issues,” the Berkeley Homeless Union’s attorney Anthony Prince told the Chronicle. “The city itself has created this health crisis.”

You also have the very thorny issue of how to notify encampment residents that they must leave, even though the City of Berkeley cannot force them to leave. The Berkeley Scanner reports that “On Monday, UC Berkeley sent the city's health alert to residents of University Village on the Albany-Berkeley border on the north side of the creek.” Okay that’s great, but how many unhoused people received such notification?

The Berkeley Scanner also points out that these flyers have been posted around North Berkeley, which I suppose is helpful, but seems nowhere near urgent enough a strategy for the situation at hand.

Clearly the City of Berkeley is between a rock and a hard place, racing against deadly infectious disease, but with their hands tied at clearing the disease from the geographic area where it is most concentrated. It sure seems like putting people up in hotels might be a good accommodation, to give encampment residents some/any motivation to leave the area when they legally do not have to?

That may sound like an expensive solution. But if a non-homeless person with access to good lawyers were to die because this disease spread from an encampment, the City of Berkeley could be on the hook for a settlement of tens of millions of dollars. So a few dozen hotel rooms for a month might be the vastly more cost-effective option here.

Related: Omicron Outbreaks Hit Multiple Bay Area Homeless Shelters, Including Two In SF [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

This week: Live music on the ferry, a “boujee” club for all ages, a hand-drawn map of Berkeley, wild radish, and a donkey reality show. Plus, Public Domain Day at the Internet Archive, the local legacy behind an ‘80s hit, and the Asian Art Museum explores rave culture.

Music on the water

Friday ferry rides picked up a new rhythm this month as SF Bay Ferry began hosting live performances on select routes through the month of January. The “Tides and Tunes” series brings local musicians, bands, and DJs onto the fleet’s larger vessels with room to host small performances.

The performances come at no extra cost beyond the regular ferry fare. The series runs at select times on Fridays, with artist Lolah returning for another set on January 23. — KPIX

The legacy of a hit

“Rumors” by Timex Social Club started as a song written by East Bay teens and went on to become one of 1986’s biggest hits, selling more than a million copies. The track still shows up in DJ sets and party playlists, even as most people know little about the group behind it.

In his book, How Do Rumors Get Started, founding member Marcus Thompson details how the band formed in Oakland, recorded the song on basic equipment, and quickly found national success. It also follows what came after, including industry disputes, broken agreements, and the breakup of the group in the years following the song’s rise. — SFGate

Cultural artifacts made public

Each January, a new batch of music, books, and films enters the public domain, and the Internet Archive marks the moment by opening the doors to creative reuse. This year includes works from 1930 like “Georgia on My Mind,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” The Maltese Falcon, and early Nancy Drew stories.

The Archive frames the public domain as a way to keep culture accessible, especially as copyright battles have narrowed access to its digital library. The celebration includes a daylong online event and an evening gathering at the Internet Archive (300 Funston Avenue, SF), centered on remixed films made from newly public works on January 21. — Mission Local

Paths on paper

Tattoo artist and illustrator Danielle Hopkins has drawn a hand-rendered map of the Berkeley Hills that traces stairways, rock parks, and winding streets with the elaborate detail of someone who walks them often. After she shared an early version on Nextdoor, neighbors began showing up at her door to buy copies.

She’s sold about 30 so far and given others away, including to neighbors who became friends through the process. The map grew out of her move from San Jose to Berkeley and her attachment to the hills, especially the Tamalpais Path, which she calls a brutal climb with a view worth the effort. — Berkeleyside

Pulse and light

At the Asian Art Museum, Rave into the Future: Art in Motion looks at dance culture through the work of West Asian artists shaped by diaspora, memory, and movement. The exhibition brings together multimedia installations, sculpture, and sound to explore how music and dance create spaces of connection, privacy, and release.

Highlights include Sahar Khoury’s commission with a working DJ deck, Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s bedroom-as-dance-floor installation, and Joe Namy’s copper-tiled floor that records every step taken on it. The show, which is curated by Naz Cuguoglu and features work by 10 artists based in the U.S. and Europe, remains on view at the Asian Art Museum through January 26. — The Chronicle

Candy-colored commons

In Walnut Creek, Ruby Lou’s is opening as a place where birthday parties, cocktail hour, and casual play all blur together. Built by longtime mixologist and set designer Megan Abraham Benshalom and named for her daughter, the space leans into bright color, built-in board games, claw machines, and furniture that looks pulled from a candy shop daydream.

The menu mirrors that split personality, with Wagyu hot dogs, short-rib nachos on housemade chips, and a full cocktail program alongside an ice cream bar and “yolo” sundaes for kids. It’s designed for families in the afternoon and adults after dark, without forcing either group to leave the room. Ruby Lou’s is open now for private events and plans to open to the public very soon. — Bay Area News Group

Salt on the buds

Out in the Baylands, invasive wild radish began flowering in late December, its pale purple and white petals standing out against the marsh. Unlike wild mustard, which blooms yellow, the radish can be identified by its four-petaled flowers and its edible parts from top to bottom.

The leaves, buds, and seed pods can all be eaten, carrying a mild, peppery bite, and sometimes a trace of salt from the coastal air. There’s even a small radish root at certain times of year, though most foragers prize the greens and buds. It grows alongside plants like sea asparagus in the San Francisco Baylands, where winter still yields plenty of plantlife. — The Bay Forager

From pasture to prime time

A Northern California donkey rescue has found a national audience through a reality series on ABC. Donkey King follows the day-to-day work at Oscar’s Place, a Mendocino County sanctuary that takes in donkeys from auctions, surrenders, and unsafe conditions, and either rehomes them or gives them a permanent home on the ranch.

The nonprofit has rescued more than 400 animals, and each episode centers on the care and recovery of one donkey, with staff balancing medical needs, transport, and trust-building. The show airs Saturday mornings on ABC, with episodes available to stream for free afterward at donkeyking.com. — The Press Democrat

Top image: Performance by TCS; activation of 'For Your Eyes Only' by Yasmine Nasser Diaz; Photo by Tracy Nguyen/Asian Art Museum

Previously: Field Notes: Fairy Rings, Waterfalls, SF Library Map, and New East Bay All-Ages Music Venue

This week: Land stewardship in the East Bay, tracking birds in the South Bay, and 50 years of wine in Napa Valley. Also, tamale season, unconventional homes, a local middle school record player, the Valkyries DJ’s new Oakland club, and new work by ‘90s Mission School artists.

Tamale season

For many Mission cooks, tamale season starts at La Palma Mexicatessen, where they buy fresh masa for the holidays. One longtime figure in that tradition is Simona Padilla, who ran a meat market at 24th and York for 15 years and cooked Mexican dishes for her neighborhood.

Over time, her food was also served at events for the Mexican consul, then–Mayor Gavin Newsom, and local journalism fundraisers. In a recent video with filmmaker Hélène Goupil, Padilla shows how she makes tamales for Christmas, grounding the dish in La Palma’s masa and the Mission’s home-based cooking traditions. — Mission Local

Finding the sweet spot

DJ Lady Ryan, official DJ for the Golden State Valkyries, co-founded Golden Ratio, a new queer-owned bar and lounge in downtown Oakland. Alongside hospitality leader Dennise Acio, she has shaped the space with years of Bay Area nightlife experience and a focus on community-driven programming.

Events include karaoke and comedy nights, soul line dancing, and rotating DJ sets. — San Francisco Bay Time

Needle drop

At Aptos Middle School in San Francisco, librarian Gina Cargas is setting up a vinyl listening station built around a vintage Newcomb record player. After putting out a casual call for records, she was met with dozens of offers from neighbors eager to donate albums for a new generation.

Cargas says many students encounter music as short social media clips, often without context, and the Newcomb turntable creates space to listen to full albums and talk about artists and genres together. The station is now taking shape inside the Aptos Middle School library. — Coyote Media Collective

Then, now, and still here

At Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Bay Area Then looks back at the Mission School scene of the 1990s while showcasing the collective's current body of work. Guest curator Eungie Joo brings together 21 artists linked to that era, mixing new work with familiar names like Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen to recreate the restless, DIY energy that once defined Bay Area art spaces.

Several pieces confront current political realities, including Gaza, along with the art world's response to controversial works, including YBCA's new leadership. The show runs through January 25. — Chronicle

A table turned

In 1976, a blind tasting in Paris quietly upended wine-world assumptions when Napa Valley bottles outscored French standbys, shifting the region’s future in a single afternoon. Seven wineries were part of that moment — Chateau Montelena, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Clos du Val, Freemark Abbey, Heitz Cellar, Mayacamas Vineyards, and Spring Mountain Vineyard — each still tied to the landscapes that shaped those early vintages.

As the 50th anniversary approaches in 2026, the group is marking the occasion with coordinated tastings, historical tours, and food events that trace both the wines and the people behind them. Programming rolls out across Napa Valley throughout the year, centered at the original estates that helped put the region on the global map. — 7 x 7

Rooms that remember

In a new book shaped by years of travel and documentation, Berkeley-based filmmakers and writers Kirsten Dirksen and Nicolás Boullosa profile dozens of unconventional homes and their owners. Life-Changing Homes: Eco-Friendly Designs That Promote Well-Being moves from hempcrete roundhouses in Gold Country to shanty boats and restored housebarns, tracing how people’s sense of place informs how they build.

Dirksen and Boullosa draw on their Faircompanies archive and their own nomadic years before settling into a renovated 1908 cottage in South Berkeley. — Marin Independent Journal

A piece held in place

Five acres on Mount Diablo have been secured from future development through a land donation made by Bob Nunn in memory of his father, Ron Nunn, a longtime East Contra Costa County farmer and conservation-minded land steward. The parcel, known as the Nunn-Paulsen inholding, fills a small but critical gap inside Mount Diablo State Park, where privately owned land can fracture habitats and complicate long-term protection.

Save Mount Diablo finalized the donation in just over three months, highlighting the land’s notable mix of oak woodland, serpentine rock, and wildlife corridor linking the park to Black Diamond Mines. The nonprofit plans to transfer the parcel to California State Parks under a new state law designed to speed up park land acquisitions, with several other inholdings on the mountain still in view. — Bay Area News Group

Morning chorus, competing engines

At the Coyote Creek Field Station in Alviso, a North San Jose neighborhood at the edge of the Bay, bird banding — briefly capturing birds to record data and release them — begins in near-quiet before traffic noise spills in from nearby freeways. Coyote Creek runs from the Diablo Range through San Jose and ends here, where wetlands sit alongside highways, rail lines, and flight paths.

Researchers are paying closer attention to how constant and sudden sounds affect birds’ stress and communication, particularly for threatened South Bay wetland species. Conservationists working in places like the Salt Pond Restoration Project are now factoring sound into habitat protection as restoration continues in one of the region’s most industrialized ecological zones. — Monterey Herald

Top image: Rigo 23, Terra Nullius, 2025; Robbie Sweeny/Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Previously: Field Notes: Weed Box Set, Christmas Birds, Jewish Chinatown Christmas, and Oakland Ballet at 60

• A mortuary and funeral services business in the South Bay is being sued by a family who says they were given a bag containing the remains of their son’s brain. The father said he emptied what he thought was a bag of his deceased son’s clothing into the washing machine before realizing it was biohazardous material. [KRON4]
• Nolan Leonardo, 36, of San Francisco, faces five felonies and two misdemeanors after allegedly following a woman home from SF to Berkeley on November 29. Leonardo, who has eight prior convictions, was allegedly found to be in possession of a pistol, condoms, a flashlight Taser, a BB gun, five crack pipes, gloves, and sex toys. [Bay Area News Group]
• Ten people were displaced after a second fire spread between two houses in SF Friday morning near Balboa Park on the 200 block of Niagara Street, but no injuries were reported. [Chronicle]

National:

• When some San Diego high school students showed up to use their school gymnasium one Friday night, they were shocked to find it was being used for a porn live-stream. Twitch user named Wubby, or “PayMoneyWubby,” rented out the gym for a 24-hour event, which was sponsored by adult content subscription service, Fansly, featuring adult babies and crucifixion scenes. [NBC San Diego]
• Several of the GOP Indiana senators who vetoed Trump’s state redistricting plan cited his extensive bullying for their decision. [Associated Press]
• Turns out the drunk raccoon that took the internet by storm last week when it was found passed out in a Virginia liquor store bathroom has quite a rap sheet. [BBC]

Video of the Day:

The BART mobile was aglow with festive lights last week for Livermore’s Christmas parade in the East Bay.

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

A student at University of California Berkeley is in critical condition after drowning at an off-campus fraternity house around 11:30 pm Friday night. A preliminary report says the incident took place in the fraternity’s swimming pool, which is still unconfirmed.

As the Chronicle reports, the Berkeley Police Department announced the 19-year-old student was taken to the hospital after a drowning at the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity house on 2422 Prospect Street. The person was reportedly in critical condition as of Saturday. Per the Chronicle, the media is waiting for additional details from the police department.

Per KPIX, the Berkeley Fire Department performed CPR before taking the student to the hospital. The Berkeley Scanner, which pulled information from the police radio at the time, reports that the victim drowned in the fraternity’s pool and was taken to Highland Hospital. The Daily Cal also writes that the student was found unresponsive near the pool.

As the Scanner notes, the pool is a big selling point for the fraternity, as evidenced on its Instagram account.

The investigation is ongoing, and student counseling is available through University Health Services.

“Our thoughts are with the student, their family, loved ones and friends during this time,” said Adam Ratcliff, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley Student Affairs. “We are following our protocols to offer support to the student and their family. The safety and wellbeing of our students remain our top priority.”

"Alpha Delta Phi is aware of an incident at the University of California-Berkeley and is fully cooperating with the local authorities; our priority is the safety and well-being of all members and guests,” the Alpha Delta Phi’s national leadership told KPIX. “As this remains an active investigation, we are unable to provide additional details at this time.”

Update: The still unidentified 19-year-old student died from his injuries, as reported on Wednesday, November 19.

Image: Julian K/Google Reviews

This week: Arab Film Festival in Oakland, street cuts in the Tenderloin, and mutual aid in Berkeley. Plus, Visitacion Valley library, musician Roddy Bottum’s memoir, a fanciful redwood tree net structure, and an artist's playful take on local landmarks.

The unbordered reel

The Arab Film Festival is back for its 29th year, holding steady after a year of budget stress and community rescue. What started as a scramble for support turned into a surprisingly full program, with films arriving from across the Arab world. In theaters from San Jose to Oakland, the lineup includes five Oscar submissions, three of them Palestinian.

Festival organizers frame the work as a gesture toward visibility and belonging, inviting audiences to meet the region’s filmmakers on their own terms. Screenings continue in Oakland through the weekend. — KPIX

Care and exchange

Saturday, November 22, neighbors and friends will gather for a mutual aid swap in Berkeley, bringing food, clothing, masks, rapid tests, and small works of art to share. Each person can take what they need and leave what they can, folding generosity into the afternoon.

Organizers are still accepting donations and volunteers to help run the swap. Masks are required, and the event will run rain or shine from 1–5 p.m., just a short walk from North Berkeley BART. — Rosemary McDonnell-Horita

Street cuts

Desmond Cannady sets up a chair on Leavenworth Street and cuts hair on the Tenderloin sidewalks. At 24, he learned barbering as a kid in Stockton and San Jose, and now balances school, a Berkeley shop, and these street sessions.

Beyond trims and fades, he talks with clients, offering advice and a listening ear. Twice a month, he gives free haircuts, making space for connection in a neighborhood that often feels overlooked. — Mission Local

Voice and reckoning

Roddy Bottum, whose musical journey spans Faith No More, Imperial Teen, and Man on Man, found his creative home in San Francisco, and now lays his life bare in The Royal We. The memoir traces early brushes with alcohol, years of drug use, and a queer awakening, all told with humor and candor.

Bottum reflects on family, loss, and the friends and icons who shaped him — Robert Plant, Kurt Cobain, and Courtney Love among them. Bottum will be at City Lights Bookstore on November 20 in conversation with Brontez Purnell. — Bay Area Reporter

Local icons

Menlo Park artist Courtney Beyer turns Bay Area landmarks into little bursts of delight. Her cards and stickers capture the Flintstone House, Stanford Dish, and even Karl the Fog with humor and heart.

Beyer’s work, now in about 60 stores nationwide — including locally — mixes charm with craft, while her eco-conscious approach adds an extra layer of care to every design. — The Mountain View Voice

Quiet corners

Local content creator Taylor recently shared her visit to the Visitacion Valley library, noting its unexpectedly cozy vibe despite being a newer building. When she visited on a Saturday, the branch was bustling with neighbors, families, and readers making themselves at home among the shelves.

Taylor has been visiting all of San Francisco Library’s branches and just has a few left to check out. — TaylesOfTheCity

Transit canopies

BART’s new canopies along Market Street give weary travelers a clearer sense of place amid the downtown rush. Their glass frames hold LEDs, cameras, and arrival screens, making the descent underground feel less like a plunge into darkness.

The structures are meant to shield the rebuilt escalators and cut back on the grime that’s long collected at the surface. They also double as small galleries, designed with imagery that reflects the different communities along the corridor. — SF Bay Area Rapid Transit

Woven heights

Just outside San Francisco, Kane and Fernando of the TreeNet Collective spent six weeks building colorful nets in the redwoods, blending play with art. The floating structures stretch across branches like sculptural treehouses, brought to life with the help of a small team of collaborators.

Visitors can climb, explore, and experience the forest from a new perspective. — Tree Net Collective

Correction: A previous version of this post included outdated information about the Mushroom Train, which occurred earlier this month. We apologize for the error.

Image: Courtney Beyer Design

Previously:Field Notes: Trans Youth Talk, Newt Migrations, Seasoning the Streets, and Elks Return to Tule River

The Charlie Kirk traveling memorial show had its stop in Berkeley Monday night, and one guy hawking Jesus t-shirts got bloodied up in a lone fistfight, though it was otherwise a long night of garden-variety Berkeley rabble-rousing.

We raised the alarm last week that the Charlie Kirk homage “Turning Point USA Tour” was coming to Berkeley Monday night, the last stop on the tour, and the first California stop since Kirk was shot and killed on an Utah college campus in September. And given Kirk’s legacy of promoting right-wing violence and bigotry, there were of course flyers posted around the UC Berkeley campus telling people to show up and raise heck in protest of the event.

Some of them even got an early start. The UC Berkeley student newspaper Daily Cal reports that four UC Berkeley students were arrested for vandalism early Monday morning, for the crime of… attempting to hang a giant cardboard insect on a gate? Those protesters apparently also hung flyers using Kirk’s own quotes against him, quotes like “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously.” Though the Turning Point rally itself inside Zellerbach Hall was not a particularly star-studded event, merely featuring the likes of washed-up comic Rob Schneider, and some other guy who is even less famous than Rob Schneider.

But once the rally was actually getting started, KPIX reports there was a fistfight between a protester and a Charlie Kirk supporter outside of the auditorium before the program. They got some footage from on the street of the scene after that fistfight, footage in which it is very funny how reporters and protesters are simply wandering into the stalled traffic outside the event. KPIX said they "confirmed four arrests" with the Berkeley PD and campus police. Meanwhile, organizers say they sold 1,900 tickets, and it appears there were roughly the same number of protesters outside the event complaining about it.

KTVU has a little more of the fistfight video above, and it appears to be the same incident caught in much more detail in the (way too long) video below. There’s some bearded guy selling Jesus t-shirts, and declaring, “Jesus Christ is Lord, Jesus Christ is the messiah.” At just past the two-minute mark of the video, some fellow appears to come along and knock a bunch of his red t-shirts to the ground. The two get into a fistfight (though the fighter may not be the guy who knocked the shirts down). Police rush in to detain the two, and everyone gets their cameras out, but the fight does not spread beyond these two individuals.

The Berkeley Scanner has the additional detail that the anti-Charlie Kirk fistfighter was  25-year-old Jihad Dphrepaulezz, who was arrested on suspicion of robbery and felony battery. That outlet adds that “authorities said he attacked a vendor selling Charlie Kirk merchandise and snatched a chain from around his neck.” That report also notes that the t-shirt vendor (seen bloodied up below) was arrested too, though he was released with no charges and sent for treatment at Alta Bates Hospital.

The UC Berkeley Police Department had some extra presence out, Turning Point USA had their own bolstered security, and per KPIX, a few SF Sheriff’s Office deputies were pulled in for security too. An SF Standard reporter on the scene noted that outside Zellerbach Hall, there were “fireworks, bottles thrown, police holding the line and helicopters circling above.”

Though according to KPIX, “a spokesperson for the event said things inside the hall went off without a hitch.”

Maybe not so much after the event, as the Berkeley Scanner additionally reports that the protesters stayed to give event attendees a hard time on their way out. The protesters reportedly shouted things like "What's it like to be remembered as a misogynistic, racist enabler by your grandchildren?” and per the Berkeley Scanner, “Others flipped off event-goers and shook their fists, booing and yelling ‘get outta here’ as attendees walked across Sproul Plaza toward Telegraph Avenue at about 9 pm."

The Berkeley Scanner adds, "The protest was small by Berkeley standards."

Indeed this was the case. The national right-wing media is trying to sensationalize this event as “Bloody chaos at UC Berkeley after Antifa storms TPUSA event,” though only one guy got bloodied, and he was clearly there to start shit. On a Berkeley protest scale of one to ten, this was a three at best. Heck, I’ve been to Berkeley protests where people smashed windows and graffitied all over buildings, and nothing of that sort happened Monday night.

In other words, this was just a normal Berkeley night of unrest. People came out specifically to provoke one another, they did exactly that, and a couple-few people spent the night in the hoosegow. Otherwise, everyone seemed to just go home at 9 pm.

Update: The Department of Justice is now investigating the protest events!

Related: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial-Rally Road Show Coming to Berkeley on November 10 [SFist]

Image: @FrontlinesTPUSA via Twitter