• Several San Francisco stores, including Safeway and Target, have apparently deactivated self-checkout systems, to try a "defensive” strategy to prevent shoplifting. Safeway's Fillmore District location had closed its self-checkout area a few months ago, and Target on Mission Street also disabled its self-checkout kiosks. [SFGATE]
• Elon Musk responded to Taylor Swift being named Time magazine's Person of the Year by saying she might decline in popularity after receiving the award, just like he did, in a post on X. The Swiftie backlash was immediate. [Chronicle]
• The high-profile trial of the homeless man accused of assaulting a former San Francisco fire commissioner, Don Carmignani, who might have bear-sprayed other homeless people in the Marina, began without the victim present. Carmignani's absence prompted a threat of an arrest warrant during the trial's opening arguments. [Chronicle]
• There’s an ongoing situation in Pleasant Hill as a former police officer who had shot at his wife Thursday, has apparently barricaded himself inside his home and refused to come out for several hours, although the Pleasant Hill Police Department said that he’s not an immediate threat to the general public. A SWAT team that had surrounded the home has since disengaged, and police called off the shelter-in-place around 1:30 a.m., and the investigation into the incident is ongoing. [KRON4]
• A San Jose man, Ray Anthony Garcia, has been charged with sexually assaulting the child of his ex-fiancée, Joanna Pinedo Gandara, whose killing is currently under investigation. The allegations surfaced during the probe into Pinedo Gandara's death, discovered when a family member reported finding her body on December 3 — but he’s not formally a suspect in the homicide. [Mercury News]
• A brazen group of shoplifters stole more than 40 iPhones from a Berkeley Apple Store on Thursday afternoon. [KRON4]

Feature image via Unsplash/Vladimir Kudinov.