We have a new and scary story about a Waymo vandalism situation that left a passenger helpless and in grave danger, and Mayor Daniel Lurie has reached out to the state about Waymos compounding the traffic nightmare on July 4th, and what could be done about it.

Waymo is having a bad couple of months in the press, just as the autonomous car company is in the midst of a broad expansion effort in multiple US cities. First there was a glitch that was causing Waymos in San Antonio to drive into deeply flooded streets. Then there were the construction zone troubles, which led Waymo to temporarily suspend all freeway service in May.

Then there was the grand debacle of July 4th in San Francisco, in which Waymo vehicles were widely documented blocking traffic, driving over lit fireworks, and appearing to stall en masse on a key connector road in the Presidio, making the already congested traffic situation even worse.

The July 4th situation served to confirm what city officials had already seen during the December power outage, when Waymos became a hazard and a liability on the streets in an emergency, causing gridlock because they were unable to navigate through intersections with no traffic signals.

SF Mayor Daniel Lurie wrote a letter this week to the State Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin, as NBC Bay Area reports, urging state leaders to take action in creating regulation around autonomous vehicles and major events or emergencies.

Lurie wrote, per the Chronicle, that on July 4th, "Waymo vehicles struggled to navigate growing volumes of vehicular traffic and pedestrians," and "By the end of the fireworks show, autonomous vehicles became immobilized in travel lanes, blocking key streets and ultimately bringing traffic to a standstill."

Lurie called on the state to provide a framework for improvement for Waymo in these kinds of situations, though he seems to have stopped short of seeking a full ban on autonomous vehicles at major events.

Lurie said that Waymo should be providing more "operational transparency" to local agencies, and that the company should take a "prove it before you deploy it" approach when it comes to handling traffic meltdowns and major traffic situations. He added that the company should have to prove that it can "keep people moving" and "respond in real-time” as breakdowns occur.

Lurie's letter comes two days after Uber penned a letter to the city pointing the finger at Waymo for creating many of the obstructions that contributed to the July 4th gridlock.

Waymo issued a statement to the Chronicle saying, "Waymo has successfully supported some of the city’s biggest events, including FIFA World Cup games, this year’s Super Bowl and Fan Fest, and NBA All-Star Weekend,” company officials wrote in a statement. “The city and Waymo share a mutual goal of providing safe and accessible transportation for visitors and residents alike. We will continue to partner with the City's agencies, collaborating with them on the learnings based on the millions of rides we have provided in San Francisco."

In a separate story in the Chronicle today, SF resident Sherman Watson shares a harrowing story of being trapped in an immobilized Waymo as two vandals violently attacked the vehicle in the Marina, late one night back in May. Watson described how, for approximately 10 minutes, he was unable to honk a horn or get customer service to move the vehicle, all while the windshield was being shattered — he was in the front passenger seat — and he thought his life was in danger.

We've seen multiple instances of vandalism of Waymos, some worse than others, but Watson's story highlights the degree to which passengers become helpless victims trapped inside these cars, and how Waymo the company hasn't much addressed this safety issue.

Watson has been trying to get Waymo to release video footage of the incident which would have been recorded by the vehicle, but they have refused, citing no proper legal justification for the request. The SFPD classified the incident only as "malicious mischief" — not even felony vandlism? — and the department can't seek a warrant for the footage from Waymo unless Waymo itself, whose vehicle was damaged, was seeking to press charges.

Last summer, one SF suspect, 45-year-old Walker Reed Quinn, was arrested and charged with felony vandalism after four documented incidents of his allegedly vandalizing Waymo vehicles in SoMa.

Related: Uber Is Blaming Waymo For July 4th Traffic Fiasco In SF

Photo via TheDamianHdez/X

Police officers began chasing a man with an outstanding warrant who fled on an electric scooter while riding on sidewalks and in the street against traffic before he crashed into an elderly woman on Powell Street, seriously injuring her.

The San Francisco Police Department said the chase began around 8:30 pm Sunday after an officer spotted 35-year-old Melthon Branch riding an electric scooter on the sidewalk near Ellis and Jones streets, according to a release from SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. The officer said he recognized Branch from previous encounters and knew he was wanted on an outstanding US Marshals warrant, prompting him to activate lights and sirens and ordering him to stop.

According to prosecutors, Branch instead sped away, weaving between sidewalks and traffic lanes, riding against traffic through multiple intersections, and forcing pedestrians to jump out of the way. As he headed north on the west sidewalk of Powell near O'Farrell Street, authorities say he struck a 72-year-old woman with the scooter, throwing both of them to the ground. The woman suffered a fractured elbow and broken wrist that required surgery.

Prosecutors say Branch immediately ran from the crash, fleeing on foot before diving under a table at a nearby restaurant on the 200 block of O’Farrell Street — presumably Hinodeya Ramen, where SFPD officers arrested him. Investigators say they recovered suspected methamphetamine, more than $2,000 in cash, a digital scale, drug-packaging materials, and three credit cards belonging to other people.

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has charged Branch with multiple felonies, including evading police causing serious bodily injury, felony hit-and-run, elder abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, battery causing serious bodily injury, driving against traffic while evading police, and possession of methamphetamine for sale. Prosecutors are also seeking to keep him jailed without bail pending trial, arguing that he poses a public safety risk.

Related: BART Fare Evader Turns Out to Be Georgia Fugitive Convicted of Murder In 2024

Image: Google Street View

Photo by Catherine Kerr

• A San Jose man, Zachary Chernicky, was arrested in connection to a deadly crash involving four vehicles on Highway 87 in San Jose last December, which killed Ivana Balistreri and her baby daughter Lilliana. [NBC Bay Area]
• The Oakland Police Department shared footage of a suspect in the November 2025 fatal shooting of Terrill Millhouse in his neighborhood on the 1700 block of 28th Avenue with the hope that someone will come forward with information about the incident. [KRON4]
• Two companies that deliver Amazon packages — OnPoint Logistics in San Francisco and Xpress Delivery in Oakland — will permanently shut down in September, eliminating a combined 176 jobs, with no further details provided. [Chronicle]
• For $10 a year, an East Bay Municipal Utility District trail permit unlocks access to 57,000 acres of watershed lands, including dozens of lesser-known hiking trails around East Bay reservoirs that are typically far less crowded than regional parks. [KQED]

National:

• A federal law went into effect this month stipulating that all colleges, universities, and short-term certificate programs in the US prove that their graduates earn at least the median wage of someone without a degree four years after graduating. In California, this amounts to $36,000 per year, and about 300 programs in the state have graduates who earn less, particularly in fields like cosmetology, medical assisting, arts, and theater, which means students at those schools could lose access to federal loans. [CalMatters]
• ABC, CNN, and NBC all confirmed they weren’t pre-empting their regularly scheduled programming to air President Donald Trump’s primetime address Thursday evening in which he’s expected to beat a dead horse about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. [New York Times]
• House Speaker Mike Johnson was forced to pull a Republican veterans benefits bill, which would have reduced disability coverage, after some GOP lawmakers refused to support it. [CNN]

Video:

• A firefighter from Oakland’s E29 unit recently came to the aid of a pigeon that appeared to be suffering from smoke inhalation from a vehicle fire by giving it some fresh oxygen.

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

The 2.61-acre Big Sur property that served as a canyon retreat for the late Lawrence Ferlinghetti was recently listed for $2 million, and though it’s mostly undeveloped, land has been cleared for construction — pending government approval.

The secluded 2.61-acre parcel sits in a gated section of Bixby Canyon near the iconic Bixby Creek Bridge and has remained largely untouched since Lawrence Ferlinghetti bought it in the early 1970s, as the Chronicle reports.

Ferlinghetti, who died in 2021 at age 101, was one of San Francisco's most influential literary figures. He co-founded City Lights Bookstore in North Beach in 1953 and launched its publishing arm two years later, famously publishing Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems.

The property includes access to a private residents-only trail that follows Bixby Creek to the beach beneath Bixby Bridge, as well as a small cabin, a meditation hut, and historic trout ponds. A building site has also been cleared where a future owner could pursue plans for a home, though any construction would require approval from Monterey County and coastal regulators.

The property listing notes the land was originally two separate lots before being merged, meaning a future buyer could also explore splitting it back into two parcels, which would also be subject to county approval.

According to the listing, the current owner, Ferlinghetti’s son, Lorenzo Ferlinghetti, has already completed much of the early groundwork for potential development, including well testing, geotechnical and septic studies, site planning, and preliminary home concepts.

“This place has been a huge part of my life since childhood, and I have shared many wonderful moments here with family and friends,” Lorenzo Ferlinghetti said in a statement. “It is paradise on earth and has become a very spiritual place for me, deeply rooted in my soul.”

The Chronicle notes the property is near the famous cabin where Jack Kerouac stayed before writing his 1962 novel, Big Sur. Ferlinghetti reportedly chose a sunnier site farther up the canyon while remaining in the same landscape that became a refuge for Beat writers. His friendship with Kerouac helped cement Bixby Canyon as a retreat for artists seeking solitude along the California coast.

Related: San Francisco Poet and City Lights Founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti Dies at 101

Image: Alex Grant/Compass

The body of one of the three remaining missing women from the sinking of the pleasure craft Volare on Tuesday was pulled from San Francisco Bay on Thursday afternoon, and it has been identified.

The San Francisco Police Department announced that they recovered one new body from the Bay as of Thursday. Per the department, just after 1 pm, "SFPD Marine Unit 3 was conducting sonar scanning when a passing vessel alerted officers of a body in the water west of Treasure Island."

The decedent's name was reported by KTVU following confirmation from the SF Medical Examiner and posts on social media from her family. The body was identified as that of 58-year-old Tondra Miller, aka Tondra Madruga. According to members of the Boisa family, who were hosting a memorial on the Bay for a loved one, Maria Boisa, who died by suicide in 2015, Madruga was a friend of Maria's who had come along for the event.

Prior to Thursday's discovery, the only confirmed victim of Tuesday's tragic capsize and sinking incident is 79-year-old Clifford Boisa of Sutter County. However we have since learned that Boisa's wife Jackie is among the missing, as is his sister Carol.

The two women, along with Madruga and another woman, Clifford's neice Yvonne Thatcher, who survived, were together in an interior cabin when the boat rolled over, and the women were reportedly trapped.

The Chronicle reported earlier that the Coast Guard continues to assess how and when it will locate the sunken ship using an underwater drone — given that its depth is beyond the reach of divers. It's not clear if a full recovery of the vessel will occur, as this will require the help of a third-party salvage company.

ABC 7 has a new report on the route that the Volare took on Tuesday, which included a jaunt outside the Golden Gate to the ocean. The 50-foot cabin cruiser boat was reportedly ocean-worthy, and its captain, 62-year-old John Boisa, Clifford's younger brother, had taken it down the coast to San Diego last year.

The ABC 7 report, seen below, also includes a new image of the three-deck vessel from before it sank. It had been moored at the San Francisco Marina Yacht Harbor, not at the St. Francis Yacht Club Marina, as previously reported.

Related: Victim Identified as Boat Captain's Brother In Tuesday Sinking on the Bay; Missing Women Were Reportedly Trapped In Boat's Cabin

This post has been updated throughout following the identification of Tondra Madruga.

Two men were arrested when police responded to a report of a burglary at a vacant home in South San Francisco Tuesday and found them allegedly running a counterfeit currency and identity theft operation.

A pair of suspects are accused of breaking into a vacant South San Francisco rental home, changing the locks, and using the property to carry out an alleged counterfeit money operation before police uncovered the scheme earlier this week, as KRON4 reports.

Officers responded to the Arroyo Drive home around 5:15 pm Tuesday where they found equipment used to produce counterfeit currency, along with evidence of identity theft and controlled substances. South San Francisco police identified the suspects as 41-year-old Arvin Ibasan of San Francisco and 37-year-old Christopher Roliz-Maguigad of Seaside.

According to KPIX, investigators have not determined exactly when the break-in occurred. Captain Tony Pinell reportedly told the outlet the identity theft investigation involves “multiple victims,” and that the case remains under investigation.

Ibasan was booked into the San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of first-degree burglary, forgery, identity theft, conspiracy, possession of a controlled substance with a prior conviction, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Roliz-Maguigad was booked on suspicion of first-degree burglary, identity theft, making counterfeit checks, and conspiracy.

Roliz-Maguigad was scheduled to appear in court Thursday, while Ibasan's first court appearance is set for Friday.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact South San Francisco Police at 650-877-8900 to speak with a burglary detective.

Related: South SF Teen Allegedly Steals Car, Rams Into Multiple Other Cars On Two-Hour Joyride Before Police Catch Him

Image: South San Francisco Police Department via Facebook

The nonprofit Market Street Railway, in conjunction with the SFMTA, introduced a new, limited-edition, summertime cable-car experience on weekends, and it gives locals a chance to ride a historic cable car without the indignity of waiting in too long of a long line of tourists.

It's called the Hyde Ride, and for the $9 price of a regular fare, you can hop on at Hyde and Beach streets from 11 am to 6 pm, Friday through Sunday, and ride a cable car on a loop that takes you up the Hyde Street line, over to the Cable Car Museum, over through Chinatown and loops back past Lombard Street back to the terminus at Beach Street.

As Market Street Railway explains, "This special Hyde Ride service is for everyone. It is a great day out for local folks as well as a special experience for visitors. And it serves a practical purpose. Each segment of the cable car system is powered by its own underground cable. The cable segment under Powell Street carries both the regular Mason and Hyde lines and is at capacity. But the Hyde cable has room for this special extra service. This increases the overall capacity of the cable car system at peak days and hours during summers and shortens the wait for all riders at Aquatic Park."

While there is often a line of tourists, especially in summer, at the Hyde and Beach turnaround, it's not generally as long as at the Powell and Market turnaround — and if you aren't taking a car all the way to Powell and Market, the conductors will pull you out of line ahead of others to take the designated Hyde Ride.

The SFMTA is also pulling out some historic, extra-long cable cars for this service, and these cars have to turn back at the terminus because they're too long for the turntable.

These include the oldest and longest car in the system, dubbed Big 19, which was built for Market Street in 1883 and was first retired in 1942. On the first Sunday of each month until October, the Hyde Ride will feature 1907's Car 42 from the O’Farrell, Jones & Hyde line.

Also, these Hyde Rides feature a red-vested docent from Market Street Railway, who can share historical details about the cable car system and the historic cars themselves. And most will be helmed by veteran gripman Val Lupiz, who is known for his bell-ringing skills.

If you're entertaining friends from out of town and perhaps looking to hop off and back on, you'll want to consider Muni's $15 one-day passport, because otherwise each hop on a cable car is another $9.

As Market Street Railway President Rick Laubscher tells the Chronicle this week, "You’ve got to do a cable car at least once in your life if you live here," and this is the perfect opportunity.

Related: The Cable Car Turns 150 Years Old Today

Top image: Photo by Jeremy Whiteman/Market Street Railway

The San Francisco Police Department released video Thursday showing the arrest of a man they believe tortured and killed a small kitten earlier this month on Market Street.

Investigators from the SF Department of Animal Care & Control (SFACC) say that they were able to identify the suspect wanted in an animal cruelty case as 33-year-old William Ohlson of Reno, Nevada. SFACC obtained a warrant for pertinent information about the suspect, and the SFPD's Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC) and the Real Time Investigation Center (RTIC) were able to track Ohlson down at a hotel on the 100 block of Fell Street, where they proceeded to conduct an arrest.

The original incident occurred on July 1, according to Animal Care & Control. Ohlson was allegedly seen entering a bank ATM vestibule on the 1800 block of Market Street around 2 am carrying a small kitten.

Inside the vestibule, Ohlson allegedly proceeded to violently torture the animal to death, and then fled with the dead kitten. It's unclear whether there were witnesses to the crime, or if this was all observed via surveillance video.

After locating Ohlson at the Fell Street location, officers with the SFPD served a search warrant on Tuesday, July 14. An SFPD drone was able to see that the suspect fled the room where he was staying, climbing out a window onto the roof of an adjacent building, where he remained.

The SFPD then enlisted help from the fire department to get a truck and ladder, and officers then climbed to this roof and safely apprehended Ohlson without incident, as seen int the video below.

The SFPD said this arrest "was a result of close collaboration between San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Animal Care and Control through the course of the two-week investigation."

Ohlson has been booked into SF County Jail on suspicion of animal abuse and neglect, and resisting or delaying arrest.

Although an arrest has been made, this remains an open and active investigation. Anyone with information is asked to contact the SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with "SFPD."

Related: San Francisco Man Arrested for Animal Cruelty After Allegedly Killing Dog

Air crews were making headway containing the Dixie Fire in 2021 until an unidentified drone forced them to ground for 45 minutes, shortly before winds picked up and night fell, causing the blaze to quickly spread, and while PG&E was found to be at fault, the utility wants to increase rates.

Nearly five years after the Dixie Fire became the second-largest wildfire in California history, PG&E is asking regulators to let it recover nearly $700 million from customers, arguing that a rogue drone that grounded firefighting aircraft helped turn a small blaze into a historic disaster, as NBC Bay Area reports.

As SFist reported back in July 2021, the Dixie Fire was first discovered after a PG&E technician investigating a power outage found a tree leaning into a power line and flames burning at its base in the area of Camp Creek and Dixie roads.

Cal Fire’s final report determined that PG&E equipment started the fire, and its response was excessively delayed.

According to the site Drone DJ, because of the steep terrain, fire crews had difficulty accessing the remote location, with ground crews unable to reach the fire until hours later after hiking about two miles from an out-of-service bridge.

As firefighters were close to getting the fire under control, an unidentified drone entered the airspace over the blaze, forcing Cal Fire to suspend its aircraft operations. The grounding lasted about 45 minutes, and by the time the airspace was cleared, darkness had set in, and the operation was called off for the night.

“It was getting on towards evening and a drone showed up,” Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said, per NBC Bay Area. “The policy, appropriately so, of Cal Fire is when there’s a drone or something obstructing their flight path, they have to call the flight off.”

The Dixie Fire ultimately went on to burn for 103 days across Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta, and Tehama counties, scorching more than 963,000 acres and becoming the most expensive wildfire to fight in US history, as previously reported.

According to NBC Bay Area, the utility has since paid hundreds of millions of dollars in claims through insurance and the state’s wildfire fund, but it is now asking the California Public Utilities Commission to allow it to recover nearly $700 million more through customer rates, arguing that the drone interference was a factor outside its control that allowed the fire to spread.

PG&E said it had been found to be a “prudent operator” during the period before the fire and that state law allows utilities to seek cost recovery for wildfire expenses in certain circumstances.

Ramsey disagrees with PG&E’s argument, saying the drone’s impact on firefighting does not erase the utility’s responsibility for starting the blaze.

Previously: PG&E Not Only Caused the Massive Dixie Fire, a New Report Says It Also Was 'Excessively Delayed' In Responding to It

Top image: A resident looks on as the Dixie fire burns into a  neighborhood on August 16, 2021 near Janesville, California. The Dixie  fire has burned over 578,000 acres, has destroyed over 1,000 homes and  threatens thousands more. The fire, the largest single fire in  California state history, is 31 percent contained. (Photo by Justin  Sullivan/Getty Images)

California Forever, the oddly named, billionaire-backed outfit seeking to build a new city from the ground up in eastern Solano County, has lost out on a chance to bring a $3.2 billion shipbuilding facility to the county's waterfront.

As reported previously, while California Forever is primarily looking to build its new city about 15 miles north of the Delta, on land that it has purchased east of Fairfield, a concurrent effort has been ongoing to bring a shipyard to the unincorporated town of Collinsville, on the waterfront. The thinking is that a push to re-establish America's ship-building industry by the Trump administration could help bring an economic engine to the would-be town — and the group has been working with state and federal agencies to establish a Maritime Prosperity Zone there, to help things along.

But they've had their first setback, as the Chronicle reports, losing out on a contract for a $3.2 billion automated shipyard building autonomous warcraft to Brownsville, Texas. Austin-based Saronic Technologies, a defense-industry startup, had narrowed down a selection process to two candidate sites, in Collinsville or in Brownsville, and they chose Brownsville. The project is to be called Port Alpha, and will now be linked to the Gulf of Mexico.

According to California Forever, this is the fault of the state legislature and governor for not stepping up fast enough to woo the company here.

"As California’s most vocal advocates for new industries, high-wage jobs, and homes people can afford our coalition is extremely frustrated that California lost this historic opportunity," the group said in a statement. "Shipbuilding is in California’s heritage, and California was the natural home for Port Alpha."

"While Texas moved quickly and aggressively, California could not provide the clear, expedited approval process needed to compete,” says Joshua Arce, executive director for the California Alliance of Jobs, speaking to the Chronicle. "This is an enormous loss for Solano County, California workers and our state’s manufacturing economy."

The Alliance of Jobs had been pushing for the legislature to approve an expedited environmental review process for the shipyard, and that still has not been voted on.

An anonymous "project insider" tells the Chronicle, "California Forever is still on track — but a major defense contractor choosing not to locate in California sends a major signal."

Many state and local leaders have voiced skepticism — and worse! — about California Forever's plans, and critics have voiced disgust at the major investment by Silicon Valley billionaires into a vague and likely impractical urban utopia vision, when that money could instead be invested in cities that already exist and have a reason for being.

An initial ballot-meaure effort to get around Solano County's growth ordinance, which confines future urban development to the existing cities in the county, was scrapped two years ago when it appeared the political headwinds were strongly against the effort.

Instead, California Forever is now teaming up with the small, economically disadvantaged town of Suisun City, with a plan for the city to annex the group's 60,000 acres of farmland to the city's east. This process is far from a done deal, and environmental advocates in the county have expressed serious concern about the potential impacts of bringing 400,000 new residents and a massive amount of new traffic to the area.

Most recently, the group hired two former aides of Governor Gavin Newsom with state legislative expertise to likely work on pushing their agenda in the legislature, and getting their new city plan in front of the right people in power.

Previously: California Forever Team Adds Two Former Newsom Aides In Clear Political Ploy

Top photo by famingjia inventor/Unsplash

As the Bay Area continues to grapple with Tuesday's terrible boat tragedy, we've slowly learned a bit more about the boat involved, its captain, and how four people likely lost their lives when it sank.

When 20 assorted family members and friends set out Tuesday for a memorial cruise around the Bay, commemorating the death of a loved one that occurred over ten years ago, no one expected to encounter mortal danger. But after a particularly large wave struck the vessel's side when it was midway between the Marin Headlands and the San Francisco Marina, and perhaps — according to some local boat experts — because of the uneven distribution of people on the boat, the boat quickly went over and began to sink.

US Coast Guard Captain Jarod Toczko tells the Chronicle that while an investigation will take place and the cause of the sinking is not yet known, preliminarily it appears the boat was "listing heavily" and lost "a little bit of stability" after being hit by the wave, causing it to very quickly roll over to the starboard side.

Some of those on the boat were immediately thrown into the water. Four women who had been inside one of the three-deck boat's cabins became trapped, and only one of them managed to open a door and get out before the boat became more fully submerged. Those three other women remain the three in the group listed as missing, and authorities have said they believe their remains will be found inside the boat, which sits at the bottom of the Bay in a shipping channel about 120 feet deep.

The boat, named Volare, was a 50-foot cabin cruiser owned by Stockton resident and Stockton Yacht Club member John Boisa, 62. It's upper deck was shielded from the sun by a stretched canvas covering that made the boat look, in the initial images that were released, when it was more than halfway submerged, like a flat-bottomed pontoon-style boat, which it was not.

As the Chronicle reports, Boisa is a former Naval officer with a considerable amount of experience on the water. The boat is described as a "1980s trawler" that had three below-deck sleeping cabins, and Boisa's brother, Ralph Boisa, told the paper in an interview that his brother had piloted the boat down the coast to San Diego last year — so he was comfortable on the open ocean.

"He was very competent in his ability to handle a boat," Ralph Boisa tells the Chronicle. "That’s why I’m so shocked at what happened. I don’t understand it."

Winds on the Bay Tuesday afternoon were reportedly gusty, with gusts up to 30 miles per hour.

Ralph Boisa and his wife, who live near the California-Oregon border, had been absent from the memorial, but their daughter, Yvonne Thatcher, attended. The event was to commemorate the life of Yvonne's adoptive sister Maria, who died in 2015 at the age of 35, by suicide. Maria, who lived in Fremont, had been an avid surfer and loved the Bay, which was why the family chose to celebrate her this way.

Thatcher, who managed to survive the ordeal, described the horrific situation with her two aunts and a friend of Maria's, who are the three who remain missing. After becoming trapped inside the cabin, they were reportedly banging on windows for help as the ship took on water, but only Thatcher managed to get out through a door.

Maria and Yvonne were part of a large family, with Ralph Boisa and his wife having adopted eight children in total.

Clifford Boisa, 79, was among the 17 survivors who were brought to GasHouse Cove Marina in the rescue effort, but he died from his injuries after arriving in "severe distress." His wife Jackie is among the missing, along with his 74-year-old sister Carol Boisa.

Rescuers also recovered a dog that died in the chaos.

The search effort for the missing was called off Wednesday night. The Coast Guard has said they are not sure of the sunken vessel's exact location, and the next step will be to locate it with an underwater drone. Per the Chronicle, the Coast Guard is still unsure whether they will be able to salvage the vessel.

Previously: Victim Identified as Boat Captain's Brother In Tuesday Sinking on the Bay; Missing Women Were Reportedly Trapped In Boat's Cabin

BART police apprehended a man they witnessed attempting to evade fare at El Cerrito del Norte Station Tuesday, only to discover he was an escaped murder convict from Georgia who had been on the run for the past two years.

Bay Area Rapid Transit Police officers tried to stop 27-year-old Davonte Fore after they saw him attempting to enter the El Cerrito del Norte Station without paying fare around 8:53 am Tuesday, according to a news release. Fore took off on foot but was caught several blocks away. After initially giving officers a false name, a fingerprint check identified him as a Georgia fugitive who had been on the run since 2024 after disappearing during his murder trial.

Fore was convicted in absentia in October 2024 of the 2021 murder of 25-year-old Skyler Gilmore, a Black transgender woman, and later sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, plus 15 years, as the Chronicle reports. Prosecutors reportedly said Fore and co-defendant JaQuan Brooks, whom they identified as gang members, tracked Gilmore through calls and text messages before fatally shooting her inside her apartment. Authorities said the killing was ordered after it was discovered Gilmore was involved with a member of a rival gang.

According to Atlanta’s 11Alive, Fore was initially arrested in November 2022 then released on bond in February 2024 despite prosecutors' objections.

“This is why our office works hard to get bonds denied in cases like this,” Jacques Spencer, lead investigator with the local district attorney’s office, said at the time,” per Fox 5 Atlanta, “but it's not our decision to grant bond.”

Fore is currently in custody at the Contra Costa County Jail and will soon be extradited back to Georgia, as CBS Atlanta reports.

In 2024, the Human Rights Campaign added Gilmore to its registry of transgender people killed by violence.

“Gilmore’s death was initially uncounted by HRC due to the lack of reporting that takes place when a transgender person, especially a transgender woman of color, is killed,” says the HRC. “Far too often these deaths go unreported, or misreported.”

Related: Viral Video Shows Woman Stuck Under BART Entry Gates

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

• Two of the missing people in Tuesday's boat capsize tragedy in the Bay have been identified by a family member, though they still have not been officially named. As the search and rescue effort concludes this evening, two of the missing are reportedly Carol Boisa, the sister of the boat's owner; and Jackie Boisa, the wife of the 79-year-old man, Clifford Boisa, who was the first victim identified. The two women, and a third unrelated woman, became trapped in the boat's cabin as it took on water, and reportedly went down with the boat. [Chronicle]
• County workers in Santa Clara County are going door to door to track down grapevines purchased at Costco stores there that could be infested with glassy-winged sharpshooters — the invasive insects that carry a disease deadly to grapevines. Similar efforts began in May in Solano, Sonoma, and Napa counties after some Costco citrus plants and grapevines were found to be infested. [New York Times]
• Thomas Keller's restaurant group has agreed to a $2 million settlement in a harassment case centered on his Bouchon restaurant in Las Vegas. [Chronicle]

National:

• A leak investigation inside the White House has intensified, after President Trump was fuming over leaked details to the New York Times about his Qatari-funded new Air Force One, and its security deficiencies. [CNN]
• Smoke from wildfires in Canada is now blowing down over the Great Lakes and the Northeast, with New York getting a warning about potentially deteriorating air quality. [New York Times]
• The Wisconsin Elections Commission says that billionaire Elon Musk likely broke the law when, in 2025, he gave three voters $1 million checks in connection with his effort to flip control of the state's Supreme Court to Republicans. [Associated Press]

Video:

• A lil baby flamingo chick hatched at the San Francisco Zoo this week, the first successful hatching of a Chilean flamingo chick there in nine years. This breeding season has produced a number of flamingo eggs, the zoo says, and while it's not clear how many eggs will be viable, this first hatching is a good sign. [Facebook]