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." So far four people have been injured. The extent of their injuries is not yet......

(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......

Back after the July 4th break! The winner from two weeks ago: the SJ Metro. This Media News Corp. group taking over the Merc News is bad for local news coverage. Dude! We need to start following San Jose local politics -- one of their city council members eloped last weekend! Annalee Newitz liked Transformers. Bodybuilders in San Jose this weekend -- look at the cords on that guy's neck! Cover article: we're embarrassed to......

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. Authors on Film - Always wondered what goes......

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....

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......

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. ...

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, Oh no -- what about the YTD count? Everyone in December will say "that only adds up to 51!". So here we are! Last......

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

After reading the harrowing tale of the Kim family and how Mrs. Kim kept her children alive by breastfeeding them, we feel a bit blasé about all these fine food and cocktail party charitable events tonight. But since we are fortunate enough to not be in a life-or-death struggle for survival ... At the Rickshaw Stop (155 Fell between Van Ness & Franklin), Root Division presents Spectacle: A Cocktail Party and Visual Carnival, with......

"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......

-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?...

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. Tuesday: The monthly Silicon Valley blogger meetup (every first Tuesday) is happening at Santa Clara's Barefoot Coffee. We're not sure who HyperScope is or what they do, but hey, parrr-tay in Menlo Park, babies. Wednesday: There's a 'New Tech' meetup at CNet's offices on 2nd in SOMA,......

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......

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. It was a week of transit woes -- Caltrain fares going up, inconvenient MUNI routes, and BART breakdowns. It wasn't any better on the roads, either -- some drag-racing teenage girl killed two members of the Tongan royal family in a car accident in......

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......

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: For any readers who might not know, tell us why Kepler's is so awesome. For me and many others who've been......

Geez, guys, isn't the first rule not to talk about it? 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! There are......

SFist on immigration protests in Atherton...

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! ...

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......

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! Last Saturday night, 19-year-old Moises Coralles of Redwood City was witnessed pissing into the window of a Menlo Park home. The residents of the home confronted him (wouldn't you?), so he fled on foot. One 25K arrest warrant later, Coralles was picked up and booked at the San Mateo County......

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. Our attitudes about celebrities mesh nicely with our attitude about our......

Kepler's, the beloved Menlo Park bookstore, has announced the formation of a Board of Directors to help get it re-opened, hopefully no later than October. In addition, a Patron's Circle with 17 members offering an undisclosed amount of financal support has been formed. Read the full press release (PDF) - including the charming, we think, detail of how far each board member lives from Kepler's. Members of the Board include Clark Kepler, President, CEO and......

Last week, on As The 'Fist Turns..." Rescued animals arrive in SF, and you can help. Beloved Menlo Park bookstore may be saved from disaster by outside investors. Watch what you're saying, because we're Yvesdropping. The Governator's aides agree to meet with equality rights leaders in anticipation of his promised veto of the marriage bill. PS he loves ass. Google launches blog search, lets hope it works better than the one we have on......

Send your submissions to yvesdroppings - at - gmail - dot - com. Hoodie Girl: I think only residents of the dorms are allowed to bring in guns. -- Outside an Academy of Art building Lady on cellphone: I don't care to exercise with people who I see socially. -- Yvesdropped on by Bill, at Draeger's Market in Menlo Park Hipster: There's nothing more pathetic than a naked man falling down. -- Orbit Room......

SFist Mary-Lynn's on vacation, but we're sure she'll be thrilled to hear that the white knights of Menlo Park may actually be coming to the rescue of beloved independent bookstore Kepler's! A group of about 15 investors has come together to work on reopening the store, which could no longer make their rent payments in their prime real estate space on El Camino Real. The store had been forced to renegotiate its lease in 1999, when, as we all know, real estate was so cheap and plentiful down in the Valley -- and Kepler's landlord, the Tan Group, has been unwilling to renegotiate now that the dot-com boom has ended. The Tan Group will not respond to media requests for comment, but owner Clark Kepler is "optimistic" that something might be worked out. "I don't think any other attitude than optimism is appropriate," Kepler told the Merc News. "It's just an incredible outpouring, and I want to do everybody right by making it work." Follow the news on SaveKeplers.com, and/or write a letter about why you love Kepler's to the Tan Group at 3630 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94306. Picture by SFist Mary-Lynn...

Save Kepler's! The Menlo Park community is rallying around the storied independent bookseller, who recently announced that it would have to shut down due to increasing rents. SFist Mary-Lynn was one of the two-hundred plus bibliophiles in attendance, and reports "TONS" of kids and signs, and that the car horns of support from El Camino were sometimes so loud that you couldn't always hear what people were saying. After the rally (at which owner Clark Kepler himself, along with good neighbor Mr. Baronne from Cafe Baronne next door to Kepler's, spoke), business types went into City Hall for a brainstorming session. Ten to fifteen investors have already been lined up, and other people have suggested that they work with Menlo Park neighboring town's Stanford Business School for help. Check out more of Mary-Lynn's awesome photos on Flickr or after the jump. ...

All hope may not be lost for independent bookstore lovers, but it still looks grim. Today, at 5pm, a rally will be held outside Kepler's to try to gather support to save the much beloved peninsula bookstore. Even if you're not a Kepler's customer, but just a general lover of amazing local bookstores, please come out and support the folks trying to keep Kepler's alive. Kepler's is at 1010 El Camino Real in Menlo......

This is really just awful. Kepler's, the Menlo Park independent bookstore and jewel of the South Bay, suddenly announced that it was closing today -- for good. Kepler's has apparently been having problems ever since the dot-com bust and the rise of discount booksellers. Despite the best efforts of Menlo Park city officials to help them negotiate a lower rent, the owner (whose father opened the store over 50 years ago) determined today with his staff that there was simply no way they could continue to operate the business. When we worked our soulless job down in Menlo Park, the only thing that would keep us going would be sneaking out of work early, grabbing a beer and beef jerky at the Menlo Park 7-11, and then cutting across the Caltrain tracks to lose ourselves in the amazing stacks and stacks at Kepler's before our train back to civilization was scheduled to arrive. We bought some great books there. Well, if we still worked in Menlo Park, we'd buy a beer at the 7-11 (recently reopened after the fire), walk across the tracks again, and give Kepler's a good ol' gangsta lean right by the door. Thanks for reminding us that we're more than our jobs down in the South Bay, Kepler's -- and we'll miss you more than words can say. ...