• ICE arrested two protestors who are US citizens outside its 630 Sansome Street field office Friday afternoon before releasing them later that night. Agents reportedly mocked the group of ten protesters while pointing pepper ball rifles and batons at them. [Mission Local]
• Rodney Williams, 55, of San Francisco was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Friday on charges including two counts of possession of child pornography. In July 2024, police found hundreds of images and videos of child sexual abuse at Williams’s Potrero Hill home, along with around 3.8 kilograms of methamphetamine; a kilogram of cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl; 11 firearms; and 116 pounds of ammunition. [Bay City News]
• A suspected shoplifter at the Colma Target bit a police officer's arm while trying to avoid arrest after first ignoring police and attempting to walk around them. [KRON4]
• Newsom appointed seven new judges to Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara county courts on Thursday. [KPIX]
• Noah Alhayek, an 11-year-old San Jose boy, has been missing since August 4 and was last known to be taking public transit to San Francisco. [KRON4]
• Jennifer Bryant, 25, is scheduled to appear in court Monday on charges of animal cruelty in the 2024 death of a horse named Honey, who died from malnutrition and heat stroke when Bryant was manager of Chaparral Ranch’s Bear Creek Stables in Los Gatos [KTVU]
• A team of scientists at California Academy of Sciences is part of a collective of agencies working to save 26 species of starfish impacted by a “wasting disease” that’s caused by rising ocean temperatures. [KPIX]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• Oakland has secured a $10 million grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Housing Incentive Pool to improve street safety and expand bike lanes in targeted neighborhoods. The funding supports infrastructure upgrades aimed at creating safer, more connected travel routes for residents. [NBC Bay Area]
• One person was killed and four others injured in an early morning shooting Saturday on Harbor Road in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood. One victim was critically injured and three less severe; police have made no arrests and are asking for public assistance. [NBC Bay Area]
• A roadside memorial in Sonoma County’s Petaluma now features 84 crosses to highlight the rising toll of fentanyl-related deaths in the area. The display, which is located along Adobe Road, calls for increased public awareness, harm-reduction efforts, and expanded access to addiction support services. [KGO]

• ICE arrests in the Bay Area have risen almost 77% since early 2025, with over 1,700 detentions so far this year — many involving people with no criminal convictions. [Bay Area News Group]
• Authorities have now recovered seven bodies from the wreckage of the fireworks warehouse explosion near Esparto, as investigators use rapid DNA testing to confirm identities and probe how an unlicensed operation amassed so much volatile material. [KGO]
• A US Fish and Wildlife Service officer was struck by an off-road vehicle in San Jose and responded by shooting at the driver, according to authorities; an investigation is underway. [KRON4]
• The San Francisco Standard faced swift backlash for calling a Pride weekend block party an “orgy of graffiti,” with critics slamming the headline as tone-deaf and homophobic. [Underscore_SF]

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Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• Spotify is rushing to remove dozens of fake podcasts promoting illegal online sales of prescription drugs like Adderall, Xanax, and Oxycodone. Despite taking down many after being alerted, new ones keep appearing, exposing ongoing challenges in moderating user-generated content on the platform. [ABC7]
• Dozens of kayakers in the East Bay city of Richmond disrupted an incoming oil tanker on Friday morning, flying Palestinian flags and displaying banners that read “Big Oil = Death” and “Water Is Life.” [@MovementPhotographer]

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• Cuong Lam, 56, a San Francisco man with multiple warrants, was arrested in Colma after stealing alcohol from BevMo, giving police a fake name, and being caught with drug paraphernalia and burglary tools—while wearing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg shirt. [KRON4]

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• Three Northern California lottery players recently won a combined $25 million in Scratchers prizes, including two $10 million jackpots—one purchased in Concord—and a $5 million prize in Sacramento. [NBC Bay Area]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Effective today, the self-driving taxi cars of Waymo are giving paid rides into Daly City and Colma, but they still can’t drive on US 101 or I-280, and they cannot drive you to the SF International Airport.

The controversial but increasingly ubiquitous self-driving car company recently ditched their waitlist and allowed anyone to hail a paid ride for one of their cars in San Francisco. That was a huge milestone the company reached here in late June, and they follow it up today with a smaller but not-insignificant milestone. The Bay Area News Group reports that Waymo just expanded its service into Colma, Daly City, and Broadmoor, and again, anyone with the Waymo One app can hail a ride.

But the self-driving Waymo cars can’t go to SF International Airport, nor can they drive on US 101 or I-280. As the Chronicle explained in March (and it’s still true), Waymo has not yet secured permits to operate at SFO, and is still in the testing phase when it comes to driving on highways and freeways. So Waymo can only operate on “surface" roads, or basically, normal city streets, and not at high speeds.

This Peninsula expansion is not particularly huge, as we see in the image above that depicts the new service area in lighter blue. It’s an expansion of about ten square miles.

“Starting today, we’re bringing Waymo One to the San Francisco Peninsula for the first time, adding Daly City, Broadmoor, and Colma to our existing, round-the-clock public ride-hailing service,” Waymo said in a company blog post. “Now, our SF operations cover 55 square miles of the Bay Area – from Fisherman’s Wharf to Serramonte Center – and connect to the Daly City and Colma Bart Stations, so even more people can ride.”

These rides require use of the Waymo One app.

But not everyone on the Peninsula is thrilled about these new robot cars, which are regulated entirely by state and federal agencies, with no local government controls.

“Why would any city or county allow robotaxis to operate unfettered when they are proven to be disruptive to first responders and even deadly?” San Mateo County Board of Supervisors vice president Dave Canepa told the Bay Area News Group earlier this year. “What is needed is local control and not the blanket approval the DMV and CPUC has taken.”

Regardless, Waymo adds that on Wednesday, they’ll also be expanding their Los Angeles-area service to cover Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, and Playa Vista, plus additional areas in Hollywood, Chinatown, and Westwood.

Related: Waymo Gets State Approval for Los Angeles and SF Peninsula Expansion — and Freeway Driving [SFist]

Image via Waymo

The suspect in Thursday's double stabbing in Pacifica, which was described as an incident of domestic violence and in which one male victim died, was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Ukiah.

Very few details were available Thursday after the initial report of police activity and a suspect at large, following the stabbings of two victims, one male and one female, at a home on Naomi Avenue in the Vallemar neighborhood of Pacifica. The female victim was hospitalized with stab wounds, and the male victim, who still has not been publicly identified, died at the scene.

As KTVU now reports, the suspect, 46-year-old Jason Gillenwater, was a firefighter paramedic for the Colma Fire Suppression District, and police had been called to the same home on Naomi Avenue in Pacifica on Wednesday because Gillenwater had violated a restraining order against him.

Gillenwater had been suspended from his job following an arrest last week, according to ABC 7's reporting, stemming from a domestic abuse incident at the same Naomi Avenue home, involving his ex — whom neighbors identified to KTVU as a woman named Nina.

Gillenwater was released on bail, however in addition to a restraining order there was reportedly a "gun violence emergency protective order" against him, allowing authorities to seize any guns or ammunition in his possession, per ABC 7.

Following the double stabbing Thursday, police and/or witnesses reportedly saw Gillenwater dressed in camouflage and covered in blood leaving the scene on foot. Gillenwater then allegedly drove to Oakland, and north in a gray Ford F150 to Ukiah. He allegedly stopped in Colusa County and purchased a gun — which he should not have been allowed to purchase, given the protective order and the APB out for his arrest at the time.

Gillenwater then used the weapon to take his own life during a traffic stop by Ukiah police and CHP officers in Ukiah, as KTVU reports. He reportedly died in the Ford F150.

Two children who were reportedly home in the Naomi Avenue house when the stabbings occurred have been taken away by victim services in San Mateo County. There has been no report on the female victim's condition, though KTVU says she is "still in the hospital receiving treatment for her injuries."

Pacifica Police Chief Maria Sarasua issued a statement, saying, "We are deeply saddened by this tragedy and keeping the family members and Pacifica community close in our hearts as they cope with this profound loss. I am grateful to the San Mateo County allied agencies, San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, and the California Highway Patrol for their assistance during this investigation."

Previously: Two Stabbed, One Fatally In Pacifica; Suspect Search Prompts Lockdown

Top image: The neighborhood where the stabbings took place in Pacifica, via Google Street View

An apparent butane or propane leak that seems unrelated to BART shut down a few BART stations Friday morning, and it sounds like all traffic on several Daly City thoroughfares is completely shut down as well.

Update (2:20 p.m.): All BART service has been restored, according to a 2:20 p.m. update from BART seen below. Though riders should still expect delays through much of Friday afternoon.  

Original story (12:35 p.m.): Friday morning BART service in the southern part of the city, as well as Daly City and Colma, was disrupted by a possible hazardous materials leak, according to KGO.  BART initially described the closures in a 10 a.m. tweet as being “due to police activity,” but we have since learned that the cause is a possible chemical leak.

KRON4 adds that the Daly City BART station was evacuated. As of press time for this post, the Daly City and Colma stations are still closed, and trains are not running through those stations. And the Daly City Police Department just added at 11:46 a.m. Friday that “The entire intersection of John Daly Blvd at Junipero Serra Blvd is completely shut down to vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Please try to find an alternate route. Fire and law enforcement personnel are on scene investigating a hazardous material incident.”

Though as of 11:30 a.m., BART says the Balboa Park station has reopened.

The situation appears to be unrelated to the BART system itself. According to NBC Bay Area, “the driver of a truck carrying butane or propane pulled over near a BART track overcrossing in Daly City because he thought something might be leaking.” The station adds that “The driver then called 911 after seeing one of the containers leaking.”

Related: BART Had To Halt All Service Early Friday Morning, But Most Lines Now Running As Normal [SFist]

Image: BART.gov

Photo: Jeremy Bezanger

An SF State professor and an executive assistant from Colma will compete tonight on Alex Trebek’s final episode of Jeopardy!, airing at 7 p.m. local time.

What is… the last episode of Jeopardy! with Alex Trebek as host is set to air tonight, but we already have some spoilers on what will happen on the broadcast. As seen in the teaser below from the official Jeopardy! Youtube channel, it will be a normal episode of Jeopardy!, but also with “a very special look back at your favorite Alex moments and memories.” Trebek, who has hosted Jeopardy! since its 1984 revival and had hosted other television game shows since 1966, passed away at the age of 80 November 8 after a nearly two-year battle with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

Trebek filmed a series of episodes on October 29, ten days prior to his death, and the show's executive producer Mike Richards told CNN that it was clearly a difficult day for Trebek to get through.

"He was in pain and we knew it," Richards said. "He’d had surgery. I couldn’t believe he was already back from the surgery that he’d had just two weeks before that. I had chills the entire tape day."

Richards said he told Trebek, after the cameras turned off, that his composure and professionalism that day was an incredible feat.

But the San Francisco Chronicle has another spoiler for tonight’s show, and it adds a little local color to the momentous broadcast. An SF State English professor is among tonight’s contestants, and the contestant Jim Gilligan had been auditioning for the show since the 1990s before eventually making it on the episode that was taped on October 27.

And we being huge Jeopardy! fans here at SFist, we can confirm that last night’s returning champion is Yoshie Hill, an executive assistant from Colma. In an awkward and accidental bit of foreshadowing on Thursday night’s episode, Hill shared the old joke “You’re lucky to be alive in Colma,” a reference to the town having more residents in graves than live citizens.

“It’s definitely a bittersweet moment,” the professor Gilligan told the Chronicle. “‘Hey, I finally achieved one of my life’s dreams, I’m going to be on “Jeopardy!,” and I met Alex Trebek.’ But it was the last episode he ever taped in his life.”

Trebek did not realize the show would be his last when it was taped. “It was pretty clear that he was not at 100%. He still did a great job, but he was walking a little bit more slowly,” Gilligan said. “It looked like he was in pain a little bit. But if you watch the show, you’ll never be able to tell.”

The game-show-within-a-game-show of who will replace Trebek as Jeopardy! host is still very much in flux. All-time winningest Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings will get the role at first on an interim basis, and those episodes are already taped. But Jennings was recently tarred by his role in the ‘Bean Dad’ Twitter dust-up, plus a series of other pretty assholish tweets that have surfaced, so surely that does not help his candidacy. The LA Times reported Wednesday that Katie Couric (“All of ‘em, Katie!”) had been signed as a second temporary host. It is rumored that Trebek had privately hoped that a woman would succeed him as Jeopardy! host.

We have our own “favorite Alex moments and memories" here at SFist, most notably that time in 2011 when Trebek snapped his Achilles tendon here in San Francisco, in the act of (of course) chasing a burglar at his Union Square hotel room. The suspect stole cash and a bracelet Trebek’s mother had given him, both of which were returned, as the caper was executed in fairly incompetent and likely intoxicated fashion.

Alex Trebek’s final episode of Jeopardy air at 7 p.m. tonight on KGO, ABC-7.

Related: Cherished ‘Jeopardy!' Host Alex Trebek Has Passed Away at 80 [SFist]

Image: CULVER CITY, CA - APRIL 17: Game show host Alex Trebek poses on the set of the "Jeopardy!" Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament Show Taping on April 17, 2010 in Culver City, California. (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)

Originally listed as a pretty epic 3.9, the US Geological Survey has since downgraded Saturday morning’s tremor to a still-impressive 3.5 magnitude.  

Many of us sleep past 8:41 a.m. on a Saturday, but not today. Our collective sleep-ins and hangovers were interrupted by what the US Geological Service describes a 3.5 magnitude earthquake, according to KGO. The epicenter was listed as “3.73mi WSW of Colma, CA”

The quake was originally listed as a 3.9 magnitude quake, but the USGS quickly downgraded it to a 3.5.

No damage has been reported yet, so it preliminarily seems like we got off easy. But do prepare for aftershocks, and of course, make sure you have a disaster preparedness go-bag.

Related: This Is Your Obligatory 1906 Anniversary Reminder To Get Your Earthquake Kit Together [SFist]

Screenshot: USGS

Don't go to the Home Depot in Colma if you're in desperate need of a fan or air conditioner today. They're all out.

A 25-year-old Uber contractor was charged with grand theft after stealing over $25,000 in Uber rides and Uber Eats delivery. That's a lot of vegan chili fries.

CBS 5 reports that Bernie Ali Martinez of Colma (of all places) used a password to access Uber's computer system between the dates of February 29 and May 16, 2016. That's 25 grand on Uber in less that three months, which all crimes aside, is some pretty impressive spending for one guy from Colma.

Martinez admitted that he let some friends and family access the free rides and food too, giving new meaning to the phrase, weekend at Bernie's.

"He told us he thought it was much less," said San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaff of Martinez's stolen Uber charges.

CNet has a statement about Martinez released by Uber which reads in part: "He was a temporary contractor who worked on Uber's business for a few months in 2016. As part of his job responsibilities, he was authorized to issue credits, but once we detected the abuse, we shut down his access and reported the theft to law enforcement."

Investigators served a search warrant in August of last year and arrested him in October. He's scheduled to be sentenced this September and according to his plea deal, will face six months in the county jail. If Martinez makes restitution and pays back that 25 grand, his charges might be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Martinez is out on $10,000 bail (aka: one month of Bernie's personal Uber charges).

Related: Uber Eats Driver Blocks Market Street And Flees From Cops, Gets Off With A Warning

Following last month's news that the year-old "coffin girl" mystery had been solved and the young deceased girl — lovingly encased in an expensive, well sealed coffin nearly 150 years ago — had been identified, a second service for her was held in Greenlawn Cemetery in Colma on Saturday. A new headstone, now etched with her name, Edith Howard Cook, and her birth and death dates (and with a creepy picture of a child on it) has been installed where last year a headstone had been placed using a temporary moniker that had been given to the girl by the family under whose house her coffin was found by surprise on Lone Mountain.

CBS 5 was at the ceremony, which was also attended by a local relative of Cook's, Peter Cook of Marin County, who now has a new ancestor he never knew existed. "She will be a child forever, forever," said Peter Cook, who is a direct descendant of Edith's older brother Milton.

The effort to determine Edith Cook's identity involved a team of researchers, and relied only partly on DNA taken from the girl's hair. It turned out she was — as had been speculated based on her dress and the high quality of the casket — from a well-to-do San Francisco family, the daughter of Horatio Nelson Cook and Edith Scooffy Cook in 1873, and died in October 1876, just shy of her third birthday, likely from an infectious disease. Horatio Cook was in the leather tanning and belt-making business, and would later serve as Consul to Greece, and Edith Scoofy Cook came from pioneer family and her father was a member of the Society of California Pioneers.

Saturday's service included a procession by the Independent Order of Oddfellows, because the girl's casket had been left behind in what was the Oddfellows cemetery on Lone Mountain, and the fraternal organization (to which her father presumably belonged), paid for the girl's reinterment last year.

All previous 'coffin girl' coverage on SFist.

The Bay Area was captivated earlier this year with the story of a mysterious coffin containing the well preserved remains of what was believed to be a three-year-old girl underneath a home on Lone Mountain. Some dedicated researchers have continued their quest to figure out who this young girl was who passed away sometime between the 1870s and 1890s, and they now believe that she was in fact two years old, and pending the results of a DNA test, CBS 5 reports that they may be announcing her true identity within days.

The girl was given the name Miranda Eve and given a reburial in Colma in June, near what is thought to be the final resting place of her other family members who would have been buried near her in the former Odd Fellows' Cemetery on Lone Mountain. The cemetery, along with several others in the area, was emptied in the 1930's to make way for real estate development, and most of the coffins were put in mass graves in Colma. However workers doing all that digging clearly missed some graves, and researcher Alex Snyder tells CBS 5, "I think as times goes on a lot more bodies will turn up."

Snyder points to shoddy record keeping by the Odd Fellows organization which has hampered research efforts into the girl's identity — though previously it had also been discussed that some paper burial records could have been lost in the fire following the 1906 earthquake. As of September, DNA testing of the girl's hair had concluded that she had succumbed to a drawn out illness, and that her maternal DNA was of a fairly rare type, and traceable to the British Isles.

The coffin was found during excavation work beneath the garage of a home at the foot of Lone Mountain. The find set off a chain of events involving curious history buffs, child advocates, and investigators around the country, ultimately leading to the reburial, paid for by the Odd Fellows.

Snyder says, as of now, "we’ve got a strong candidate and I suspect we will know fairly soon whether or not the candidate we have identified is Miranda Eve."

Stay tuned.

Previously: Little Girl's Well Preserved Body Found 150 Years On, Buried Beneath Inner Richmond Home

City College of San Francisco is seemingly constantly in the news for scandals ranging from issues of accreditation, to extravagant administrative meal and travel expenses, to sketchy potential skirting of no-bid contract rules. Well, just to round the whole thing out, today we learn that the college's Biological Sciences Department keeps its cadavers from rotting via the power of fresh air.

"We've got formaldehyde that is perforating the building, peeling the paint, and so the solution way back when was to turn off the heat on that side of the building so we could keep the cadavers cold," once-Chancellor Art Tyler explained to SF Weekly. "That's not the right solution."

Apparently an OSHA inspection OK'd the open-window technique back in the early 1980's, and the college hasn't updated its storage technique since.

"[OSHA Inspectors] said, 'With the windows open and the wind we get up here, we actually have better ventilation,'" explained professor Michael Guthrie while recalling the OSHA visit to the Weekly.

The Biological Sciences Department currently has three cadavers, and they are preserved with formaldehyde but not refrigerated in any way. A modern lab, reports the paper, has both "air and floor ventilation, as well as equipment for constant monitoring of temperature and chemicals in the air" in addition to refrigeration.

Oh, and as a little icing on the donated-for-science cake, when bodies are brought to the lab they must be stood upright — the elevator is too small to accommodate them otherwise. Which: that's some serious Weekend at Bernie's shit.

Efforts by the college to build a new science building have reportedly stalled due to costs. Maybe everyone should just pack up and move to Colma, as that's where all San Francisco's dead are anyway.

All previous coverage of City College on SFist.