• The San Francisco District Attorney's Office has now filed charges against the Oakland man, Norris Reed III, who is suspected in Sunday night's Bayview shootout that critically wounded an SFPD officer. The many charges include two counts each of attempted murder, assault with a semi-automatic firearm on a peace officer, shooting from a moving vehicle, and carrying a loaded firearm with intent to commit a felony. [KTVU]
• Police in San Leandro say that they have found a dead body at a Waste Management facility on Davis Street, and an investigation is underway. [NBC Bay Area]
• Those new BART fare gates are going to be adorned with ads soon, and hey, BART needs the cash. [Chronicle]

National:

• The House of Representatives passed a largely symbolic, Democrat-led measure calling for an end to the war with Iran, in a rebuke to President Trump. [NBC News]
• The White House Correspondents’ Dinner has been rescheduled for July 24, after it was rudely interrupted by an alleged would-be assassin in April, and Trump says he plans to attend again. [CBS News]
• Trump is maybe floating the idea of making Ron DeSantis the next Attorney General. [Florida Politics]

Video:

• In honor of Ariana Grande coming to town to kick off her Eternal Sunshine tour (in Oakland), here is the Rebel Without a Cause-inspired music video she released Friday featuring actor Justin Long, for her new single "hate that I made you love me."

Top image via Unsplash

Ahead of her three shows at Oakaland Arena this weekend and next week, pop singer Ariana Grande and her team have opened a pop-up merch shop in Union Square, which will be open for the next week.

The Ariana Grande merch shop, in support of her Eternal Sunshine Tour, opens Thursday, June 4, at 10 am at 71 Powell Street, and will remain open until June 10, the day of her final show at Oakland Areana. She plays there Saturday, June 6, Tuesday, June 9, and Wednesday, June 10.

This is a thing that Ariana Grande tours have, with off-site merch shops in all her touring cities. There is an online tour hub that's now live, and Grande's website shows what a large retail operation this is, with merchandizing galore and evidence of all the merch from past tours that is now sold out.

There is tour merch, including tees, hoodies, and accessories, for the Eternal Sunshine Tour, as well as merch for her upcoming eighth studio album Petal, which will be released while she's on tour, on July 31, along with merch from previous albums and tours.

As the Chronicle notes, this is Grande's first tour in six years, and she's primarily been occupied the last three years with the production and promotion of the two Wicked films, which she starred in alongside Cynthia Erivo.

The show on Saturday in Oakland is actually the first in the Eternal Sunshine Tour, so there may be kinks still getting worked out. The tour includes 41 shows in 10 cities. After Oakland, Grande heads to LA for two shows, June 13 and 14, at the Crypto.com Arena, and three more shows at Kia Forum in Inglewood, June 17, 19, and 20. From there she heads to Austin, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, Brooklyn, Boston, Montreal, Chicago, and London, where the tour will conclude on September 1 after 10 shows there.

Following a ruling from UK regulators, Google plans to allow website owners to opt out of appearing in AI searches, and it’s also agreed to add clearer attributions and links to sources in its AI overviews.

Google announced it will begin testing a new Search Console setting that allows website owners to opt out of having their content used in AI-generated search features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, while remaining eligible to appear in traditional search results, as Engadget reports. The move follows a ruling by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority requiring the company to give publishers more control over how their content is used in AI products.

According to Ars Technica, the CMA also ordered Google to provide clearer attribution and links to publishers within AI-generated search results and barred the company from penalizing sites that choose to opt out. The agency said the changes are intended to give publishers, particularly news organizations, greater leverage over how their content is used, amid complaints that AI summaries have reduced referral traffic and advertising revenue.

Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, told the Guardian, “It is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used.”

Google said the opt-out setting will initially be tested with a small group of UK website owners before expanding globally. The company is also adding new Search Console reporting tools showing which pages appear in AI-generated responses and where those results are being displayed.

Regulators have reportedly given Google nine months to fully comply with the new requirements, though some changes are expected to arrive sooner.

Related: Google Scales Back 'AI Overviews,' Admits the AI Has Been Getting Things Wrong

Image: Cheng Xin/Getty Images

The early frontrunner in the primary for Eric Swalwell's former East Bay congressional seat next term appears to be State Senator Aisha Wahab, who currently represents roughly half the district, with former Dublin mayor and BART director Melissa Hernandez trailing behind.

State Senator Aisha Wahab appears to be in the early lead for the June 2 election — the first of two elections some East Bay voters will face this month to replace former Representative Eric Swalwell. As SFist reported previously, Swalwell resigned from Congress in April after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.

According to ABC 7, out of the nearly 47% of ballots counted Tuesday night, Wahab received 34% of the vote, while former Dublin mayor and BART director Melissa Hernandez was in second with 16%.

Tuesday’s primary election was for the full two-year term beginning in January 2027, while a separate June 16 special election will determine who serves out the remainder of this year. If no candidate wins a majority, the top two in each race will advance to separate elections in August (the run-off for the current term) and November (to serve in the next term), as Bay Area News Group reports.

Wahab, the first elected Afghan-American Muslim woman in the state Senate, entered the race with backing from the California Democratic Party, former state Sen. Bob Wieckowski, and several members of California’s congressional delegation. As previously reported, Wahab rejected calls for candidates to rally behind a caretaker representative for the remainder of the current term, arguing that she already serves much of the district and intends to continue representing it.

“This vote shows that we’ve been able to work with so many people and our message makes sense to people. Good policy is good policy,” Wahab said, speaking to the News Group. “I represent this district, I grew up in this district and I will continue to fight for this district, regardless of what the outcome is.”

One of Wahab’s main rivals was Fremont small-business owner Rakhi Israni, who reportedly contributed more than $1.2 million to her own campaign and spent the closing days of the race attacking Wahab over her unsuccessful 2023 anti-caste discrimination bill.

Several voters told Bay Area News Group that they supported Wahab because they viewed her as a progressive candidate who would advocate for working people and bring a fresh perspective to Congress.

Several candidates in the race for the full term, including Wahab, Hernandez, Israni, and Wendy Huang, are also running in the June 16 special election.

Previously: Four Democrats Rally Behind Caretaker Candidate to Fill Swalwell’s Seat Until End of Term

Image: State Senator Aisha Wahab/Facebook

Saikat Chakrabarti is the subject of many headlines today calling out the massive amount of personal money he spent coming in a distant third in Tuesday's primary for California's District 11 House seat. And rather than wait for more numbers to come in, he is bowing out of the race today.

We already saw the initial numbers come in, in this very low-turnout primary election, showing that Scott Wiener and Connie Chan were almost definitely going to be the top two vote-getters barring some bizarre flood of Chakrabarti votes. And given that Chakrabarti did not take one single precinct in the city according to the early vote tally, that is even less likely.

So, as KRON4 reports, Chakrabarti conceded the race as of Wednesday around noon.

"I want to congratulate Sen. Scott Wiener and Supervisor Connie Chan on their victories and thank everyone who participated in this election," Chakrabarti said in a statement. "While this wasn’t the outcome we hoped for, I’m incredibly proud of what we built together."

Wiener currently has 41.3% of the vote, with Chan getting 28.6%, and Chakrabarti getting 14.9%.

As we discussed earlier, Chan, given her fairly progressive track record, stands to gain many of the voters who supported Chakrabarti. But Wiener likely stands to gain many of the Republican and moderate-leaning voters who opted for other candidates, and the November race could very well be a tight one.

Chan is likely to continue to benefit from House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi's endorsement and support — and it was clear from this interview last week that Pelosi intends to dismiss Wiener's qualifications any chance she gets, which could have its own effect.

All told, Chakrabarti's considerable campaign efforts, which included funds from small individual donations and around $8.8 million of his own wealth, still could not overcome his lack of name recognition in San Francisco and his obvious lack of local political cred.

His campaign was said to have been paying canvassers $45 per hour to go door-knocking on his behalf — did they knock on your door? They knocked on mine! At least twice!

And they likely spent millions on those TV and web ads in which average folks repeated his name in an effort to drill some recognition into the minds of voters. Though the big blunder there was emphasizing Chakrabarti's ties to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom he worked for as chief of staff for the first seven months of her Congressional career in 2019, only to apparently be fired over some tweets insulting the Democratic Caucus, and then AOC herself awkwardly declined to offer her endorsement of her former staffer.

A last-ditch effort in recent days to try to tie Chan to a pro-Israel PAC also did not do much to improve his chances.

Will Saikat Chakrabarti continue trying to run for office in San Francisco? Or will he prove his critics right and move elsewhere, trying his hand in some other district in the future? We shall see.

Related: SF Election Turnout Looking Historically Low, and Why Does No One Vote on Election Day Anymore?

A new 145-unit affordable housing development was completed in a fraction of the typical time for half the cost on the edge of the Mission-Bernal Heights border, and officials hope to use it as a model for future projects.

City leaders on Tuesday celebrated the opening of 1633 Valencia, a 145-unit affordable housing development for seniors 55 and older who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, as SF Examiner reports. The six-story building, located on a former Sears parking lot in the Mission District near Bernal Heights, was nearly fully occupied at the time of its opening, with residents referred through city and nonprofit housing programs.

The project was reportedly completed in just 19 months at a cost of about $525,000 per unit, significantly below the price tag of many comparable affordable housing developments in the Bay Area. According to the Chronicle, officials credited the reduced timeline and cost to a combination of private financing, prefabricated construction components, and a design-build approach that brought architects and contractors into the process early.

Developed by Mercy Housing California, 1633 Valencia reportedly offers on-site support services through the nonprofit Felton Institute, along with shared community spaces and bike parking.

The development is the first project completed through the Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund, a partnership launched in 2024 by the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, Apple, the Sobrato Organization, and other backers. The fund was created to help affordable housing projects move more quickly by providing flexible financing and supporting new construction methods.

“Every year we spend waiting and every extra dollar spent has real-life consequences for the 145 older adults who live and will live here,” said SF Housing Accelerator Fund CEO Rebecca Foster. “Every time we wrestle together to simplify what stands between capital and housing, we create room for another neighbor to come home.”

Backers of the project say several additional developments funded through the program are already underway across the Bay Area, per the Chronicle, including projects in San Jose and Santa Cruz, with the goal of using the model to deliver more affordable housing at lower cost and on shorter timelines.

“With rent starting to skyrocket again, it’s a really important moment for our base of amazing corporations that have benefited from this hotbed of innovation and the unique, diverse, vibrant community that we have here in San Francisco,” said Foster, “ to really roll up their sleeves and say, ‘Okay, how am I part of the solution to these affordability challenges?’”

Related: SF Mayor, Supervisors Announce Proposal to Double Funding For Affordable Housing

Image: David Baker Architects

Mid-year special elections and primaries aren't often huge draws when it comes to voter turnout, but San Francisco has a major decision to make about a Congressional seat that could be held by the same person for decades. Was that not enough of a motivator?

The California governor's race was clearly not inspiring nor motivating to any Democratic voters statewide, and Xavier Becerra's quick rise to the top of the pack in the last two months, following the abrupt end of Eric Swalwell's campaign and political career, still feels surprising.

But in San Francisco, we also had the primary for Nancy Pelosi's House seat, and the last time the race for this seat was competitive, you stil had to go to a video store to rent VHS tapes for entertainment, the internet barely existed, and Bill Clinton was still just a governor from Arkansas.

And the last time the race for this seat was wide open was the year Pelosi won, in a mid-year special election in 1987.

Centimillionaire Saikat Chakrabarti appears to have lit $10 million of his personal wealth on fire in a bid to be the progressive choice for the seat on the November ballot. While an updated vote count on Thursday may change the picture slightly, Chakrabarti appears to have been trounced by Supervisor Connie Chan, thanks in part to an endorsement from Pelosi herself. (And thanks to that awkward non-endorsement situation with AOC, who is his only real link to congressional politics.)

With about half of the votes counted, Chan's margin appears to be double that of Chakrabarti, with Chan at 28.6% and Chakrabarti at 14.9%. Wiener has a commanding lead at 41.3%, but it's not hard to see how this could become a very close race in November, if all or most of Chakrabarti's supporters shift over the Chan, which they likely will. Just adding the preliminary totals together, Chan would have around 47,000 votes to Wiener's 44,500 votes, though its possible that many of the 15,000 or so votes that went to lesser-known candidates could shift over to Wiener.

Republican candidate David Ganezer pulled in around 6,000 votes as of the early count, and Republican-turned-moderate-Democrat Marie Hurabiell got around 5,100 votes, and it's hard to see any of those votes going to Chan.

On the topic of voter turnout, the current percentage of registered voters who cast ballots is at a dismal 23.44%. And only about one-fifth of the total votes so far were cast in-person on Tuesday, or around 24,000.

At my polling place, as of 2 pm Tuesday, I was only the 18th person to cast a ballot, according to the ballot scanning machine. Similarly, New York Times SF Bureau Chief Heather Knight noted that she was just the 11th person to cast a ballot at her polling place as of 11 am.

Obviously, many people in San Francisco have embraced mail-in voting, and 100,000 registered voters in the city have had their mail-in ballots counted already. But we still don't know how many went out late, or were dropped off in ballot boxes at polling places on Tuesday.

Mission Local reports that a polling place at City Hall was a ghost town for much of the day, and one "longtime city politico" tells the publication, "I can’t remember a quieter election day."

Has apathy just fully set in, lo these 16 months into Donald Trump's second term? Do the majority of San Franciscans just assume that whoever's governor and whoever's our congressperson it just won't matter?

Turnout may end up being the low 40s, percentage-wise, in this election, but we'll have to wait and see.

Turnout in November's special election with Prop 50 on the ballot was 55.6% in SF, and turnout in the November 2024 general election was at a whopping 79%, so we know that local voters turn out when they want to say something. But, somehow, not so much this time.

Related: Wiener and Chan Look Likely to Be Headed to November Ballot For SF's Congressional Seat

There were two earthquakes early Wednesday morning with magnitudes over 5.0 that rumbled under the Pacific Ocean off the Northern California coast.

The first of the quakes, with a magnitude of 5.7 on the Richter Scale, struck at 3:53 am about 95 miles due west of the California-Oregon border. The USGS puts the epicenter at 154 kilometers WSW of Pistol River, Oregon.

The second earthquake, 5.1M, occurred at 5:45 am and its epicenter was further south, off the coast of Eureka. Its epicenter was about 40 miles off the coast, or 64 kilometers west of Petrolia, California, in Humboldt County.

This earthquake's depth was relatively shallow, just about a half-mile below the seafloor.

There was subsequently a 4.5M aftershock in the same area at 6:11 am.

Some shaking was likely felt in and around Humboldt County from the latter two quakes, but no damages have been reported. At least one or two people on Xitter in Humboldt County reported the shaking.

This area off the NorCal coast is known to be highly tectonically active, and the latter two earthquakes occurred near what's called a triple-junction, where the northern end of the San Andreas Fault intersects with the Mendocino Fracture Zone  and the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The earlier, larger quake appears to have occurred along the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

The most recent earthquakes off the San Francisco coast occurred on April 25, and had magnitudes of 3.0 and 2.7.

A man from San Francisco died at the hospital two days after he was found unresponsive at Santa Rita Jail, and an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death.

Brandon Anthony Josep Watson, 37, of San Francisco had been transferred from Monterey County Jail and booked into Santa Rita last Wednesday on charges related to a California Highway Patrol vehicle theft investigation, as Bay Area News Group reports.

According to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, deputies found Watson unresponsive in a dormitory housing unit early the next morning after he failed to report for breakfast. They began life-saving measures before paramedics transported him to a hospital where he died Sunday afternoon.

Authorities said an autopsy, including toxicology testing, will determine the cause of death. The death is being investigated as an in-custody death, and both the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and California Attorney General’s Office have been notified.

Watson’s death was the second reported in-custody death at Santa Rita Jail this year, and the 77th since 2014.

As SFist reported previously, 37-year-old Kenyonna Farr of Oakland died in a holding cell at the jail in March three days after being transferred. In February, 36-year-old Dequita Grace Harrell died in the women’s restroom of the jail’s lobby while visiting an inmate.

Previously: Woman Dies In Holding Cell at Santa Rita Jail Following Hospital Visit

Image: Jesstess87/Wikimedia

We will still be getting updated vote counts over the coming days and the final tally is not yet in, but as of election night, state Senator Scott Wiener and SF Supervisor Connie Chan were in solid first and second places in the race to succeed Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi was right when she suggested in an interview last week that her chosen candidate to succeed her, Connie Chan, would do better than people expected. "I talk to people. Spend your time with the public," Pelosi said, speaking to KQED's Scott Shafer.

Of course, Pelosi seemed to be implying that Chan would prevail over frontrunner Scott Wiener, which is not the case. But polls had shown a much closer race for second place than we see so far in the election results.

Wiener holds a strong lead with 41.3% of the vote, with about half (49.5%) of votes counted. And Chan pulled in 28.6%, nearly double the votes for Saikat Chakrabarti, who stands at 14.94%.

KTVU has already called the race for Wiener and Chan, but a new tally after more votes are counted will arrive at 4 pm Thursday.

"Tonight the people of San Francisco sent a clear message," Wiener said in a Tuesday night victory speech. "The message has been received. San Franciscans are ready for bold leadership, for real results... and a new generation of leaders ready to take on the hardest issues facing our country."

Wiener spoke about Trump's "disaster of a regime," and said that "the people are demanding" that Democrats get them out of office.

"But once we get them out, we can't go back to the pre-Trump status quo," Wiener said. "That is not gonna work. That is what got us into this in the first place. We have to act boldly, as Democrats, to solve these problems. The time for small thinking is over."

Chan held her victory event in the heart of the Mission District Tuesday, at El Rio, as Mission Local reports. And referring to Chakrabarti's massive, self-funded primary campaign budget, Chan said, "San Franciscans! How does it feel to beat $10 million?!"

As the crowd chanted, "Yes we Chan!", she said, "This, this tonight, is a start for many, many people to see the billionaires, all not just in San Francisco, but across the nation. We’re coming for you. We will win on November 3rd!"

Certainly this was the outcome Pelosi was hoping for when she offered her last-minute endorsement, making sure that Chan at least took second place in what had been looking like a tigher race.

We can now expect the campaign budgets to grow as this becomes a two-person battle for Pelosi's seat — and as Chakrabarti's voters, likely, will shift over to supporting Chan, who is the more progressive choice.

Update: Chakrabarti has bowed out of the race.

Related: Pelosi Finally Says What She Thinks About Chakrabarti and Wiener In Race to Succeed Her

Top image: Left: San Francisco Supervisor and congressional candidate Connie Chan smiles at a "Get Out the Vote" rally on May 29, 2026 in San Francisco, California. U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has endorsed San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan to fill her seat representing California's 11th Congressional District. (Photo by Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images); Right: Senator Scott Wiener speaks during the CDP State Convention - Tax Fairness for All Families on May 31, 2025 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for Economic Security Project, Inc.)

Top image: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks during an election night watch party on June 2, 2026 in San Francisco, California. Steyer is in a tight nonpartisan race with fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton to fill the term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Photo by Minh Connors/Getty Images)

• The San Francisco Giants hired Gary Pettis, who’s Oakland born and raised, as the team’s third base coach. Pettis has 27 years of coaching experience, including with the Chicago White Sox, the New York Mets, and the Houston Astros when they won the World Series in 2017 and 2022. [ESPN]
• Parth Patel, 30, and Dharti Patel, 29, from San Mateo, drowned at the site of a waterfall in Fresno last week when Dharti slipped on a rock and Parth jumped in to save her. [NBC Bay Area]
• A minor, 3.7-magnitude earthquake struck about 4 miles southeast of Cloverdale Tuesday morning at 9:44 am, along with subsequent quakes. [New York Times]

National:

• The U.S. military says it carried out “self-defense” strikes on Iranian targets, including Qeshm Island and an oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, while also shooting down Iranian missiles and drones amid escalating crossfire in the Gulf region. [BBC]
• President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a voluntary framework for AI companies to share and allow up to 30-day federal review of advanced models for national security risks before public release, following earlier hesitation over concerns about hindering U.S. competitiveness. [Associated Press]
• The Supreme Court is allowing Alabama to use a Republican-drawn congressional map that eliminates a court-ordered second majority-Black district, reversing lower court rulings that found the map likely violated the Voting Rights Act and had been drawn with discriminatory intent. [NBC News]

Video of the Day:

• It's hard to tell whether this was staged or not, but either way, this particular Waymo came away with some battle scars. As for the unflappable passenger and canine inside, we can only hope they were allowed to continue on their way soon after, or whatever.

View on Threads

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

SF Chinese Hospital has renamed its outpatient center after philanthropist Charles Huang, honoring his $7 million donation in 2020 that funded infrastructure upgrades to the wing, which helped pave the way for a forthcoming cancer clinic.

Officials with San Francisco Chinese Hospital held a ceremony Thursday formally renaming its outpatient center after Southern California philanthropist Charles Huang, whose foundation donated $7 million to the hospital in 2020, as San Francisco Business Times reports. The gift funded major upgrades to the building's aging HVAC, electrical, and mechanical systems, including integrating infrastructure between the hospital's older outpatient facility and its newer patient tower.

Huang, who’s chair of the Pasadena-based private equity firm Pasaca Capital, said he hopes his 2020 donation encourages continued investment in community healthcare.

"The mission that I have for not only for my foundation but also mostly for every other business I invest in, the companies I create, is to bring innovations to benefit the entire world, not just for a few people," Huang said. "This is the mission of the hospital, the mission of my business — it really, really works very well."

Hospital leaders said the improvements were especially critical as the facility prepares for a planned outpatient cancer and chemotherapy center, which builds on the hospital’s existing cancer programs and is intended to increase access to oncology and chemotherapy services for residents of Chinatown and surrounding neighborhoods.

The hospital secured $1 million in state funding for the new cancer center last year, which is expected to include six infusion bays, two exam rooms, and consultation space. The funding, which was obtained with the support of State Senator Scott Wiener, reportedly went toward planning and development of the facility.

The Business Times reports that the hospital’s fundraising goal for the cancer clinic and chemotherapy center is set at $5 million, which includes $1 million naming rights.

Officials emphasized that additional government support, community partnerships, and fundraising efforts will still be needed before the project will launch, noting that independent hospitals often struggle to cover costs because reimbursement rates frequently fall short of expenses.

According to SF Examiner, Chinese Hospital marked its 125-year anniversary in 2024, having served Chinatown through the bubonic plague outbreak, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and COVID-19. Prior to 1998, when the hospital's labor and delivery unit was transferred to California Pacific Medical Center, more than 50,000 babies were born at Chinese Hospital — including martial arts legend Bruce Lee in 1940.

Former longtime District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whose district includes Chinatown, credited the hospital's survival to its deep community ties.

“It has defied economic realities,” said Peskin. “It has defied the hospital industry that has continually consolidated and left people out. It is a remarkable community resource that we need to make sure not only continues to get by, but it’s the best thing that The City could invest in.”

Related: Remembering When Rose Pak Used to Harangue Politicians From the Stage at the Chinese New Year Parade

Image: San Francisco Chinese Hospital

A restaurateur with several recent hits under his belt has teamed up with a chef with SF fine dining cred to open a new Oakland restaurant focused on Korean comfort food and home-style cooking.

The restaurant will be called Ajae, and restaurateur Min Park — of SF's Itria and Menlo Park's acclaimed Yeobo, Darling — and chef Brian Shin are aiming for a late 2026 opening at an undisclosed address on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, as the Chronicle reports.

Shin is an alum of Benu and the former In Situ at SFMOMA, both led by Executive Chef Corey Lee. And as the Chronicle notes, he'll be following in the path of other Benu alums James Yeun Leong Parry, who opened the acclaimed Happy Crane last year, and Alan Hsu, who along with partner Sarah Cooper opened Sun Moon Studio in West Oakland, earning a Michelin star and a rave from the Chronicle that named it the best new restaurant of the year in 2024.

Ajae will center its menu on Korean comfort dishes like the rice soup called gukbap, and other things familiar to Korean restaurant menus, but Park tells the Chronicle, with "Brian’s special skill set they get taken to the next level."

Shin has also worked at Chicago’s Alinea, which has three Michelin stars, and he's done comfort food at The Snug in Pacific Heights, but it sounds like Ajae will be more ambitious than that, if not less casual.

Piedmont Avenue has long had a strong dining scene, with the classic spot BayWolf giving way to The Wolf in the last decade, and chef James Syhabout's Commis being the only Michelin-starred restaurant in all of Oakland until Sun Moon Studio came along.

Recent vacancies on the avenue include the former Pomella space at 3770 Piedmont, and breakfast spot The Crepe Pan (4184 Piedmont), which just closed earlier this year.

Stay tuned for more details as we know them.

A preschooler was safely rescued and uninjured after becoming stuck inside a 10-inch irrigation pipe for about 15 minutes outside a Fairfield preschool, prompting a response from firefighters.

The Fairfield Fire Department posted on social media Monday about the incident at Mary Bird Early Childhood Education Center where the four-year-old had managed to get himself stuck inside a 10-inch irrigation pipe.

Firefighters were able to free the boy in about 15 minutes. The department said he appeared to be uninjured and that he didn’t have any “complaints.”

The boy was taken to the hospital for evaluation.

The incident of course brings to mind the tragic story of Baby Jessica, who was trapped in an eight-inch hole in Texas for 60 hours before being rescued. (Sidebar: Sadly, Jessica was recently arrested for assault.)

Image: Fairfield Fire Department