SF News Day Around the Bay: Daniel Lurie Getting Credit for Ending the Marriott Hotel Strike SF State was placed on lockdown over a threat that did not pan out; a Mission District mural vandal suspect has been arrested; and Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie is getting some credit for helping end the Marriott hotel strike.
Arts & Entertainment Here’s Some of the Artwork That May Be Coming to the Car-Free Great Highway Park Once cars are banished from the Great Highway in 2025 and a two-mile stretch of the highway becomes a public park, here are a few art installations that Rec and Parks is proposing for the new open space.
SF News What Was That Giant White Blimp That Was Just Hauling Ass Across San Francisco Skies? San Francisco skygazers noticed an unmarked and very large white blimp flying at an impressive speed above the city Thursday afternoon. It appears to be Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s new blimp, which is the biggest blimp since the Hindenburg.
SF News Fillmore Food Legend and Nia Soul Cafe Owner Pia Harris Has Died, Services This Weekend The Fillmore restaurant Nia Soul Cafe just opened last month after owner Pia Harris’s 15-year quest to make her catering business a brick-and-mortar restaurant. But Harris died from pancreatic disease complications just weeks after its grand opening.
SF News Amazon Teamsters Go on Strike at Seven US Facilities, Including the One In SF’s Bayview Hundreds of striking Amazon workers are picketing at the Amazon warehouse in SF’s Bayview District, joining thousands of other Amazon workers nationwide who went on strike Thursday morning looking for better wages and health care.
SF Politics Oakland City Council Approves Slashing Police, Fire, and Arts Departments to Trim $130 Million Deficit With the City of Oakland drowning in about $129 million in red ink, Oakland City Council voted to approve a plan to cut police overtime, close a few fire stations, and eliminate some arts programs in hopes of closing the deficit.
SF News Developers Swear They Will Finally Clean Up ‘SoMa Trash Lake’ After Years of Complaints For nearly three years, a vacant SoMa lot at Fifth and Clara streets has been accumulating water, garbage, and mosquitoes. Now three years and two lawsuits later, a new owner vows it should be cleaned up soon.
SF News Car Plows Into the Front of Miraloma Club on Portola Drive, Injuring Three A Tuesday afternoon car crash seriously damaged the storefront of Portola Drive’s Miraloma Club, leaving three people injured, and two of them hospitalized.
SF Politics Mayor Breed Appoints Former Michael Bloomberg Aide Stephen Sherrill to District 2 Supervisor Seat The relatively unknown Stephen Sherrill was just appointed by Mayor London Breed to fill the empty District 2 Supervisor seat formerly held by Catherine Stefani, and he’s vowing to vote exactly like Catherine Stefani did.
SF News SF Hires NY Consultant Firm to Jazz Up Union Square With 200 Events Next Year One of Mayor London Breed’s final downtown rejuvenation efforts is bringing in some New York-based consultant firm who’s agreed to create 200 events in Union Square in 2025, hoping to generate more foot traffic and fewer retailers abandoning their storefronts.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Hyatt Regency Across From Moscone Center Surrendered Back to Its Lender The Bureau of Prisons will pay $116 million to FCI Dublin sex abuse survivors, the “black spatula” panic may all have been overblown; and the Hyatt Regency Downtown SF SoMa has been surrendered back to its bank.
SF Politics Supervisors Reject Breed’s Final Commission Appointments, Because Breed Won’t Be Mayor Anymore Mayor London Breed clearly has less juice in City Hall these days, as her final three commission picks went down in flames at the last Board of Supervisors meeting of her mayoral tenure.
Arts & Entertainment Anti-Radiation Group Sues to Halt the Reinstallation of the Bay Bridge’s Bay Lights With the wildly popular Bay Bridge light display 'The Bay Lights' set to return in a couple of months, a group that files radiation lawsuits on the regular is suing to prevent the display’s reinstallation, calling it a “neurologic hazard.”
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.
