Portal:San Francisco Bay Area/Years/172

2016
 * January
 * Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, including Peidong Yang, announce they were able to induce Moorella thermoacetica to photosynthesize, despite its not being photosynthetic. It also synthesized semiconductor nanoparticles, thus using light to produce chemical products other than those produced in photosynthesis.
 * A federal court jury in San Francisco finds Raymond Chow Kwok-cheung guilty of all 162 charges against him, including murder, after a five year long undercover federal operation
 * William Del Monte, the last known survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, dies in Marin County at age 109
 * Paul Kantner (pictured), guitarist, vocalist and co-founder of Jefferson Airplane, dies in San Francisco
 * The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive opens its new building to the public (entrance pictured)
 * February
 * The Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers, in Super Bowl 50, held at Levi's Stadium (halftime show pictured)
 * Apple Inc says it will not comply with an FBI request to provide unblocking software for an IPhone owned by one of the perpetrators of the 2015 San Bernardino attack
 * March
 * An Altamont Corridor Express train derails in Sunol
 * Ben Bagdikian, journalist, author, and dean emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, dies in Berkeley
 * The first Silicon Valley Comic Con, organized by Steve Wozniak and Stan Lee, is held at the San Jose Convention Center
 * Former Intel CEO and chairman Andy Grove (pictured), one of the major figures in the growth of Silicon Valley, dies
 * The wreck of the USS Conestoga (pictured) is confirmed in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, 95 years after it had gone missing
 * Tesla Motors announces the Model 3, pre-orders of which reach 115,000 within 4 hours of the announcement
 * April
 * The Oakland Tribune ceases publication after 142 years, and is replaced by the East Bay Times
 * Hundreds of pages of University of California, Berkeley records are released, showing a pattern of documented sexual harassment and firings of non-tenured staff
 * The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes a parental leave law requiring employers to offer six weeks of fully paid leave for new parents, the first city in the US to do so
 * The long closed UC Theatre in Berkeley , formerly a revival house movie theater, reopens as a music venue
 * The Golden State Warriors win against the Memphis Grizzlies, their 73rd win of the season, breaking the previous NBA record, held by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, for the most victories in a single season
 * Napster founder and philanthropist Sean Parker donates $250 million to create the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, with funds going to over 300 scientists at 40 laboratories, in 6 institutions, including the University of California at San Francisco
 * The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes a law requiring all new buildings below 10 stories to have rooftop solar panels, making it the first major US city to do so
 * Sanford and Joan Weill donate $185 million to the University of California, San Francisco to create the Weill Institute for Neurosciences
 * May
 * A poll of 1,000 people, by the Bay Area Council, showed that 34 percent are considering leaving the area, due primarily to the high costs of living and housing, and traffic
 * McDonald's tests garlic fries at four restaurants in the South Bay, using locally grown garlic from Gilroy (Gordon Biersch Brewing Company garlic fries pictured)
 * The Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry (pictured) is named NBA MVP, in their first unanimous vote
 * It is revealed that the FBI hid microphones outside an Oakland Alameda County Superior Court building (pictured), between March 2010 and January 2011, as part of an investigation into bid rigging and fraud by Alameda and San Mateo County real estate investors, this done without a warrant
 * The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (pictured) reopens after the completion of a two-and-a-half-year expansion, by architecture firm Snøhetta, more than doubling the gallery space
 * Pittsburg moves to install surveillance cameras along California State Route 4, in response to a series of 20 freeway shootings in the area that have taken the lives of six people, and injured 11, in the past year
 * Scientists find evidence of methane-producing microbes in water coming from underground at The Cedars, freshwater springs along Austin Creek in Sonoma County, the first time these methanogens that thrive in harsh environments have been discovered beyond the ocean floor
 * The San Jose Sharks win against the St. Louis Blues in the Stanley Cup ice hockey playoffs, advancing them to the Stanley Cup Finals, their first trip to the finals since their founding in 1991
 * San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr resigns after the officer-involved shooting death of a woman
 * The Golden State Warriors beat Oklahoma City Thunder in the National Basketball Association Playoffs, and advance to the NBA Finals for the second year in a row
 * June
 * The San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority's ballot measure, the San Francisco Bay Clean Water, Pollution Prevention, and Habitat Restoration Program, passes with 2/3 of the vote in the 9 Bay Area counties, providing $500 million in funding for wetland restoration and other projects
 * Protesters attack Trump supporters at a Donald Trump campaign stop in San Jose, leaving one supporter bloodied after having their head bludgeoned
 * Public protest erupts over the sentencing of former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner, convicted of three charges of felony sexual assault, to six months of jail and three years of probation, by Santa Clara County Superior Court judge Aaron Persky
 * Oakland Police Department chief Sean Whent steps down, while the department is being investigated for an alleged sex scandal possibly involving an underage girl, following the suicide of one officer associated with the scandal
 * Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf appoints City Administrator Sabrina Landreth as head of the Oakland Police Department, putting it under civilian control, after 3 police chiefs resign within 9 days, while the department is under multiple investigations
 * In San Francisco's highly volatile housing market, a North Beach resident's rent is increased by 344%, from $1,800 a month to $8,000, with him facing eviction for nonpayment
 * The Oakland City Council votes unanimously to ban the handling of coal and coke at the city’s shipping and storage facilities, including the as yet unfinished Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal
 * Stanford University researchers, including study co-author Robert Jackson, find evidence for new groundwater in the California Central Valley, tripling the previous estimates for deep aquifer reserves in the region
 * The Sonoma Stompers professional baseball team add two female players to their roster, outfielder-pitcher Kelsie Whitmore and infielder Stacy Piagno, the first women to play professional baseball for a mixed-gender team in the US since the 1950s
 * San Francisco bans the sale of products made from expanded polystyrene (typical pollution pictured), including packing material, buoys and cups, the most stringent ban on Styrofoam-type plastics in the US
 * July
 * The augmented reality mobile game Pokémon GO, developed by San Francisco-based Niantic, Inc. (stock value at release pictured), is published by The Pokémon Company, reaching 15 million downloads within one week
 * More than 140 Silicon Valley technology figures, including Steve Wozniak, Vinod Khosla (pictured), and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, sign a statement opposing Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency, saying it will potentially have a negative impact on innovation
 * Verizon Communications announces their intent to acquire Yahoo's internet business for US$4.8 billion
 * August
 * The San Francisco Millennium Tower (pictured) is found to have sunk 16 inches since construction, and is tilting 2 inches towards the northwest
 * California declares that Napa County, and California, are free of the invasive species Lobesia botrana (pictured), known as the "European grapevine moth", with no moths found since June 2014
 * A statue of Tony Bennett is unveiled outside the Fairmont Hotel, the venue at which he first sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" in 1961
 * Governor Jerry Brown signs legislation banning the use of state transportation funds for new coal export terminals, in response to a developer's failed proposal to build a coal terminal at the Port of Oakland
 * San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (pictured) refuses to stand for the national anthem at a preseason football game, in protest of police brutality and racism in the United States
 * September
 * Napa Valley's Margrit Mondavi, the widow of wine pioneer Robert Mondavi, and advocate for the culture of the region, dies at her home in Napa at age 91
 * Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz (pictured) donates $20 million to a number of elections organizations, with the express purpose of supporting Democratic Party candidates and issues, and defeating Donald Trump, making him the 3rd largest donor in the 2016 campaigns
 * Discovery Bay former realtor Marco Gutierrez, the co-founder of Latinos for Trump, says to Joy Reid on MSNBC that Mexican culture in the US is "dominant" and that “If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner"
 * Influential San Francisco political activist and broker Rose Pak, an advocate for the Chinatown community, dies in San Francisco
 * The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announces a new science program, Chan Zuckerberg Science, with $3 billion in investment over the next decade, with the goal of helping to cure, manage, or prevent all disease by the year 2100. $600 million is to be spent on Biohub, a location in San Francisco's Mission Bay District near the University of California, San Francisco
 * The Sawmill Fire breaks out in rural Cloverdale, near The Geysers, in Sonoma County, followed by the Loma Fire (pictured) in the Santa Cruz Mountains
 * The MacArthur "Genius" grant recipients are announced, including Stanford University bioengineering professor and inventor Manu Prakash, San Jose graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, and San Francisco sculptor Vincent Fecteau
 * The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes a law, authored by Scott Wiener, barring the city from doing business with companies that have a home base in states such as North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi, that forbid civil rights protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people
 * October
 * Theranos announces it will close its laboratory operations, shutter its wellness centers and lay off around 40 percent of its work force, while focusing on an initiative to create miniature medical testing machines
 * Researchers led by Ali Javey, including Chenming Hu, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announce the creation of a transistor with a working 1-nanometer gate, the smallest transistor reported to date
 * A new California law, authored by San Jose Assemblywoman Nora Campos (pictured), will allow San Jose to be the first California city to create "tiny homes" for the homeless, bypassing some state building codes
 * The new control tower (pictured) at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) begins operating
 * The US Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services releases a 432 page report stating that the San Francisco Police Department stops and searches African Americans at a higher rate than other groups, and inadequately investigates officers use of force. The report details "numerous indicators of implicit and institutionalized bias against minority groups," with a large majority of suspects killed by police being people of color
 * Peninsula Clean Energy begins providing electricity to 20 percent of residential customers in San Mateo County, all municipalities, and all small- to mid-size businesses, as a Community Choice Aggregation program, an alternative to Pacific Gas and Electric
 * Wells Fargo chairman and CEO John Stumpf announces he will retire, shortly after the bank is issued $185 million in fines for creating over 1.5 million checking and savings accounts and 500,000 credit cards that its customers never authorized. This includes $100 million in fines from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the largest in the agency's history
 * Tesla Motors posts a profitable quarter, their first in 8 quarters, defying industry expectations
 * November
 * The San Francisco - Oakland Metropolitan Region has the worst road conditions of any major US metropolitan area (71% rated "poor"), with the San Jose region rated third nationwide (59%) (street in San Francisco pictured)
 * The nine Bay Area counties all vote overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton for president, from 62% (Solano County) to 85% (San Francisco)
 * Hundreds of people turn out in San Francisco (pictured), Oakland and Berkeley, protesting the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, blocking freeways, lighting fires and chanting, "Not our president" and "Fuck Trump"
 * Half the students at Berkeley High School, as well as students at Oakland Technical High School, Oakland's Bishop O'Dowd High School, and high schools in San Jose and Contra Costa County walk out of classes the morning after Donald Trump is elected president
 * The cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Albany pass 1 cent/ounce soda taxes, to combat health risks from excessive sugar consumption
 * Protesters against President-Elect Donald Trump join hands around Lake Merritt in Oakland
 * Mayor Ed Lee declares that San Francisco will remain a sanctuary city, in response to the election of Donald Trump as president, stating, "I know that there are a lot of people who are angry and frustrated and fearful, but our city's never been about that. We have been and always have been a city of refuge, a city of sanctuary, a city of love."
 * With the approval of both company's shareholders, Tesla Motors will merge with SolarCity, which will expedite Elon Musk's plans to introduce solar roofing tiles to integrate with home automobile charging
 * An American-born, non-Muslim woman in Fremont, finds a note on her car, reading “Hijab wearing bitch this is our nation now get the fuck out", after making a peace walk to the top of Mission Peak, where presumably the note writer had observed her wearing a head scarf, which she wears to protect her scalp from the sun, due to having Lupus. The incident is part of a wave of 437 incidents of hateful intimidation or harassment, since the presidential election, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center
 * During a concert at the SAP Center at San Jose, Kanye West is booed by shoe-throwing fans, as he goes on a political tirade, including stating that he had not voted in the presidential election, but that “If I would have voted,I would have voted for Trump”
 * San Jose teacher and transgender activist Dana Rivers (formerly David Warfield), who made headlines in 1999 for fighting unsuccessfully to keep a teaching position in Sacramento after sharing her transition with her high school students, is arrested in Oakland, charged with the murders of 3 acquaintances: married couple Patricia Wright and Charlotte Reed, and their 19 year old son, Toto Diambu-Wright
 * Robert P. Goldman, professor of Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkeley, publishes the 7th and final volume of his translation of the critical edition of Valmikis epic poem, the Ramayana, one of the foundational texts in the history of India, with core themes dating back to the Vedic period
 * Copies of an anti-Muslim letter are sent to the Evergreen Islamic Center in San Jose, and Islamic Centers in Long Beach and Claremont, reading, in part, "Your day of reckoning has arrived, there’s a new sheriff in town — President Donald Trump. He’s going to cleanse America and make it shine again. And, he’s going to start with you Muslims... [he is] going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the jews [sic] .”
 * A liberal household in Concord is targeted at night by vandals, who plant 56 United States flags defaced with pro-Trump remarks such as "Build The Damn Wall" and "I Luv The Donald", and who then cut the house's power, causing a loud explosion
 * The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is hit by hackers, using ransomware, demanding $70,000 in bitcoins, with fare machines reading “OUT OF SERVICE”, resulting in passengers riding for free
 * San Francisco area activist Gregory Lee Johnson, the defendant in the landmark 1989 Supreme Court decision Texas v. Johnson abolishing laws against flag burning on free speech grounds, declares that Donald Trump is "using the bully pulpit for fascism and forced patriotism", after Trump tweets "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag — if they do, there must be consequences — perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!"
 * December
 * A fire at an Oakland warehouse (pictured), which was hosting a music event, kills 36 people, the deadliest fire in Oakland history.
 * The Biomimetic Millisystems Lab at the University of California, Berkeley designs a wall-jumping robot, called Salto (Latin for jump), modelled after the galago, and which is described as the most vertically agile robot ever built
 * John Stewart, chief judge at the San Francisco Superior Court, discards 66,000 arrest warrants for criminal infractions, like sleeping on the sidewalk, public urination and public drunkenness, stating "You’re putting somebody in jail because they’re poor and can’t pay a fine. We got a lot of criticism, but we thought it was the right thing to do.”
 * More than 300 Silicon Valley technology company employees sign a letter declaring they will not help build a registry, for the upcoming Trump Administration, to be used to track Muslims in the United States, stating "We refuse to build a database of people based on their Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs. We refuse to facilitate mass deportations of people the government believes to be undesirable"
 * Uber rolls out self-driving cars (test vehicle pictured) in San Francisco, its headquarter city, and is almost immediately ordered to stop the service by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which cited it as illegal until an autonomous vehicle testing permit is acquired
 * Yahoo reports that hackers had, in 2013, stolen data on more than 1 billion user accounts, the largest hack worldwide to date
 * Apple, Google, Uber and Twitter all declare that they will not support the development of a "Muslim registry" as proposed by President-Elect Donald Trump
 * Scientists at Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory create the worlds thinnest wire, 3 atoms thick, using diamondoids to aid the manufacturing process