There was an evacuation of trains on the Fremont and Dublin-Pleasanton BART lines after a fire at a substation knocked out power to part of the system. The fire started at about 10:15 this morning near the Coliseum stop, eventually knocking out power between the Fruitvale and San Leandro stations....

Now here's something we can get behind, BART starting up some sort of prepaid ticket system with real live, actual discounts. In other words, a way of rewarding frequent BART riders like commuters. ...

Our inchoate suspicions were answered -- the music student whose $175,000 loaner violin disappeared has now recanted her story that the violin was stolen from her locked trunk and admitted that she filed a false police report. The violin itself mysteriously turned up on the steps of a church in San Bruno -- possibly after the violinist learned that the insurance company would not cover the instrument's "loss." Maybe 2006'll be a better year for the SFPD! File under heartwarming -- two couples driving home from two separate New Year's Eve parties in San Jose saved a toddler from a burning van on the Lawrence Expressway. The mother, who was driving, had apparently continued driving the van after its left front tire fell off, and sparks from the wheel well set the car on fire. The mother jumped out of the car but somehow managed to lock herself out and the child in. The partygoers smashed the window with a heavy flashlight and got the baby out safely. And file under ...."a machine gun???" The BART police broke up a fight at the Balboa Park station at 3:40 a.m. on New Year's Day, and found out one of the (teen) perps had a Tec-9 assault weapon on him. We have two thoughts: 1) good thing that kid had until April 1 to report that gun to City Hall, and 2) we sincerely hope this doesn't cut into our chances of getting 24 hour BART service around here! ...

Your SF weekend assaults roundup: A shooting at 5 p.m. on Saturday at Mission and 18th, followed 45 minutes later by a stabbing at Mission and 17th; a shooting in Visitacion Valley Saturday night/Sunday morning; a shooting at Broadway and Columbus outside Vietnam Restaurant; and a shooting outside 330 Ritch. Hey, if you hate alternative music of the late 80s that much, just say so! Good Samaritans at the North Berkeley BART stop -- people waiting on the platform Sunday interceded to stop an attempted robbery of a woman waiting for a Richmond-bound train. Four people were injured (one seriously), but they caught the would-be robber. The BART stop was then closed for three hours as the police came by for interviews, a weapons search, and to clean up the station. BART says maybe September 11 is not the best day to try anything funny on a transit system. And yesterday, an Alameda County jury returned two second-degree murder convictions in the Gwen Araujo case, and hung again on the third defendant. The jury rejected first-degree or the hate crime enhancements to the penalties. ...