Category Archives: San Francisco

GM’s Cruise admits submitting false report to robotaxi safety investigation

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General Motors unit to pay $500,000 fine after failing to disclose key details of 2023 San Francisco crash to NHTSA

General Motors’ self-driving car unit, Cruise, admitted on Thursday to submitting a false report to influence a federal investigation and will pay a $500,000 criminal fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, the justice department said.

The department said Cruise failed to disclose key details of an October 2023 crash to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in which one of its robotaxis in San Francisco struck a pedestrian after she was hit by another vehicle and dragged her 20ft (6.1 meters).

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Backlash as San Francisco votes to transform stretch of highway into park

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Opponents say closing Great Highway to cars will increase traffic as supporters argue it will mitigate coastal erosion

Californians have voted to close part of a nearly century-old highway in San Francisco to cars, transforming a two-mile section into a park for pedestrians and cyclists.

On election day, city residents voted to approve Proposition K, extending the ban on vehicles on a portion of the Upper Great Highway along the coastline. The measure has sparked intense debate over whether cars should have regular access to the area.

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Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie elected mayor of San Francisco

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Wealthy Democratic outsider unseats incumbent mayor London Breed in expensive race

After years of negative headlines and post-pandemic economic struggle, San Francisco has picked a wealthy Democratic outsider with no government experience to serve as the city’s new mayor.

Daniel Lurie, 47, is one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss jeans company fortune, and previously spent 15 years as the executive of a San Francisco non-profit he founded. He defeated several Democratic challengers, including the current mayor, London Breed, in an election that was expected to break local campaign spending records.

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US students score win in push for fossil fuel divestment by private high schools

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Concerned students press for their high schools – some with $1bn endowments – to reinvest in clean energy

A high school in California has decided not to invest in coal, oil or gas, instead pledging to put money into clean energy. It’s the latest win in a new fossil fuel divestment campus campaign launched by high schoolers across 11 countries that is gaining support in the US.

The Nueva School, an elite private school outside San Francisco, pledged in spring 2024 to invest a portion of its $55m endowment in renewable power. The commitment followed months of pressure from students.

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San Francisco 49er player Ricky Pearsall released from hospital after shooting

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Suspected shooter, a 17-year-old boy, arrested after football player shot in chest during attempted robbery, police say

San Francisco 49er football player Ricky Pearsall was released from the hospital after being shot in the chest during an attempted robbery this weekend.

The suspected shooter, a 17-year-old boy, was arrested and will be charged in juvenile court, according to NBC Sports. He has not been publicly identified.

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US pilot who took magic mushrooms and tried to cut engines says behavior ‘unfathomable’

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Joseph Emerson charged with 83 counts of reckless endangerment over incident on flight to San Francisco

An Alaska Airlines pilot who attempted to shut off the engines of a passenger plane mid-flight after ingesting magic mushrooms said his actions were “unfathomable”, in some of his first public remarks after he was indicted on 83 counts of reckless endangerment.

In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Joseph Emerson described the events of 22 October as “30 seconds of my life that I wish I could change, and I can’t”.

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‘She makes us proud’: Harris raises over $12m in California as Pelosi welcomes her home

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Vice-president returns to San Francisco for event attended by ex-House speaker Pelosi and governor Gavin Newsom

Kamala Harris returned home to the San Francisco Bay area for a Sunday fundraiser that drew top California Democrats and captured more than $12m for the conclusion of a swing state tour by the vice-president and her running mate, Tim Walz.

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and California governor Gavin Newsom attended the event in San Francisco at the Fairmont Hotel, where nearly 700 people had purchased tickets that cost at least $3,300 and as much as $500,000.

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X to shut down flagship San Francisco office – report

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CEO Linda Yaccarino reportedly said Bay Area employees would be relocated to Silicon Valley in an internal email

X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, will shut down its flagship San Francisco office “over the next few weeks”, the New York Times reported. The internal announcement comes after owner Elon Musk stated last month he would be moving the headquarters out of California.

In an email to employees obtained by the Times, chief executive Linda Yaccarino said Bay Area employees will be relocated to Silicon Valley, distributed between an existing office in San Jose and a new office to be built in Palo Alto.

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Italian court upholds murder convictions of two Americans over death of police officer

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Court of appeal reduces sentences of Finnegan Lee Elder, 24, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 23 over killing of Mario Cerciello Rega

An Italian court of appeal has upheld the murder convictions of two American men over the death of an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation but reduced their sentences. The new trial was ordered after Italy’s highest court threw out their original convictions.

The court convicted Finnegan Lee Elder and sentenced him to 15 years and two months in prison and gave a sentence of 11 years to Gabriele Natale-Hjorth.

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San Francisco police arrest pro-Palestinian protesters occupying Israeli consulate building

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Authorities confirmed 70 people were taken in to custody, cited for trespassing and released after they ‘refused to vacate’ the premises

Police on Monday arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators who occupied the lobby of a San Francisco building that houses the Israeli Consulate.

Associated Press journalists saw police zip-tie the hands of about 50 people. Officers then put them in police vans and drove them away. San Francisco police later confirmed that 70 protesters were arrested and cited for trespassing after they “refused to vacate the building”. They have since been released from San Francisco county jail.

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California firefighters battle wind-driven wildfire near San Francisco

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Two fire workers injured after Corral Fire, which began Saturday afternoon, spread overnight east of San Francisco

California firefighters aided by aircraft battled a wind-driven wildfire that began Saturday and continued burning early Sunday morning in an area straddling the San Francisco Bay Area and central California, authorities said.

The Corral Fire began Saturday afternoon near the city of Tracy, 60 miles (96km ) east of San Francisco, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the city of Livermore, according to the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire.

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David DePape apologizes for attacking Paul Pelosi and gets 30-year sentence – again

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DePape, who didn’t get to speak in court in original trial on assault of Nancy’s Pelosi’s husband, gets no change to original sentence

The man who was convicted of assaulting then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022 was re-sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday, with no change in the original sentence after the case was reopened so he could speak during his sentencing hearing, local news reported.

David DePape was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison on 17 May for forcibly entering Pelosi’s home in San Francisco early on 28 October 2022 and clubbing her husband, Paul, in the head with a hammer in a politically motivated attack.

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Tech titan Mike Lynch testifies at fraud trial that Autonomy was ‘not perfect’

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UK founder, accused of inflating sales and misleading regulators, takes stand and says he wasn’t fully responsible for firm’s decisions

The British entrepreneur Mike Lynch took the stand on Thursday in a San Francisco federal courthouse as a key witness in his own criminal fraud trial, defending his role at Autonomy, the tech firm he co-founded and then sold.

The trial continued as planned Thursday despite the defense team moving for a mistrial over alleged improper questioning of a witness by the prosecution. Lynch’s defense team called the questioning, which indirectly referenced the tech titan’s extradition, “egregious” and ‘’highly improper” in a filing.

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Tech tycoon Mike Lynch, accused of ‘massive’ fraud, set to testify at US trial

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Lawyers for founder of software firm Autonomy, charged over $11bn Hewlett-Packard deal, suggest they may move for mistrial

The British entrepreneur Mike Lynch is expected to take the stand in a San Francisco federal courthouse on Thursday as a key witness in his own criminal fraud trial, which began in March.

US authorities have charged the former software tycoon with 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy relating to his company’s acquisition deal with Hewlett-Packard in 2011. If convicted, Lynch faces up to 25 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.

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David DePape, who bludgeoned Nancy Pelosi’s husband, sentenced to 30 years

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DePape, a rightwing conspiracy theorist, broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home in 2022 and hit Paul Pelosi with a hammer

David DePape, a rightwing conspiracy theorist who broke into Nancy Pelosi’s northern California home in 2022 and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

A federal jury convicted him of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official in November 2023, just over a year after the attack in the former House speaker’s San Francisco home.

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Relief as San Francisco public toilet finally opens – and not for $1.7m after all

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Bathroom in Noe Valley neighborhood, which became focus of ire for reported $1.7m cost, actually came in at about $200,000

San Francisco made international headlines in 2022 when news broke that a project to build a public restroom in a town square would cost $1.7m. This weekend the toilet affair finally came to an end as the city celebrated its newest lavatory.

Residents gathered for a toilet-themed party in the Noe Valley town square on Sunday that was designed to poke fun at the whole saga and celebrate the long-awaited bathroom, which ended up costing far less than the initial price tag.

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Prosecutors say Mike Lynch firm ‘paid customers to buy software’ as part of revenue fraud

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New Jersey executive testified that the UK company Autonomy made millions of dollars’ worth of deals offering to fund purchases

The British technology firm Autonomy struck millions of dollars’ worth of “handshake deals” through which it paid customers to buy its software, the jury in the fraud trial of its co-founder Mike Lynch has heard.

Lynch, who co-founded and led Autonomy, has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy. He stands accused of orchestrating a huge fraud before Hewlett-Packard’s blockbuster takeover of the company in 2011.

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Criminal fraud trial of UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch to begin

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Co-founder of Autonomy charged with 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy in 2011 sale of company to HP

A British technology tycoon once lauded as “Britain’s Bill Gates” was the “driving force” behind a “massive” years-long fraud, prosecutors alleged, as his criminal trial got under way in San Francisco on Monday.

Prosecutors said Mike Lynch, co-founder of the UK software company Autonomy, ruled the firm “with an iron fist” before its blockbuster takeover by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

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Aircraft crashes on San Francisco Bay Area city street, killing pilot

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No one else on board single-engine plane that crashed at busy junction along golf course by Buchanan Field airport in Concord

The pilot of a single-engine plane was killed on Tuesday when the aircraft crashed on a city street near a small San Francisco Bay Area airport, authorities said.

The crash was reported at about 11am at a busy intersection along a golf course adjacent to Buchanan Field airport in Concord, officials said.

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Light aircraft that crashed into ocean off California could be built from kit

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Body of San Francisco woman, 27, recovered near site of crash involving single-engine plane believed to be carrying four people

A plane that crashed into ocean south of San Francisco on Sunday was a light aircraft that can be built from a kit, authorities have said.

Officials also said on Tuesday that they had identified a body that was found in the water near where the Cozy Mark IV plane crashed as a 27-year-old San Francisco resident.

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