Would become first in the nation to ban the tech

I’m driving down the 101 toward San Francisco International Airport. A gray blanket of fog pours over the hills in the distance, smothering what would be a luminous California sunset. Eleanor is sitting next to me in the passenger seat taking deep breaths. She does not like to fly. I hesitate, then finally ask what’s on her mind, cutting the air between us. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but since this is the last time we’ll be hanging out for a while, I feel like we have drifted apart over the last year. Is there something I did wrong?

IF A LOCAL tech industry critic has his way, San Francisco could become the first US city to ban its agencies from using facial recognition technology. Aaron Peskin, a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors, proposed the ban Tuesday as part of a suite of rules to enhance surveillance oversight. In addition to the ban on facial recognition technology...

San Francisco’s most infamous neighborhood through the lens of Pieter Hugo

On Friday, San Francisco became the first American city to ban smokeless tobacco—chewing tobacco and “moist inhalable snuff”—at sports venues. The new ordinance, signed by Mayor Ed Lee, goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2016. Violators will be asked to leave the playing fields (where cigarette and cigar smoking is already banned), the Associated Press reports.

It's cold at Fort Baker. The water is frigid and the breeze chilly. It's quiet, except for the lapping of waves along the muddy shoreline. Every time a person jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge, his or her broken corpse is brought to Fort Baker by solemn sailors of the U.S. Coast Guard. There, the dead are met by an investigator from the Marin County coroner's office, which is responsible for tying up the loose ends of the jumper's life. Identification, notification, autopsy and death notice.

Tiny cracks found on some of the rods on the new Bay Bridge tower potentially endanger the rest of the more than 400 remaining fasteners that secure the tower to the foundation in an earthquake, Caltrans officials said Tuesday...

The photographer Joe Samberg remembers how drugs destroyed the Telegraph Avenue scene.

At least 350 entire homes listed on Airbnb appear to be full-time vacation rentals, bolstering claims by activists that the service removes scarce housing from the city's limited inventory. By Caroline Said. First of five parts, also at the link.

San Francisco by Drone Travel by drone to San Francisco, in Northern California U.S.A This Drone video compilation is dedicated to all the inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The notorious 50-block swath of downtown is seeing an influx of tech companies and gentrification’s attendant indicators – residents are trying to combat the sudden popularity of their area with education and appeals for integration

Janitors everywhere are rejoicing. San Francisco city officials are implementing a new "pee-proof" paint around the city to combat the persistent problem of public urination. Public Works crews have painted 10 walls in the city with a special UV-coated, urine-repellent paint, according to CNN affiliate KPIX. Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru was inspired by a project in Hamburg, Germany, where walls in a night club district were coated with the liquid-repellent paint.

City officials are confident that pee-proof walls will thwart al fresco urination, one splash at a time.

Luke Iseman has figured out how to afford the San Francisco Bay area. He lives in a shipping container. The Wharton School graduate’s 160-square-foot box has a camp stove and a shower made of old boat hulls. It’s one of 11 miniature residences inside a warehouse he leases across the Bay Bridge from the city, where his tenants share communal toilets and a sense of adventure.

And not much is being done about it.

The PKD Foundation is an organization committed to discovering treatments and a cure for polycystic kidney disease and improving the lives of all it affects.

A short sharp earthquake rattled the San Francisco Bay Area, but there are no reports of injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey said the 4.0 magnitude quake struck Monday morning and was centered just north of Piedmont, near Berkeley. It was felt in downtown San Francisco, along the Peninsula...

Lighthouses may have originally been designed to guide sailors, but these historic relics also serve as gorgeous beacons for a vista-filled roadtrip around the Bay Area.

I must admit I was confused by the toast trend when I first heard about it. My roommate was going on and on about how she wanted to go to a place with…

Pop-Tart beer is the latest breakfast food brew craze. San Francisco brewer 21st Amendment created a new flavor of beer that tastes like a Pop-Tart. It's an homage to the history of its new facility, which was formerly a Kellogg's factory.

Scientists and volunteers who have spent the last month gathering data on how much plastic garbage is floating in the Pacific Ocean will return to San Francisco and share preliminary findings.

Those sick and tired of having to deal with their fellow humans all the time have a new respite – a fully automated restaurant in San Francisco. Customers at Eatsa in the Financial District will order from an iPad, sending the order to the kitchen. When the meal is ready, it appears in a small glass compartment. The food is prepared by real people, but the patrons never have to see them.

The boys’ bathrooms and girls’ bathrooms will become just bathrooms at the first San Francisco school to go gender-neutral. Miraloma Elementary started removing the circles, triangles and stick-figure signs from restrooms at the start of this school year, in part to acknowledge six to eight students who don’t fit traditional gender norms — kids who range from tomboys to transgender, said Principal Sam Bass.

Can’t afford an apartment in San Francisco? So-called “co-creative housing” is offering a bunkbed and lots of company. But is it legal? KPIX 5 wasn’t invited in. The only way to check it out was undercover. Heidi’s moving into her new digs. KPIX 5 asked her to go into a building in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District undercover to get an unbiased taste of a new kind of rental: It’s a bunkbed that she’s sharing with a stranger in a house with 30 other people.

This shouldn't be legal, and it shouldn't be happening, because no one should live like this.

It uses weighted lines to show which buses come more often than others.

Apparently, it's the cheapest property in the city.

An earthquake hits the San Francisco Bay Area on this day in 1989, killing 67 people and causing more than $5 billion in damages. Though this was one of the most powerful and destructive earthquakes ever to hit a populated area of the United States, the death toll was quite small.

Well, that escalated quickly. Airbnb’s recent ad-campaign rained on San Francisco to boost their image – on bus shelters and on billboards large and small. The ads carried snarky messages like this one: “Dear Public Library System, We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later. Love, Airbnb.” Airbnb’s ads touted all the uses for its tax dollars by telling parking enforcers how to do their jobs...

This iconic 19th-century building is now a so-so hostel but it’s still worth staying for the hot tub, dramatic setting and incredible lighthouse itself

A woman who jumped out of her Lyft ride and broke her ankle because she feared she was being kidnapped on Thursday night in San Francisco actually had a deaf driver who didn’t know she was talking to him, police said Friday. San Francisco police spokesman Officer Albie Esparza said that officers contacted the hearing-impaired driver and determined that the incident was merely an unfortunate misunderstanding.

When Emily Yang, a San Francisco tech worker, is running out of cat food, she taps an app called Instacart to order a new bag of kibble to be delivered to her door within hours. For dinner, she often orders through Sprig and Munchery, app-powered services that bring fresh organic meals to her home. Her experience highlights how a proliferation of instant-delivery apps has turned the smartphone into a sort of magic remote control that can almost...

I work some days from a small office in San Francisco, and every day, I gotta eat. For a stretch of several weeks this year, I obtained my lunch from an iPhone app called Sprig. It’s a beautiful piece of software. A trompe l’oeil table offers a compact slate of choices for lunch and dinner, all photographed beautifully from above. On the day I’m writing this, I can get a Caesar salad ($11), blackened chicken with broccoli ($11), a lamb-kofta wrap ($11)...

Two hundred feet down the cliff from Deadman’s Point lies an exposed coal vein that, according to the coal miner who discovered it, contains enough fuel to...

An autonomous robot was unveiled this week that can make sure that when you're hankering for Doritos, there's a bag waiting for you at the market. Simbe Robotics, based in San Francisco, announced its first product, a 30-pound robot called Tally that can move up and down a store's aisles checking inventory. The robot determines what products need restocking and send reports to workers who can add more stock. Tally also is set up to work during normal...