"Sheriff's investigators placed [suspected sheep thief Luis Ortiz] Orea under surveillance and determined some of the sheep stolen from the Watmaugh Road ranch were taken to a large piece of property in the 4300 block of Sunland Avenue in Santa Rosa... Detectives recovered 17 sheep, including sheep stolen from the Adobe Road ranch in Petaluma, on the property." - KTVU, reporting two brothers arrested on suspicion of stealing sheep after Petaluma police staged a successful sheep rescue operation in Sonoma County. more ›

Let's hear it for curling, huh? Every four years the world once again remembers, and simultaneously mocks and watches in awe as teams of men slide enormous rocks down the ice and frantically sweep a path in a kooky, stone-age-ish version of shuffleboard that only someone from a truly chilly nation could love. more ›

Adding insult to tragedy, and making us curse this coarse and immoral world we live in, the home of the Maloney family -- who were killed this weekend in that fatal collision with the MINI Cooper in Sonoma -- was broken into early Tuesday and robbed by two asswipes who proceeded to drive the family's Nissan 350Z to rural San Mateo County and try to use a stolen credit card to shop. The asswipes in question are Amber True and her boyfriend Michael Gutierrez, and they are currently being held in Sonoma County jail on $500,000 bail. more ›

We hope you've been keeping up with the crazy family rape-and-money scandal going on between Korbel Champagne Cellars owner Gary Heck and his 39-year-old daughter Richie Ann Samii. They just settled in court for an undisclosed sum (after she'd been seeking tens of millions), ending a long and heated battle over insurance money, trust funds, and other inherited wealth that Richie Ann thought she was being denied. Court documents refer to the father and daughter dropping all claims against each other "from the beginning of time" and "throughout the universe" -- language we're guessing the daughter came up with to be dramatic. more ›

Just north of the center of Glen Ellen is an unassuming tasting room and winemaking facility, Loxton Wines. It's a large metal shed, essentially, and the place is owned and operated by Australian winemaker Chris Loxton who started the winery in 2001 after working for six years as Assistant Winemaker at neighboring Wellington Vineyards. Chris grew up on a Shiraz vineyard in South Australia, and at Loxton he focuses primarily on Syrah and Zinfandel in relatively small batches, sourcing excellent grapes from around Sonoma County. more ›

Remember that young Christian couple who was found shot to death on the beach near Jenner in 2004? Well, the case remains open, however there was a person of interest named Joseph Burgess who was suspected in the case by Sonoma County sheriffs because of the similarity of a 1972 murder in British Columbia in which Burgess was also a suspect. more ›

A less-than-professional father and son bank heist team was arrested in Santa Rosa yesterday, shortly after the son walked into the Wells Fargo on Oakmont Drive wearing a mask and carrying a realistic-looking pellet gun. It seems the father, Michael Fuesz, who drove the getaway truck, then let the son, Jason Fuesz, out of the car down the road apace before getting nabbed by coppers on Highway 12. After going all SWAT and K-9 and shit, Sonoma County sheriffs found Jason hiding in some bushes with all the cash still on him. Look for more great and bumbling stories like this one on this season of The Great Recession. more ›

CBS5 reports that despite the California Department of Education's strict laws that sex education programs be medically accurate and objective, abstinence-only group Free to Be has been teaching their scientifically-inaccurate curriculum in Sonoma County Schools for the past seventeen years, up until this past May. more ›

Pictures of the Sonoma County Pride fest in Guerneville, May 31st, 2009. By Joey DeRuy more ›

Starting today, eight Bay Area shelters are offering free spaying/neutering to pit bull owners. Although a few shelters, such as the East Bay SPCA offer the free service year-round, the organizers of Bay Area Pit Fix Week are hoping that by offering spaying/neutering this week, the lives of thousands of pit bulls (and the people they otherwise might maul if not for being fixed) will be spared. more ›

Yeah. That's right. Another teenager, some more poor animals. more ›

When you're delivering 3 gallons of GHB (the “date rape drug”) from areas north to San Francisco, maybe you should stick to the speed limit. A fool from L.A. was pulled over for speeding in Sonoma County when cops found the offending liquid in the car. Homeboy probably would have gotten off with just a ticket, but instead decided to act all sketchy, causing the CHP to search his car. more ›

Famous for creating the Mitchell Brother(s) O’Farrell Theatre and then committing fratricide with a 22-caliber rifle, Jim Mitchell helped give San Francisco the sick reputation it still (sort of) maintains. Today he died at 63 in Sonoma County. Starting out by selling nudie pics with his brother Artie, the two built a porn empire (they're always "empires") with the help of such luminaries as local horny SF politicians, Marilyn Chambers, and lots and lots... more ›

There's a big story in the Chron this morning over the conflict between the SFPD and the DA's office over prosecuting crime in the city. Basically, the cops are frustrated because the DA's office rarely prosecutes anything. The result is a lot of repeat offenders out there repeating offenses. In the story, the Chron even details how some of the shootings we've seen recently are done by people who have been in-and-out of jail and got off relatively easy. more ›

As we think fondly back on our college days, we've come to the conclusion that alcohol is never going to taste as good as it did before we turned 21. That, however, may not be true for poor Brittanie Mountz, who just got busted by the Chronicle's Cecilia Vega for possibly drinking with the mayor while underage. more ›

We were avoiding posting on this -- but given the local angles and our own horrified fascination with it, here goes. Authorities in Thailand, working with the Department of Homeland Security, have arrested John Mark Karr (at right), a former substitute teacher with a history of questionable behavior around children, for the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey almost 10 years ago. As the story develops, though, people are starting to wonder if he's actually guilty, or if he's just a nutjob who made the whole story up. more ›

What do you know, Schwarzenegger was right for a change -- our levees are in terrible shape. Due to all the rain this weekend, a levee has broken up in Sonoma County and Highway 121 is flooded. About a half-dozen houses and a winery are in the path of the water. The levee is located on private property, there's about five square miles of flooding, and a couple of farm buildings are already under water. We'd just like to go on the record as saying we alerted Bush and Chertoff about this at 9:20 a.m. on March 6, 2006. Hey, either of you got any questions about it? Picture of flooding from KGO 7 more ›

We neglect the North Bay sometimes, but it's not for lack of love -- it's just that we're not sure what the heck people DO up there sometimes. Whetever it is, it sounds classy; like the art exhibit at Roshambo Winery in Healdsburg, wherever that is. Todd Barricklow (ceramics) and William Smith (prints and drawings) from the Killing Time Studios will be showing off their work at a reception from 5pm to 8pm this Saturday. more ›

First the pit bulls rise against the humans -- and now it's the trees! A man sitting on a bench and minding his own business in North Beach's Washington Square Park was almost brained as a huge branch of the shade tree above him snapped off and fell. Fortunately, the branch just barely missed him. The tree will be humanely euthanized (i.e., cut down). Prurient brunchers have a new stop for eggs over easy: Sausalito is up in arms about reports of a nude swimmer sunning himself outside the windows of Spinnakers. To Sausalito's chagrin, he likes to flip over and do the backstroke. And Sonoma County Judge Elaine Rushing was sentenced to 10 days in jail and three years of probation for a DUI in June, when she was found with a .19 blood alcohol level, having driven her car with two flat tires into a wall. Because she was a judge in the county where she was arrested, the state attorney general's office handled the case. Cheap irony alert: Judge Rushing was noted in Sonoma County for the harsh sentences she handed down to drunk drivers. Rushing will perform community service in lieu of the clink. more ›

A great, quick place to head at the last minute to get out of the city and have some fun is to head across the Golden gate and veer East into the southern edge of Sonoma County. We hit our first winery within an hour from the Mission, after just passing Infineon raceway. Going up the driveway to Roche Winery, we scared two vultures away from a a bit of roadkill. A rabbit that just wasn't fast enough. Grisly, yes, but cool nonetheless. We sure weren't in San Francisco anymore. more ›

Bay Area crime roundup more ›

The forests of Northern California are some of the most beautiful in the world. SFist has been simultaneously awed and humbled by trips up north to visit our millenia-old friends the redwoods. So who in their right mind would ever want to cut these things down? SFist thinks it's people with really severe penis envy. more ›