- Advertisers including IBM, Oracle, Disney, Apple, Lionsgate, and more are fleeing from social media platform X, formerly Twitter, in droves amid reports that their company ads are running on the platform alongside pro-Nazi content and hate speech. Not to mention, X owner Elon Musk has exacerbated tensions by endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory in his tweets. [ABC7]
- A former San Francisco venture capitalist, Michael Brent Rothenberg, also apparently known as "Silicon Valley's Party Animal," was convicted by a federal jury on charges of defrauding investors of over $18 million. The 39-year-old was found guilty of wire fraud, money laundering, bank fraud, and making false statements to a bank that deceived investors in two venture capital funds he managed in 2015 and 2016. [KRON4]
- A man suspected in an armed robbery in West Oakland on Thursday night, was shot approximately 20 minutes later at a location over a mile away — which authorities say wasn’t directly linked to the earlier robbery. The second suspect hasn’t been found yet. [EB Times]
- On Friday, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced that her office has filed charges against two individuals believed to have played significant roles in smash-and-grab operations near tourist hotspots. One of the suspects, Daevon Hudson, a 23-year-old resident of Antioch, is pleading not guilty to charges including second-degree auto burglary, possession of a firearm by a felon, carrying a loaded firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, possession of ammunition, and other charges related to the alleged buying and selling of stolen property (allegedly connected to thefts around Union Square). [Chronicle]
- A jury sentenced Kaitlin Armstrong to 90 years in prison on Friday for the first-degree murder of professional cyclist and SF native Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson in Texas in May 2022. Armstrong gained national attention when she traveled to Costa Rica and went missing for over 40 days after the murder. Colin Strickland, Armstrong's then-boyfriend and another cyclist, was the last person seen with Wilson before her death. [CNN]
- This week marks the forty-fifth anniversary of Jonestown, the mass murder-suicide of almost 1,000 people involved in the Peoples Temple, the cult that was at one time based in Northern California. The leader, Rev. Jim Jones, led followers to a jungle town in Guyana when he convinced them to drink a cyanide-laced grape drink. [KTVU]
Image via Unsplash/Edgar Chaparro.