Gov. Jerry Brown is at his home in the Oakland hills this weekend and his spokesman says he may not return to Sacramento until mid-week while recuperating from having that cancerous growth removed from his nose (shown here in happier, pre-stitches condition).
- New SFPD chief Greg Suhr is pushing all the right buttons, taking a pay cut, ordering that his office remain unlocked, and now decreeing that his command staff come out of those gas-guzzling Crown Vics and into Ford Fusion hybrids.
- How about this for a rhetorical reach? Mayor Ed Lee, at the groundbreaking, says San Francisco’s new Target store “brings hope to the city.”
He had a good run, but for the first time since 1955, Elvis failed to make the list of the 1,000 most popular baby names, says the Social Security Administration, which tracks such things. - From the Why Bother Department: Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom put out a press release announcing his endorsement in the DA’s race saying, “I’m endorsing George Gascon for the same reasons I appointed him.”
- Moneyball author Michael Lewis confesses to the Daily Cal that as a student he never wrote for fun, never wrote for a school paper and was “vain” about things he wrote as class work.
- After months of handwringing over whether to rename San Jose’s airport by adding “Silicon Valley” to it or dropping “Norman Mineta” from it, a city council committee has decided to leave it the way it is.
- Another headline reminder about why we should worry over the demise of serious journalism: “PR industry fills vacuum left by shrinking newsrooms.”
- Amistead Maupin, whose “Tales of the City” musical starts previews at the American Conservatory Theater May 18, was interviewed on KQED Radio’s Forum Thursday. Listen
- Sunday reads: The Daily Beast assembles 7 long-form pieces about the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, from Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Esquire, The New Republic and others.
- In case you thought Jerry Brown’s budget effort has been relatively drama free, antiwar protestor Cindy Sheehan is now pledging to occupy the state capitol this week to protest his “savage austerity measures.”
- Crime story: A woman arrested and suspected of thefts from vehicles parked near Walnut Creek nightclubs had 50 stolen purses in her car.
After a last minute inspection NASA is saying that Hangar One’s 4,638 unique windows aren’t worth saving in the renovation of the Moffett Field national historic landmark. - Co-chef David Tanis at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, who splits time between the Bay Area and Paris, will leave the restaurant in the fall to write more cookbooks and begin a food column for the New York Times.
- Contra Costa Times headline: “Concord roads in worse condition than previously known, still deteriorating.” And the story says it took a study to find it out.
