• Following the announcement of the resignation of his Chief of Staff Staci Slaughter, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced her replacement and two more promotions within City Hall. Deputy Chief of Staff Aly Bonde will become chief of staff, current liaison to the Board of Supervisors Adam Thongsavat will become her deputy, and Eileen Mariano is being elevated to policy chief. [Chronicle]
• A wildfire broke out in Livermore this afternoon, called the Tesla Fire because it began near Tesla and Cross roads, has grown to three acres and has burned a barn and an adjacent building. [KTVU]
• Since Oakland's speed cameras began issuing tickets in March, a total of 82,000 tickets have been issued. [SFGate]

National:

• The Justice Department continues to do Trump's personal bidding, and now they are launching an investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the 82-year-old woman who won a $5 million judgement against Trump in a sex abuse case, and an $83 million defamation case against him. [CNN]
• Former First Lady Jill Biden said in a new interview that when she saw then-President Biden make his disastrous appearance in his only debate against Trump two years ago her first thought was "He's having a stroke." [New York Times]
• Democrats may be dreaming, or maybe there's a chance that Talarico can win a Senate seat in Texas. [NY Mag]

Video:

• This British YouTuber is traveling to every World Cup host city in the US and vlogging about their food, and he just toured San Francisco, hit up Swan Oyster Depot (because: Bourdain), had a super burrito at El Farolito, and had the chicken at Zuni Cafe, among other things.

Top image: Photo of an earlier fire via Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department

This week: Hip-hop at Yoshi’s, coastal trails, national park sweethearts, and a Muni beer crawl. Plus, turning Lake Merritt trash into art, repairing bikes for kids, a light bulb that never goes out, and the big cat on campus.

Campus legend

An orange cat named Cheeto, who's been an internet meme for quite some time, is a fixture of the physics department at the University of California, Davis campus, where students and staff leave out food, beds, and the occasional note about his whereabouts.

Sightings get logged on Instagram, and he’s even picked up a joking Rate My Professors profile, complete with five-star reviews. Most days, Cheeto is easy to find — sleeping in the sun or stretched out in the landscaping, clearly unbothered by his reputation. — The California Aggie

Park crushes

Lots of accounts did the sweetheart meme this week, but Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy's take is the most creative, pairing park-themed Valentines with fun, local references.

The cards also offer some date ideas across Bay Area parks. — Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy/Instagram

Found things by the lake

Around Lake Merritt, a volunteer group known as the Trash Falcons has spent years picking up what gets left behind during walks around the water. The group meets weekly and removes more than 15 tons of trash a year, with most of it recycled and a small portion recontextualized as art.

Some of those objects — plastic forks, odd fragments, things too strange to toss back into a bin — now anchor a temporary museum built from about 175 finds, as part of an exhibition at Oakland’s Junior Center of Art and Science called What We Sow. The Trash Falcons’ museum is on view through March 6, with a related art exhibit in the gallery running into April. — NBC Bay Area

Wind along the bluffs

Along the Cowell–Purísima Coastal Trail, the coastline opens up in long, clean lines of cliff, water, and sky. The 3.6-mile, mostly flat path traces the edge of the bluffs just south of Half Moon Bay, with steady ocean views and few interruptions.

On clear days, it’s the kind of walk that invites an unhurried pace, with room to stop, look out, and keep going. The trail is open year-round and runs one way along the coast, with access points near Highway 1. — Anjali/Instagram

Century light, quiet glow

In Livermore, a single bulb has been glowing almost nonstop since 1901, tucked into the ceiling of Fire Station Number 6. Built by Shelby Electric and hardened like a tiny carbon diamond, the Centennial Light Bulb has outlasted generations of firefighters, power outages, and even its own moves between stations.

Visitors from across the globe stop by to see it, though for the crew, it’s just another fixture in the daily rhythm of the station. The bulb now burns at 4 watts and is expected to mark 125 years this June. — San Francisco Chronicle

Pints along the lines

Hop on Muni ties craft beer to four Muni routes across the city. Grab a limited-edition IPA at Standard Deviant, collect stickers at bars along each line, and finish back at the brewery to enter for prizes.

The first 25 to complete their cards take home a pint glass, and the grand prize includes SFCFC gear. The crawl runs February 21 through March 2, sending participants through familiar streets in a new kind of loop. — SFMTA

Tables and basslines

At Yoshi’s, hip-hop has been quietly reshaping the room, with rappers performing alongside live bands in a space once defined almost entirely by jazz. Post-pandemic crowds skew older, local, and seated at tables, but the energy shifts once artists like DJ Quik or Spice 1 start stretching songs and trading solos with the band.

The programming reflects where the audience is now, even as the format keeps the club’s improvisational spirit intact. Upcoming shows include the Sugerhill Gang, the Pharcyde, and Twista, all in April. — KQED

Wheels of change

In San Jose, Jim Gardner has turned childhood tinkering into a lifeline for the unhoused. Through Good Karma Bikes, he and volunteers repair and give away bicycles, helping people regain mobility, confidence, and a foothold in life.

The nonprofit serves thousands, from middle schoolers to adults in recovery, and runs programs that teach bike mechanics and hands-on skills. Gardner recently received recognition for his work, underscoring a decade of connecting tools, talent, and trust to lift neighbors forward. — KPIX

Top image: Trash Falcons

Previously: Field Notes: Bean Meeting, Magnolias in Bloom, and Christopher Burch’s Cosmic Paintings

Photo via CHP-Dublin

The death of a 55-year-old man in Livermore led police there to suspect that the man's 3o-year-old roommate could be to blame. And one day after the body was discovered, the roommate was spotted in San Francisco.

On Tuesday, Livermore police responded to a request for a welfare check at an address on the 1000 block of North P Street. The 55-year-old man who lived there had reportedly not been seen since Friday, November 28, and inside the residence, officers found the man dead from multiple stab wounds, as KTVU reports.

Police quickly identified the victim's roommate, 30-year-old Brayam Chirinos, as a prime suspect, and San Francisco police subsequently spotted Chirinos in the city, driving the victim's car.

Chirinos was then arrested without incident by the SFPD and booked into Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

Chirinos reportedly has a lengthy criminal history out of Florida and Texas, as Pleasanton Weekly reports, with an active warrant out for his arrest for a battery incident in Florida. He also had previous arrests for DUI, assault, domestic violence, and false imprisonment.

Livermore Police Chief Jeramy Young put out a statement about the arrest.

"I want to thank our detectives for their swift work in identifying and locating the suspect,” Young said in a release. "I would also like to thank San Francisco Police for their assistance. This suspect would not be in custody without their efforts and strong partnership."

The San Francisco Police Citywide Plain Clothes Unit and Real Time Investigation Center reportedly assisted with the arrest.

A Livermore man who has lived in the Bay Area his entire adult life and raised three children here remains in Mexico, where he has no family, after being deported, while his wife and family here await his next immigration hearing.

"He tells me, 'You've got to promise me you are not going to cry anymore,' but it's impossible," says Rosa Lopez, the wife of Miguel Angel Lopez Luvian, who was detained on May 27 at a routine immigration appointment in SF, and is now staying in Mexico City. Rosa Lopez spoke to KTVU this week, saying she has now been to visit her husband twice, but she can't easily afford the travel. And the couple has a three-year-old grandchild whom he can only interact with on video calls.

Miguel Lopez, 47, has lived in the Livermore area for 29 years, and worked as a welder and at a Livermore winery. He married his wife, a US citizen, in 2001, and at one point held a green card, but that was revoked. They have three children, ages 25, 24, and 17.

Rosa Lopez tells KTVU, "Getting status here in the United States is not as easy as filling out an application, like getting a job. It's not. It's all a process. We’ve spent a lot of money on this."

In contrast to many similar cases in which the Trump administration has directed the extralegal detention and deportation of immigrants who have lived here peacefully for years and attempted to gain citizenship through all legal channels, Lopez's case has gained wide attention here in the Bay Area, which may help in the end.

Congressman Eric Swalwell posted a video to Instagram last week of a meeting he had with Rosa Lopez.

"He's a friend, a neighbor, a Livermore resident, who was unlawfully removed by ICE after doing everything you're supposed to do," Swalwell said of Miguel Lopez.

Swalwell reportedly helped to get Lopez's passport back from ICE, but there is no immediate change in his case.

A federal judge already ruled in early June, issuing a temporary restraining order against the government halting Lopez's deportation, but they went ahead and deported him anyway. US District Court Judge Trina Thompson wrote in her decision that the government's case for deportation was one of the flimsier she had seen, and "The inequities seep from the pages, staining every word."

Rosa Lopez says she hopes to go visit her husband again in Mexico City next month, and he is now sceduled for his next immigration hearing in October.

His attorney, Saad Admad, tells KTVU in a statement, "We believe there would be a gross miscarriage of justice if Mr. Lopez's green card is taken away without him getting the opportunity to seek review of that decision. We have a long battle ahead of us. It's going to be a difficult case, no question about it."

Previously: Trump Administration Deports Livermore Man to Mexico, Even After Federal Judge Ordered Him to Be Kept Here

• The San Rafael City Schools board voted to suspend trustee Isai Nicodemo Rodas, 22, following his arrest for allegedly molesting a 16-year-old student while working as a paraeducator. Rodas, who was elected unopposed last year, is barred from all board duties pending the outcome of the investigation. [Marin Independent Journal]
• Pope Leo XIV urged tech leaders to develop AI in ways that respect human dignity, warning that people must not be reduced to functions or algorithms. In a message to a Vatican summit attended by Silicon Valley executives, he called for ethical standards that prioritize human well-being intellectually and spiritually, as well as materially. [CNN]
• Security footage from an Oakland business captured a truck dumping thousands of gallons of unknown sludge on Pearmain Street on Wednesday, prompting calls from local officials for prosecution and cleanup amid long-standing community frustration with illegal dumping. [KPIX]

• A San Francisco cyclist is suing Waymo, claiming the company’s safety tech failed when a robotaxi passenger door opened into a bike lane, causing her to crash and suffer serious injuries. [Chronicle]
• Three juveniles, including a 12-year-old boy, were arrested in Livermore for nearly 50 overnight auto burglaries involving smashed car windows, with stolen items recovered and charges now under review by juvenile probation. [KRON4]

National:

• A federal judge ordered the release of former Columbia graduate student and legal US resident, Mahmoud Khalil, criticizing the government for failing to justify his continued detention despite no violence or legal violations. Khalil will be free to walk out of the detention center in rural Louisiana — where he's been detained since March — by Friday evening. [Associated Press]
• The Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that fuel producers have standing to challenge California’s authority to set stricter car emission standards under a federal waiver. The decision does not address whether California’s rules are lawful, only that the lawsuit may proceed. [New York Times]
• Roblox players recently staged anti-ICE protests complete with barricades, Mexican flags, and clashes with police avatars dressed as SWAT officers — after weeks of in-game raids by users roleplaying as ICE agents. After the Teen Vogue article was published, the author reported on Threads that police violence eventually erupted inside the game, as players reenacting law enforcement shot the demonstrators. [Teen Vogue, Threads]
• A federal judge has temporarily blocked the US Department of Transportation from withholding billions in funding to states that do not comply with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement demands, ruling the policy likely violates the Constitution. [New York Times]

Video of the Day:

• Here’s a rather mesmerizing video of some stingrays in Oakland’s Lake Merritt. Based on a comment on the video via Californian.Views, we learned that Lake Merritt was the first protected wildlife refuge in the US.

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Need Last Minute Plans?

• See Last Week, This Week. There's also the Frameline Film Festival, the Main Library's day-long Open House on Saturday, and the epic Queen Out Rooftop Day Party at Hibernia Bank on Sunday.

Image: Macy's Union Square; 2016, Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Miguel Angel Lopez has lived in the Bay Area for 27 years, and is father to three US citizens. But the “law and order” Trump administration has ignored legal orders to let him stay here, and he was just deported to Mexico.

When ICE agents showed up at an SF federal courthouse on May 27 and just started grabbing and detaining people who were showing up for their immigration cases (rather than, you know, pursuing actual criminals), one of the more heartbreaking stories was the detainment of Miguel Angel Lopez, a 27-year resident of Livermore and father the three US citizens who was simply attending a routine check-in appointment. Lopez was hauled off to a detention facility in Southern California.    

A week and a half later on June 6, US District Court Judge Trina Thompson put a temporary restraining order on Lopez’s deportation, saying the federal government’s case against him was one of the Trump administration's flimsier cases that prosecuted a law-abiding resident with no criminal history. “The facts of this case highlight one of those moments,” Thompson wrote in her ruling, according to the Bay Area News Group. “The inequities seep from the pages, staining every word.”

But the typical lawless Trump administration simply ignored that order, and Lopez’s wife says he was deported to Mexico last Saturday, according to the Chronicle. His spouse Rosa Lopez says he was told to “grab his stuff” where he’d been in a Kern County facility for ten days, before being transferred to Bakersfield, and then deported to a migrant shelter in Tijuana. Rosa Lopez has since flown to Mexico to meet him there.

“On top of having to worry about paying rent for him here (in Mexico) and having to pay my stuff out there (in Northern California), it stresses me out,” Rosa Lopez told the Chronicle in a phone interview from Mexico. The deported Miguel Angel Lopez is the primary income earner in that household.

Lopez arrived in the US when he was 18, and got married to a US citizen in 2001. He’s been trying to get a green card since 2007, but that request has been tied up in the courts. Yet the whole time, Lopez has been working, paying taxes (he’s even paid off his mortgage), and has absolutely no criminal history.

President Trump has claimed the immigrants he’s been deporting are “bloodthirsty” criminals, but the administration's methods of snatching people to deport strongly indicate otherwise. ICE has been targeting people showing up for their immigration court hearings and check-ins, working manual labor shifts on farms or in sweatshops, or looking for day work in Home Depot parking lots. In other words, these deporations themselves are often more unlawful than the people being deported.

Related: Bay Area Father of Three, Who Lived Here 25 Years, Detained By ICE at Routine Appointment In SF [SFist]

Image courtesy Lopez Family

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Livermore will get lit in the national TV spotlight tonight, as ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight has a home from the Alameda County locale whose display features more than 900,000 lights.

The Bay Area has an excellent track record when it comes to the annual ABC TV holiday special The Great Christmas Light Fight. Santa Rosa’s Berndt family won the $50,000 top prize in 2021, the Rombeiro family of Novato won it in 2019, and Suisun City married couple Aaron Sencil and Vincent Tanciongco were runners-up in 2022.

And the Bay Area will shine in this year's competition too, as the Bay Area News Group reports that a Livermore home will be competing on the show on tonight’s episode of the The Great Christmas Light Fight, which airs at 9 pm PT Thursday night on our local KGO ABC-7.

The house is called Casa del Pomba, and it's the home of  Livermore’s St. Michael Church deacon, “Deacon Dave” Rezendes. He’s been decorating his home for the holidays for 40 years now, and the preview video above shows how the display is not just lights (and 875,850 of them at that), but additional structures added on to the home and life-size wooden mannequins.  

“I wanted to do something for people of all faiths or no faith,” Deacon Dave says. “The display is like a snowball rolling down a hill, taking that spirit of Christmas with it, so that people will go outside the gates and take that spirit of Christmas with them.”

While The Great Christmas Light Fight begins at 8 pm Thursday night, the segment featuring Deacon Dave’s house will not air until the 9 pm hour (It’s a two-hour special, but technically two separate one-hour episodes airing back to back). The show will also be available via streaming on Hulu starting  Friday morning.

Or you can go see Deacon Dave’s epic display yourself, at 352 Hillcrest Avenue in Livermore. The display is illuminated nightly from 6 pm - 9:00 pm Sunday – Thursday nights, and 6 pm - 10 pm Friday and Saturday nights. From December 26 - January 1, the display will close at 9 pm nightly.

Related: Solano County Home Featured on 'Great Christmas Light Fight' [SFist]

Image: Casa del Pomba

Did you know Michelle Obama had a healthy soda line? Neither did I!

Former First Lady Michelle Obama popped up at the Costco in Livermore on Tuesday, much to the delight of the few dozen shoppers who caught the appearance.

It was documented on TikTok, as seen below. It turns out that Mrs. Obama is a co-founder and strategic partner of PLEZi Nutrition, and she was at the store talking to customers and promoting their soft drink, called PLEZi Fizz.

The sodas are sweetened with fruit juice, and said to contain 70% less sugar than traditional soft drinks.

"I've dedicated so much of my life to helping kids and families lead healthier lives," Obama says in a statement on the company's website. "As First Lady, I built my Let's Move! initiative to rally every sector of society toward this goal."

She continues, "Studies are showing that kids aren't getting enough nutrients like fiber and potassium, and they're consuming far too much added sugar — with nearly two-thirds of young people consuming sugary drinks on a given day."

With PLEZi Nutrition, Obama says, "We're hoping not just to provide healthier and delicious drinks and snacks for kids, but to jumpstart a race to the top that will transform the entire food industry… it is still simply too hard for kids to grow up healthy."

As TMZ notes, actress Kristen Bell is also an investor and strategic partner in PLEZi Nutrition.

It's not clear if Mrs. Obama made any other stops at any Bay Area retailers, or what she might have been doing in the Bay Area besides hawking soda at Costco.

Was there another high-ticket-price Kamala fundraiser we didn't hear about?

A fast-moving weekend wildfire scorched miles of vegetation east of Livermore and was threatening a residential area of Tracy before being significantly contained on Sunday.

The fire broke out around 2:40 pm on Saturday and had grown to over 12,000 acres as of Sunday morning, due to high winds and dry conditions. The first flames erupted on Corral Hollow Road near the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Site 300, and it was dubbed the Corral Fire.

The fire destroyed one family's home of 30 years at a rural edge of Tracy in San Joaquin County, as KCRA reports. Another neighbor, Kirn Gill, told the station he managed to save his home using sprinklers and a garden hose to put out flying embers. But the Curtiss family nearby was not so lucky, and their house burned not long after they evacuated.

The entire neighborhood just off I-580 and CA-132, on Bernard Road, was threatened and under a mandatory evacuation order, but that order was downgraded Sunday as firefighters gained an upper hand. As KTVU reports, the fire had burned a total of 14,000 acres, or 22 square miles, as of Monday, and CalFire said it reached 75% containment.

This was the first significant wildfire of the fire season in the Bay Area, and forced the temporary closure of I-580 near the Altamont Pass as the fire hopscotched over the highway Saturday night into Sunday.

While the evacuation order was downgraded to a warning Sunday night, around 200 homes in and around Tracy remained under threat, as the Chronicle reports.

"Residents are advised to remain vigilant and prepared for potential changes," CalFire said in a statement.

Typically strong winds in the area and an abundance of dry grasses made the fire difficult to contain, CalFire said.

While the fire briefly impacted air quality in Tracy on Sunday, most of San Joaquin County was unaffected.

The fire also did not do any damage to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, as a spokesperson confirmed to the Chronicle.

The Livermore Police Department is sounding the alarm over a “crime trend” of unattended wallets being stolen from shopping carts at Trader Joe’s locations, though the obvious solution is just not leaving your wallet unattended.

The newest hubbub over Oakland crime is the permanent closure of the In-N-Out near the Oakland airport, and a nearby Denny’s also announcing they’re closing, with both restaurants blaming crime and safety issues.

More upscale East Bay communities like Danville, San Ramon, and Pleasanton tend to not have these problems. Or don’t they? A Thursday morning Facebook post from the Livermore Police Department says there's been a surge of wallet thefts at East Bay Trader Joe’s stores in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, in a region known as the Tri-Valley.

“Recently there have been wallet thefts that have occurred at other Trader Joe stores in the Tri-Valley,” the police department said. “In these crimes, wallets were taken from unattended shopping carts or open purses while victims were shopping in the store.”

Who’s leaving their wallet unattended in a shopping cart at the grocery store? Apparently some people have been. At the expense of sounding condescending, do not leave your wallet unattended in a shopping cart while at the grocery store.

As the Chronicle points out, the police department does not say which Trader Joe’s are having this wallet-theft problem. But there are four Trader Joe’s locations in the region known as the Tri-Valley: one each in Castro Valley, Danville, Pleasanton, and San Ramon.

KRON4 has a reminder based on the police department's recommendations, urging people to be aware of their surroundings while shopping, to leave your wallet in a pocket or a zipped bag on your person, and to avoid distractions like your phone while shopping.

Related: Purse Snatching at Cow Hollow Parklet Leads Directly to Victim's Car Being Stolen [SFist]

Image: Richard K. via Yelp

A 28-year-old man is dead after entering a Livermore gun shop wearing a mask, wielding a hammer, and trying to steal a gun, prompting the shop owner to fire two rounds in an outcome that shouldn’t have been unexpected.

While a man is dead, there’s certainly some element of “Eff around and find out” to the story of a man who was shot and killed while trying to rob a gun store in Livermore, as NBC Bay Area reports. The incident occurred around 2:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon at East Bay Firearms on First Street in Livermore, and the suspect seems to have given himself away by entering the store with a mask, gloves, a hoodie pulled over his head, and armed with a hammer.

When the suspect grabbed a gun from the shelf, the store owner fired two rounds, which killed the suspect.

“A preliminary investigation suggests the man who died entered the store acting suspicious wearing a mask, a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head and gloves,” the Livermore Police Department said in a statement. “According to witness statements, he then attempted to rob the gun store by taking a firearm while armed with a hammer. The gun store owner fired two rounds fatally wounding the man.”

KTVU notes that police have not yet disclosed the suspect’s name, saying only that he’s a 28-year-old man from Redwood City. The Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau will release the name once they’ve notified next of kin.

The shop owner is cooperating with authorities, and police do not consider him a suspect, as they believe he was acting in self-defense

KPIX spoke to an attorney on the special circumstances that render this case self-defense. "What makes this issue confusing is it's a gun store,” that attorney told the station. “So, if you owned a watch shop and someone came in to steal a watch with a hammer, well then all they have is a hammer. And the watches are not weapons, but here, this person could be arming themselves even further."

“If a person comes in and accesses firearms, anyone working in that store — anyone in that store — has a right to protect themselves from being shot," the attorney added.

According to Livermore PD, there were five other people in the store at the time of the robbery and fatal shooting. None of them were injured.

If you have any information on this incident, you’re asked to call the Livermore Police Department at (925) 371-4790. Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Related: Oakland-Based Snapchat Gun Dealer Gets Eight Years In Federal Prison [SFist]

Image: East Bay Firearms via Yelp

An abandoned shopping center in Livermore went up in flames Sunday evening in a significant blaze.

The two-alarm fire broke out just after 5 p at an old shopping center at Holmes Street and Concannon Boulevard, as KRON4 reports. Three buildings were destroyed or damaged, including a restaurant building and two other commercial structures.

As NBC Bay Area reports, several businesses next to the shopping center were also threatened.

The plume of smoke was visible for miles in the East Bay, as it was extinguished over several hours by the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department.

The fire was brought under control by 9:30 pm.

Crews remain on the scene this morning, according to the department.

The cause of the fire remains unknown.