The messiah Mark Zuckerberg is poised to save California and its impending financial ruin. More or less. How so? Facebook will have to pay so very many millions in taxes after the initial public offering, which will go on to pay even more each year when April 15th rolls around. Zuckerberg's company could have to fork over $189 million in taxes after the IPR goes live, or so says PrivCo, which researches private companies. The approaching IPO could value Facebook at $96 billion. "The federal government will be in the money too, collecting an estimated $714 million in federal income taxes from Zuckerberg," reports NorthJersey.com. more ›

Here's another way Facebook will keep you from getting work done on a daily basis: according to a report released yesterday, Facebook's growing campus at 1 Hacker Way could pose a major traffic problem for Highway 101 and the surrounding streets in Menlo Park if the company doesn't limit the number of employees driving to work. Facebook started moving its 2,000 employees to the new digs over the summer, but Zuckerberg and Co. hope to eventually fill out the offices with 9,400 total employees split between the former Sun Microsystems HQ and the Facebook East Campus across the Bayfront Expressway. more ›

As we've discussed earlier, wealthy Peninsula communities like Palo Alto and Menlo Park have been seething for years about the plan to bring the LA-SF high-speed rail line through their pristine environs. They've filed some lawsuits that would require the CA Rail Authority to rewrite their environmental impact studies, and brought a 1,000-year-old tree into the argument. The latest lawsuit contends that the authority "gamed" their computer models that predicted ridership demand for the train in order to prove that it was necessary to route the train south from S.F. to San Jose, over the Pacheco Pass to the Central Valley, rather than east and over the Altamont Pass, following the route of 580. You see, some people in Palo Alto would rather see them build another damn bridge over the Bay than have the train come anywhere near them. more ›

At the future site of Facebook's new headquarters in Menlo Park, police are investigating some 1,000 pounds of missing copper wire. Like the mineral-hungry prospectors that made the Bay Area a playground for lonely white men in the mid-1800s, the thieves must have seen a big payoff hidden in the walls of the nine-building, 57-acre campus. The half-ton of copper, which was taken sometime between June 7 and 13th and will henceforth be known as "the Zuckerberg Lode", has an estimated value of $8,500*. more ›

The cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton, along with five environmental and citizens groups, filed suit Monday to stop the proposed high-speed rail that will rip through their quiet enclaves, if and when its built. The towns have banded together to call bullshit on an environmental impact report produced by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, claiming that the report shows inflated ridership numbers. In legalese, here's what they said in the suit, "The defective and inaccurate ridership and revenue information ... resulted in the [Authority] not being able to make accurate and informed choices among various project alternatives and in not being able to properly or accurately determine the financial feasibility of various project alternatives and mitigation measures." more ›

Not to outdo his father, who has his own share of legal troubles, Nikolai Bonds, 19, the son of former Giants great Barry Bonds, was arrested on Saturday night, booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and vandalism. more ›

Prepare for your heart strings to zing. Darlene Barnes, 34, and her son Darrell Dwayne Reed, 18, were arrested on suspicion of robbing a convenience store in Menlo Park early this morning. Aw, sweet. It seems the mom-son crime duo walked into the Quik Stop Market at 3401 Middlefield Road and swiped cigarettes, bottles of alcohol, and cash. Both were arrested hours later after a madcap chase. Oh, and Darrell Dwayne Reed has the coolest mom in the world. (Ack! Good Lord. For the love of all that is Holy, do NOT do an image search for "mom son." Shudder.) more ›

A jackknifed big rig (do they ever do anything but jackknife?) carrying tons of diesel fuel on (the) 101 has shutdown the highway in both direction in Menlo Park. The accident happened just after 10 p.m. According to the Gate, "[t]hree northbound lanes and two southbound lanes are closed near the Marsh Road interchange, snarling traffic in both direction." more ›

(Barry Bonds is on SFGate's Crime page. Ha!) -- A 19-year-old woman was shot -- "in the back today...at 5:39 p.m." Huh?-- during an attempted street robbery in SF's Visitacion Valley. Attacked at Velasco Avenue and Santos Street, she is currently at SFGH and listed in stable condition. And the two suspects? Are still at large. -- UC Berkeley journalism student Kevin Jones, 27, "pleaded no contest today to a misdemeanor charge of vehicular... more ›

is pretty hilarious. Spanish food in Menlo Park (we got totally trashed on sangria at that restaurant once! Fond memories.) And the Metro also wants more late-night pastry places. We hear ya. more ›

Friday night at the de Young never looked so good! Get a sneak peek into the closet of Nan Kempner, San Francisco native turned famous New York socialite as part of an upcoming exhibition. Drink, socialize and check out the galleries, which stay open until 8:45. Also - fashion lecture at 7pm by Harold Koda, curator-in-charge of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. more ›

Menlo Park-based Accountemps came out with a survey indicating that most respondants feel their work productivity improves when they feel their coworkers are also friendly. The survey, administered by by an independent research firm, included responses from 150 senior executives across many departments and 519 full- or part-time front-line office workers. more ›

It's Sunset Magazine's Celebration Weekend! (For some reason, Sunset Magazine sent this event to our sister site Phillyist instead of us, and Phillyist was kind enough to forward it along.) Stop by their "publishing grounds" at 80 Willow Road in Menlo Park from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for a smorsgasbord of Western-lifestyle events, like live music, cooking events with celeb chefs like Paul Bertolli, a home tour, and -- the main reason why we're into this in the first place, sample their newly-created drink, the Sunset-Rita. Is that like SFist Rita? more ›

Wow-- this is pretty shocking: Pulitzer Prize winning author David Halberstam was killed today in a three-car accident in Menlo Park. The accident occurred at westbound Bayfront Expressway and Willow Road near the Dumbarton Bridge and according to authorities, he was one of the passengers. more ›

Sorry for the delay in reading your alt-weeklies this week; there was a comical mixup in our attempts to implement the weekly switchoff between us and SFist Sarah L. We'll try again in a few weeks, and we also briefly considered just not doing something this week, and then we thought, . So here we are! more ›

-California is leaving a lot of children behind. -Hillary doesn't care about ethnic reporters. more ›

"Individuals who enter homosexual unions cannot reasonably be expected to provide children with sound moral teaching," Father Gerald Coleman, rector of St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, is quoted as writing in this month's issue of "San Francisco Faith: The Bay Area's Catholic Newsletter." Okay, we admit that some gays are not always responsible, and a meth-addled seeker of unsafe sex might be less suited for parenthood than, say, a dedicated spiritual leader. But it's getting so hard to tell those two apart these days, isn't it? more ›

-A 51 year old Nuclear Power Plant engineer from Sacramento is in custody for sending a letter containing a powdery substance to a Country Club President Bush is scheduled to appear at today. Did Homer Simpson just threaten the President? more ›

For the week that burners are most burnt out, there's a lot of mess on tap. Even (and maybe especially) excluding the postponed Women on the Web mixer. more ›

Locally, the big news was the second best blog party last Friday thrown by TechCrunch down in Menlo Park. Scott Beale was commissioned to take the photos, including the one above featuring an uneasy handshake between Valleywag's Nick Douglas (left) and his favorite whipping boy, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. Nick had been bumped off the exclusive invite list, but Michel must have relented. If he had been dis-invited, apparently crashing the party was not an option. more ›

Hope you had a good July 4 this week! Namely, we hope you didn't come anywhere near Joey Chestnut's 2nd place hot dog eating contest finish at your barbecues of choice. more ›

She's like those paparazzi motorcyclists who killed Princess Di -- a drag-racing 18-year-old in a Mustang accidentally killed two members of the Tongan royal family on 101 in Menlo Park and their driver when she accidentally sideswiped their car Wednesday night. The teen was trying to pass them on the right, at speeds of around 80-100 mph, when she hit them, causing their SUV to roll over several times (all three victims were wearing seat belts). The 18-year-old Prince Tu'ipelehake and Princess Kaimana were in the Bay Area on an outreach mission to expat Tongans, and to celebrate the King's 88th birthday (he has a house in Hillsborough). The 18-year-old is in custody, and the cops are looking for her drag racing compatriot, in a black Escalade with spinning rims that zipped off the highway at Marsh Road. more ›

After a bit of a rough year, Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park recently celebrated its 51st anniversary as one of the great independent bookstores in the area - a dying breed as you well know. We got Clark Kepler to take some time out and answer a few of our most burning questions: more ›

? CNN picks up an AP report about a chatty high-tech fight club in Menlo Park. The group ("Gentlemen's Fight Club") is by invite only, involves at least a dozen people, and the only protective gear they can wear are either a fencing mask or hockey mask. Weapons include pillowcases stuffed with soda cans, frying pans, and tennis rackets. It's so Dwight Schrute! more ›

SFist on immigration protests in Atherton more ›

Well, at least Shirley Manson from Garbage is happy: it's still raining and we've got more rain predicted, off and on, for the next two weeks. Thanks to the persistent rain, newscasters have now gone back to ominously intoning "MUDSLIDES," just like they did in 1998 with El Nino. Highway 1 will be closed for about a week at Devil's Slide (south of Pacifica) due to mud and boulders blocking the road, Caltrans had to clear Highway 9, the road to Muir Woods is blocked, and Highway 17 was just reopened after two morning mudslides. In non-road-related rain news, a house outside Daly City is sliding down a hill, and other residents in the neighborhood have been evacuated. A house is also sliding off its foundation in San Mateo, an Aptos house's retaining wall failed, and houses in Marin and Contra Costa are starting to get a little wobbly too. There's also a levee breach in Menlo Park, but people don't think it's that big of a deal yet. It's April! It's not supposed to rain in the Bay Area in April! more ›

SFist Eve already gave you the scoop on one literary happening and then our inbox beeped to let us know that we got an email from Kepler's (snappy new site design there) listing their April author events. They're kicking off a travel series and its killing us! We want to go somewhere (not that we don't love SF, oh no). Wah! Since our travel budget is so limited we're going to settle for visiting local bookstores and checking out their free author events. more ›

SFist has rarely been happier to live above ground level than we were when we read about this guy who pees in your window.* Seriously! more ›

We here at SFist like our celebrities like we like our men: insane, rude, dirty, and fabulous. Oh, wait, that's NOT how we like our men anymore (that's 12 years of therapy finally paying off, folks.) But any celebrity who seems too classy, clean, or "just like us" is not who makes us buy that Us magazine at the Cala point of purchase. more ›