Here is the latest Local News from The San Francisco Chronicle.
Reasons not to move to San Francisco
Hey, all you recent graduates and soon-to-be graduates, congratulations! We know that a lot of you are planning on taking your hard-won diplomas and moving to the original City of Love. It happens every summer.
Corrections, May 19
Demands for Suhr’s removal growing, May 15, A18 The story, which began on the Front Page, inaccurately stated when San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr’s wife would become eligible for continuation benefits should he die. She became eligible on May 1, one year after the couple registered for a domestic partnership.
California drops mandatory water cutbacks for cities and towns
State officials, in a major policy shift that reflects California’s easing drought conditions, decided Wednesday to scrap the emergency conservation mandates that have forced cities and towns to cut water use as much as 36 percent — and have prompted unprecedented water restrictions for residents. […] the State Water Resources Control Board adopted regulations that allow urban water providers to set their own water-reduction targets, a change that enables local suppliers to loosen rules they’ve put on outdoor watering and indoor consumption over the past year. “I’m looking forward to a good-faith effort by the water agencies,” said state water board member Steven Moore, acknowledging that residents may get too much leeway at the spigot if local suppliers don’t act responsibly. The planned relaxation of the state emergency mandates already had several local water agencies undoing the strict rules they slapped on customers. The East Bay Municipal Utility District, the Bay Area’s largest water retailer, decided last month to stop requiring customers to cut back 20 percent, making the reduction voluntary and halting what amounted to some of the state’s stiffest fines for guzzlers. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which serves the city and 26 other communities, is considering dropping its mandatory 25 percent water cut for irrigation accounts like golf courses and office parks. […] several other Bay Area suppliers are similarly looking to ease statutes put in place after the state’s emergency water limits took effect in June. San Francisco and the suburban communities that share a water source with the city have more than than three years’ worth in their Sierra reservoirs, according to the Public Utilities Commission. The new regulations, which take effect next month, also extend a number of statewide conservation measures that were enacted alongside the community reduction targets. Residents are prohibited from watering their lawns to the point of causing runoff, washing cars without a shut-off nozzle, using potable water in a fountain and spraying down driveways and sidewalks. Many water agencies have lost water sales and revenue because of the emergency mandates, a financial hang-up that Quinn said could prompt suppliers to sell more water than their supplies warrant. State officials have said that, under the proposed rules, they will strictly audit local water supplies and make sure the self-regulated conservation targets are appropriate.
SF makes pitch to be home of transit of the future
Bay Area transportation leaders, academics and technology executives filled a City Hall conference room Wednesday to pitch U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on a plan to transform — and reform — San Francisco’s transportation system. San Francisco is one of seven cities competing for $50 million — $40 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation and $10 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. — in the federal agency’s Smart City Challenge. Crowded around a long conference table, San Francisco officials outlined an ambitious plan that aims to eventually create “the world’s first shared, electric, connected and automated transportation system,” in which people share autonomous electric cars and ride self-driving shuttles to transit and in which businesses haul freight using automated vehicles. To develop such a system, the city would create a Smart City Institute and work with UC Berkeley and dozens of Bay Area companies that have promised, if San Francisco wins, to contribute $99 million in software, hardware, training, research and testing and deploying autonomous vehicles. While a transportation system relying on self-driving vehicles seems to be far off, the city’s plan includes short-term visions as well, focusing on 10 percent changes in each of the following areas: boosts in transit use, bicycling, walking and shared rides; a decline in the number of fatal collisions; a reduction in transportation-produced emissions; and a reduction in the amount of money lower-income families spend on transportation.
Bernie Sanders attends downtown SF union rally
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders joined hotel and restaurant employees for a boisterous afternoon rally in San Francisco’s Financial District on Wednesday in which the workers demanded the right to unionize. Sanders showed up about 4:30 p.m. at the event in the plaza at 101 California St., near the Le Meridien Hotel, and briefly spoke to a cheering crowd of about 500 people. Sanders, wearing a blue shirt with his sleeves rolled up, spoke for about five minutes. “I’m here to demand the wealthy and the multinational corporations to pay their fair share,” he said. Following his speech, he waded into the crowd to shake hands with supporters before heading to a scheduled evening rally in Vallejo.
Bicyclist critically injured when taxi mows him down in SF
A 33-year-old bicyclist was in critical condition after a taxi hit ran him over in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood Tuesday evening, police said. A cab going north on Mason Street around 6:15 p.m. hit the man while he was riding west in a crosswalk at the intersection of North Point Street. The bicyclist suffered abrasions on his elbow, face, shoulders and back as he went underneath the car on impact, authorities said.
Employer of worker killed at Moscone Center had past violations
The company he worked for, Ahern, was fined following five separate workplace accidents dating back to 2008, according to Cal OSHA records. An investigation in 2011 was prompted by a complaint and turned up nine safety violations. In 2008, a painter and employee of the company was pinned between the corner of a tractor trailer bed and a wall, putting him in the hospital for five days to treat a severe laceration to his leg. The incident Friday happened amid construction for the Moscone Center’s expansion project, which will increase the center’s size from 1.2 million square feet to 1.5 million square feet.
49ers’ ex-field announcer sues team, alleging age discrimination
When Bob Sarlatte, the longtime on-the-field voice of the San Francisco 49ers, was fired in 2014, he says the only explanation he received was that the team was “going in a different direction.” In recent years, as part of their relocation to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for the 2014-15 season, the 49ers “engaged in a pattern and practice of eliminating its older workers, while attempting to rebrand the team as a younger, technology-driven organization,” the suit said. The suit also said Gideon Yu, a former Facebook and YouTube executive brought in by York in 2011 as the team’s chief strategy officer, regularly referred to older 49ers workers as “legacy employees,” a demeaning term in the Silicon Valley tech world. The firing caused Sarlatte “physical illness and emotional distress” as well as financial losses, said the suit, filed against the 49ers and their entertainment company, E2K. The suit is similar to an age-discrimination case filed against the 49ers last year, by the same lawyers, on behalf of two other veteran employees:
Oakland councilwoman calls on state to expunge pot-crime records
Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan is calling on the state to expunge all marijuana-related criminal records, a move that she says will open the door for people of color who have traditionally been shut out of a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry. Kaplan has authored a resolution, which goes before its first council committee on Thursday, and may be the next political maneuver by a city intent on correcting the racial injustices of the U.S. war on drugs. On Tuesday, the council unanimously approved new marijuana laws that included a controversial equity program that supporters say will help right some of the wrongs, but that critics say will cause the city’s pot trade to sputter. Residents who have lived for at least two years in a designated police beat in East Oakland where marijuana arrests were highly concentrated in 2013, or individuals who were incarcerated for marijuana-related crimes in Oakland over the past decade. Opponents of the program say it will create huge backlogs on permits because the rules stipulate that the city must award at least one equity permit for each general permit. “We know this is about those who have been arrested and impacted by the drug war, but it’s also about those of us who have taken the immense risk of opening businesses,” Unsworth told the council. “The war on drugs has criminalized black and brown communities, and now that (marijuana) is becoming legalized there’s a whole line of white men that are about to get rich,” said a speaker named George Galvis. Councilwoman Desley Brooks pushed for the equity program by tacking on last-minute amendments to ordinances that had taken the city’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission 18 months to write. A spokeswoman for the state’s newly formed Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation said she thinks the decision about whether to toss records will be left to the courts.
BART operations control loses power, delaying trains systemwide
A power failure hit computers inside BART’s operation control center Wednesday morning, delaying trains in every direction across the system. The power failed at 10:24 a.m., causing trains to go into manual mode as transit officials worked to restore the automatic train control system, said Taylor Huckaby, a BART spokesman. Trains were delayed 10 minutes following the power issue, Huckaby said, and the lags may grow to 20 minutes. Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: kveklerov
California poised to end unprecedented water restrictions amid drought
The state drought rules that have forced communities to cut back water use up to 36 percent, leading to tight residential water restrictions in many parts of California, are likely to be scrapped Wednesday. The emergency drought rules, which assigned communities specific levels of savings based on their historic water use, were ordered by Gov. Jerry Brown last June at the height of the drought. Many water suppliers passed their required reductions on to customers in the form of outdoor watering rules and even quotas on total water consumption. Since June, the state has logged a 24 percent drop in water use compared to the same months in 2013 – before the governor declared a drought emergency.
Dramatic swing in Bay Area temperatures on the way
Warm weather in the Bay Area should continue throughout Wednesday before a cooling trend sends temperatures plunging 10 to 20 degrees throughout the region later this week, forecasters said Wednesday. On Wednesday, hot weather seen earlier this week will continue with temperatures approaching 90 degrees in parts of the North Bay and inland East Bay, said Suzanne Sims, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey. Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
Father and 2 sons shot when Pittsburg cops confront armed man
A mother’s desperate 911 call reporting one of her sons waving a gun on the family’s front porch ended with two of her sons and her husband shot by at least one police officer Tuesday night in Pittsburg. Officers were dispatched to the home on the 1500 block of Kingsly Drive at 9 p.m. after the mother called police saying her 20-year-old son was acting irrational and had pointed a gun at his father through the house’s security screen door several times, said Capt. Ron Raman, a spokesman for the Pittsburg Police Department. The armed son, who the mother suspected was on drugs, was on the porch demanding entrance into the house when police arrived, Raman said. When he reached for the weapon, at least one officer, a 20-year law enforcement veteran, opened fire hitting the young man in the leg, Raman said. Other rounds fired by police went through the security screen door near the armed man and struck the father and the suspect’s 17-year-old brother who were standing inside the house behind the door, Raman said. Raman said he will be transported to county jail when released from the hospital and charged with assault with a deadly weapon and additional weapons related charges.
East Bay teen dies after collapsing during football drills
A 15-year-old high school student in Alameda collapsed during preseason football conditioning drills Tuesday and later died, officials said Wednesday. The Encinal High School student collapsed around 6 p.m. on the football field and was later pronounced dead at Highland Hospital, said Susan Davis, a spokeswoman for the Alameda Unified School District. The school will be providing counseling throughout the week for students and staff.
Oakland approves laws to regulate pot industry
The Oakland City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved laws to regulate the city’s medical cannabis industry, but promised to revisit provisions that have drawn sharp objections from industry leaders. At the center of the debate is an equity program that some council members see as reparations for the U.S. drug war, but that industry leaders say will cause the city’s pot trade to sputter. While the idea was to promote diversity and redress the racial injustices of the drug war, critics say the program may create obstacles for the people it seeks to help. Oakland’s pot ordinances were designed to bring the city in line with state laws that will regulate all aspects of the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry by 2018. Councilwoman Desley Brooks pushed for the equity program at the May 3 council meeting, tacking on a slew of last-minute amendments to ordinances that had taken the cannabis commission 18 months to write. While many speakers at Tuesday’s meeting applauded the council for making race and equity a point of discussion, they warned that the proposed amendments could create a permitting bottleneck: “If you’re serious about equity, show us you’re willing to share this big pie,” she said to the pot business owners who challenged her amendments.
Parkmerced plans to subsidize residents’ use of Uber, Muni, BART
Developers of the massive Parkmerced apartment complex, on the verge of a huge overhaul and expansion, want to wean residents from their cars by providing a financial incentive to get them to use Uber and public transportation instead. The move reflects an evolution in the city’s approach to large-scale development away from a focus on accommodating cars to strategies that encourage residents to rely on public transportation, ride services, bicycling and other ways of getting around. Maximus, a real estate developer that owns Parkmerced, and Uber, the smartphone-based ride-hailing service, say they will announce a plan Wednesday to give new residents of the complex near Lake Merced and San Francisco State University a $100-a-month credit to ride Uber or Bay Area public transit. “This is a first-of-its-kind partnership to bridge people to car-free living,” said Rob Rosania, Maximus founder and managing general partner of Parkmerced, one of the largest apartment developments in the West. “We believe that when city residents have the option of pushing a button and getting a ride, they are more likely to use public transit, own fewer cars and spend less on transportation overall,” said Andrew Salzberg, Uber’s head of mobility. The 20-year development plan at Parkmerced will add 5,700 rental housing units, along with retail and office construction, at the 152-acre complex. When the island is developed, drivers will be charged tolls to enter and exit the island, residents of the island’s market-rate housing will have to buy transit passes, and ferries will run between the island and the Ferry Building. Paul Rose, a spokesman for the Municipal Transportation Agency, said providing alternatives to private car ownership is a key part of the city’s Transit First commitment.
SF supervisor puts Navigation Centers vote on hold
SF supervisor puts Navigation Centers vote on hold Supervisor David Campos delayed a vote Tuesday on his controversial legislation to require the city to open at least six Navigation Centers over the next two years. Campos already amended the legislation to eliminate its most provocative feature — a provision requiring the city administrator to explore the feasibility of a supervised drug-injection site. The Navigation Center is an innovative homeless shelter in the Mission that allows people to bring in all of their belongings, companions and animals as they seek permanent housing. Campos had little sympathy for that argument, but he did appear receptive to a request by Jeff Kositsky, the head of the city’s new Department of Homelessness, to delay the legislation.
17 rescued after hot-air balloon lands on island near Napa
A hot-air balloon mistakenly landed on an island near Napa County Airport Tuesday morning, leaving 17 passengers stranded until the California Highway Patrol performed an aerial rescue. The events unfolded around 7 a.m. when a CHP airplane spotted the balloon on a thin strip of land at Devil’s Slough three miles south of the airport, surrounded by ponds and sloughs. The operator of the ballon thought he was landing on a road, until he learned through radio communication with CHP that they were stuck, said CHP officer Officer Tom Lipsey. Soon a CHP helicopter arrived and took the balloon riders off the island in groups of three at a time, flying them to the nearest residential street 1.5 miles away at Milton Road in Napa.
San Francisco police chief says he is the one to lead reforms
San Francisco Police Greg Suhr said Tuesday he has “no intention” of stepping down amid growing criticism of his five-year tenure, asserting that no one is in a better position than he is to oversee reforms to a city force under fire over recent shootings and racist behavior by some officers. Suhr’s critics, including the four most progressive members of the Board of Supervisors and a group of activists who waged a 17-day hunger strike to try to force his ouster, believe the city needs a new chief at a time when the U.S. Department of Justice division in charge of police-community relations is studying the San Francisco force and drawing up recommendations for changes. […] Suhr said he was committed to weathering the public outcry and was buoyed by supporters’ insistence that he stay. Suhr said he had worked hard for years to improve the department — including in the way it uses technology, treats the mentally ill and handles street protests — and had gotten rid of many problem officers. Suhr said his priorities include putting in place new use-of-force policies currently being debated before the Police Commission and equipping his officers with body-worn cameras that have become common in other cities. In a wide-ranging discussion, Suhr said he was, like many members of the public, shocked when he watched the video-recorded killing of Woods — though he maintained that he thought officers did their best in a tough situation. Officers are now trained to fire and then reassess, rather than fire in rapid succession until the threat is stopped, and in some cases to aim not for the center of a person’s chest but for the pelvic area, which may stop him without killing him. […] these shifts were under way last month when police officers in the Mission District killed a homeless man they say charged them with a knife. Video showed they fired at Luis Gongora within 30 seconds of exiting their patrol vehicles, and Suhr said afterward that the officers did not appear to try to de-escalate the encounter. The department, he said, is now working to implement a team-oriented response to dealing with people in a mental health crisis. Suhr made it clear there had been no mending of the relationship between him and District Attorney George Gascón, who assembled a blue-ribbon panel of judges to investigate bias in the police force following the emergence of an earlier set of racist and homophobic text messages exchanged among officers. The blue-ribbon panel’s full report hasn’t been released, but it found the Police Department has outdated policies, engages in “stop and frisk” tactics that have come under fire in other cities and does a poor job tracking officers’ conduct so it can root out problems.
Family says body of missing Millbrae man has been found
A Millbrae man who disappeared nearly three weeks ago has been found dead, according to family, who posted the news on Facebook Tuesday. The next day, his cell phone was found by a hiker at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff. Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
Voters warm to tax boost for roads, but measure may take a while
Drivers tired of dodging potholes and transportation officials weary of fighting for funding got a bit of promising news with a recent poll showing that Bay Area voters may be willing to raise their gas taxes by a nickel a gallon to fix roads. […] the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, responsible for regional transportation planning and finance, is in no hurry to put a nine-county gas tax measure on the November ballot for fear it might weaken other potential efforts to coax voters to help pay for a variety of transportation needs and other projects. “We’re extremely mindful that if we put another measure on the ballot, that could, for some voters, make a difference,” said Randy Rentschler, an MTC spokesman. […] half-cent sales tax measures to improve roads, highways and public transportation are being contemplated in San Francisco, Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties. While the need to invest in the Bay Area’s transportation system is obvious, as anyone who’s packed onto a BART or Muni train or sat at the Bay Bridge toll plaza can attest, Bay Area leaders are concerned that they could risk alienating voters with too many disjointed requests to help improve the region’s transportation mess. “There may be tax exhaustion before the time Bay Area voters get to the end of their ballots,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. State and federal gas taxes, the traditional way of funding transportation, haven’t been increased in two decades, and revenue is falling as gas consumption declines. Gridlock in Congress has cut transportation funding to a trickle, and a strange twist in the way California collects the gas tax that requires an adjustment to the tax rate when prices rise or fall has also prompted cuts in projected funding. “We’re not getting the help we used to out of Washington and Sacramento,” said Ross Chittenden, chief deputy executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, which is leading the effort for the Contra Costa tax measure. […] nobody is sure how voters might react to a long ballot that proposes a regional gas tax, a BART bond measure and a transportation sales tax. Carl Guardino, a member of the state Transportation Commission and chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, has worked to pass several transportation measures. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco supervisor and MTC member, said similar talks are going on among all the Bay Area counties and transportation agencies about how to keep, or get, the region moving — with the help of transportation taxes.
Latest trend in housing is built around farms
Feeding off the continuing interest in eating fresh, local food, developers are ditching golf courses and designing communities around farms, offering residents a taste of the pastoral life — and tasty produce, too. Master developer the New Home Co. was looking to build a neighborhood, not just homes, and market research showed that people wanted to connect to community. […] “it made lots of sense to take this 7.5-acre piece of property and turn it into an urban farm, have that be the focus point,” says Kevin Carson, New Home president. Residents can sign up for a weekly box of produce from the farm, and no matter what their level of participation they get to feel part of something, says Carson. […] it turned out many buyers weren’t into golf so much as the view, says Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. Since golf courses are big and expensive, developers moved to open spaces, then orchards and pastures, and now gardens and/or urban farms. The farm has produced tomatoes, sunflower and corn, which were harvested by volunteers and donated to a food bank. The plan at the Cannery is for New Home to deed the land to the city of Davis, which will then lease it to the Center for Land-Based Learning, which helps beginning farmers get their start. There are two farming businesses and three farmers at Cannery Farm who already have signed up customers for produce boxes and sold some food to area restaurants, says Mary Kimball, executive director of the center. […] even if their participation is limited to talking to farmers and visiting the farm stand, “that’s still going to be a lot more engagement at their local community level than they’ve probably ever had,” says Kimball.
Man shot multiple times in Berkeley’s San Pablo Park
Authorities are on the hunt for the man responsible for a late-morning shooting Tuesday at San Pablo Park in Berkeley that left a young man in the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds. The Berkeley Police Department received several reports of gunshots fired in the area at 11:08 a.m., said Officer Byron White, a Berkeley Police Department spokesman. Officers, upon arrival to the location, found a man believed to be in his early twenties with multiple gunshot wounds outside of the park’s bathrooms, White said. Witnesses in the area described the shooter as a light-skinned male, in his 20s, about 6-foot-tall, wearing a cream-colored shirt and baggy jeans, White said. Officers weren’t aware of any other details regarding the incident and said the investigation is ongoing.
Drought, dead trees add up to big fire danger for California
Stubborn drought conditions and an epidemic of dead and dying trees mean California is facing a potentially catastrophic fire season, federal officials said Tuesday as they promised to send extra money and personnel to the state. Similar circumstances contributed to record acreage lost to wildfires in the West last year, including three blazes that laid waste to Lake County, and top officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture said improved rain and snow totals during the winter did little to ease the threat. Four straight dry winters before this one wiped out sugar pine, cedars and oak throughout the Sierra and other mountains in California, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said during a briefing on the fire season in Washington, D.C. The latest report from the National Interagency Fire Center, a collective of firefighting agencies, shows high fire potential for Southern California, the southern and central Sierra and the foothills of the Sacramento Valley through the forecasting period of July and August. […] the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, which manages the state’s firefighting crews, has ramped up staffing earlier in the season for the second year in a row. The result is browning leaves and dying limbs, which weaken a tree and make it more susceptible to bark beetle infestation. At least two to three years of average rainfall are needed to bring tree moisture levels back to normal, scientists estimate. La Niña, which is the opposite climate pattern of El Niño and represents a cooling of the Pacific tropics, is sometimes associated with dry weather in California — though that trend is far from clear. “What we saw this spring is that snowpack has come down faster than we’ve seen,” he said, noting that above-normal temperatures are quickly drying up the vegetation and that Southern California wildlands never saw much dampening in the first place. Federal officials say wildfire danger nationwide has increased with climate change.
Judge upholds SF’s pioneering law on sugary beverage ads
San Francisco’s first-in-the-nation law requiring display ads for sugary drinks to carry warnings of increased risks of obesity, diabetes and tooth decay can take effect in July as scheduled, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in rejecting a challenge by the beverage industry. “The warning required by the city ordinance is factual and accurate,” and is a “legitimate action to protect public health and safety,” said U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who turned aside industry arguments that the advertising message is misleading and violates free speech. Chen said the city also provided evidence that African Americans, Latinos and low-income people were “particularly affected by added sugars in their diets” and also had high rates of obesity and related chronic diseases. Like tobacco companies, which continue to make profits despite having to place government-mandated warnings on their packages, beverage companies will still reap financial benefits from advertising, he said. Tuesday’s ruling is one of the first legal setbacks for the beverage industry, which has sued successfully over restrictions on beverage sizes and sales, said Dr. John Maa, a board member of the American Heart Association of the Greater Bay Area and a supporter of the ordinance. Supervisor Scott Wiener, who carried the ordinance, praised the ruling and said the warnings “will provide the clear information people need to make informed decisions about what they are choosing to drink.”
Man drowns while diving alone off Mendocino coast
A 57-year-old man drowned at Russian Gulch State Park after diving alone in a cove about 100 yards from shore, Mendocino Fire officials said Tuesday. A beachgoer who spoke to the man earlier in the day noticed he was floating face-down in the same spot for a prolonged amount of time about 11:30 a.m. on Saturday before going into the water to check on him, said Mendocino Fire Chief Ed O’Brien. Emergency personnel were called to the scene, but the diver was declared dead shortly after their arrival, O’Brien said. Mendocino Sheriff-Corners Office did not return calls requesting the man’s identity and further details. The incident came less than a week after an Oakland man went missing while diving for abalone off the Mendocino County coast.
Temperatures in East Bay to soar into the 90s
A ridge of high pressure is expected to deliver scorching temperatures and dry conditions through much of the Bay Area Tuesday, but the heat will be short lived as temperatures begin to taper off through evening and into the next two days. Temperatures in the East Bay are expected to soar into the low 90s Tuesday, reaching their peak between 2 and 4 p.m, said Steve Anderson, a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Monterey. Areas such as Concord, Livermore and Antioch are expected to get the most heat, with Livermore forecast to reach 92 degrees. Temperatures in the North Bay will also be in the upper 80s to low 90s, with Santa Rosa set to reach 93 degrees. Kevin Schultz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
Man stabbed on SF Muni bus in early morning confrontation
The stabbing occurred during a confrontation on board a Muni 14-Mission bus line near Mission and Ninth Streets around 1:30 a.m., said Sgt. Michael Andraychak, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department. The victim told police he saw a man on the bus harassing another passenger, said Officer Albie Esparza, a San Francisco Police Department spokesman. The victim tried to intervene when he saw the man attempt to assault the other passenger and that’s when the assailant stabbed him, according to the victim’s report. Authorities are asking anyone with information to call the San Francisco Police Department anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444 or to text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD”.
6 UC campuses named among best public universities by Niche.com
The University of California, Berkeley has been named one of the top 10 universities on the Niche.com ranking list of Top Public Universities.
Striking damage photos reveal how 6.4 earthquake became California’s 2nd deadliest
On a recent trip to the flea market, one of the vendors approached me to ask if I’d be interested in a photo album with pictures of the 1933 Los Angeles Area earthquake. I may have seen some images from this quake over the years. But, I never knew anything about it. The album appears to have been put together by an engineer. It’s pretty crudely assembled. The captions, which I’ve included in the slideshow, give a little technical background about what happened to the structures shown. While I usually purchase San Francisco historical memorabilia, I was intrigued by the album.
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