• Toxic algae blooms might have contributed to the deaths of a local couple, their baby, and the family dog on a remote hiking trail. Investigators are looking into other potential hazards which may have lead to the family's sudden death, as well; the bodies were transported to the coroner’s office in Mariposa for autopsies and toxicology exams — and water tests from the State Water Resources Control Board are now underway in the area to detect any toxic algae blooms that might've transpired. [KPIX]
  • A good Samaritan thwarted an attack against an elderly man in Chinatown Wednesday. SF police reports tell that 24-year-old Darren Mark Stallcup —who calls himself a “cowboy living in Chinatown — successfully detained a man who went after an elder in the area until law enforcement could come and arrest the man; Stallcup's advice to anyone who's witnessing an unprotected attack on an elder (or any person, for that matter) is to at least use your phone to record such instances and call for help ASAP. [NBC Bay Area]
  • Remember the thousand-plus San Francisco garter snakes found near SFO earlier this year? Well... that population could serve as a "keystone colony" for the species in the event that other groupings of the snake should go extinct or experience mass die-offs. [Guardian]
  • San Francisco is now moving to suspend any of the City's 3,500 firefighters and police officers who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19. [Chronicle]
  • Now with the school year in full swing, numbers show that only 1% of all students in the Berkeley Unified School District opted into remote learning for the year. [Berkeleyside]
  • In typical Bay Area fashion: A fire-damaged home in Walnut Creek just sold for $1M. [CNBC]
  • The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's current Spare the Air status still shows "unhealthy" levels of air pollutants around the region today. [BAAQMD]
  • With chaos swirling around the humanitarian crisis at the Kabul Airport, President Biden is expected to address the ongoing situation sometime today. [New York Times]

Image: Courtesy of Getty Images/DurkTalsma