• Bay Area businesses brace for what's the second busiest shopping day of the entire calendar year. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), "Super Saturday" is expected to bring record traffic to shops in the Bay Area; nationally, The NRF predicts close to 148 million people will shop, on and offline, across the country today. [ABC 7]
  • A policy therapy dog was caught red-handed (pawed?) on camera stealing Christmas toy donations for his own enjoyment. Franklin Police Deputy Chief James Mill's Golden Retriever, Ben Franklin, ran circles around him, the cute pup clenching a toy baby doll in his mouth. [ KRON 4]
  • Two members of the Trump-splayed MS-13 street gang were convicted Thursday of executing a father, while he was celebrating his birthday, in the Mission District, some three years ago. A San Francisco Superior Court jury found that the pair twenty-somethings, Jose Mejia-Carrillo and Alexis Cruz-Zepeda, were guilty of slaying George Martinez. [Chronicle]
  • The Alameda Food Bank is $2.5M short in funding and donations. While the pantries, themselves, aren't baren, the East Bay food bank is short on funds that would otherwise go toward helping the one out of five Alameda County residents facing hunger on a daily basis; donate online here to help them close that gap. [ ABC 7]
  • San Francisco's homeless populations are more visible than ever, in part because there are few places they can go to for shelter. The City of San Francisco and nonprofits are struggling to keep up pace housing those who don't have a roof over their heads, despite the city dumping $300M into solving the issue. [Chronicle]
  • Two men died in West Oakland after drug overdoses. [East Bay Times]
  • Dozens of families moved into a new affordable housing complex in Oakland, Casa Arabella, giving promise that successful like-minded initiatives are possible. [NBC Bay Area]
  • After almost a half-century in production, Beach Blanket Babylon will have its final curtain call New Years Eve day. [The Bold Italic]

Image: Flickr via Kevin Prichard Photography