Remember that four-alarm house fire in Tiburon we mentioned yesterday? Well, sadly, that burning house belonged to Marin County icon, author, peace activist and collector of all things purple, Barbara Meislin, who had lived in the house for 43 years. Everything she owned and wore, from the flowers in her garden to her undergarments to her cell phone, was purple. (She was profiled in Marin Magazine in 2007 -- read it here.) The house was filled with Meislin's panoply of purple trinkets and furniture, and she has vowed to rebuild. more ›

After last night's fire in the Mission displaced over 50 San Franciscans, an early morning East Oakland blaze at 2640 74th Avenue proved fatal, killing two men. more ›

Updated with picture from SFist reader Oscar. Thanks, Oscar. Here's the Google Street View picture of the house. more ›

Well, that's kind of a cinematically creepy incident -- the SFPD are investigating an accident where it turned out a 43-year-old man who crashed his car into a house on 29th and Santiago in the Sunset had been shot. The collision started a small house fire which was quickly extinguished. Investigators have said that several shots were heard in the area at the time, and several other cars were hit with bullets as well. more ›

Remember the folks in Atherton whose high-quality wine was stolen from their cellar (about $145K worth)? Turns out it was their maid and her boyfriend. (For many reasons, this crime would never have happened to us, we'd just like to say.) The police set up a sting operation where the owners asked the maid to clean the house, and saw her on a hidden camera run into the cellar (where there was no cleaning to be done) and take some bottles. Later, the boyfriend figured out there was a camera, but not before they got some clear footage of his face. The cops got a warrant and found the missing bottles in the boyfriend's house. The owners are still looking for "a highly prized and difficult to assemble set of Red Bordeaux representing an unbroken line of more than 20 years in harvests," which was stolen in the first heist. Also: there's a wine insurance business now, and the Merc News informs us that "stolen wine is hard to track because bottles do not typically have serial numbers and there is not a central registry of brands." more ›

Here's a wrapup of today's news more ›

An instant replay technician for the Raiders was busted with coke. An instant replay technician for the Raiders was busted with coke. more ›

The SF Zoo is mourning the death of Pogo, one of the oldest gorillas at the zoo, who had been suffering declining health over the past few years. Pogo seems to have been subjected to a fair amount of anthropomorphism, in the way that only happens with loved animals -- she liked to read National Geographic (but the zookeepers didn't show her nature videos, because they thought they were too violent), loved to dress up, and they called her a "woman's libber" for her assertive nature. Pogo never bred ("she doesn't like boy gorillas"), but loved babies, and was found in her cage Wednesday morning, clutching a baby doll. In Hakuna Matata news, though, while there was another mysterious death at the zoo over the weekend (of a black swan), two baby giraffes were born. The circle of life! more ›

A woman crossing Van Ness at Jackson was struck and killed by a 27 Bryant bus at about 6:30 a.m. yesterday. Pedestrians are rallying for better countdown crosswalk lights and increased driver awareness, and investigators think the bus driver might have been blinded by the rising sun. A SF State student fell to his death off a dorm stairwell over the weekend. SF State says he may have been leaning over the stairwell to watch a fight going on below. The dorm has a ban on parties, and students can be fined $100. Interestingly, though, there's no ban on alcohol. The student had been at SFSU since 2002, but wasn't enrolled in any classes this semester. And CBS 5 anchor Doug Murphy, who had recently taken a medical leave from the station, was killed in a house fire Sunday night. Fire investigators are looking into the cause of the fire, which was found to have started in the attic of the Lafayette house. The local news community and CBS 5 viewers are pretty shaken up about the whole thing (we saw Vicki Liviakis break down on KRON 4 when the news was confirmed). more ›