Category Archives: San Francisco

Paul Pelosi attack suspect charged with attempted kidnapping and assault

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Suspect who faces state and federal charges told police he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and ‘break her kneecaps’

The man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi, the husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told police he wanted to hold the congresswoman hostage and “break her kneecaps”, authorities in California said on Monday afternoon.

David DePape, 42, confronted a sleeping Paul Pelosi in the couple’s San Francisco townhouse bedroom shortly before 2.30am last Friday morning, according to a federal affidavit filed in court on Monday.

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Nancy Pelosi: family ‘heartbroken and traumatized’ by brutal attack on her husband

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Speaker’s husband underwent surgery after hammer assault that comes amid rising warnings of political violence in the US

House speaker Nancy Pelosi said her family is “heartbroken and traumatized” after a brutal and bloody hammer assault on her husband that has shocked the US as it stands on the brink of tense and crucial midterm elections.

An intruder smashed his way through a rear door into the Pelosi’s house in San Francisco on Friday. The man confronted Paul Pelosi and shouted, “Where is Nancy.”

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Biden says it appears attack on Paul Pelosi intended for House Speaker

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Speaker’s husband underwent surgery for skull fracture as political figures unite in condemnation of violence

A man accused of clubbing the husband of the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, over the head with a hammer and threatening his life while demanding “Where is Nancy?” now faces charges of attempted murder and other felonies a day after the violent break-in at the couple’s San Francisco home.

Paul Pelosi, 82, underwent surgery for a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands, though doctors expect a full recovery. The 82-year-old House speaker herself was in Washington with her protective detail at the time of the assault, but she flew back to San Francisco on Friday afternoon and went to the hospital.

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‘Bone-appetite’: San Francisco’s latest trendy restaurant caters to canines

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Dogue, run by a trained chef, has garnered outrage for the high cost of pampering pups but pet parents have been supportive

San Francisco is a foodie heaven with plenty of Michelin-starred restaurants. And San Franciscans love dogs. So it might come as no surprise that an entrepreneur has decided to combine the two passions, creating what’s believed to be the first restaurant exclusively for man’s best friend.

Dogue, which rhymes with “vogue”, opened last month in the city’s trendy Mission District.

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Elon Musk makes splashy visit to Twitter headquarters carrying sink

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Tesla CEO changes his profile to ‘Chief Twit’ as Friday deadline to finalize his takeover deal nears

Elon Musk paid a visit to Twitter’s headquarters ahead of an end-of-week deadline to close his deal to buy the company, posting a video of himself in the company’s San Francisco lobby carrying a sink.

“Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!” he tweeted on Wednesday.

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Uber’s ex-security chief faces landmark trial over data breach that hit 57m users

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Joe Sullivan’s trial is believed to be the first case of an executive facing criminal charges over such a breach

Uber’s former security officer, Joe Sullivan, is standing trial this week in what is believed to be the first case of an executive facing criminal charges in relation to a data breach.

The US district court in San Francisco will start hearing arguments on whether Sullivan, the former head of security at the ride share giant, failed to properly disclose a 2016 data breach affecting 57 million Uber riders and drivers around the world.

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Thousands of dead fish wash up in Oakland lake to create a putrid mess

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Experts, concerned about the algae bloom that is turning the water to brown muck, say the die-off is ‘like losing giant redwoods’

Thousands of fish carcasses have been floating up to the edges of the San Francisco Bay, and the scummy top of Oakland’s Lake Merritt – stewing under the sun and wafting a putrid stench into nearby neighborhoods.

The dead bat rays, striped bass, sturgeon, anchovies and clams, are likely mass victims of an algal bloom that scientists are racing to understand. In the meantime citizen scientists, local photographers, joggers and naturalists have been capturing dramatic photos of the die off.

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Monkeypox cases appear to be declining in some large US cities

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Experts say the trend in New York, Chicago and San Francisco appears to be linked to immunity and behavior changes

Monkeypox cases in some large US cities appear to be declining, matching trends seen in Europe, and experts are cautiously optimistic the outbreak may have peaked in places hit hardest by the virus.

The optimism comes just as US officials on Friday said there’s enough of a supply of monkeypox vaccine available now – though the shots aren’t getting to some of the people who need the protection the most.

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High-stakes California races will decide LA mayor and San Francisco recall

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Analysts watch to see if voters in America’s more liberal cities will address police reform, homelessness and mass incarceration

High-stakes primary races taking place on Tuesday in California are expected to have major consequences for police reform, incarceration and the state’s growing homelessness crisis.

The most closely watched race is the mayor’s contest in Los Angeles, where voters are deciding between a tough-on-crime real estate developer, Rick Caruso, who has already poured nearly $40m of his own fortune into his primary campaign, and the former community organizer and Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass.

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Train to nowhere: can California’s high-speed rail project ever get back on track?

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Despite 14 years of work and about $5bn spent, the 2008 promise of quick transport between Los Angeles and San Francisco has not materialized

In the depths of the 2008 recession, Californians were sold on a beautiful dream: a bullet train that would whisk them between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours.

The project was to be the start of a new era of high-speed rail that would eventually stretch the full length of the west coast, from San Diego to Vancouver, across the desert to Las Vegas, and, eventually, all across the continental United States.

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San Francisco archbishop bars Pelosi from communion over abortion stance

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Ultra conservative Salvatore Cordileone accuses pro-choice House speaker of failing to ‘understand the grave evil she is perpetrating’

The Roman Catholic archbishop in Nancy Pelosi’s home town of San Francisco has banned her from receiving communion there over her staunch support of abortion rights, which she has strengthened as supreme court justices weigh finalizing a draft ruling outlawing the termination of pregnancies in more than half the county.

In a letter addressed to the US House speaker and posted on his Twitter account, ultra conservative Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone argued that Pelosi’s “position on abortion has become only more extreme over the years, especially in the last few months,” and he had decided to block her from communion after she had ignored his requests to explain her stance to him.

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Hundreds wait in jail for trials as San Francisco backlog balloons

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Nearly a quarter of those awaiting trial are held beyond deadlines amid pandemic, at cost to their wellbeing

More than two years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly a quarter of those incarcerated in San Francisco county jail are being held past their original trial deadlines, with some individuals waiting for years for their cases to be heard.

In June 2020, in the early months of the pandemic, 68 people were incarcerated in the county past their original trial deadlines, according to data from the public defender. By January 2022, the latest data available, that number had grown to nearly 250. Hundreds more are awaiting trial out of custody.

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San Francisco police stop self-driving car – and find nobody inside, video shows

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Clip prompts amusement online as car stops, then drives across an intersection, leaving police behind

A video recently posted online shows what happens when police try to apprehend an autonomous vehicle – only to find nobody inside.

Police in San Francisco stopped a vehicle operated by Cruise, an autonomous car company backed by General Motors, in a video posted on 1 April. Officers approached the car, which had been driving without headlights, only to find it was empty.

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Betty Reid Soskin, America’s oldest active ranger, retires at the age of 100

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She began working with the National Park Service at 84 to reveal ‘untold stories’ of Black people’s efforts during the second world war

Betty Reid Soskin, the National Park Service’s oldest active ranger, has retired at the age of 100.

Soskin, who worked at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front national historical park in Richmond, California, spent her last day as she had for the last decade and a half: sharing her experiences and those of other women who worked on the home front in the second world war.

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‘Japan’s most famous yachtsman’: 83-year-old attempts solo Pacific crossing

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Kenichi Horie became the first person to make a non-stop solo crossing of the Pacific in 1962 and has made multiple crossings

An 83-year old man is set to sail from San Francisco on Saturday and voyage alone across the Pacific Ocean to his home country, Japan.

Kenichi Horie, also known as “Japan’s most famous yachtsman”, became the first person to make a non-stop solo crossing of the Pacific in 1962. On that trip, he was still a 23-year old amateur seaman. Horie set off from Osaka and sailed across the ocean for 94 days, surviving on canned food and rice before arriving in San Francisco.

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‘It’s not worth it’: rising gas prices force drivers to work for less than minimum wage

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Drivers already hit by low wages and poor working conditions are spending more time driving to keep their wages the same

By Tuesday afternoon, Lyft driver Elida Zabaleta had earned $100 in the five hours she spent ferrying passengers across the city of San Jose. With gas prices in California surging, she’d have to use more than half of that to cover fuel for the day, leaving her with just $45.

The rising cost of gas has made a difficult job all the more difficult, Zabaleta said, forcing her to spend more time behind the wheel to earn enough to afford living in one of the country’s most expensive cities.

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An inch apart: new troubles for San Francisco’s Millennium Tower

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Engineer overseeing the luxury tower’s retrofit discovered the space between it and a smaller building had widened by an inch

San Francisco’s troubled Millennium Tower, which has continued to sink despite multimillion dollar efforts to correct it, has developed yet another problem.

The luxury tower, popular among star athletes and retired Google employees before the tilting issues were widely publicized, has sunk 18in since its construction was completed in 2009 and has a 26in tilt at the top. Now, the engineer overseeing the retrofit of the tower has said the movement caused the formation of a one-inch gap between the building and a smaller 12-story adjacent structure.

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Police reportedly link woman to crime using DNA taken from her rape kit

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San Francisco district attorney says it was possibly a rights violation and could deter sexual assault victims from speaking out

San Francisco police used DNA collected as part of a rape exam to link a woman to a crime, possibly violating her constitutional rights, the city’s district attorney alleged on Monday.

The department’s crime lab entered the DNA profiles of potentially thousands of sexual assault victims over “many years” to a database that is used to identify suspects, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. District attorney Chesa Boudin, who said his office first learned of the practice last week, told the newspaper such use of victims’ DNA could violate the California’s Victims’ Bill of Rights as well as constitutional laws related to unreasonable searches and seizures.

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The 90-year-old Australian fish who likes belly rubs is likely oldest aquarium fish – video

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A primitive Australian fish living in a San Francisco museum is believed to be the oldest living aquarium fish in the world. Methuselah is a four-foot-long (1.2-meter) Australian lungfish, weighing around 40lb (18.1kg). The species has both lungs and gills and is believed to be the evolutionary link between fish and amphibians. The lungfish was brought to the San Francisco museum in 1938 from Australia and now lives at the California Academy of Sciences. The species is threatened and can no longer be exported from Australian waters so biologists at the academy say it's unlikely they'll get a replacement once Methuselah passes away

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Methuselah: oldest aquarium fish lives in San Francisco and likes belly rubs

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Biologists believe the Australian lungfish, a primitive species with lungs and gills, is about 90 years old with no known living peers

Meet Methuselah, the fish that likes to eat fresh figs, get belly rubs and is believed to be the oldest living aquarium fish in the world.

In the Bible, Methuselah was Noah’s grandfather and was said to have lived to be 969 years old. Methuselah the fish is not quite that ancient, but biologists at the California Academy of Sciences believe it is about 90 years old, with no known living peers.

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