Los Altos native Brian Kells reached out to local news stations this week after his fiancé of three weeks, Jill St. Onge, died very suddenly at a guesthouse on Phi Phi Island in Thailand after symptoms resembling poisoning. A young Norwegian tourist died only a day later after staying at the same guest house and showing and similar symptoms, and a similar case occurred only a month prior to another tourist. The deaths are making news around Thailand, but so far the U.S. Embassy hasn't been much help to Brian, so he's trying to make television appearances to draw attention to the case. His only theory so far is that there was something toxic in the air in the room where they stayed, and that his fiancé had spent about six more hours there than he had. He also began vomiting after spending three hours in the room. This is why we're suddenly glad we can't afford to go anywhere. more ›

There was a huge crash on South 280 this morning just after 7:30 a.m., when a car speeding over 100 mph from Los Altos to San Jose lost control. A witness reports that the speeding car appeared to have something wrong with it, as the hazard lights were flashing and there was smoke coming from one of the tires. The 60-year-old speeding driver was trying to pass people in the left shoulder, but clipped one car and then rammed into the back of another, causing the rammed car to burst into flames. The driver of the car on fire died, the driver of the clipped car has minor injuries, and they don't know about the speeder's injuries. more ›

Campus tree residency news! At Cal, it turns out those people living in the trees to protest the UC's plan to cut them down themselves did significant damage to the trees in question by cutting off the tops of the trees to put in their sleeping platforms. Ah, the sweet smell of irony. Meanwhile, at rival Stanford, they've finally evicted a veteran who's been living in the tree grove off Palm Drive for almost 10 years. (Does anyone actually pay to live at Stanford anymore? Goodness.) more ›

It's a crime wave in the Los Altos Hills! After that bizarre break-in incident in May where the Slavic-sounding robber called the Merc News the next day to say he just wanted to see how the police worked in the town, the town's now up in arms about the theft of wooden cows from people's lawns. The police have surveillance footage of "two young men and a young woman" stuffing a cow into the back seat of a tan Honda minivan. more ›

Someone please page the karma police, vengeance division: a man is in court for allegedly pimping out a mentally handicapped woman in San Mateo County. He and a buddy had stolen a car they were using to drive her to her assignments, and were caught when the police traced the car's Onstar signal to their place. Wow, evil and dumb. Earlier this week, the tony Los Altos Hills suffered its first armed robbery in at least four years, necessitating a search dog, a roadblock, and a police helicopter. A white man with a heavy Slavic accent and wearing a track suit, broke into a couple's home, duct-taped them up, repeatedly asked them if they were okay, and then made off with $300, two watches, and some costume jewelry. Well, isn't this nice? A man claiming to be the robber called the San Jose Mercury News to say that it was a fake gun and that he's not going to rob the couple again. "They can sleep." The robber said he was looking for something specific, which he wouldn't name, but which a neighbor said was two Ferraris. And a physics teacher at Mount Tamalpais High is in a heap o' trouble, after a parent complained anonymously about his methods of teaching velocity to students, which involved bringing in his Korean War rifle and firing a bullet into a piece of wood in class, and then having the students calculate how fast the bullet was going. The physics teacher says it's completely safe because he has all the students stand behind him when he fires the gun. In this class, he also lies on a bed of nails and asks students to break a cinder block on his chest with a sledge hammer (we can't tell if the sledgehammer part is at the same time as the bed of nails). more ›

State Senator Joe Simitian (pictured at left) has announced the finalists for his "There Oughta Be A Law" contest, where state citizens can submit their proposals for a law that California needs. You know, that's kind of a genius idea. This year's winners are all from the Bay Area (but people from all over the state are allowed to send in submissions). Unfortunately, no one suggested the things we think should be a law ("how come we don't have more fish and chips stands around here?") -- instead, soberer heads than ours have proposed protections for people getting reverse mortgages, requiring transportation authorities to plant water-saving plants when landscaping, and a bill requiring people to move over a lane when they see a stopped emergency vehicle or tow truck (which was proposed last year and Schwarzenegger vetoed. ....Why the veto? Seems reasonable to us.) Simitian will introduce the bills as legislation, and the winners get to testify before a committee about why their law should be passed. ("Because fish and chips are really, really good, especially with malt vinegar!"). Previous winners include a Los Altos couple who proposed a bill to lower foreign adoption costs, two women who independently suggested that you be required to turn on your headlights if your wipers are on, a proposal to add a bitter flavor to antifreeze so pets won't drink it, and a requirement that bankrupt companies honor gift certificates. In the last three years of the contest, six proposals have become laws (including the windshield wiper thing). more ›

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If that flashing $100 million lottery sign on the other side of the B of A clock on 101 had you dreaming like it did EssEffist (if EssEffist won, we were going to chip in for the Bay Bridge retrofit � and oh yeah, and buy us a digital camera), there�s good news and bad news. The good news is that two tickets in the Bay Area won. (The third winning ticket was sold in Huntington Beach). The bad news is that it probably wasn�t you � unless you�re Walter Tracy, an 80 year old WWII pilot from Los Altos, or you live in Sausalito and bought your ticket from Pal�s Liquor and Wine. more ›