Janie Har

Associated Press

In this photo taken May 14, 2018, a man walks past an electric scooter that was dumped into a trash can in San Francisco. Tired of San Francisco streets being used as a testing ground for the latest delivery technology and transportation apps, city leaders are considering requiring businesses to get permits before trying out new high-tech ideas in public. Supporters of the legislation, which the Board of Supervisors will take up Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, say it would be the first of its kind in the U.S. They say it's long overdue in a city that's a hub for major tech companies but is more accustomed to reacting to the sudden arrival of new technology, such as when hundreds of dockless electric scooters appeared overnight last year.

San Francisco Tires of Public Tech Testing

City leaders are tired of their streets being used as a testing ground.

California Blackouts Pg&e Ap

PG&E Begins New Mass Power Shutoff

One Napa County reporting station hasn’t seen a measurable drop of rain since mid-September — the first time that’s happened since 1905.

In this Oct. 10, 2019, file photo, Salvador Espinosa sweeps in the kitchen of a Mary's Pizza Shack restaurant during a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power shutdown in Santa Rosa, Calif. The California Senate will investigate a California utility's process for cutting off power to more than 2 million people to prevent wildfires. In a memo to the Senate Democratic Caucus on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins asked the Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee to 'begin investigating and reviewing options to address the serious deficiencies' with PG&E's current process of shutting off power to prevent wildfires.

PG&E Execs to Face Regulatory Board

CEO Bill Johnson said the utility understood the magnitude of the hardships the outages caused for customers and pledged to improve.

James Cooke is shown buying water bottles along with propane tanks and batteries at a ACE Hardware store as he prepares for a possible power shutdown in Los Gatos, CA on Tuesday, Oct. 8.

Planned Power Outages Begin in California

PG&E announced that it was shutting off power to 800,000 customers in 34 northern, central and coastal California counties.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera announces that he's cracking down on the sale of e-cigarettes that he says aggressively target youth, at a City Hall news conference Tuesday, March 19, 2019. Legislation to be introduced would ban the sale of e-cigarettes anywhere in the city and county of San Francisco until the FDA has reviewed the product for sale.

San Francisco Floats Ban on e-Cigs

San Francisco was the first city in the United States to approve an outright ban on the sale of flavored tobacco and flavored vaping liquids.

San Francisco firefighters battle a fire on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco. A gas explosion in a San Francisco neighborhood shot flames high into the air Wednesday and was burning several buildings as utility crews scrambled to shut off the flow of gas.

Gas Explosion Shoots Fire, Burning Buildings

The fire was started by non-PG&E crews working on fiber-optic wires.

Police tape blocks off Fremont Street outside the closed Salesforce Transit Center Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018, in San Francisco. A second beam in San Francisco's celebrated new $2 billion transit terminal shows signs of cracking, an official said Wednesday, a day after a crack in a nearby support beam shut down the building that opened just last month. The first crack found by workers installing roof tiles Tuesday spans a beam holding up a park over the three-block-long facility and runs over a downtown street, Salesforce Transit Center executive director Mark Zabaneh said.

Engineers Search for Cause in Cracked Beam

It shut down a brand new $2 billion transit center in San Francisco.

This July 17, 2018 photo shows wrapped plastic straws at a bubble tea cafe in San Francisco. Eco-conscious San Francisco joins the city of Seattle in banning plastic straws, along with tiny coffee stirrers and cup pluggers, as part of an effort to reduce plastic waste. It also makes single-use food and drink side items available upon request and phases out the use of fluorinated wrappers and to-go containers.

Next to Ban Plastic Straws

The idea is to cut down on handing out items that customers may not need.

A sign on the chimney of a home warns looters Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017, after it was destroyed by wildfires in Glen Ellen, Calif. California fire officials have reported significant progress on containing wildfires that have ravaged parts of Northern California.

Wildfires Cause $1B in Damage

The fires ravaged 7,000 buildings.

The remains of burned bottles of wine are seen at the Signorello Estate winery Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017, in Napa, Calif. Worried California vintners surveyed the damage to their vineyards and wineries Tuesday after wildfires swept through several counties whose famous names have become synonymous with fine food and drink.

CA Wine Makers Assess Fire's Damage

At least five wineries belonging to local trade group members have had "complete losses" in facilities, with nine more sustaining damage.

In this Monday, June 26, 2017, photo, Sophie Li, of Cupertino, Calif., offers to dance with a K5 robot made by Knightscope, Inc., at Westfield Valley Fair shopping center in San Jose, Calif. In the technology hotbed that stretches from San Francisco to San Jose, people can eat a pizza made largely by a robot, have hotel toiletries delivered by a robot, drink a frothy cappuccino made by a robot and shop at a mall with robot security. Now, one prominent San Francisco official is calling for a tax on companies that automate jobs once held by people.

Robot Tax May Battle Automation

The question of whether — or how quickly — workers will be displaced by automation ignites fierce debate.

In this aerial photo taken Monday, May 22, 2017 provided by John Madonna showing a massive landslide along California's coastal Highway 1 that has buried the road under a 40-foot layer of rock and dirt. A swath of the hillside gave way in an area called Mud Creek on Saturday, May 20, covering about one-third of a mile, half a kilometer, of road and changing the Big Sur coastline.

Landslide Part of $1 Billion in Damage

It's still moving, so engineers haven't been able to assess the damage.