A pod of orcas has been seen off the coast of Monterey Bay, way far south of where the whales normally travel. Scientists are guessing that the "collapse" in the chinook salmon population is responsible. Normally, these whales from the Puget Sound, never need travel south of the Columbia River, which empties on the border between Washington and Oregon. Since this is the sixth year the whales have been seen off of Monterey, the current......

Can you believe it's been a year since James Kim died in the Oregon mountains? We're very sorry to pass along the news that another Northern California family is missing in what we're hoping is not going to be another family holiday tragedy story. The Dominguez family went out last Sunday to cut down Christmas trees in the Sierra mountains: the father, Frederick, and his three children, Christopher (18), Alexis (15), and Joshua (12). That's......

San Francisco is America's most "walkable" city...

My Morning Jacket's newest live recording entitled The 2006-2007 New Year’s Eve Skit Picture Disc Skit (Could they pick a longer title?) is available now through the band's website. The recording is from their New Year's Eve performance at the Fillmore last year. If you were there, you would know that it was a "Oregon Trail"-themed performance. (OMG, how cool is that!) But we're curious, how do you pull off an "Oregon Trail"-themed party?......

SFist interviews Charlie M. from The Happy Hollows. They are playing the Fillmore tonight with the Silversun Pickups...

Since our trimethyldioxypurist is on the road for Labor Day, we're stepping in on the caffeine beat to pass along some sad news: Peet's Coffee founder Alfred Peet died earlier this week (Wednesday) in Oregon. Mr. Peet, born in Holland, opened the first Peet's at Walnut and Vine in Berkeley in 1966, and watched it spread nationwide (there's Peet's in New England now?). And the rumors you've heard about the Peet's/Starbucks connections are true: the......

While Hannah Watson's found tent camping to be just fine at Burning Man over the past several years, this year she had a vision -- an art instillation of her own that would "not only be beautiful but provide (her) with comfort and a home while out the desert." She found an old Oregon transit bus for sale on craigslist and, since last April, has spent every weekend getting the old girl ready to fly to Burning Man. We got to check out the bus this past weekend....

--A guy jumped onto the field to say hi to Barry Bonds yesterday. Arrested, drunk. [The Chron photo pool, the Snitch.] --They're looking on the Oregon coast now for the missing Alameda County woman and her friend the priest. It's been three weeks. [The Chron.] --Alamo Square was cordoned off this afternoon after gunfire on McAllister Street hit a motorist in the head. [ABC 7.] --There were also shootings at Webster and Rose and Div......

--Hey! Did you ever do coke with Gavin? [Fog City Journal.] --Chris Daly explains himself. [SFGov.org.] --What's fun doing for Pride Weekend? [SFPartyParty, Bay Area Reporter, SF Weekly's All Shook Down.] --They busted JT Leroy. [Chron, via the AP.] --No more bottled water for the City and County of SF. [CBS 5.] --That local kid who tried to blow up the UC Riverside graduation? It was so he wouldn't have to tell his mom......

SFist Mihi goes Cantopop! The North American debut of Heavenly Kings for the SF Int'l Film Festival premiered at the Castro Theatre Friday night and it must have been a sweet moment for Berkeley-born, Bay Area-raised, local boy Daniel Wu who directed and stars in the movie. After graduating from the University of Oregon, Daniel stumbled into modeling and acting gigs while backpacking through Asia and became a bona fide heart-throb in China. Heavenly......

Here's todays wrapup of news stories....

The first weekend of the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments is in the books -- are you still alive in your office pool? Not if you took the Road to the Final Four less traveled.

If you went with the favorites, chances are you're sitting pretty. With the exception of the toothless male Badgers of Wisconsin, all first and second seeds in both tourneys advanced to the Sweet 16. That's not to say that a few high seeds didn't get a scare or that some middling seeds will never get a chance to germinate into full-blown Cinderellas, but overall, both tournaments are sticking to the script.

Here's todays wrap up of all the sports stories...

-Cal took down #4 ranked UCLA in their quarterfinal match of the Pac 10 tournament. They had a big lead at halftime and blew the big lead but managed to hold on to force overtime. It sounds like a great game, actually, as UCLA fought their way back and then the teams traded leads up until the end. They now go to the quarterfinals and play #16 ranked Oregon. At 16-16, Cal has no way......

Hey now-- the Warriors are on a bit of a roll as they won their second game in a row, beating the Nugs 110-96. Sure, Carmelo didn't play, but for the Warriors, they have to be happy with the game as it's the first time this season the exact same Warriors mentioned in the Warriors press guide actually all appeared in a game. All of this is making Bruce Jenkins and Tim Kawakami drink from of the very same sippy cup of Kool Aid SFist Chris drank from as they are all now having visions of being crushed by the Mavs in the first round of the playoffs. And hey, if that doesn't add some shine to your day, the Warriors, East Coast Edition, are sucking up the joint these days. ...

-The NBA's 2007 All-Star Game is tonight in Las Vegas. Excitement aplenty, to be sure. Yet there're no Golden State Warriors on the West All-Star team....

The Coast Guard is stepping up the search for a local computer scientist who has been missing at sea since Sunday. The man, Jim Gray, set off for the Farallon Islands and was supposed to return on Sunday. When he didn't, his wife called in the Coast Guard to let them know. They have not been able to find him yet....

* Bay Area Wanderer: Diamond near Bosworth, San Francisco...

Last night, we went to last night's Warriors/Cavs game, a game the Warriors lost in overtime. Now, we'll let Basketball Chris do the analysis and post-game wrap up, but we wanted to make an observation of our own. Mainly, that we went to see Lebron and we were disappointed. But not surprised. ...

-Judge rules lethal injection in California a not very nice thing to do. -$1 billion bucks to go to easing congestion through Interstate 580 between Alameda County and the Altamont Pass....

Our thoughts, sympathy, and condolences at SFist go out to the family, friends, and coworkers of James Kim. We weren't the only ones following the story -- SFGate reports that the story has driven over 2 million additional hits to their website over the last few days, and after the news of James Kim's death was announced, they were receiving 3300 page views a minute. Other online news outlets reported similar spikes. Something about the......

Law enforcement officials have confirmed that James Kim has died. Friends of the family have set up an unofficial PayPal donation page, though they warn you that they haven't talked to the Kim family about it yet. The thought is that the family can decide where to send the money after it's collected. It looks like you have to go through their page to make the donation, so if the page is busy, keep......

Update: They're waiting on confirmation of status. Rescuers are saying they saw a flash in a wooded area. Others are saying that they've heard news reports that he wasn't face down. All the news is kind of crazy right now; we're going to wait until we get something official before posting anything else. They've found him. Searchers spotted a person who appears to be lying face down. No word on his condition yet. --- Here's......

Update: They've got a scaled-down night crew working. Here's the most recent CNET article. Also, some biographical information about the couple. --- Previously: The pants found were a second pair of pants James was carrying, and not the jeans James was last seen wearing -- so they were probably left as a trail marker. Press conference is underway. There's a summary of the press conference at Guestbook entry 1733: One rescuer was injured today (non-life-threatening),......

Update: Four-year-old Penelope told the nurses at the hospital "I love this place," and had hot chocolate, Cheerios, and a hamburger. James left the car on Saturday morning saying he'd be back by the afternoon but Kati and the girls haven't seen him since. They had gathered wild berries but were afraid to eat them in case they were poisonous. The weather was pretty mild up in the mountains today, around 50 degrees in the......

Nothing definitive yet on the missing Noe Valley family. Parents James and Kati Kim were traveling back from Washington in the family station wagon (license plate DOESF) with daughters Penelope and Sabine when they disappeared a week ago today on the way to the Tu Tu Tun Lodge on the Oregon coast. The weather was reported to have been very bad that Saturday. The latest news is that they have a confirmed sighting of the......

The SFPD has put out a missing persons bulletin on a local Noe Valley family, who haven't been heard from since last week. James and Kati Kim, along with their two daughters Sabine and Penelope, drove to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving with James's family. The Kims were scheduled to be in southern Oregon last Saturday night, and had called the inn where they had reserved rooms and asked for a key to be left at......

-The saga of that unfunny police video skit continues on...

This week's picks should hold you over until December. ...

-Arnie meets Angelides for a debate and nothing really exciting happens. We wanted to watch it, really, but we watched Friday night's "Battlestar Galactica" instead....