SACRAMENTO — The state Department of Motor Vehicles admitted Monday that it may have incorrectly registered 1,500 people to vote, including some who were not citizens of the United States. It was the latest embarrassment for the DMV, which said last month that it had included err … | Continue reading
“There’s one,” the police sergeant said as we drove through the Tenderloin. “There’s one of them there. That guy, see him?” And another. And another. Sgt. Kevin Healy was showing me known drug dealers, and they were everywhere — swarming the neighborhood, chatting and smiling. Th … | Continue reading
It’s been threatened for nearly two years — now, it’s official. Sort of. The mayor of Osaka, Japan, sent a letter to Mayor London Breed this week saying his longtime threat of ending the sister city relationship between Osaka and San Francisco is now reality. The relationship, he … | Continue reading
Barreling through California's Central Valley, his big rig's 48-foot refrigerated trailer loaded with lettuce, peppers and tomatoes, Brett Goodroad acknowledged that he's probably among the last generation of long-distance truckers. At 38, he has been driving truc … | Continue reading
San Francisco’s new Transbay Transit Center will remain closed at least through the end of next week, transportation officials said Wednesday, after a second cracked steel beam was discovered during an overnight safety inspection. The $2.2 billion hub for buses and eventually tra … | Continue reading
A scientific mission into the secret ocean lair of California’s great white sharks has provided tantalizing clues into a vexing mystery — why the fearsome predators spend winter and spring in what has long appeared to be an empty void in the deep sea. A boatload of researchers fr … | Continue reading
The Chronicle has launched a new weekly Travel newsletter! Sign up here. In Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt counties, 300 miles of old, decommissioned railroad tracks wend through river canyons and redwood forests in some of Northern California’s most gorgeous and pristine backcou … | Continue reading
The 5-Fulton bus had just pulled into the temporary Transbay Terminal on Dec. 11 for a three-minute stop. It wasn’t operator Michelle Moore’s usual drive; she had picked up some extra hours by driving the line that day. A man walked through the front doors of her coach, reached a … | Continue reading
BERLIN (AP) — Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya sets new world record, winning Berlin marathon in 2 hours, 1 minute, 40 seconds. | Continue reading
If Salesforce seems to be everywhere, you're not imagining things. The software company is now San Francisco's largest private employer.But its ebullient chief, Marc Benioff, sees a ceiling to the growth that led his company to overtake Wells Fargo, San Francisco's last big bank. … | Continue reading
As the self-driving car navigated the narrow, winding streets leading to San Francisco’s Coit Tower, Jesse Levinson narrated from the back seat like a proud parent. “Isn’t that cool, how we slowed down for that person and then nudged around him?” said the chief technology officer … | Continue reading
One group wants more child care and recreation. Another is looking for more measures to fight gentrification. A third wants shorter buildings and less density. A fourth is pushing for taller buildings and more density. All four groups will be before the San Francisco Board of Sup … | Continue reading
Americans check their smartphones an average of once every 12 minutes. For many, the never-ending stream of texts, notifications and breaking news creates a compulsion to look at their devices often. Although people feel frazzled and fatigued, cutting ties with mobile phones can … | Continue reading
Electric scooters will roll again in San Francisco within six weeks, starting the next chapter of a transportation revolution that became a brief sensation this spring. The city has selected two San Francisco startups, Scoot Global and Skip, to offer dockless rentals of a total o … | Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump's complaints about tech companies (all times local): 3:15 p.m. President Donald Trump says Google and other tech companies are "treading on very, very troubled territory." Trump's warning came as he was meeting in the Oval Of … | Continue reading
California's strangest vineyard is in the tiny Yuba County town of Oregon House, 70 miles northeast of Sacramento, at an elevation of 2,250 feet in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. It is called Renaissance. The view from Slope 19, the vineyard's highest point … | Continue reading
SACRAMENTO — Verizon executives came to the Capitol on Friday to get a tongue lashing over the cell phone giant’s throttling of data service for firefighters battling the massive Mendocino Complex fire — but en route they nipped the scolding in the bud by abruptly lifting all dat … | Continue reading
Verizon reported Friday it would lift Internet data-speed caps for emergency first responders facing disaster situations, hours before the company was due to face a grilling in Sacramento for “throttling” service last month to firefighters battling the Mendocino Complex blaze. In … | Continue reading
Mayor London Breed, who won her election largely on a promise to clean up the city, is stepping up efforts to scrub San Francisco’s streets, including playing a bit of cat and mouse with her own city department heads. Breed has taken to making unannounced walks through hard-hit n … | Continue reading
LA GRANGE, Stanislaus County — The cold, rushing water of the Tuolumne River, piped from the high peaks of Yosemite to the taps of Bay Area residents, is not only among the nation’s most pristine municipal water sources but extraordinarily plentiful. This point of pride for San F … | Continue reading
It happens over and over, he says. Uber emails him about a ticket he received from SFO for a violation, such as not displaying the Uber logo. The $100 fine, a big chunk of his daily earnings, is subtracted from his wages with no way to appeal. That’s the situation reported by Mus … | Continue reading
The pending departure of North Face, a landmark outdoor apparel company founded in San Francisco in 1966, highlights the challenges for nontech businesses in a region with the country’s highest housing costs. The expense of the Bay Area was “a factor” in the decision, announced l … | Continue reading
Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento are moving quickly on legislation to overturn a court ruling that would require the state to use $331 million to aid homeowners hit with foreclosures, money from a nationwide settlement with banks accused of abusive foreclosure practices. A stat … | Continue reading
In a city where filthy sidewalks are many residents’ No. 1 complaint, City Hall has come up with a new way to deal with No. 2. It sounds like silly elementary school banter, but it’s real. San Francisco is about to launch the Poop Patrol. In about a month, a team of five Public W … | Continue reading
For-profit companies don’t typically downplay the value of their assets. But when it comes to paying property taxes, some of Silicon Valley’s largest companies are going head to head with officials to try to prove that some of the equipment and machinery they used to become globa … | Continue reading
For the past decade, the transit center that will replace San Francisco's Transbay Terminal has been the subject of grand plans and political controversies, struggles to stay on schedule and squabbles over costs. Next weekend, all that changes. On Au … | Continue reading
California prides itself on technological innovation. But as brutal fires scorch the state, its arsenal remains traditional: axes and fire trucks on the ground, and planes and helicopters dropping water and foam. “Our basic foundation is the tried and true,” said Scott McLean, a … | Continue reading
CARACAS, Venezuela — Drones armed with explosives detonated near President Nicolas Maduro in an apparent assassination attempt that took place while he was delivering a speech to hundreds of soldiers being broadcast live on television, officials said. Caught by surprise mid-speec … | Continue reading
More people are likely to take their own lives as the planet warms, say researchers at Stanford University and UC Berkeley in a study published Monday that suggests yet another worrisome impact of climate change. The multidisciplinary research team looked at nearly 1 million suic … | Continue reading
Uber paid $1.07 billion to ride-hailing and UberEats drivers in the Bay Area last year, the company said Thursday. Throughout California, Uber drivers and delivery people made $2.97 billion, and Nationwide the figure was $12.9 billion, Uber said. The San Francisco company reveale … | Continue reading
Eric Dorsey, a 62-year-old engineer in Palo Alto, was watching TV Tuesday night when he started getting texts that Stephen Hawking had died. He turned on the news and saw clips of the famed physicist speaking in his iconic android voice - the voice that Dorsey had spent so much t … | Continue reading
It’s lunchtime in San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood, and only a few people are trickling in and out of the local food joints. A bar and restaurant on Ninth Street has rows of empty tables, while only about six people sit inside the Perennial, where a renowned San Francisco … | Continue reading
SACRAMENTO — A state Department of Motor Vehicles worker slept at least three hours a day on the job for nearly four years, slowing down processing times in an agency known for its long waits, a state audit said Tuesday. According to the state auditor’s report, the DMV worker nap … | Continue reading
Soon to be heard in San Francisco: the last slurp through a plastic straw. That’s because the city’s about to make them illegal. The Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance Tuesday that will prohibit the city’s restaurants, bars and retailers from providing customers with plasti … | Continue reading
When Facebook moves into its new offices in Mountain View this fall, a signature Silicon Valley perk will be missing — there won’t be a corporate cafeteria with free food for about 2,000 employees. In an unusual move, the city barred companies from fully subsidizing meals inside … | Continue reading
The state Supreme Court decided Wednesday that California will remain intact geographically, at least for now, while it decides whether the voters can consider a proposal to divide the Golden State into three new states. The three-state initiative, Proposition 9, had gathered eno … | Continue reading
Some of San Francisco’s largest companies could collectively be facing an estimated $300 million annual tax increase, which is likely to spark a political fight amid concerns over higher costs for consumers and the effect on businesses. Homeless advocates, nonprofits and communit … | Continue reading
As the interminable lines at DMV offices grow longer and timely appointments become nearly impossible to schedule, an Oakland startup offering “expedited appointments” for $19.99 has seen its business boom. Department of Motor Vehicles investigators are looking into how the compa … | Continue reading
In a move that is alarming San Francisco’s biggest industry, a major medical association is pulling its annual convention out of the city — saying its members no longer feel safe. “It’s the first time that we have had an out-and-out cancellation over the issue, and this is a grou … | Continue reading
A federal judge Monday tossed out two groundbreaking lawsuits by San Francisco and Oakland that sought to hold some of the world’s largest oil companies liable for climate change. In an exhaustive, 16-page ruling that touched on such scientific matters as the ice age and early ob … | Continue reading
The developer of a project to replace the mostly vacant Vallco Mall in Cupertino, less than a mile from Apple’s spaceship campus, won a key approval from the city as it aims to start construction in September. The Vallco Town Center project, which includes a proposed 2,402 reside … | Continue reading
Six months after Bruno and Christie Chemel laid off the last cook at Baumé, when they were working harder than they ever had but were beginning to think this crazy plan might succeed, they decided they could do without their dishwasher, too. By that time, they’d fired the cleanin … | Continue reading
HYDERABAD, India - The sun glares down on an ancient temple where Pruthvi Yadav joins a swirling mass of devotees. The deity here, he's been told, is particularly powerful at granting U.S. visas. On this 98-degree morning at the Chilkur Balaji Temple, he's swept i … | Continue reading
In a dramatic, tense state Assembly committee hearing Wednesday that took some unusual turns, a California net neutrality bill that backers hailed as the “gold standard” for internet protections was “eviscerated,” its author said. Congressional leaders had joined the fight over t … | Continue reading