- We’re now a full week into the various Southern California wildfires, and the LA County Medical Examiner’s Office says there are now 25 people dead from the fires. Winds are expected to die down Tuesday night, but then pick back up around 3 am Wednesday morning, so Wednesday could be another difficult slog for firefighters. [ABC News]
- There was a one-alarm fire Tuesday morning in the Tenderloin at Ellis and Hyde streets, and fire officials say the lithium-ion battery of a scooter is to blame. The fire was on the sixth floor of an apartment building and reported around 6 am, and the Fire Department says there were no injuries. [KTVU]
- A yet-unidentified man was fatally shot just before 9 am Tuesday morning at an East 12th Street encampment in Oakland’s East Peralta neighborhood. The encampment has a pretty checkered past, with another fatal shooting in September 2023, a resident hit by a motorist in October, and a woman shot on that same block just last week. [Bay Area News Group]
- Speaker of the House and reliable Trump lickspittle Mike Johnson declares flags will be raised to full staff at the Capitol for Trump’s inauguration, in defiance of Biden’s order (and in acquiescence to Trump’s order). [NY Times]
- As they so often do this time of year, proprietors of the tried-and-true “blessing” scam are victimizing Chinatown residents, with seven cases reported stealing anywhere between $7,000 and $90,000 from Chinatown seniors in the last couple months. [KRON4]
- A handful of athletic enthusiasts have created a recurring game where they ride tricycles around a basketball court at Jackson Playground Park tossing a yoga ball around, calling their invented game “Sportsball.” And it’s now drawing more than 100 people a month. [Chronicle]
Image: Joe Kukura, SFist
