• During the Lake Tahoe murder trial of former MLB player Daniel Serafini, key witness Samantha Scott, who was his alleged lover, co-defendant, and former nanny, testified that Serafini confessed to shooting his mother-in-law, Wendy Wood. Scott, who has taken a plea deal, said she watched Serafini toss gun parts, clothing, and other items out the car window as they fled the crime scene where Wood was injured and her husband, Gary Spohr, was killed. [SFGate]
  • The California Farm Bureau is condemning recent ICE raids targeting farmworkers, warning that aggressive immigration enforcement threatens the state’s food supply and rural economy. The bureau emphasized the role of agricultural employees in sustaining California’s farms and urged a more measured federal approach. [KRON4]
  • A Florida man was convicted of wire fraud after posing as a flight attendant to take more than 120 free flights, including one from SFO where he was arrested. Prosecutors say he used fake credentials tied to multiple airlines to exploit a policy allowing airline staff to fly for free. [SFGate]
  • A Canadian mining company’s plan to extract gold from Conglomerate Mesa near Death Valley is facing widespread opposition from environmental groups and Indigenous tribes, who say the remote, culturally sacred land would be permanently scarred by toxic drilling and cyanide heap leaching. Enabled by an outdated federal mining law, the groups say the project offers no benefit to locals and would destroy fragile desert ecosystems and sacred sites that could take thousands of years to recover. [SFGate]
  • Casey Schmitt hit his first career grand slam to power the Giants past the Dodgers 6-2, redeeming a costly error from the previous game and helping San Francisco tie Los Angeles atop the NL West. [East Bay Times]
  • 26-year-old Bradley Marcrum of Berkeley was sentenced to seven years in prison for a random attack in which he set a 68-year-old man’s head on fire with gasoline in 2023, after prosecutors dropped attempted murder charges as part of a plea deal. [Mercury News]
  • A man suspected of keying multiple cars in Walnut Creek fled the scene in a white sedan with no license plates, and police are seeking help identifying him. [KRON4]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist