SF News New 16th Street Police Presence Just Moving Blight to Nearby Alleys, Residents Say The hulking police RV and crew of officers now stationed at 16th and Mission may have cleaned up that one corner, but has moved new pockets of crime and drug bazaars to nearby small alleys, making life for residents there a newfound hell.
SF News Amidst 'Fiscal Cliff’ Panic, Scott Wiener Introduces BART and Muni Funding Package As fears set in that BART trains would run just once an hour and Muni might cut frequency by 50%, state Senator Scott Wiener is proposing a funding package to save them, but it involves voters approving a new sales tax.
SF News SoMa SRO Mosser Hotel Gets Rejected In Their Attempt to Convert the Place Into a Full Tourist Hotel It seems counterintuitive to scrap housing that people need in exchange for hotel rooms, especially when the SF tourism economy is struggling. But SoMa’s Mosser Hotel hoped to do just that, though the SF Planning Commission shot that idea down Thursday.
SF News Sunnyvale Authorities Raid Suspected Brothel, Arrest Six Johns and a Madam Sunnyvale police officers and Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies raided a commercial building Thursday on suspicion it was a brothel, and they found seven human trafficking victims, six alleged sex buyers, and a $27,000 pile of cash.
Arts & Entertainment Bay Lights Relighting Hits a Snag, They Probably Won’t Be Back On Until Fall or Winter 2025 Some dimming news about the relighting of the Bay Bridge's famed Bay Lights, as the lights themselves have hit a glitch, and the display’s return appears to be delayed by at least six months.
Arts & Entertainment Episcopal Bishop Who Took Trump to the Woodshed Coming to SF to Deliver Palm Sunday Sermon Bishop Mariann Budde, who royally pissed off Trump and all the Trumpers by saying “the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals” at his inauguration sermon, is coming to SF’s Grace Cathedral to deliver a Palm Sunday address on April 13.
Arts & Entertainment Hippie Hill 4/20 Party Canceled Again This Year, SF Rec and Parks Claims The official 4/20 party on Hippie Hill is up in smoke for a second year in a row, though nearly 5,000 stoners still attended last year’s supposedly “canceled” party, and also this year’s 4/20 coincides with the Hunky Jesus Contest in Dolores Park.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Feds Claim Evidence that ‘RawRicci415’ Sexually Abused 13-Year-Old Girl on Camera Orinda’s St. Mary’s Gaels are ready to storm the March Madness tournament; Trump appears to have abolished the Department of Education, and right-wing SF Twitter celebrity Ricci Wynne faces charges that he recorded his own sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl.
Bay Area Sports Video: Enormous Coca-Cola Bottle at Giants’ Ballpark Gets Sweet New Animated LED Lighting Set-Up Eagle-eyes have noticed that there’s been unexplained scaffolding around the oversize Coca-Cola bottle at Oracle Park. The Giants just gave a preview of what these upgrades are all about, and that Coke bottle will now have animated LED light displays on it.
SF Politics Fired City Hall Director Back In Hot Water Over $19K In City Funds Used for Her Son’s UCLA Tuition If you thought it was bad when an SF City Hall director got fired over using city money to pay for a $10,000 Martha’s Vineyard house rental, wait ‘til you hear that she also got $19,000 of your tax dollars to send her kid to UCLA grad school.
SF Politics SF City Hall Department Head Placed On Leave Over Apparent $10K Side Gig, Conspicuously Pricey Conferences We’ve got another City Hall department head embroiled in scandal over alleged unauthorized moonlighting and no-bid contracts to previous clients for extravagant conferences, and Department on the Status of Women director Kimberly Ellis has been put on leave.
SF News Slow Down! Those Speed Cameras Are Now Up in SF, Starting Today Effective right now, San Francisco is the first city in California to have speed-monitoring cameras that will snap pictures of any vehicle going 11 mph over the speed limit. Though the fines won’t kick in for another 60 days.
SF Politics Contra Costa DA Diana Becton Faces the Latest Bay Area Effort to Recall a District Attorney Recall-mania has spread to Contra Costa County, where District Attorney Diana Becton has a recall effort in effect against her, though she’s been elected twice and may be better able to beat it than Chesa Boudin or Pamela Price were.
Arts & Entertainment That 45-Foot-Tall Nude Woman Statue Is Coming to SF After All, and Will Be at Embarcadero Plaza Union Square was forced to disrobe its plans for placing a 45-foot-tall Burning Man statue of a nude woman there, but the statue has found a different home at the Embarcadero, and will have its unveiling on April 10.
Arts & Entertainment The SF Zoo’s 56-Year-Old Female Chimpanzee Maggie Has Died The female chimp Maggie at the SF Zoo was one of the five oldest chimpanzees in the United States, but had been suffering from lymphoma, and the SF Zoo just announced that she has died.
SF News City Hall Revises Now-Moribund Central SoMa Plan By Allowing More Housing and Much Less Office Space The Central SoMa area between the Moscone Center and the Giants' ballpark was supposed to boom thanks to an ambitious City Hall plan, but the pandemic made that go bust, so now officials are revising the plan with more of a focus on housing and retail.
SF News East Oakland 15-Year-Old Shot and Killed Over Attempted Robbery of His Backpack Less than a month shy of his 16th birthday, an East Oakland teen was shot and killed while walking with his friends to soccer practice, in what was merely an attempt to steal his backpack that quickly turned deadly.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Rockslide Shuts Down the Road to Yosemite An Inner Richmond shop may have been unwittingly drawn into an illegal drug operation; Google just made its biggest-ever acquisition of a startup; and State Route 140 into Yosemite National Park is closed because of a rockslide.
SF Politics Suspect Charged in Shooting Attack at the Home of Potential Sheng Thao Case Informant It is widely believed that Oakland businessman Mario Juarez was an informant on the case that led to the raid of Sheng Thao’s home. Some might assume that's why shots were fired at him at his Fruitvale home, and now charges have been filed in that case.
SF Politics Scott Wiener At It Again With a Bill to Upzone Housing Density Near Transit Hubs After his multiple previous attempts to throw out zoning restrictions in areas near transit hubs have failed, state Senator Scott Wiener has a new measure to streamline larger housing projects near a more limited number of those hubs.
SF News Developer of Failed Fillmore Heritage Center Skates With Just a $100K Settlement Over Unpaid $5.5M Loan The Fillmore Heritage Center that was home to the former Yoshi’s has been a bust, and its latest disappointment is a mere $100,000 settlement payment from a developer who got a city loan on the place for $5.5 million.
SF News Former Napa and Benicia Elementary School Teacher Faces Trial on Child Molestation Charges A former Napa elementary school teacher who’d beaten the rap on some 2007 child sexual abuse charges is now somehow facing more felony counts for lewd acts with children under 14 in Benicia, and a judge has ruled he’ll stand trial.
SF News BART Fare Evasion Way Down With the New Gates, or at Least That’s What BART Claims BART is touting that fare evasion may have dropped by one third since they started putting in those so-called “evasion-proof” fare gates, though this is just based on some informal poll they did where they asked riders if they saw anyone hopping the gates.
Business & Tech The Old Twitter Building Bird Logo Sign Is Up for Auction, But You Have to Pay for the Shipping The very large, old Twitter bird logo that used to be attached to the building's former Market Street headquarters is on the auction block and hoping to fetch $40,000, but you’ll have to pay the shipping on the 12-foot, 560-pound piece.
SF News Napa Mother Charged and Arrested for DUI After Sunday Morning Crash That Killed Her Two Children A 31-year-old Napa woman was allegedly under the influence and speeding when she crashed her car into a tree Sunday morning, killing her own ten-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter.
