• Smoke from the Willow Fire near Big Sur is affecting air quality all over the Bay Area today. The fire has now burned 3.2 square miles of mostly inaccessible terrain, but it has so far spared the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. [NBC Bay Area]
• Three people were killed and five others were injured in a shooting at a house party in Richmond on Sunday night. The victims ranged in age from 18 to 45. [ABC 7 / KTVU]
• The 94-year-old San Francisco woman who was stabbed on Post Street last week in a random attack has returned home from the hospital. [KRON4]
• Audio from internal radios has been released in the mass shooting at the VTA yard in San Jose last month, documenting the chaos as employees discussed the shooting in progress. [CBS SF]
• Taxpayers are footing the $42,000 bill for the Coast Guard rescue of that Marin-based kayaker who was attempting to kayak to Hawaii by himself earlier this month. [Chronicle]
• Critics of Governor Gavin Newsom's fire safety strategy say that an emphasis on creating fuel breaks — clearing trees and brush in lines to create areas of containment in an eventual fire — is misplaced, and such fuel breaks have not been proven that effective. [Chronicle]
• Some Mills College staff, faculty, and alumnae say they want more transparency around the board of trustees' decision to merge with Northeastern University, and some are skeptical that such a merger was necessary at all. [KTVU]
• A Saturday crash that happened during the start of a Pride parade in Wilton Manors, Florida has been deemed an accident, not a hate crime — both the driver and the victims were a part of the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus, and the driver was elderly. [Associated Press]

Photo courtesy of PG&E