• The neighborhood social networking site Nextdoor is laying off 25% of their staff, according to a financial report to investors they submitted Tuesday. Barron’s reports that 25% of staff equates to about 200 positions, and the company expects to save $60 million a year with the layoffs. [KRON4]
• Santa Clara County prosecutors announced they arrested nine people for an alleged sex trafficking ring, with the suspects from cities across California like San Jose, Coalinga, and Lake Elsinore. The 18 victims of the ring, all from Mexico and South America, were allegedly forced to work seven days a week at hotels in San Jose and the East Bay. [Bay Area News Group]
• BART is tooting their horn that Saturday ridership was 73% of pre-pandemic levels with “no major events in the Bay Area” scheduled, but commenters are giving them some guff for not realizing there was a major demonstration in support of Palestine at Civic Center that day. There are no official estimates of attendance at Saturday’s Civic Center rally, though the New York Times pegs it at “tens of thousands of demonstrators,” so yes that likely would have affected ridership numbers. [@SFBART via Twitter]
• There was a fire scare at SF’s Westfield Centre shopping mall Tuesday morning when smoke and sparks shot out of a lighting fixture, but the SF Fire Department had the situation resolved in minutes. [Hoodline]
• Thieves broke into a West Oakland AM/PM early Monday morning using a backhoe, then tore apart an ATM, and did an estimated $70,000 in damage. [KGO]
• In more Bay Area decapitation news, the suspect in a September 2022 San Carlos samurai sword beheading case refused to attend his own trial on the first day. [KRON4]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist