• Hazmat workers are continuing to cleanup mercury in multiple parts of the city of Martinez following its first discovery near an Amtrak station. The mercury appears to have maybe originated in a trash can, where someone disposed of it, and was then spread when a garbage truck emptied that can and proceeded along its route. [NBC Bay Area]
  • The Berkeley City Council on Tuesday approved the appointment of Jennifer Louis to be the city's chief of police, months after some questioning about a past sexual harassment claim. Louis, who's been with the department since 1999 and has been interim chief for two years, is the first woman, first Asian-American and first openly gay person to be appointed to the chief's job. [Chronicle]
  • A new report by the City of San Jose shows how it spent its $116 million budget to address homelessness last year, in a year when homelessness spiked 11% in the city. [Bay Area News Group]
  • Following closely behind Microsoft's Bing, Google announced today that its search engine will gradually incorporate more AI into its search results. [Associated Press]
  • Prosecutors say that an on-duty BART worker who's accused of striking and killing a pedestrian in a South San Francisco hit-and-run last month attempted to cover up the fatal crash by telling supervisors he had struck an animal with his service truck. [Chronicle]
  • Keanu’ Reeves's band Dogstar is reuniting to perform at BottleRock Napa Valley this year. [Chronicle]
  • While there's no real question that the impending closure of Nordstrom is kind of a disaster for mid-Market, the Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub has a piece about what a "success" the store was after it opened in 1988, and how we should look at the bright side of its positive impact on the area. [Chronicle]
  • H&M and Century Cinemas both have leases expiring soon at the Westfield Centre in SF, which could spell further disaster at the mall. [SF Business Times]
  • Aaaand here we have another national news article, this one a feature in New York Magazine, about San Francisco's "doom loop" and "what it's like to live in a city that no longer believes its problems can be fixed."