SFGATE

A nearly 15-hour hostage standoff inside a downtown Bakersfield bank building ended early Wednesday when FBI personnel shot and killed the man who had barricaded himself inside, police said. All 10 hostages were freed unharmed and reunited with their families.

Saikat Chakrabarti addressed supporters late Tuesday evening at his election night party at The Chapel music venue in the Mission District. With just 50% of ballots counted as of midnight, Chakrabarti, a progressive candidate, remains in third place with about 15% of votes.

State Sen. Scott Wiener celebrated his advancement in the race to succeed Nancy Pelosi at his campaign headquarters near Market and 14th streets Tuesday night.

Billionaire venture capitalist Tom Steyer struck an optimistic tone Tuesday night, even as he trailed in third place in the governor's race by hundreds of thousands of votes. "I've always been an optimist, and tonight I remain an optimist," Steyer told supporters in San Francisco. Read more below.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, the favorite candidate of Silicon Valley's tech elite, conceded the governor's race within minutes of the first results being released Tuesday night.

New video shows a large oil slick, potentially 200 feet long, approaching a popular beach in the wealthy town of Montecito, according to researchers investigating ocean pollution.

SFGATE’s National Parks Bureau Chief Ashley Harrell joined LiveNOW on Fox over the weekend to discuss Yosemite National Park’s overcrowding, as the park moves to end its longstanding reservation system.

California’s race for governor is already crowded. But do voters know who's actually running? SFGATE’s Anabel Sosa spent a day asking San Francisco voters to identify the candidates by face.

A drag queen and climate activist from Oregon is taking on Patagonia — and drawing millions of views in the process. This week, Wyn Wiley, who performs as Pattie Gonia, posted a video urging the outdoor apparel giant to drop a trademark infringement lawsuit it filed in January. Read more below.

Lake Mead’s historically low water levels are now the backdrop for a massive patriotic display on Hoover Dam, recently unveiled to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary.

Though his timing was slightly off, Sombr's vibes were on at BottleRock Napa Valley on Sunday evening.

After more than three decades, the Backstreet Boys took the crowd at BottleRock through a time capsule, with everyone from wine moms to small children screaming and dancing along as the group closed out the three-day Napa musical festival.

For longtime Foo Fighters fan and SFGATE writer Silas Valentino, it’s hard to see Dave Grohl the same way he did five years ago.

Paris Jackson, Michael Jackson’s daughter, took the stage at BottleRock on Saturday afternoon, bringing a grunge-leaning sound and moody energy to the Napa festival.

Golden State Warriors star Jimmy Butler joined musical sensation Teddy Swims on the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage at BottleRock Napa Valley and the crowd went wild for flying PB&Js. The duo tossed a nostalgic sandwich, turning a simple snack into one of the festival’s most frenzied moments.

Golden State Warriors star Jimmy Butler joined musical sensation Teddy Swims on the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage at BottleRock Napa Valley and the crowd went wild for flying PB&Js. The duo tossed a nostalgic sandwich, turning a simple snack into one of the festival’s most frenzied moments.

An unexpected swarm of orange and brown butterflies has taken over Santa Cruz this month — and they still have not left. At first glance, they look like monarchs, a species on the brink of extinction that shelters along California’s coast every winter.

Claws of Mantis, chef-owner Kevin Tang’s buzzy Vietnamese Californian mash-up, has popped up in more places than perhaps any other burgeoning restaurant concept in San Francisco.

At the far southwestern edge of the Las Vegas Valley, Terrible’s Road House rises like a glitzy monument to the American road trip. It's the largest Chevron gas station in the world.

State scientists and a coalition of regional partners gathered on a peak of Angel Island this week to debut a new way to keep gray whales safe in San Francisco Bay: artificial intelligence.

The famous “potstickers” at Mini Potstickers in the Outer Sunset are not really potstickers at all. The restaurant’s star dish is actually thumb-sized sheng jian bao: tiny, pan-fried buns filled with juicy pork and finished with sesame seeds and scallions.

A new video obtained by SFGATE shows the potential cause of a major wildfire that has burned nearly a third of the ecologically sensitive Santa Rosa Island, a beloved part of Channel Islands National Park.

Since BTS’ new album dropped in March, the kings of K-pop have made it clear they’re back.

California’s largest wildfire of the year has scorched more than 16,000 acres on Santa Rosa Island as of Tuesday morning. The fire spread farther north overnight on the island, part of Channel Islands National Park, as crews continued working to contain the blaze.

The Fashion District, a sub-neighborhood of Downtown LA that envelops Santee Alley, has long been home to thousands of family-owned retail shops and more than 70 restaurants. Many of the businesses are immigrant-, Latino- and Asian-owned.

The Sandy Fire in Ventura County started Monday morning as windy conditions elevated fire danger across Southern California, prompting evacuation orders as flames burned near Simi Valley.

A shooting at a San Diego mosque on Monday killed three men, and two teenage suspects are also dead, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said.

A sailor stranded in Channel Islands National Park started California’s largest wildfire of the year so far after he set off a flare following a sailboat crash on Santa Rosa Island on Friday, according to a post from the U.S. Coast Guard. Read more below.

At what is expected to be the final California gubernatorial debate, businessman and billionaire Tom Steyer, a Democrat, heavily criticized his opponent Steve Hilton, the leading Republican candidate, regarding his policies about energy, climate and housing.

When San Francisco cable cars are too worn for the rails, they head to a Dogpatch carpentry shop, where a four-man crew rebuilds them piece by piece — and sometimes leaves hidden mementos for future generations to find.

A military cargo plane being hauled on a semi-truck flatbed got stuck in a Salinas roundabout Wednesday, causing traffic delays near Bardin Elementary School. Fort Hunter Liggett told KSBW 8 the wingless plane was headed there for training. So far, it’s unclear how it got stuck.

Wind-driven flames tore through the coastal Maui town of Lahaina in August 2023, killing at least 102 people and destroying more than 2,200 homes, businesses and other structures. More than 12,000 people were displaced.

Bike to Wherever Day is San Francisco’s favorite biking holiday, so SFGATE's Melissa Cho did the only reasonable thing: left the office and called it reporting.

On a Joshua Tree National Park camping trip last month, SFGATE's Ashley Harrell encountered a strange phenomenon from her car to the campsite: Bees. Hundreds of them. She learned from a park spokesperson that swarms of honeybees in Joshua Tree are a common sight during the spring and summer months.

Xylo, the 7-year-old French bulldog, has been part of 450 Aesthetics Dental Group since the San Francisco practice opened. She is also part of its “comfort menu,” which includes a weighted blanket, eye mask, augmented reality movie glasses and the option to have her sit in your lap during a visit.

It’s been days since Chonkers, the sea lion the size of a Prius, has been seen at San Francisco's Pier 39 tourist attraction, dwarfing his fellow sunbathers and drawing an international legion of fans.

Last year, the team tasked with protecting the Devils Hole pupfish — a critically endangered fish found only in a single pool — faced an agonizing decision.

Spring is a critical time for the Colorado River Basin watershed, when snowmelt flows into major reservoirs. But after a hot and dry winter, the state of spring runoff is grim, especially at Lake Powell, where forecasters are predicting the lowest water flows ever recorded.

Left-wing political streamer Hasan Piker attended a San Francisco rally Thursday in support of progressive congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti, who is running to replace longtime Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

At $5.50, the “poor boy” at Falletti Foods may be one of San Francisco’s best food bargains.

San Francisco’s Vaillancourt Fountain caught fire as it was being disassembled on Wednesday morning, sending plumes of smoke into the sky as flames licked the sculpture’s 10-ton cantilevered arms.

Delta Queen, the Campbell auto spa about 50 miles south of San Francisco, is designed as a replica of the 20th-century Mississippi riverboat of the same name.

Emmanuel Galvan opened his Berkeley restaurant, Cafe Bolita, in late February, building on the momentum of his popular pop-up, Bolita.

Friday was cold, but Kesha fans didn’t care. The pop star surprised a crowd at Presidio Tunnel Tops with a 30-minute DJ set as day turned to night — and dropped an unexpected announcement: “I’m moving to San Francisco.”

A United Airlines flight from San Francisco International Airport to Southern California was disrupted on Wednesday due to “a possible drone strike,” the airline told SFGATE in a statement.

An exceptionally strong storm system swept through the Central Valley this week, triggering a rare outbreak of tornadoes. Four touched down Tuesday, including near Fresno and Atwater — an unusually high number for a state that averages just nine a year. Read more below.

Club Fugazi opened in 1913 as a gathering place for San Francisco’s Italian community. Over the decades, artists including Thelonious Monk and the Grateful Dead passed through its doors.

Several Glendale residents were sentenced after authorities said a supposed bear damaging a Rolls-Royce near Lake Arrowhead was actually a person in a bear costume in a felony insurance fraud scheme.

Hira Birla opened the Bay Area’s original Bharat Bazar in 1974 in the city of Santa Clara, making it the region’s oldest Indian grocery chain. Today, the local mini chain with stores in Fremont, Sunnyvale and Union City is primarily run by his sons, Rajan and Sandeep Birla.

In a city that’s famously just seven by seven miles, San Francisco now has more than a dozen Burmese restaurants. Since opening in the Mission in 2014 as an offshoot of the beloved Burma Superstar in the Richmond, Burma Love has grown to five Bay Area locations.

Masayoshi Takanaka, who sold out the 3,000-capacity Masonic with resale tickets going for upwards of $300, is one of the best examples of a renewed interest in the sounds of 1970s and ’80s soft rock from Japan known as city pop.

BigBang knows how to make an entrance. They wasted no time during their Sunday night Coachella performance, starting with one of their biggest hits, “Bang Bang Bang.”

Behind Karol G, Young Thug, the Atlanta rapper, was the top-billed Coachella act on Sunday. Thug, whose vocal contortions echo in the raps of Playboi Carti, Lil Baby and countless others, is probably one of the most influential rappers of his generation.

On Sunday night, Karol G became the first Latina to ever headline Coachella — a feat she acknowledged with a swell of pride, and disbelief, during a poignant moment in her set.

Addison Rae first became famous in 2019 by posting videos on the internet, amassing a huge audience by identifying the precise rhythms of attention. In the past year, the TikToker-slash-dancer has had one of pop music’s more fascinating and controversial arcs.

Three years after retreating from the spotlight, Justin Bieber's Saturday night headlining set was supposed to be his biggest performance in years.

The pairing of Nine Inch Nails’ raw alt rock with German Iraqi electronic producer Alex Ridha’s twisted, deep house-techno couldn't have been more ingenious.

Geese covers 'Baby' by Justin Bieber at Coachella

At least one person was injured when a heavy light fixture fell into the crowd during John Summit’s surprise Friday night DJ set at Coachella’s Do LaB stage, according to onlookers.

At first, things looked bad for Fakemink. The 21-year-old rapper took the Coachella stage to one of his biggest tracks — but his voice sounded thin, and the crowd barely moved. It felt like his first Coachella set might bomb.

For nearly fifteen years, hundreds of Coachella festivalgoers congregate a little over an hour before the gates open to the public, and shotgun their beers in unison.

There’s a place in San Francisco where you can get a bavette steak for under $20. Tucked into quiet Sunnyside, City College of San Francisco’s Chef’s Table is run by instructors and students in its Culinary Arts and Hospitality Studies Department.

North Italia, the little sister to the Cheesecake Factory, opened its first Northern California location in late March in downtown Walnut Creek — right next door to the Cheesecake Factory.

The “Bring Your Own Big Wheel” race returned to Potrero Hill for its 24th installment, with costumed riders barreling down Vermont Street, the city’s curviest street.

Thousands packed Dolores Park on April 5 for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s 47th annual Hunky Jesus celebration — a decades-old gathering of creatively reimagined Jesuses and Foxy Marys.

Oakland Zoo’s newest addition — Crimson, a 3-week-old male mountain lion cub — was rescued last Friday after being orphaned in Southern California.

A six-figure paycheck stretches the least in San Francisco and Oakland, according to a new ConsumerAffairs report. California’s state income tax is high, but local cost of living is what really cuts into take-home buying power.

Abandoned for years, San Francisco's last Fotomat from the 1970s sat in a vacant parking lot, seeming destined for demolition.

Artemis II astronauts are bound for the moon after rocketing away on NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in decades. Among the four-person crew — three Americans and one Canadian — is California-raised Victor Glover, the mission’s pilot, and Christina Koch, the first woman to make it to the moon.

Apple’s Cupertino headquarters hosted a private concert by the one and only Paul McCartney for its 50th anniversary celebration last night.

Elias Shawel used to drive taxis in San Francisco, fielding one question over and over: Where's the best Ethiopian food in the city? Back then, he couldn’t find anything as spicy as he liked.

The Counterculture Museum near the corner of Haight and Ashbury looks back on the hippie movement that brought nearly 100,000 young people to San Francisco in search of alternative ways of living.

CHP and SFPD officers stopped nearly 100 bicyclists from “taking over” the Bay Bridge on Saturday. Riders were seen swerving through downtown traffic, weaving around cars and popping wheelies before heading up the Harrison Street on-ramp and onto the bridge, where officers issued citations.

SFGATE’s Melissa Cho and Timothy Karoff spent their Saturday digging a completely pointless hole at Ocean Beach with hundreds of strangers. Naturally, it was the 13th Hole Party.

Scenes from Saturday's "No Kings" protest in Oakland. 🎥 Doug Zimmerman

Human banner at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, as part of Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” protests
 🎥 Adam Pardee/for SFGATE

A car crashed into Chinatown’s New Lun Ting Cafe — known as the “Pork Chop House” — on Friday morning, killing one pedestrian and injuring another, authorities said.

After a semi-truck overturned near Crater Lake, millions of honeybees spilled into the forested roadside, their deafening, “atomic” buzz hanging in the air as volunteers in protective suits climbed the embankment to rescue the colonies.

Green Day band members covered Nirvana, David Bowie and Ozzy Osbourne at a pop-up show in Berkeley on Wednesday night. Fans learned about the show that afternoon, when the band’s official Instagram account posted a Story announcing the impromptu concert. Tickets, listed at $34, quickly sold out.

Southwest Airlines’ new policy may require some plus-size passengers to buy an extra seat at the airport, where refunds are harder to get. TikTok creator and size-inclusivity advocate Samyra Miller called it a “fat tax,” saying larger passengers must pay extra or risk not flying.

In her latest column, SFGATE's Ariana Bindman explores how, as the ultrawealthy continue to amass billions and burn through resources with their private jets, the vast majority of us will continue to live on the brink of homelessness.

Hawaii homeowner Merrily Cazimero captured what was left after severe flooding tore through Oahu. The surge ripped her home from its foundation, then carried it into the Wailua Bridge.

Purchasing the San Francisco Giants' 9-9-9 challenge box gets you nine mini dogs, nine glasses (an estimated 3-4 ounces) and a tall can of Coors Light. But the beer is not enough to fill every glass up to the level that anyone would consider a regular pour.

Until this fall, visitors won’t be able to bring dogs, on or off leash, to parts of the Presidio, as coyote pups grow big enough to venture out on their own.

A San Francisco resident captured a meteor lighting up the Bay Area sky on a home security camera in Telegraph Hill on Sunday around 8:15 p.m.

Drag queen Angel Food Cakes pays tribute to two-time Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu by landing a double axel — with some help — at Oakland’s recurring Rollin’ With the Homos event, where drag entertainers roller-skate to the beat.

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents caused outrage at San Francisco International Airport Sunday night after appearing to restrain a crying woman in front of her child, footage shows.

The Bay Lights are back. After going dark in March 2023 at the end of a 10-year run, the massive installation flickered on again Friday night, marking its third iteration on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

SFGATE News Features Reporter Ariana Bindman breaks down the “golden visa,” a controversial, ultra-expensive escape hatch for the wealthy.

Clementina, San Francisco’s first entirely gluten-free Italian restaurant, opened in the Inner Richmond last week.

A dancing robot at a Cupertino Haidilao went off-script this week, knocking dishes off a table as diners watched. It kept dancing — arms swinging, body jerking — as three servers grabbed a strap around its neck and tried to pull it away. Its apron, a Zootopia 2 promotional number, read: “I’m good.”

San Francisco’s El Farolito, the soccer team formed by its namesake Mission District taqueria, will not repeat as a feel-good story of American soccer this year. The amateur side’s U.S. Open Cup campaign ended in a crash-out on Wednesday, culminating in an altercation between players and fans.

Joe Lo who works near Fisherman’s Wharf and often swings by Pier 39 after clocking out. He first noticed a sea lion that was noticeably bigger than the rest on Saturday, March 14. “He woke up and swam off and spooked the rest of the sea lions,” Lo told SFGATE. “I’d never seen one that huge before."

The bar scene in downtown Walnut Creek is not the greatest. You have a few old bars that aren’t cool enough to call dives and a slew of nice restaurants that serve cocktails. But now, a new rooftop haven is filling the void, and it comes from an unlikely source: an office park brewery 3 miles away.

Best Actor Academy Award winner Michael B. Jordan was swarmed at the Hollywood In-N-Out in Los Angeles Sunday night, Oscar trophy in tow. Read more at the link below.

Jimmy Butler is at Tennis Paradise! An avid tennis fan, the Golden State Warriors player was seen taking in the back-to-back men’s singles semifinals Saturday afternoon at the BNP Paribas Open, affectionately known as Tennis Paradise, in the Coachella Valley.