Does it really take this long? Ten years after the 9/11 attacks and the California 
Department of Education still hasn’t updated its history and social studies curriculum to incorporate what happened that day.
- Times are tight in Sacramento but the state Office of Oversight and Outcomes says that tax breaks for powerful interests have cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the last two decades.
- BART Police may have set a record during Thursday’s nutty Powell Station protest—for detaining the most journalists in a single swoop during peace time.
- Hard to believe Otis Redding, who died in a 1967 plane crash a month before the release of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” would have turned 70 last week.
- Another canary dies in the bookstore coal mine: belly-up Borders closed its last San Francisco store Friday, sending titles out the door for $1.
- Speaking of books, does this seem a bit rushed? Scribner’s set Nov. 15 for release of the Gabrielle Giffords-Mark Kelley memoir, “Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope.”
- The paved nightmare otherwise known as Highway 4 in Contra Costa County will be closed weeknights between Pittsburg and Antioch over the next month while Caltrans continues construction of an overpass at Loveridge Road.
- Oscar winner Glenn Close is booked for an Oct. 6 appearance at the Mill Valley Film Festival.
- Berkeley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon gets flattering LA Times treatment for his new children’s book—yes, you read that right—“The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man.”
- Employees of bankrupt Fremont solar start-up Solyndra probably wouldn’t be so shocked over losing their jobs if company officials hadn’t pretended things were swell up to the end.
