San Francisco, CA
SAN FRANCISCO: 239 square miles packed with life
Make no doubt about it.
My soul is in the Sierra but my heart is in San Francisco.
One of the great things about living in the Northern San Joaquin Valley aside from the fact it is a great place to live and you have the world’s largest and most varied “farmer’s market” in your backyard, is the fact we are nestled between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.
You can go cosmopolitan one weekend and wild as nature intended the next.
And you don’t have to do it while living in an aging, cramped flat that rents for $3,500 a month or having to dig yourself out from under five feet of snow just to trek 25 miles to the store to get milk.
It’s almost a tragedy that people who end up living here don’t venture west to the ocean’s edge or east to the mountain’s crest with any regularity to sample the endless smorgasbord of manmade and natural delights.
People from all over the world travel here just so they can take in San Francisco and Yosemite.
My love affair with The City started as a kid.
We’d go to San Francisco several times a summer to stay with my late Aunt Grace Towle who was an emergency room nurse at St. Mary’s Medical Center.
She lived out in The Avenues off Clement Street that parallels Geary Boulevard in western San Francisco. Clement Street — as well as Geary — offers every imaginable dining option possible at significantly less than the restaurants in and around San Francisco tourist traps.
The most unusual restaurant I’ve ever been in was a Mexican restaurant on Clement Street owned by a Chinese immigrant who had a waitress who was Filipino and a cook who was a Greek national that immigrated to the United States after ending his career as a cook on a freighter ship.
The enchilada and chili relleno were the most unusual I ever had but what I remember was how all three of them, owner, waitress and cook, were open and engaging.
And if you want real great Mexican food, head to the Mission District. There are great mom and pop places left that will have your tastebuds thinking they’ve died and gone to Puerto Villa that the gentrification of the high-tech crowd hasn’t pushed out yet.
If you get away from Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the Embarcadero, Market Street, Union Square, and other high-profile locations there are countless nuggets awaiting.
Although, I confess if I’m anywhere near Pier 39 I’ll head to Chocolate Heaven and fork over $10 for two truffles.
There’s plenty of interesting places to go in a city with 49 hills, 239.84 square miles, and 865,000 residents without feeling you’re running into every tourist on the planet.
Everyone flocks to the block of Lombard Street on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth streets to go down the so-called “Most Crooked Street in the World” that switches back and forth going downhill to tame a 27 percent grade much like a slalom skier would.
Vermont Street, though, in Potrero Hill between 20th and 22nd streets, is just as crooked if not more yet has less traffic than a rural road in northern Alaska.
Given it is in more of a working-class neighborhood (if such a thing exists anymore in San Francisco), doesn’t have red paver bricks or ornate gardens, and is away from the beaten tourist paths it might be why most people haven’t heard of it.
There’s endless shopping. If you’re feeling rich you can head to Union Square and duck into Neiman Marcus and rifle through the few discount racks there and discover you’re too poor to be even a thrift shopper along the 1 percent.
Then there are endless boutiques in places like Haight Ashbury, the epicenter of the Summer of Love, where you won’t only find one-of-a-kind offerings but you won’t need to pay with an arm and a leg.
The dining and cultural offerings would fill a book. They range from the California Academy of Sciences and Steinhart Museum in the heart of the 1,017 acres composing Golden Gate Park as well as the Palace of Fine Arts to the Walt Disney Family Museum.
Live music from opera to underground music is available every night of the week. There’s live theatre, street performers, and everything in between.
There is a reason why San Francisco is rated as a world class city in the same league as Paris, London, and New York.
Then there are things that tug at your heart as in those “little cable cars that climb halfway to the stars.”
I must have ridden them two dozen times growing up. My last ride — although it was aborted — was my favorite.
I had driven Cynthia to Drake’s Beach at Point Reyes Seashore where I proposed and she said “yes.”
On the way home we stopped at Alioto’s at Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner. Even though the late May skies had turned threatening after sundown, we opted to hop aboard a cable car grabbing onto poles as we took the last two standing positions just as the rain started falling.
As we stood there kissing and apparently blocking the view of a middle-aged French tourist, he uttered “les imbeciles, sortir de la voie.”
Those few words changed the myth that all Frenchmen were romantics.
How can you be idiots in San Francisco where part of the view are people in love with life?
The San Francisco 49ers today announced they have signed DL Gracen Halton to a four-year deal. With the signing, the 49ers now have all eight of the team’s 2026 draft picks under contract.
Halton (6-3, 293) was the first of two fourth-round draft picks (107th overall) selected by the 49ers in this year’s draft out of Oklahoma. He appeared in 47 games (10 starts) over four seasons at Oklahoma (2022-25) and finished with 84 tackles, 17.5 tackles for loss, 8.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and two passes defensed. In 2025, he appeared in 13 games (seven starts) and tallied 33 tackles, 7.0 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, two passes defensed and one forced fumble (returned for a TD), earning Second-Team All-SEC honors. In 2024, he appeared in 13 games (three starts) and recorded 30 tackles, 6.0 tackles for loss, 5.0 sacks and two forced fumbles. In 2023, he appeared in 11 games and tallied 11 tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss. As a true freshman in 2022, Halton appeared in 10 games and recorded 10 tackles and 1.0 tackle for loss.
A 22-year-old native of San Diego, CA, Halton attended St. Augustine (San Diego, CA) High School.
San Francisco, CA
Multiple people lose eyes, hands in illegal fireworks-related injuries in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — San Francisco emergency departments and first responders experienced a sharp increase in serious injuries over the Fourth of July weekend, with illegal fireworks and electric scooter crashes contributing to some of the busiest days in recent years.
At Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, medical teams treated a wave of patients suffering severe trauma. In one incident, bystanders rushed to help a person who was bleeding heavily after a hand injury. A 911 dispatcher described the call as “Extreme Trauma. Hand injury.”
Dr. Christopher Colwell, chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, said surgeons worked to treat patients with devastating injuries.
“We are able to do a lot with and sometimes save the function of the hand and eye. Unfortunately, there are injuries that exist every year where we are not able to do that even with the expertise that we have,” Colwell said.
MORE: SF police in riot gear crack down on 4th of July illegal fireworks shows: ‘It was crazy’
According to Dr. Colwell, four people lost eyes, five lost hands and at least 15 people suffered serious injuries related to electric scooters over the weekend.
“We saw a lot of electric scooter accidents. And I think part of it was that their traffic was such that that was a more efficient way of getting around town. But we also learned very clearly that the combination of electric scooters and how fast you can go in San Francisco, particularly going downhill along with not wearing a helmet and adding alcohol on board, is a really bad combination,” Colwell said.
ABC7’s data team reviewed San Francisco EMT data and found that medical incidents on July 4 and July 5 were about double the number reported during the same period in 2025.
Lt. Mariano Elias of the San Francisco Fire Department said emergency crews handled significantly more calls than usual.
“We had almost 200 more calls than we normally have so we had roughly 576 calls in a 24-hour period,” Elias said.
MORE: Over 400 people arrested during chaos at Newport Beach July 4th celebrations, police say
Illegal fireworks activity also sparked fires across the city. Firefighters responded to Telegraph Hill, where crews quickly contained a blaze.
“We did have two house fires that night on the 4th of July, due to fireworks activities,” Elias said.
City officials estimated that more than 100,000 people were in San Francisco to watch Fourth of July fireworks, creating traffic congestion that complicated ambulance response efforts.
“All the gridlock between, people coming and going from, the Golden Gate Bridge. The city was very impacted on the streets. So that was an issue. The one particular ambulance did, involve themselves in an accident. So, someone hit the ambulance. So that patient had to be transported and moved to a different ambulance,” Elias said.
First responders warned that illegal fireworks activity typically continues for days after the Fourth of July and urged the public not to take unnecessary risks.
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San Francisco, CA
Terrified passengers film Waymo autonomous vehicle driving into live fireworks in San Francisco
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Passengers in a Waymo vehicle were terrified as the car drove into lit fireworks in the middle of a San Francisco street during Independence Day celebrations over the weekend.
Video footage of the incident shows a group of passengers who were shocked as the driverless car seemingly approaches lit fireworks in the middle of a street as the explosives are about to launch.
As the car gets closer, someone on the street appears to warn the vehicle to stop by waving their hand.
DELTA FLIGHT STRUCK BY FIREWORKS WHILE LANDING IN CHICAGO ON FOURTH OF JULY, FAA INVESTIGATES
Passengers in a Waymo vehicle were terrified as the autonomous car drove into lit fireworks in the middle of a San Francisco street during Independence Day celebrations. (Rose Peterson via Storyful)
“No, no, no, don’t go, don’t go, don’t go,” one of the passengers is heard saying off-camera.
The autonomous vehicle then passes over the colorful flames and sparks.
“Our Waymo just drove into a firework,” a passenger says in the clip.
ZOOX ROBOTAXI REDESIGN BRINGS BIG RIDER UPGRADES
A Waymo vehicle sits idling at an intersection with no operating traffic lights due to power outages, in San Francisco, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)
“Are we on fire, dude?” a fellow passenger asks.
A Waymo spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the company “is committed to keeping our riders safe and earning the trust of the communities where we operate.”
“We take situations like this seriously and are committed to evaluating and learning from these events,” the statement continued.
BROOKLYN BRIDGE CATCHES FIRE AMID NYC FIREWORKS DISPLAY AS TRUMP HAILS IT IN DC SPEECH
No injuries were reported to either the passengers or the vehicle, and the company reached out to the riders after their trip. The possession of fireworks, even “Safe and Sane” explosives, is illegal in San Francisco, the city’s fire department said.
One woman was killed and two other adults and a child were injured Saturday in a separate fireworks explosion, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Elsewhere in San Francisco, some Waymo vehicles were towed when their batteries died after vehicles became stuck in traffic for hours.
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“Our priority is keeping San Francisco moving safely, especially during major city celebrations,” the Waymo spokesperson said. “On the Fourth of July, extreme traffic congestion in northern San Francisco disrupted normal operations for several Waymo vehicles.”
“In coordination with local authorities and emergency services, our roadside assistance team worked quickly to clear our vehicles from the area,” the statement continued.
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