Senate Bill 863 is a double dose of sneakiness — combining, in just 17 words, two separate efforts to block Californians from knowing what their elected officials are doing. First of all, it continues the unseemly practice of misusing “budget trailer bills” for purposes that are … | Continue reading
A few years ago, John Maeda, designer, technologist and author, gave away all his books. "I'm fascinated by all the things that aren't in books," he said. "One thing I've learned about my knowledge of design is that it's been heavily skewed towards men." … | Continue reading
As if by magic, the scooters are gone. The hundreds of for-rent stand-up electric scooters that appeared on San Francisco streets almost overnight in late March, drawing both fans and haters, have disappeared just as quickly - but could return within weeks. … | Continue reading
California's electric utility companies will spend nearly $768 million on charging infrastructure for electric cars, trucks and buses, under a series of proposals approved Thursday by state regulators. The programs, viewed together, are believed t … | Continue reading
Protesters in the Mission District blocked tech buses for nearly an hour Thursday morning in San Francisco, tossing scooters into the street to waylay the commuters. The activists, blocking buses at the intersection of 24th and Valencia streets, set off smoke bombs … | Continue reading
Are Uber and Lyft stiffing their drivers on wages? San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is subpoening the ride-hailing companies for records of driver pay and benefits, as well as their classification as independent contractors, rather than employees. The mov … | Continue reading
At his company's recent F8 conference in San Jose, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a message for developers: Keep building. On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai will take the stage at the search giant's I/O event, where he'll probably make similar exhortations. … | Continue reading
Usually, the first weekend of April is when abalone divers pack up their wetsuits and fins and head off to campsites along the Sonoma and Mendocino coast. However, this year's recreational abalone season is closed due to a population on the brink of collapse, so the diving commun … | Continue reading
Cupertino is exploring a tax on Apple and other companies based on the size of their workforce. The tax would probably be structured similar to a proposal in Mountain View, said David Brandt, Cupertino's city manager. Cupertino has paid a firm to begin polling res … | Continue reading
Electronic artist Jim Campbell sat in Blooms Saloon on Potrero Hill, looking out the window and across town at Salesforce Tower. As day turned to dusk, he pressed a button on his laptop and the top 130 feet of the tower came ablaze in yellow LED light. Then the dark figure of a b … | Continue reading
Love 'em or hate 'em, those electric scooters zipping around downtown are the future. Pedestrians and motorists may scream. City officials may confiscate them by the dozens. But the fact is that young people, especially younger women, are more comfortable on the s … | Continue reading
Facebook is expected to sign a lease at the 43-story Park Tower at 250 Howard St., greatly expanding its San Francisco real estate, according to a person familiar with the deal. The company will take up 750,000 square feet - the tower's entire office space, accord … | Continue reading
The opening of Muni's Central Subway from Caltrain to Chinatown is already a year behind schedule, but it could be pushed into 2020 after the discovery that a contractor installed 3.2 miles of the wrong grade of rail. In an April 19 letter, the Municipal Transporta … | Continue reading
A wall of cubbies filled with shoes greets visitors to Gusto's new headquarters at San Francisco's Pier 70. As the 275 workers pad around their ginormous space, they sport socks, slippers or bare feet; visitors are offered disposable paper slippers. "We want our o … | Continue reading
San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell is expected to issue an executive order Tuesday aimed at organizing and accelerating the city's ability to respond to an economic recession. "Our task is clear: prepare now, while times are relatively good, so that we can be resili … | Continue reading
On Thursday supervisor and San Francisco mayoral candidate Jane Kim made public a series of written questions posed to her by a Chronicle reporter after several attempts to reach the candidate by phone had failed. After they were answered, the reporter and her editor concluded th … | Continue reading
Hoping to gain control over the surging motorized rental scooter industry that landed in the city a few weeks ago, San Francisco officials adopted a plan Tuesday to limit the number of standup two-wheelers that companies would be permitted to drop on the streets. … | Continue reading
In the midst of a housing crisis, California lost 13,200 homes last year - many destroyed in wildfires - but came out ahead with the net addition of 85,000 housing units, according to a demographics report released by the state Tuesday. The state also saw a net add … | Continue reading
#TotalMuni2018 is an attempt by Chronicle reporters Peter Hartlaub and Heather Knight to ride every Muni line in one day, replicating a 1980 stunt by San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer and his friend Andy Coblentz. (Read more about how it came to here and listen to the podcasts. … | Continue reading
Companies that want to classify their workers as contractors and avoid paying them wages and benefits that state law requires for employees must prove the workers are running their own businesses, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case that could help thousands of dr … | Continue reading
On an undisclosed Bay Area freeway over the past couple of weeks, a camera system has been counting the people inside every vehicle in the carpool lane in an experiment to detect cheaters. No tickets or warnings are being issued, but that could change if Bay Area t … | Continue reading