Fire officials have determined that the blaze that killed Vicent Perez and Anthony Valerio was an electrical accident. The Fire Department is still conducting a test of the house's electrical system to pinpoint the cause of the massive fire that scorched a Diamond Heights home on June 2.
The fire started one floor below grade of the four-story home on 133 Berkeley Way. More than 30 firefighters tried to extinguish the fire. Valerio and Perez were inside the home when a "flashover" occurred, meaning temperatures rose so much that everything ignited at once.
It comes as no surprise to anyone -- including Arnold Schwarzenegger himself -- that his wife Maria Shriver, the former first lady of California, wants out of the marriage. Today, she reportedly filed for divorce from Schwarzenegger after 25 years of marital bliss, citing "irreconcilable differences."
What Shriver couldn't reconcile was the fact that her soon-to-be-ex-husband fathered a child with their former housekeeper, Mildred "Patty" Baena, more than a decade ago -- and kept it a secret.
Shriver is asking Schwarzenegger to pay her attorney's fees, according to TMZ. And finally, the answer to the question we are all wondering: No, there's no prenup.
Somewhere in the primordial id of every American lurks a deranged teenage boy. He likes blowing things up. And that means he loves the Fourth of July -- and since he is us, so do we.
Large-scale fireworks shows all tend to blend into one, like Barack Obama speeches you've forgotten the specifics the moment they're over. All you remember is that you felt good about something. What's memorable, though, are episodes in which you get to light the wicks with your own hand, hurl the incendiaries, or -- yes, this is autobiographical -- run like hell from the enraged, barefoot landlord who took exception to the detonation of Texas Pop Rockets in the air ducts of his domicile.
Yes, this would be illegal in present-day San Francisco. But, intriguingly, so would blowing up damn near anything.
The immigration woes of same-sex couples has finally reached a tipping point: The Immigration Court in Newark, New Jersey, has closed the deportation case against the foreign spouse of a gay American this week.
The couple's attorney, Lavi Soloway, says this is the first time that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has closed a deportation case for such a couple. Moreover, it opens the door for ICE to do the same in other cases involving spouses of gay Americans. That includes one San Francisco couple Soloway represents with "very similar facts" that have a court date with an immigration judge here in the city later this month.
"For the first time, the Department of Homeland Security has demonstrated that when it comes to the spouses of lesbian and gay Americans, the government does indeed have the discretion necessary to evaluate the merits of each case and, where appropriate, to decline to pursue deportation," Soloway said in a statement.
Last week, we told you about Bevan Dufty's latest campaign shakeup when his manager, David Feighan, split. Dufty told SF Weekly at the time that he had plans to bring on a new leader with more political prowess, although he wouldn't say who -- until today.
Dufty told us that he hired Dan Kelly, the seasoned national Democratic organizer who is currently working on Janice Hahn's campaign for Congress. Dufty said he was most impressed with Kelly's ability to get a Democrat elected governor of Connecticut after 26 years of Republicans ruling the state.
But alas, it cannot be ignored that Dufty's campaign has been an expensive roller coaster ride.
"People joke in the Bay Area that I'm No. 3," Kelly told us, referring to Dufty's campaign managers. "Obviously, he's been making transitions."
It's been a while since we've seen any good sparring over the contentious so-called smart meter, but apparently strong sentiments are circulating in parts of the city. A kind and anonymous reader passed along this photo that's being posted around homes in Noe Valley and Glen Park neighborhoods, where residents are generally speaking not dumb.
Like Sarah Palin recounting the tale of Paul Revere's ride to warn the British (of their own impending arrival), we Americans often have a fuzzy grasp of our history. This extends to the medical cannabis movement, which was birthed in San Francisco in the 1980s out of the AIDS epidemic. Gay men dying of AIDS during the darkest years of the Ronald Reagan era of ignorance found solace -- and in some cases healing -- from the cannabis plant.
In other words, without the LGBT movement -- and specifically, the AIDS epidemic -- there would be no medical cannabis movement.
If for no other reason than you will likely wind up with a bad hangover, a ticket, and a heavy load of self-loathing.
Documentarian Alexandra Pelosi -- yes, that Pelosi -- has doled out heaps of patriotism in her latest film and companion book, Citizen U.S.A.: A 50 State Road Trip. So much so, we imagine former naysayers will go out to buy American flags for their front yards after they watch the HBO premiere, which airs on the Fourth of July.
Pelosi first made a splash with Journeys with George -- an up-close-and-personal look at George W. Bush on the campaign trail in 2000. Her disarming personality won him over, and their unlikely friendship allowed her to capture some rather intimate moments -- including close-ups of him munching on Cheetos and goading her about a crush. Ultimately, the documentary showcased Pelosi's ability to humanize someone who isn't universally popular.
In Citizen U.S.A., she again makes us think twice about another divisive topic: immigration. This time, Pelosi didn't have to leave home to find her muse. Her Dutch-born husband, Michiel Vos, decided that he no longer wanted to be the odd one out in an otherwise American family. The film opens with his swearing-in ceremony before Pelosi takes off on a whirlwind journey across the country to watch others gain citizenship status and ask why they wanted to be Americans.
UPDATE: Media outlets are reporting that the planned strike has been called off.
Original story 7:25 a.m.:Ticket taking on the Golden Gate ferry system has been one of the last manual labor jobs kept safe from automation. But that may change with proposed new ticket taking machines.
