SF News Family of Cybertruck Owner Says Allegedly Antisemitic License Plate Was Misunderstanding Over Tagalog After an outrage last week that the DMV approved a license plate which appeared to make a joke about the October 7 attacks against Israel, the family of the truck’s owner says people are misunderstanding that it was meant as an unrelated Tagalog reference.
SF News Martinez WWII Veteran and TikTok Star Turns 102 Years Old on Friday, Getting Deluged With Birthday Cards Army veteran-turned-TikTok celebrity “Papa Jake” Larson will celebrate his 102nd birthday in Martinez this week with his nearly 900,000 social media followers tuned in, and he is not bashful about wanting you to send him a birthday card.
SF Politics Lurie Hires Former Twitter CFO Ned Segal to Be ‘Policy Chief’ of Housing and Economic Development A former Twitter executive who’s suing Elon Musk over unpaid severance is now taking over SF’s housing and economic recovery response under the Daniel Lurie administration, as Ned Segal has been named Chief of Housing and Economic Development.
Arts & Entertainment Gaggle of SantaCon Santas Manages to Conquer BART’s Evasion-Proof Gates With Mass Fare Evasion A battalion of Santas successfully cheated BART’s new evasion-proof fare gates during this weekend’s SantaCon festivities, and a TikTok video capturing their gate-hopping exploits is going viral.
SF Politics Charges Tossed Out for San Mateo County Sheriff's Deputy Whom Sheriff Had Ordered Arrested Controversial San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus had the head of the sheriff’s deputies’ union arrested last month, accusing him of grand theft. But the San Mateo County DA has dropped all of those charges, in the latest black eye for Corpus.
SF News Mendocino Town of Point Arena Being Rocked By City Councilmember Buying Up Properties With LLCs A sort of “California Forever” type situation has been brewing in the small Mendocino County town of Point Arena, where a sitting member of city council has bought up about 20 properties through a web of LLCs and chased out long-term tenants.
SF Politics El Cerrito to Have First Majority-LGBTQ City Council In Bay Area When New Members Are Sworn In Tuesday Well check out El Cerrito, as the Contra Costa County city will have an LGBTQ majority on its city council as of Tuesday night, the first ever such majority in the Bay Area and only the third ever in state history.
SF News SFPD Rescues Two Dogs From SoMa Apartment After Apparent Battery Fire Another apparent battery fire broke out at an apartment at Sixth and Minna streets this weekend, and two dogs had to be rescued from the blaze.
SF News BART Releases Bodycam Video of Incident Where BART Police Shot a 32-Year-Old Woman We now have bodycam video of the November 18 BART Police shooting of a woman at the Union City BART station parking lot, after BART Police responded to reports she was doing donuts in the parking lot.
Business & Tech OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Sucks Up to Trump With $1 Million Inauguration Donation It’s a little awkward for incoming mayor Daniel Lurie that his top transition adviser is now a Donald Trump donor, as AI titan Sam Altman has donated $1 million to the Donald Trump inauguration, obviously hoping to curry favor.
SF News Scathing SFPD Audit Finds Rampant Abuse of Police Overtime Charges The SF Police Department is now spending $108 million a year on overtime pay alone, with wild and potentially fraudulent abuse of paid sick leave, officers approving their own overtime, and some taking paid time off to moonlight as security guards.
SF News SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin is Resigning at the End of the Year The five-year reign of SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin will come to an end on December 31, and while he steered Muni through the pandemic and saw some big projects completed, he was a lightning rod for criticism over bike lanes and car-free streets.
SF News Day Around the Bay: SFPD Reportedly ID’ed Luigi Mangione Days Before He Was Arrested The Union Square holiday Winter Walk starts Friday; SFMTA won’t start issuing those “daylighting” parking tickets until March; and there are reports that SFPD identified accused CEO shooter Luigi Mangione days before he was arrested in Pennsylvania.
SF Politics Pamela Price's Phone Records Subpoenaed Over Extortion Allegations Against Her A public defender claims former Alameda County DA Pamela Price tried to shake her down for political donations in exchange for a lighter sentence for her client, and that public defender just won a subpoena to go through Price’s phone records to prove it.
SF Politics Lurie Taps Former Giants Executive as Chief of Staff, Announces Other New Hires Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie announced his first three hires, and while two of them were campaign staffers, his out-of-left-field pick is former Giants executive vice president Staci Slaughter as his new chief of staff.
Arts & Entertainment Brace Yourself: SantaCon Has Expanded to Three Consecutive Days This Weekend You better watch out, as Saturday’s SantaCon has fattened up with additional new Friday and Sunday events, making SantaCon a three-day, weekend-long affair as SF’s new holiday pop-up bars are hosting expanded SantaCon events.
Business & Tech No Surprise Here: Bay Area Has Highest Concentration of Million-Dollar Jobs of Any US Metro Area The good news is that the Bay Area has the highest concentration of high-earning people of any United States metropolitan region. The bad news is that this is partly the case because rich people have priced so many lower-income people out of the city proper.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink SF’s Next Boozy ‘Entertainment Zone’ Could Be Coming to Cole Valley Three blocks of Cole Valley are poised to be the next “entertainment zone” where bars can sell to-go cocktails during certain outdoor events and gatherings, adding to the two existing entertainment zones on Front Street and outside the Chase Center.
SF News ‘Magic Mushroom Church’ Is Closing Down Its SoMa Location, Claiming Harassment From SF City Hall The Church of Ambrosia’s Zide Door in SF has been providing magic mushrooms and other legally questionable delights for over a year now at Howard and Seventh streets, but says they’re shutting down the SF location because of “harassment” from the SF Planning Department.
SF News United Airlines Flight Snafu Diverts SFO-Bound Flight From New Zealand to Hawaii United Airlines just resumed the only non-stop route between the US and Christchurch, New Zealand, and it runs to SFO, but a Tuesday flight from Christchurch to SFO was diverted to Hawaii because it needed a crew change.
SF Politics SF City Hall Cancels Contracts With Nonprofit That Had Improper Spending Scandal After the director of a city commission was found to be directing taxpayer-funded contracts to a man she lived with, City Hall officials have found what appears to be more self-dealing, and canceled their contracts with a controversial nonprofit.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Cruise Robotaxis Are No More, as GM Abandons Robotaxi Business Another day has passed with no Nima Momeni verdict; some hateful graffiti hit a Jewish student center; and GM is giving up the ghost on Cruise robotaxis and abandoning that line of business.
SF Politics Is This Why the FBI Raided Sheng Thao’s Home? Filings Allege High-Rollers Traded Campaign Donations for City Contracts A new set of filings allege that a recycling company and a security firm funneled nearly $300,000 to a Sheng Thao political operative in exchange for lucrative city contracts, and now that political operative may have flipped and could be cooperating with the feds.
SF News SF on Track to See the Lowest Number of Homicides In 64 Years as 2024 Comes to a Close It looks like 2024 will be the year with the fewest murders in San Francisco since all the way back in 1960, as the city is three weeks away from likely recording its lowest homicide rate in 64 years.
SF Politics Oakland City Council Weighing Drastic Cuts as $130 Million Deficit Looms Layoffs, pay cuts, and reductions to the police and fire departments are all on the table in Oakland, as the City Council looks for ways to slash the city's budget as they confront a deficit of nearly $130 million.
