One teen was killed and four others are in serious and critical condition following a suspected DUI single-car crash in Novato early Saturday, and it’s believed they’re not from Novato.

The crash occurred just before 1 am Saturday at the intersection of San Marin Drive and Simmons Lane in Novato, according to the Novato Police Department in a social media post.

The 17-year-old driver of the sedan, which was occupied by four other teens between 16 and 18 years old, hit a utility pole, as KRON4 reports. Police determined the driver was allegedly under the influence of alcohol.

All five teens were transported to the hospital, where one was declared dead, and the others were reportedly in serous and critical condition.

The police department said based on preliminary information, it’s not believed they’re from Novato.

“We understand that this is an incredibly difficult situation for all the families involved as they navigate the weight of this tragedy,” wrote the police department.

This incident is still under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Novato Police Department Traffic Section by calling 415-897-4361.

Image: Novato Police Department

This week: The real story behind the Winchester Mystery House, a historic artist’s studio-turned-artwork, a gifted local teenage violinist, and entrepreneurial high schoolers. Plus, hiking via public transit, the Presidio’s native plants, all things ube, and tasty holiday latkes.

Trail lines and transit stakes

Content creator Bike Curious hiked the De La Veaga Trail in Orinda to draw attention to looming transit budget cuts while demonstrating how residents can reach Bay Area trails without a car.

The moderate route sits on municipal land, with permits available online, and was found through Hiking by Transit’s public database. — Bike Curious

Restoring the dunes

About 100 volunteers gathered at the Presidio’s Sunset Scrub near Lincoln Boulevard last weekend to plant native species as part of an ongoing habitat restoration effort. The Presidio Trust planted roughly 2,000 natives, including coastal buckwheat and dune tansy, to help rebuild sections of the city’s historic dunescape.

The work supports insects, birds, lizards, and rare plants such as San Francisco lessingia and spineflower. The newly restored area now connects Sunset Scrub with the north dunes, creating a continuous habitat corridor between Washington and Lincoln boulevards. — KPIX

Blue conversation

Artist Catherine Wagner’s Blue Reverie at 500 Capp Street fills the late conceptual artist David Ireland’s iconic Mission District home with layers of blue. Ireland spent decades transforming the house itself into a sculptural work, altering floors, walls, and objects to explore space and domestic life as art.

Wagner builds on that legacy, adding photography, projections, and subtle installations that play with light, color, and architecture while keeping a conversation with Ireland’s ideas alive. Hidden blue moons, filtered windows, and glowing furniture turn corners of the home into unexpected moments of discovery. Blue Reverie runs through January 10 at 500 Capp Street, with a catalogue launch on December 16. — 48 Hills

Labyrinth of memory

The Winchester Mystery House has long been surrounded by salacious ghost stories, but most of them were urban legends created by locals and later promoters, not Sarah Winchester herself. These tales helped turn her eccentric home into a tourist draw, which in turn preserved it from demolition.

Beyond the myths, the house is a rare glimpse into late-19th-century San Jose architecture, built in popular Queen Anne Victorian styles and shaped further by the 1906 earthquake. — Bay Area News Group

Oven work and open doors

At Miramonte High School in Orinda, special education students are running a small dog treat business as part of their school day. In Asia Pavicich’s essential skills class, students research what’s safe for dogs, design the packaging, bake pumpkin–peanut butter treats, and sell them under the name Matadogs.

Pavicich started the project to give younger students real, on-campus work experience, beyond practice exercises. It’s also created easy points of contact between the students and the rest of the school community. — NBC Bay Area

Quiet strings, wide reach

Sausalito violinist Sydney Li-Jenkins, 15, has been named a winner of the 2026 YoungArts Competition, which recognizes young artists across visual, literary, and performing fields.

A sophomore at the Branson School in Ross, Li-Jenkins joins a national group of artists whose work reflects a rare level of focus and ambition at this stage. — Marin Independent Journal

Crispy threads

Delfina chef Craig Stoll has put a lighter, gluten-free spin on the holiday latke, balancing crisp potato strands with just the right touch of onion and potato starch. His careful prep — starting the potatoes the night before and pressing out every drop of moisture — keeps each patty tender inside and golden outside.

The latkes are perfect for the Festival of Lights, which kicks off December 14, bringing a fresh take to Hanukkah tables. For those skipping the kitchen, the restaurant offers a to-go option with a dozen flash-frozen latkes, plus add-ons like apple-quince conserva, crème fraîche, or Gingrass smoked steelhead lox. — 7 x 7

Purple by way of Alameda

Alameda baker Henry Awayan has leaned fully into ube, the Filipino purple yam he grew up with and now builds an entire cookbook around. Known for custom cakes at Whisk Cake Creations, Awayan’s The Ube Baking Book gathers more than 50 recipes — from classic halaya to ube focaccia, chiffon cakes, and breakfast pastries — tracing both flavor and family history shaped by his Filipino upbringing and years running a bakery a block from his childhood home.

Awayan plans to teach classes from the book at Whisk in 2026, with details to be announced through the bakery’s website and Instagram. — The Oaklandside

Top image: Winchester Mystery House

Previously: Field Notes: The Cockettes’ Tahara, Christmas Bar, and SCRAP Jewelry Pop-Up

This week's notable humans include San Rafael resident, retired SFFD lieutenant, and dedicated volunteer John Chung; San Francisco author and historian Beth Winegarner whose work aims to remember the forgotten; and Walnut Creek's Anya Gupta, 16-year-old founder of Key Future News.

At just 16, Walnut Creek’s Anya Gupta is a dual-enrolled high school and Diablo Valley College student and founder of Key Future News (KFN), a youth-focused news nonprofit with nearly 200 videos on YouTube. According to The East Bay Times, Gupta launched KFN to simplify news for Gen Z, covering topics like tech, politics, and future careers.

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Gupta writes, films, edits, and promotes her content independently while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. She also serves on the Contra Costa Behavioral Health Board and plans to grow her team and audience on social media. Gupta hopes to attend Berkeley’s Haas School of Business after she graduates from Diablo Valley College next year with the ultimate goal of building an informed and empowered community of young people.

I decided to name the channel Key Future News in the aspect that KFN news is the ‘key to your future,’ That’s what we’re going for now — predictions of future industries, what your future will be like, interviewing professionals on their predictions, things to do and know right now to change the future.

San Francisco author and historian Beth Winegarner's work aims to remember the people of San Francisco who’s history has been long forgotten. Her most recent project documents the lives of the forgotten girls who were incarcerated in the city’s Magdalen Asylum, once located where SF General Hospital now stands.

KQED writes that the institution first opened in 1856 by the Sisters of Mercy as a refuge for sex workers and later evolved into a place where “wayward” girls — often petty offenders, unsupervised teens, or anyone deemed “morally suspect” — were confined. Winegarner’s research was sparked by sensationalized newspaper clippings that she found while researching her 2023 book San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries and grew into a larger effort to transcribe registers, collect census records, and name those the system sought to shame or erase.

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The girls’ stories are often heartbreaking or surprising: one ten-year-old stole a purse to buy dolls and candy; another traveled alone, stayed in fine hotels, and rode horses in Napa. Some were institutionalized for racist or arbitrary reasons, like being present in a home where a Black man was present or being labeled “incorrigible” — a term Winegarner believes often masked neurodivergence.

Babies born there were routinely sent to a nearby Catholic orphanage with high infant mortality. Most girls did embroidery rather than laundry, and few left without adult help or marriage. Winegarner aims to restore their identities and ensure they’re not forgotten.

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San Rafael resident John Chung has been honored with the 2025 Richard O’Brien and Mary Ferrario O’Brien Public Service Award for his extensive volunteer work in youth sports, music, and public service.

According to Marin Independent Journal, Chung, who is a retired San Francisco Fire Department lieutenant, has supported San Rafael’s school music programs for over a decade, helping with concerts, providing technical expertise, and organizing transportation and equipment for student performances. He also managed the sound system for the school district’s annual HeadsUp Carnival for 10 years and launched fundraisers to help sustain arts and athletics programs.

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Chung’s background in music includes his longtime role as manager of the professional jazz fusion band Hiroshima, which helped him develop skills in production, sound, and logistics — knowledge he generously shares with local schools.

Chung also stepped in to coach the San Rafael High School boys’ golf team in 2023 to prevent it from disbanding, despite his children never having played on the team. Under his leadership, the program has grown, and he continues to lead innovative fundraising events such as home concerts and speaker series.

In addition to his youth-focused efforts, Chung serves on the San Rafael Fire Commission and volunteers during major incidents. City officials praised his unwavering dedication and the positive impact he’s made throughout San Rafael.

Image via YouTube

Previously: Notable Humans: Susan Kare, Designer Of Mac’s Earliest Icons — And Its Friendly Aesthetic

An unlicensed 19-year-old driver was arrested for felony hit and run yesterday after trying to flee from cops after being pulled over in the Oceanview neighborhood. Within a minute the kid had driven up on the sidewalk, smashed into a parked car, smashed into a moving vehicle on Orizaba Ave. containing two women and a child, and then came to a final smashing halt on the median near Arch Street on Brotherhood Way. Everyone but the child suffered minor injuries, including the crazed teen. And why couldn't he score a license yet? He seems so stable and responsible. [Note: Photo is from a different, long-ago accident.]

Young whippersnapper, Santa Cruz resident 18-year-old Matthew Rosenberg, called his mom on Monday to tell her he had "tripped, broke his leg and was lost" in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He was half right. What he didn't tell her was that he was also bombed out of his mind on hallucinogenic mushrooms and a wee bit of acid. Oh yeah, and that he didn't break his leg.

An expensive rescue effort ensued, and Rosenberg was found safe and...very happy. According to Fire Captain Bill Finch:

"He was really gorked," Finch said of Rosenberg's condition when rescuers found him standing near a rock at the bottom of a ravine - more amused and bewildered than safe and sound. "He wasn't normal. He was like one of those guys who's been drinking a lot and starts saying, 'I love ya, man.'"

No criminal charges will be filed against the Los Gatos High School senior, but the kid's father tells ABC 7 that "he probably won't get to use the car for a while."

Update: The murdered teen has been identified as Carlos Sousa, Jr.

As the investigation continues into Christmas Day's gruesome tiger attack at the SF Zoo, it turns out that the guy killed by Tatiana the tiger was a 17-year-old boy from San Jose. Unidentified at this point, and currently stuck with the moniker "John Doe 116," it seems that he also knew the tiger's two other victims, 19- and 23-year-old brothers from San Jose. The first attack occurred 300 yards from the second and third attacks.

According to the Gate:

Lora LaMarca, a zoo spokeswoman, said this morning that officials still have no idea how the animal escaped from its grotto, which is surrounded by a 15-foot-wide moat and a 20-foot high wall. Police on Tuesday night refused to rule out the possibility of carelessness or criminal activity, and zoo officials said the tiger did not escape through the grotto's only door.

She went on to say that if, in fact, someone released the tiger intentionally while visiting the SF Zoo, "it would be considered a crime." Yikes. An individual's fault? The Zoo's fault? God's fault? Your fault? We shall see. But for now, anyone who might have witnessed Tatiana's escape on Tuesday or the attacks is urged to call authorities at 415-553-0123.