Two separate shootings in the city of Richmond took the lives of three men on Thursday night. Shooting number-one occurred around 9:15 p.m. at Sahib Indian Restaurant, "located at 12221 San Pablo Ave." According to CBS 5, via Bay City News, two men walked into the restaurant and began shooting the employees. "One victim was pronounced dead at the scene and the second victim was airlifted to an area hospital where he later died."......

Meet the Board of Pilot Commissioners For the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun...

S.F. files against the Cosco Busan...

Why, we've been so preoccupied with murder right down the street from SFist, we forgot that the rest of the Bay Area is also littered with shootings and bloody tomfoolery. Forgive us, won't you? Ahem: Two employees of Bill's Friendly were shot last night during a botched robbery attempt. One of the store's employees was killed, the other taken to a nearby hospital. (At right: the lone gunman's fierce image.) Another shooting in the......

As already mentioned in Blotter's comments and in our tips section, Your Black Muslim Bakery on San Pablo Avenue (hot fish sandwiches -- mmm) was raided this morning, resulting in the arrests of over a dozen people. Police, bomb units, and SWAT teams came down on the bakery and several other "related locations" in North Oakland and Emeryville at 5 a.m. (Read Chron's article about it here, Examiner's here.) Police claim that this was all......

-- Temporary victory is ours: Giants 8, Brewers 0. [Chron, Examiner] -- Four people -- Contra Costa County Fire Protection Captain Matt Burton, Fire Engineer Scott Desmond, Delbert Moore, and Gayle Moore -- die in early morning San Pablo fire. [Chron] -- Farewell, Pete. [KGO] -- Bizarre staging of Taming of the Shrew gets lots of love from Chloe Veltmen. [ASD] -- Scott Beale snaps shots from today's blogger-littered WordCamp 2007. [Laughing Squid] Image: Michael......

This weekend we started our taxes, so we are now feeling particularly poor. In need of activities that that will suit our penny-pinching ways, while also distracting us from the cold hard reality of our financial state, we turn to Albany, a little town north of Berkeley. ...

Here's todays stories from SFist...

While we have not cultivated or honed our food-writing skills as much as our SFist food chroniclers, let alone Meredith Brody, we are quite fond of cheese. While we cannot confirm the presence of cheese at the following events, the art is worth checking out. Eleanor Harwood was once the curator of the influential back room gallery at Adobe Bookstore, and now has her own eponymous gallery (1295 Alabama St at 25th). Tonight at......

-It looks like it's a bad time to try and fly east. -Taxi Commission hires a private dick. ...

One of the countless trends in the non-profit arts world that we run across during the course of our day job is new initiatives by august institutions to ply their wares to younger audiences, kinda like Pepsi's "Choice of a New Generation" Campaign years back. SF360 is an effort of said type by the San Francisco Film Society. Tonight the Society presents the latest SF360 Film+Club a once-a-month evening of film and clubbing, featuring selected......

So many crime stories of note today that we're running an off-cycle SFist Blotter! A man flying back to his home in Vermont from a trip to San Francisco was repeatedly stung by a scorpion that somehow got on the plane. No, he hasn't seen Snakes on a Plane (someone asked). "I'm pretty selective about what I see," he said. A casual carpool driver from Hercules was carjacked this morning. She picked up the usual......

It's a free show at the G3 Lounge (3910 Geary at 3rd Ave.) with electronic music by local noisicians, Thomas Dimuzio and Andre Custodio. (8 PM) In the East Bay, Algerian musician, Moh Alileche, sings in his native Tamazight (i.e., Berber) and plays an instrument called the mondol. His band, which has mutated several times since forming in 1995, now includes a banjo, hand drums like the bendir — which has two or three......

As we mentioned yesterday, tonight is the MUNI confab with MUNI Director Mr. Ford live in person hosted by District 5 Supervisor Mirkarimi. Take the N-Judah to the County Fair Building (9th and Irving) for this scintillating discussion of service, security and the future of MUNI. (7-9pm) Perhaps after listening to bureaucrats thank everyone for their input, you need a stiff drink and valuable information about giant spiders and obscure factoids about dinosaurs. The......

Local bookstore chain, Cody's Books has just announced that it is selling itself to a Japanese chain. Current owner, Andy Ross, will stay on as President of Cody's. Meanwhile, the former flagship Cody's store on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley that closed recently, prompting much hand-wringing, 60s nostalgia, and debate amongst armchair urban planners is now one of those temporary Halloween superstores. We are holding our breath for the ironic next phase of vacant large storefronts......

SFist Sarah L. tells us the latest in the East Bay! First, the quick and dirty: the Oakland Tribune reports: one dead, two injured, 3 alarm fire at a 6 story residential hotel in downtown Oakland early Friday morning . In the Berkeley Daily Planet, a new book alleges Oakland Mayor and Attorney General candidate, Jerry Brown, took money from the mob back in his gubernatorial days. Jerry's opponent, Chuck Poochigian (we're waiting on the......

Over the last week in Oakland, shops have been laid waste, a store has burned to the ground, and a controversial religious organization has been implicated but denied its involvement. While our headline could be all too common, our personal experience makes the recent crimes all the more troubling. According to the Oakland Tribune, last Wednesday, a number of men in black suits, white shirts and bow ties vandalized two liquor stores in West......

No kidding that SFist loves libraries. But libraries aren't just books you know, sometimes they're collections of other things. BASIL is the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library. Yes, seeds. Like, growing things seeds. Spring is just around the corner (sorry, Gothamist, but it's pretty warm here) and that means fresh lovely new food and flowers and all that cliche stuff about new life, etc. Sadly, as more and more agriculture gets taken over by big......

Friend of SFist (full disclosure: this writer is both personal friends with Rafkin and several of her students, as well as a marketing consultant for her school, but we wouldn't be either if we didn't think they were great) Louise Rafkin is making us do something we hate: link to the Chron. But we urge you to check our her gorgeous piece on her unpleasant experiences with a lecherous driver's ed teacher, and her subsequent......

Yesterday the Democratic Caucus of the California State Senate voted to replace termed-out senator John Burton [D-San Francisco] with Don Perata [D-Oakland] as the new President Pro-tempore of the senate. Considered the 'second most powerful' political position in Sacramento, Bay Area lawmakers breathed a sigh of relief - an appointment of his rival for the post, Martha Escutia of Whittier, would have signaled a complete shift in power to Southern California (sorry, LAist). Perata is a former teacher in Oakland's public schools, having earned his credentials at the University of California, Berkeley. Generally considered left-of-center even within the California Democratic Party, he has fought for gun regulation, improved funding for public schools and even has a pet-project website, OaklandSchools.com, set up for students, teachers and parents to report problems and lobby legislators on behalf of their beleaguered school district. He's currently working to oppose the huge new casino in nearby San Pablo. This appointment comes on the heels of allegations, investigated by the Chron, of improprieties during his campaign related to business relationships with his son, Nick Perata, and local businessman and college friend Timothy G. Staples. It's also interesting to note that Perata was Burton's pick, and coincides with a number of political moves that Burton has made as his stint in the State Senate draws to a close. EssEffist would like to point out that they don't call it the "Brown-Burton Machine" for nothing....