Arts & Entertainment Two Transit Nerds Embark on Nine-County Odyssey to Ride All 24 Clipper Card Transit Services In 24 Hours These two youngsters with a big appetite for Bay Area public transit took on the task of seeing if they could ride all 24 Clipper Card-using transit agencies within a 24-hour period, and actually pulled it off by a hair.
Business & Tech Lyft Claims It Will Launch Self-Driving Cars Next Year, Though Only in Dallas Eight years after Lyft’s first claim that they would have self-driving cars, the rideshare company just made their latest declaration that these robotaxis are right around the corner, with “right around the corner” meaning “next year,” and only in Dallas.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Patti Smith Returning to Bay Area for 50th Anniversary of ‘Horses’ Tour A SFPD officer was slashed with a piece of broken glass during a SoMa arrest; a red-faced Shopify quickly removed Kanye’s swastika t-shirt site; and Patti Smith is playing both SF and Oakland for the 50th anniversary of her album ‘Horses.’
SF Politics DA Jenkins Taking Heat for Again Blaming Judges for Things She Used to Blame on Chesa Boudin SF DA Brooke Jenkins took to Twitter to name and shame an SF judge who did not hand down the sentence that she wanted, though this has brought death threats against judges in the past, and maybe her office could have just argued their case better.
SF News Fake Flyers Falsely Claim ICE Raids in SF, But Feds Go After KCBS for Accurately Reporting Agents’ San Jose Location While the undated flyers claiming ICE raids are happening in SF “tomorrow” have been debunked, a real January 26 report on ICE agents’ location in San Jose has brought an investigation from Trump’s FCC.
SF News Judge Blocks Trump’s Medical Research Funding Cuts, After California and 21 Other States Sue While the case is not fully decided, a pair of lawsuits has for now halted Trump's attempt to block tens of billions of dollars of life-saving medical research funding provided by the National Institutes of Health, and California played a role.
SF News SF Pride Looking to Bolster Security for 2025 Celebration, Anticipating ‘More Threats’ as Hate Speech Rises The first SF Pride of the Trump 2.0 era is planning for a bigger potential threat vector from far-right hate actors, amidst policy attacks on the LGBTQ community and an emboldened sense of entitlement from those engaging in political violence.
SF Politics Barbara Lee Returns $5,000 From Donors Indicted In Sheng Thao Scandal, Though She’s Taken $66K From Them Barbara Lee’s campaign to be mayor of Oakland doesn't need its first scandal, so she returned a $5,000 donation from the now-indicted Sheng Thao donors, but those same scandal-tainted donors have actually given her campaigns $66,250 over the last 26 years.
Business & Tech Elon Musk Bids to Buy OpenAI for $97.4 Billion, Sam Altman Laughs It Off A team of investors led by Elon Musk put in a bid to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion, a fraction of the company’s value. OpenAI founder Sam Altman merely responded, “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Business & Tech Meta Bringing the Axe Down With an Estimated 4,000 Layoffs Worldwide Today The Super Bowl hangover day is particularly rough at Facebook’s parent company Meta, as nearly 4,000 employees are learning that they’ve been pink-slipped today, though it’s unknown how many Menlo Park employees are getting the boot.
SF News Office-to-Housing Conversion on Back Burner at Warfield Building, Which Just Sold With New Plans Afoot The Warfield Building is not the Warfield Theatre, though it’s right next door. And the Warfield Building is also unlikely to become downtown’s first office-to-housing conversion anytime soon, as the building just sold to a new owner who will instead make it an arts and media facility.
SF News SF Zoo’s Last Remaining Male Gorilla, Oscar Jonesy, Has Died at Age 43 San Francisco and the SF Zoo’s gorilla preserve are mourning Thursday's death of 43-year-old Western Lowland gorilla Oscar Jonesy, who died unexpectedly following a medical procedure.
SF News It’s On: San Francisco Sues Trump Administration Over Sanctuary City Crackdown SF City Attorney David Chiu is leading a lawsuit against the Trump administration for targeting sanctuary cities, and Chiu’s odds may be good, because his office brought the same lawsuit against Trump in 2017 — and won.
SF News Development Delayed at Vacant Mission and 22nd Lot, Concerns Owner Is Profiteering Off Deadly 2015 Fire A 2015 fire at 22nd and Mission Streets fueled a theory that landlords were torching their own properties for profit. The site still sits empty and neglected, and the SF Planning Commission just delayed a plan for its notorious landlord to make that handsome profit.
SF News Vapor Room Owner Martin Olive Speaks After Being Shot Seven Times, Says He Did Not Know His Shooter Nearly two weeks after being shot on Ninth Street in front of his dispensary, Martin Olive is recovering well and giving interviews, and says he never met or interacted with the upstairs neighbor who tried to kill him.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Shen Yun Reportedly Under Federal Investigation Over Visa Fraud Dogpatch’s Esprit Park has reopened after an $8.5 million remodel; the Castro creep who was allegedly exposing himself to teens has been charged; and Shen Yun is apparently under a federal DHS investigation for possible visa fraud.
SF News SF Zoo Already Advertising the Job ‘Assistant Curator of Giant Pandas' You’re not being bamboo-zled, the San Francisco Zoo is already advertising the job “Assistant Curator of Giant Pandas,” and they say the salary range is between $67,000-$72,000 per year, even though this panda thing is not a done deal.
SF News Mayor Lurie Launches SFPD ‘Hospitality Task Force’ to Bolster Union Square Ahead of All-Star Game, Lunar New Year While this new SFPD ‘Hospitality Task Force’ arrives the weekend before the double-team of the NBA All-Star Game and the Chinese New Year Parade, the reconfigured police staffing will be in effect year-round in the Union Square tourism district.
SF News Oakland Firefighters Sound the Alarm Over Oakland Fire Station Closures in the Wake of LA Fires You might say Oakland firefighters have their hair on fire over the recent closures of two city fire stations, with four more closures potentially looming, as response times have more than doubled, and the risk of SoCal-style wildfire outbreaks has ballooned.
SF News Two Found Dead In Standing Waters In Very Flooded Santa Rosa The body of an unidentified male of an unknown age was discovered in the waters of the extremely flooded roads of Santa Rosa early Thursday morning, bringing the death toll to two as Sonoma County continues to get walloped by rain.
SF Politics Mayor Lurie Is Determined to Fire Police Commission VP Max Carter-Oberstone SF Police Commission Vice President Max Carter-Oberstone became famous for blowing the whistle on London Breed when she forced commissioners to sign secret resignation letters. Now new Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to fire him outright.
SF News The Castro Might Become SF’s Next Boozy 'Entertainment Zone’ With Bars Selling To-Go Cocktails There may be to-go cocktails flying out the windows of nightclubs at the next Castro District party with street closures, as Supervisor Rafael Mandelman just introduced a measure to make much of the Castro the latest SF “entertainment zone.”
SF News Moving Valencia Bike Lanes Back to the Curbside Starts Monday, When Construction Begins The now 19-month experiment to move the Valencia Street bike lanes to the center of the street will come crumbling apart starting Monday, when construction crews start ripping those center bike lanes apart, and moving the lanes back to the curbside.
SF News Major Mudslide From Tuesday’s Rain Shuts Down Block Near Telegraph Hill, Geologists Investigating Tuesday’s record rainfall caused a chunk of Telegraph Hill to simply plop down on the street, and geologists and Public Works are busily assessing whether the homes above the hill are safe with another round of rain coming Thursday.
SF Politics Daniel Lurie Gets His ‘Fentanyl Emergency Ordinance’ Passed In Landslide Board Vote Mayor Lurie won a huge expansion of his powers to combat fentanyl markets and homelessness, as the Board of Supervisors approved his so-called “emergency ordinance,” which now involves a pop-up police station at the long-debated SoMa Nordstrom parking lot.
