• There was a full hazmat response at a motel in Vallejo Wednesday, the Vallejo Inn, after the discovery of a five-gallon bucket containing an unknown substance, which turned out to be meth. [KTVU]
  • After significant public complaint, carpool lane hours are getting shortened on the stretch of 101 betweeen Sonoma and Marin counties, and will be 6 am to 9 am, and 3 pm to 6:30 pm, starting in late February. [Bay Area News Group]
  • Heavy fog in the Central Valley caused a 43-car pileup that injured nine people on Wednesday. [NBC Bay Area]
  • One of the country's largest liquor, beer and wine distributors, Texas-based Republic National Distributing Co., appears to be in a death spiral after it abruptly pulled out of California last year, as big brands pull their business. [Chronicle]
  • Shoe brand Allbirds is closing all of its remaining brick-and-mortar, non-outleet stores in the US, including its SF store in Hayes Valley, as it shifts its business entirely online. [CNBC / Chronicle]
  • Border czar Tom Homan gave a news conference from Minneapolis, suggesting that there could be a drawdown of ICE agents there if the agency were granted access to local jails. [New York Times]
  • Rapper and singer Nicki Minaj continues her hard-core Trump-y phase, holding hands with President Trump and praising him broadly at an event in DC to promote "Trump Accounts" plans for kids born in 2015 and after. [Bay Area News Group]