A mass gang-related shooting occurred at a child’s birthday party in the Central Valley just north of Stockton Saturday evening, killing four people — including 3 children — and injuring 11 others. There are reportedly multiple suspects.

Update: Per Sacramento's Fox40, a total of 15 victims were shot, and the four who died were ages 8, 9, 14, and 21. Stockton Mayor Christina Fugazi confirmed the shooting was gang-related.

Update 2: Per the Chronicle, the gathering consisted of 100 to 150 people. Multiple suspects reportedly began shooting inside the banquet hall and continued shooting as they made their way outside. At least one of the surviving victims is in critical condition.

As KTVU reports, the shooting happened just before 6 pm Saturday at a banquet hall on the 1900 block of Lucile Avenue in San Joaquin County, north of Stockton, in a suspected targeted incident, per KGO. In an announcement, Stockton Vice Mayor Jason Lee initially referred to the incident as taking place at an ice cream shop, but authorities later clarified it happened near a Dairy Queen and other businesses, per Bay Area News Group.

“A birthday party should never be a place where families fear for their lives,” Vice Mayor Lee said, per Bay Area News Group. “Violence touched my life as a young person, and seeing our own children, parents and neighbors go through this shakes me deeply. Stockton is my home. These are our families. This is our community.”

Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff’s office, confirmed that both children and adults had been shot.

“This is a very active and ongoing investigation, and information remains limited,” San Joaquin County Sheriff’s officials said on social media Saturday night. “Early indications suggest this may be a targeted incident, and investigators are exploring all possibilities. Detectives are actively working to determine the circumstances leading up to this tragedy.”

Per Sacramento’s KCRA, the suspect remains at large. The Stockton Police Department, Manteca Police Department, and the FBI are also investigating.

Image: gorodenkoff/Getty Images

An outdoor enthusiast from Colorado recently reached the top of Yosemite’s El Capitan with his eight-year-old son, and he did the same with his oldest son two years earlier. This time, he brought a documentary film crew, and some worry he’s endangering his kids’ lives for recognition.

As the Chronicle reports, eight-year-old Sylvan Lightyear Evermore made it to the top of El Capitan at Yosemite National Park with his father Joe Evermore late Friday night. The ascent took place over a weeklong trip — via rope ascent using special hand clamps as opposed to traditional rock climbing. This likely makes Sylvan one of only a handful of kids under the age of 12 to accomplish such a feat, along with his older brother Sam two years prior.

In 2023, Sam also successfully finished the same ascent, with Evermore (who changed his name from Baker, and clearly likes colorful names) touting him as a “world-class climber” in interviews with news outlets such as CNN, ABC, and NBC, per the Chronicle. This led CNN to title its article, “8-year-old boy becomes youngest person to climb California’s El Capitan,” but as the Chronicle notes, there is no official record-keeping of this sort.

Critics said this claim was misleading because no real climbing takes place with a rope ascent, which entails fixed ropes and ascender clamps, or “jugs,” which are laid out by actual climbers and anchored in place beforehand in order to safely guide the person along and keep them secure, per the Chronicle.

Regardless of the nomenclature, many in the community also worry about the wellbeing of Evermore’s children, as he also has two younger sons. Tom Evans, who documents climbers’ progress on the mountain three months out of the year, called the 2023 ascent “a publicity hoax” and even confronted Evermore prior to the trip.

“He said, ‘What’s the problem?’ And I said, ‘The whole media presentation needs to stop. I know there’s no way your son suggested getting this record. This is about you,’” Evans told the Chronicle at the time. “He said, ‘It’s not about the record, it’s about spending time with my son.’ I said, ‘Why all the publicity then?’”

Regarding Evermore’s recent trip with Sylvan, Evans reportedly said on Facebook, “This scam is just for publicity and making $$$ for the family.”

Ken Yager, founder and president of the nonprofit Yosemite Climbing Association, found the scenario potentially dangerous. “I can say personally that this obsession with records is kind of dangerous. That’s the wrong reason to climb,” he told the Chronicle. “Also, it takes away from the integrity of the sport, in a way. When it becomes a big media thing, I’m not a fan of it.”

Tommy Caldwell, a free climber, told the paper he found it “cringeworthy.” “Theoretically I could have put (my son) in a haul bag when he was 1 year old and gotten him up there.”

The second time around, per the Chronicle, Evermore strictly referred to the expedition as a rope ascent rather than a “climb.” He also brought along a documentary film crew with the aim of promoting his parenting philosophy, which focuses on how to help boys “develop into men through hardship and affliction.” Per the Chronicle, Evermore has raised over $450,000 online to finance the feature-length documentary film.

“In our culture, our system, we have dads who sit back on the couch and watch football and aren’t really engaged,” Evermore told the Chronicle. “I want to wake those guys up and get them doing something rad with their kids.””

Contrary to what the rest of the climbing community thinks of Evermore, Hans Florine, who tracks speed-climbing records on El Capitan, thinks Evermore’s stunts are harmless. “It’s a natural progression for our sport. You can’t get upset about this stuff,” he told the Chronicle.

“I’ve jugged the whole thing many times — it’s crazy-hard for an adult,” he continued. “If they are being honest about what they’re doing, I think it’s great.”

Nevertheless, the senior Evermore's steadfast pursuit of recognition brings to mind the tragic story of Jessica Dubroff, the 7-year-old child pilot from Pescadero who died in a 1996 plane crash, along with her father and flight instructor. Dubroff was attempting to become the youngest person to fly across the United States — a journey heavily promoted by her parents and the media, as reported by SFGate.

Image: Little Mountain 5/Wikimedia

San Francisco’s “More dogs than kids” stereotype just bought a few more years of relevance, as Census numbers confirm a still-declining family population, and only Bayview, Presidio, and Sea Cliff have more than 20% of their populations under 18.

SFist and the broader national media have never shied away from discussing how San Francisco has the lowest percentage of families with kids under 18 of any major U.S. city, which is to say, we are America's most childless city. The Chronicle took stock of this again with the first batch of 2020 Census numbers last August, finding we were still at a national low of 13% of the population 18 and under in 2020, down from 13.4% in 2010, and a high of 16% in the 1990s.

The Chronicle has updated those numbers with the latest Census revisions. We’re still at just 13%, but their new analysis breaks down the population density of kids by neighborhood with some surprising findings (as seen below, darker blue means more kids, lighter blue means fewer).    

As observed above, the Tenderloin does not have the highest concentration of kids in the city, as has often been believed. (The Castro actually has a higher percentage of kids under 18!)  By raw numbers or by percentages, the Tenderloin is not in the top ten for the population of children.

The highest percentage of kids can be found in Sea Cliff, but that’s a tiny-population anomaly (just over 500 kids and teens in total). Bayview (21.1% under 18) has nearly 10,000 kids and comes in second. The Presidio is third, but again, very small, sample size, and Visitacion Valley is a real kids' neighborhood with about 19.5% under 18, followed by Glean Park at 18.2%.

The lowest percentage of kids can be found in Lincoln Park (again, negligible population size), but just mid-single digit percentages of kids are found in other relatively childless neighborhoods of McLaren Park (4% under 18), Nob Hill (5.2%), and Japantown (6.6%).

We can argue whether this is about housing affordability, percentage of LGBTQ population, or the prohibitive cost of having kids these days (it’s likely all three). But the downward trend in the SF children’s population is certainly going to continue. Per the Chronicle, “it’s likely that the youth populations of these neighborhoods will drop even more in the coming decade.”

Related: San Francisco Only Got More Childless In the Last Decade [SFist]

Image: @usa4 via Twitter

For most of the last two decades, San Francisco has been among the country's least age-diverse places, boasting one of the lowest concentration of families with children under 18 of any major US city. That figure, which hovered around 15 percent in the 2000s, is now estimated to be 13 percent, and the New York Times again takes up the topic, which some view as a kind of crisis about what the city's future looks like if we continue to have fewer and fewer kids among us.

There's also the argument for how we keep diverse types of housing, especially affordable housing, in San Francisco if so many people are co-habitating in roommate situations, effectively driving up market-rate rents for larger apartments because they are all wage earners in the prime of their lives paying separate rents — as opposed to families with children trying to survive on a maximum of two incomes, or just one. A new Planning Department report released just week found that just 30 percent of three-bedroom homes in the city are currently occupied by families, but it cautions that the trend of families leaving the city to move to the east and elsewhere as soon as they have school-age kids may reverse as Millennials who value urban amenities opt to stay put and raise kids here — even if that seems utterly unaffordable to many now.

The NYT notes that a recent figure on California as a whole shows the lowest birthrate, statewide, since the Great Depression, but cities without kids aren't necessarily cities we all want to live in. The paper talks to young couple Daisy Yeung, a high school teacher, and Slin Lee, who live in a studio apartment near the Castro with their small dog, and while they intend to have kids, they don't think they'll want to do it in the city.

Add to the unaffordability of housing the uneven quality of SF's public schools — itself arguably a product of there being so few middle class families — and the lack of backyards and places for kids to run free and safe, and the trend toward suburbia for SF families is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

As of the 2010 census, the trend showed a slight uptick in the number of children under 5 living in SF, probably just concurrent with population growth, but an outward migration of kids 5 to 18 over the previous decade.

The Planning report notes that the city has an opportunity in the coming decade to address the issue, but it will come with the acceptance that neighborhoods have to become more dense. "An astonishing 72% of the city’s privately owned parcels are zoned for single-family housing (RH-1) and two-unit housing (RH-2)," says the report. "This puts the burden of population growth on the remaining 28% of parcels, which already houses all of our businesses, institutions, and mixed-use housing." And thus you have a huge segment of the city's single population in their 20s and 30s who stick to a relatively small number of neighborhoods: the Mission, Castro, SoMa, Hayes Valley, Tenderloin, NoPa, and the Marina.

Note that in 1970, San Francisco was much closer to the national average in terms of children, with about 22 percent of the population under 18. These days, with us at 13 percent, New York City is the second lowest with 21 percent, and Chicago right at the national average of 23 percent.

At a current population of 865,000, we have 120,000 kids, and roughly the same number of dogs — i.e. half of our "childless" families do, indeed, have kids they have to walk on leashes.

Related: Residents Rejoice as Families Flee San Francisco

In a first-of-its-kind settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Apple. Inc. has agreed to pay out $32.5 million in refunds to parents who say they were not properly informed that their children could buy things in iPad and iPhone games without their knowledge. This follows on a previous class-action lawsuit brought by parents several years back, some of whose children racked up thousand-dollar bills buying "Smurfberries" in a game called Smurf’s Village.

As the Washington Post reports, Apple and the FTC started getting complaints in 2011 over games like Tap Pet Hotel and Smurf’s Village, and lawyers in the eventual class-action argued that Apple had unfairly and deceptively changed a purchasing policy in their iOS that allowed users 15 minutes of unlimited in-app purchases after a password was entered. The games have various currencies and boosts in them ranging in price from 99 cents to $500, and a lot of kids, and their parents, got swindled in the process.

The bigger question is: Why should app-makers be allowed to design games with in-app purchases at all when those games are geared toward children?

Apple addressed the parental-control problem back in March 2011, scrapping that 15-minute window, and they settled the class-action suit for an undisclosed sum, saying that they've received 37,000 claims for full refunds and paid them all out.

In an email to employees yesterday, CEO Tim Cook sounded pissy about the fact that the FTC has come after them as well. "It smacked of double jeopardy,” Cook wrote. “However, the consent decree the FTC proposed does not require us to do anything we weren’t already going to do, so we decided to accept it rather than take on a long and distracting legal fight." In a separate statement, an Apple spokesman says the $32.5 million settlement simply "extends our existing refund program for in-app purchases."

Now does anyone want to start a class-action suit with me claiming we should not be allowed to purchase five extra moves in Candy Crush when drunk? I feel I'm owed a refund for the lack of a "drunk-lock" in that game.

[WP]
[SF Biz Times]

A boycott of Barilla Pasta erupted after Guido Barilla, chairman of the "world's leading pasta manufacturer," made anti-gay remarks on Italian radio saying that his company would never use an LGBT family in its advertising.

America Blog's John Aravosis has the Radio 24 interview translation: "We won’t include gays in our ads, because we like the traditional family. If gays don’t like it, they can always eat another brand of pasta. Everyone is free to do what they want, provided it doesn’t bother anyone else."

Though, oddly enough, in favor of gay marriage, Barilla went on to admit that he opposed adoption by same-sex parents. He later explained in another interview, "the woman plays a central role in a family."

Italian gay group Equality Italia responded by slamming Barilla's statement as "offensive provocation" and then calling for a boycott of the company's pasta and sauces. "We accept the invitation from the Barilla owner to not eat his pasta," Equality Italia's Aurelio Mancuso said.

First of all, every good chef and home cook knows that the best dish is made with... love. Yes, love. And Mr. Barilla's statements regarding family do not seem terribly loving. We can't imagine the slew of gay parents we personally know taking his statements lightly.

And second, for those of you who plan on eschewing Barilla products, what dried pasta will you buy instead? To find out better options for you and your family, SFist asked Inside Scoop's editor Paolo Lucchesi, who is openly heterosexual and Italian, to tell us his favorites.

"I’m a big fan of Mattarello, which does sporadic pop-ups around town selling both fresh and dried pasta," Lucchesi explains. "Oakland’s Baia Pasta is another really good local option that’s available more readily at a lot of Bay Area shops and markets. Look how pretty."

De Cecco and Racconto are also good options.

[Chicagoist]
[Reuters]
[Atlantic]

Starting today, March 1, babies cruising in their strollers are more than welcome to ride on Muni trains. Which: fantastic. We love when babies hop aboard a Muni (or BART) train. Why? Well, they typically send out signature baby-chill vibes to everyone, causing attention-seeking mental cases to quiet the fuck down. Further, a crying baby will be the least offensive thing you will witness on a Muni ride.

SFGate has more:

After 10 months of hemming and hawing - about how long it takes the average 2-year-old to get dressed each day - Muni has finally changed its policy regarding baby strollers. According to Muni’s on-line customer tips and rules page, “Effective Mar. 1, 2013, Children in strollers are welcome on Muni buses and trains.”

The matter came to light last April when Supervisor David Chiu led the charge to allow babies to remain in their strollers on Muni provided they didn’t block the aisles or space for wheelchair users. Previously, parents were required to fold the strollers, carry their babies in their other arm and were given no access to wheelchair lifts or ramps. That essentially meant seeing a happy parent on board a Muni bus with a baby was as likely as finding an empty seat on the 38 Geary at rush hour.

Speaking of blocking aisle space, can we ban/bludgeon people who insist on wearing oversized backpacks during rush hour? Those people are worse than serial killers. Another related question: Could today's allowance of babies in strollers pave the way for cyclists and their bikes on Muni trains? Perhaps. After all, they're just as smelly and whiny as toddlers. But seriously, folks...

[SFGate]

In the timeless words of Will Smith, parents just don't understand. Two teenage girls were arrested earlier this week after allegedly drugging one of the girl's parents. Why? Because they wanted to use the wonderful world wide web well after their 10 p.m. curfew.

See, on the night of December 28 in Rocklin, CA, the parents fell right to sleep an hour after drinking delicious milkshakes their 16-year-old daughter and her 15-year-old friend purchased for them at a fast food joint. According to police, the parents "woke up in the middle of the night feeling 'really groggy' with 'hangover symptoms,'" even though they had not been drinking. When they woke up again the next day with that same achey feeling, they knew something was wrong and bought a $5 drug kit.

LA Times has more:

Investigators later learned the girls crushed prescription sleeping pills and put them in the milkshakes so the parents would fall asleep and they could use the Internet past the 10 p.m. curfew.

"Mom and Dad had the Internet cut off nightly at 10 p.m.," [Rocklin police Lt. Lon Milka] said. "The daughter wanted to use it past 10 because I guess they're like most teenagers and the Internet is their life."

The parents didn't end up drinking all of the milkshakes because it was "kind of gritty" and "really funny tasting," Milka said.

The girls, whose names cannot be released due to their ages, were promptly arrested and booked on December 31 in Placer County Juvenile Hall "on suspicion of conspiracy and willfully mingling a pharmaceutical into food."

Kids these days: sanity-estranged.

Be on the look out on Thursday, drivers (well, more than you already should) — it's S.F.'s 4th Annual Bike to School Day, in which hundreds of kids and their families take to the streets and ride to school. The event is part of the San Francisco Safe Routes to School Program and is coordinated by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. Take a look at the event's website, which has quite a '90s vibe going for it. (CSS not tables, folks. Don't they follow the gospel of the SEO Rapper? [video])

This year's event poster contest was themed, "When I bike I feel _____," which inspired some great entries.

As S.F. Bike Coalition reports, over 2,000 students at 40 schools participated last year. The organizers are encouraging schools and families to organize bike trains, which are groups of people who bike together on a pre-planned route with meet-up points along the way.

Planning on participating? Be sure to check out the S.F. Bike Coalition's handy Family Biking Guide.

As City Insider reports, Supervisors Chiu and Elsbernd are reconsidering Muni's decades-old policy regarding strollers on the bus in an effort to keep families from fleeing the city at the alarming rate we keep hearing about. Although, we'd like to point out that the Chron article to which everyone keeps referring and that keeps getting recycled every year says that there are actually 3,000 more children under the age of 5 in San Francisco than 10 years ago. It's the school-aged children that we've actually been losing (more than 8,000 over the age of five). But maybe we're just niggling.

Muni's current policy is that all strollers must be folded up and babies held. Supervisors Chiu and Elsbernd are proposing that Muni consider allowing babies to remain strapped in the strollers with the wheels locked if they’re not blocking the aisle. They also propose that parents with strollers should be allowed to board the bus using the wheelchair lift and receive secondary priority for the front seats after seniors and disabled people. We assume this means that a section of the priority seats would need to be folded up — just like with wheelchairs — in order to accommodate open strollers in the front of the bus. Otherwise they would certainly end up blocking the aisle.

Second of all, Muni needs to run on time and more frequently (we can only dream!), so the buses and trains aren't so crowded that you can hang onto your groceries or kids. We personally would never want to cram a stroller onto Muni with our kid in it for this very reason. We've always worn our toddler in an Ergo, and now, she's old enough to walk to the bus stop and sit like a "big girl" — some of the time. (Except, we have encountered quite a few excruciating fits and subsequent premature exoduses on Muni recently. Ugh.)

Additionally, we've always thought inserting a folded stroller on the bus's bike rack would be a handy idea.

We took a brief look at our peers in the Pacific Northwest to see if their transit systems are more accommodating, and we were disappointed. Their strollers-on-transit policies are the same as Muni's. A couple of others cities that do allow open strollers are Chicago and Copenhagen (and get a load of the monstrous strollers that are all the rage in Denmark — pictured at left!).

On the heels of last week's hot topic surrounding kids in restaurants which also brought up the typical debate in the comments over whether kids should be allowed on planes, we found ourselves experiencing a blissfully unremarkable flight with our toddler from SFO to San Diego yesterday. Granted, the flight was short, our kid's a well-behaved frequent flyer, and we came prepared with an arsenal of activities and snacks, including delicious roasted seaweed (aka, toddler crack), but we give much credit to this fabulous SFO Activity Book for setting the stage for us.

Be sure to pick one up from the nice folks at the SFO information booth next time you travel. The coloring book, which we discovered was published back in 2007, also comes with a set of primary-colored crayons, and as you can see from photo #3, the red crayon takes the coloring book to a whole other level.

Earlier this month, Natural Resources, which has been providing quality gear, clothing, classes, and support to San Francisco parents for the past 25 years, reached out to its customers for some help, announcing they were in danger of going out of business. Their campaign to raise $45,000, which ends this Monday, has been quite successful, and they're only $5,418 from reaching their goal.

Contributors to the fund may receive special discounts and deals on merchandise and services, including a massage, an advanced breast pump, and discounted memberships to Natural Resources. Payments of as little as $10 are being accepted.

The $45,000 raised will enable Natural Resources to do the following:

• restock the store with carefully chosen and unique products with a special focus on the most requested, most necessary and practical items needed for pregnancy, birth and parenting such as nursing bras, baby carriers, layette clothing, breastpumps and breastfeeding supplies, and discounted maternity clothes from Maternity Xchange
• redesign the classroom space with more comfortable seating and an even cozier atmosphere
• expand their educational and support options, offering the classes, groups and workshops parents want most

There's certainly no shortage of frightful Halloween events going on this weekend for adults and kids alike. Here are a few choice happenings.

Midnites for Maniacs' Halloween Spooktacular: Midnites for Maniacs presents an epic line-up of movies this weekend at the Roxie, including a screening of the titillating vampire flick, The Hunger happening tonight -- featuring Ann Magnuson in person, and a 20th Anniversary celebration of Twin Peaks. The event's run-time is conveniently 666 minutes, we might add.

Trannyshack Halloween: Heklina and Peaches Christ are back on Saturday night for their 5th annual holiday extravaganza, featuring a special surprise celebrity guest star -- "a heavy metal drummer once married to a bona-fide 'faux queen'", who's set to judge the event's costume contest, along with a gigantic horror-themed drag show, and ghoulish dancing "with terrifying results in a safe space."

Waldo Pub Crawl: Tomorrow's pub crawl has to be the most brilliant one yet. Get lost in the crowd in a fresh Waldo-esque red-and-white striped shirt and beanie, or stand out by adding your own Halloween twist, as you stop for drinks along Sutter Street.

Journey to the End of the Night: Meet up at at Rincon Park, near Folsom Street and the Embarcadero, (near the Cupid's Span bow and arrow sculpture), Justin Herman Plaza on Saturday night for Journey to the End of the Night's third Halloween edition, "an epic chase through a series of artist-created checkpoints scattered across San Francisco, which last year attracted 1,300 players." This year's event features a new character, Chaser Killer, who's "designed to terrify chasers as they pursue their targeted players across the haunted cityscape."

Vaudeville Halloween - Dead Madames Ball: This old-timey Halloween extravaganza will feature "reality defying acts" of contortionists, knife throwers, sultry belly dancers, sexy burlesque performers and human oddities, along with songs, sketches and recitations by the DJ Risk One. Carnival fare such as cotton candy, salt-water taffy, and diabolical bartender created concoctions will be served.

Teatro Zin Zombie: For those planning ahead to Monday -- Teatro ZinZanni presents "a nostalgic journey of music, cirque and cabaret," starring blues phenomenon Duffy Bishop and Bay Area comedic legend Geoff Hoyle. Also featuring a costume parade, bloody Halloween cocktails, ghoulish face painting, and a five-course gourmet meal.

For the kiddies:
Spooktacular Halloween Party & Trick or Treat in Japantown
Halloween Hoopla : Dance & Parade for Kids
Haunted Wonderland
Doggie Halloween Bash & Puppy Party

Philippines Airlines passenger Aida Alamillo delivered a healthy baby boy mid-flight yesterday while en route to San Francisco with the help of three onboard nurses and several flight crew members. The baby was reportedly delivered at 3:25 p.m., four hours before the plane landed at SFO.

The flight purser's incident report stated that the baby, who was born pre-term at 35 weeks, appeared healthy -- his "skin color looked good," he "started to breastfeed," and gave a "loud cry," which was reportedly met with cheers from everyone onboard.

The airline transported mom and baby to Mills Peninsula Hospital upon landing in the Bay Area.

[KTVU]
[ABS CBN]