The home of Diane Goodstein, a South Carolina judge who’s been receiving death threats after facing off with Trump in September, burned to the ground in a suspected explosion Saturday. Her husband, former State Representaive and Senator Arnold Goodstein, reportedly leapt from the building to escape.

As South Carolina’s FITSNews reports, the beachfront home of South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein went up in flames Saturday around 11:30 am, burning to the ground and sending three of her family members to the hospital. Per FITSNews, Goodstein was walking on the beach at the time of the incident.

Goodstein’s husband, Arnold Goodstein, who previously served as both a Democratic South Carolina State Representative and State Senator per Wikipedia, escaped the fire by jumping from a window or balcony of the residence after helping other family members evacuate. As South Carolina’s WS10 reports, the family was rescued via kayak, according to St. Paul’s Fire District.

Arnold Goodstein reportedly broke several bones in his hips, legs, and feet and had to be airlifted to the hospital, per FITSNews. The couple’s son, Arnold Goodstein II, and another family member were also reportedly hospitalized, as the Daily Mail reports.

South Carolina Chief Justice John Kittredge told FITSNews the fire was from an explosion, but law enforcement has not yet said whether arson is suspected.

“Chief Keel said he will stay in touch and let us know if there is any evidence of arson,” Kittredge told FITSNews. “At this time, we do not know whether the fire was accidental or arson. Until that determination is made, Chief Keel has alerted local law enforcement to provide extra patrols and security.”

Per South Carolina’s Gazette, Goodstein temporarily blocked the Department of Justice from accessing the voter data of South Carolina residents in September, which was later reversed by the Supreme Court, per FITSNews. A colleague told FITSNews that Goodstein had been receiving death threats in the weeks prior to the fire.

As Newsweek reports, Representative Daniel Goldman of New York wrote on X that Republicans have been “doxxing and threatening judges who rule against Trump, including Judge Goodstein.”

Image: St. Paul’s Fire District/Facebook

Related: Suspect Arrested Following Manhunt In Minnesota, Lawmakers Shot

• ICE arrested two protestors who are US citizens outside its 630 Sansome Street field office Friday afternoon before releasing them later that night. Agents reportedly mocked the group of ten protesters while pointing pepper ball rifles and batons at them. [Mission Local]
• Rodney Williams, 55, of San Francisco was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Friday on charges including two counts of possession of child pornography. In July 2024, police found hundreds of images and videos of child sexual abuse at Williams’s Potrero Hill home, along with around 3.8 kilograms of methamphetamine; a kilogram of cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl; 11 firearms; and 116 pounds of ammunition. [Bay City News]
• A suspected shoplifter at the Colma Target bit a police officer's arm while trying to avoid arrest after first ignoring police and attempting to walk around them. [KRON4]
• Newsom appointed seven new judges to Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara county courts on Thursday. [KPIX]
• Noah Alhayek, an 11-year-old San Jose boy, has been missing since August 4 and was last known to be taking public transit to San Francisco. [KRON4]
• Jennifer Bryant, 25, is scheduled to appear in court Monday on charges of animal cruelty in the 2024 death of a horse named Honey, who died from malnutrition and heat stroke when Bryant was manager of Chaparral Ranch’s Bear Creek Stables in Los Gatos [KTVU]
• A team of scientists at California Academy of Sciences is part of a collective of agencies working to save 26 species of starfish impacted by a “wasting disease” that’s caused by rising ocean temperatures. [KPIX]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside ordered the U.S. military to "immediately halt all discharges of openly gay personnel under 'don't ask, don't tell,' a policy she declared unconstitutional last month." Phillips, according to reports, said that "expert testimony and studies from other nations with different policies found no evidence that allowing gays to serve reduced military effectiveness." Which: duh. [Chron]

More time is being wasted over in Berkeley over those damn oak trees. This time the Berkeley City Council voted last night that they it "will not seek a stay of a judge's order allowing UC Berkeley's athletic center project to proceed," according to CBS 5. Good. Also, many of the protesters, who awesomely are starting to view themselves as Christ-like figures as of late, held a small rally outside Berkeley City Hall last night. And this is our favorite quote from one of the pro-oak grovists:

The court system was set up for the rich and wealthy, and it's up to us now, the people on the ground! We do have the power! That is why the trees are still standing! It's because of human beings who sleep there, and stay there day and night.

OK, sure. The court system was "set up for the rich and wealthy." We'll give you that only because we watch a lot of Law & Order: SVU. And we really have no idea what we're talking about. But we doubt any (lucid) poor person gives a crap about some oak trees on the UC Berkeley campus.

In other news, the trees along Third and Harrison streets are scheduled for demolition soon. Any guesses on when we'll see media-whore/"activists" Dumpster Muffin climbing those leafy gifts from God? (Hint: never)

Photo credit: Brian Brooks/Flickr

UCB's plans to mow down an oak grove and put up a sports training facility were put on hold. It seems a judge halted the plans until "the university can prove the project would not violate state earthquake-safety laws, a judge ruled Wednesday," says the Gate. The university, though, thinks it's a rule in their favor, keeping "their plan alive, arguing that the center would not violate state law because it would not touch any fault lines."

But the tree-sitters, who have been nesting in the oaks since last year, are thrilled:

"We are ecstatic," said Stephan Volker, attorney for the California Oak Foundation, which sued the university two years ago. "We believe this project is now dead." The city of Berkeley and a group of neighbors living near the stadium also filed lawsuits to block the project.

Oddly enough, Dumpster Muffin's crying fit atop one of the trees yesterday afternoon -- as if daddy were taking away her AmEx -- did not manage to get her forcefully pulled from the oak. (What's more, her non-baptismal name is currently our favorite among the tree squatters.)

In the end, though, the ruling will most likely favor the university. Presumably they just need to wait until the last activist scurries out of the grive, and then they'll bring in the chainsaws. Stay tuned.

When did San Diego become so...?

After this month's historic ruling that will allow the gays to legally wed in the state of California, San Diego County Clerk Gregory Smith let it slip that he would "consider allowing clerks to bow out of processing such marriages if they had moral or religions objections." Which? He can't do.

And that's illegal, isn't it? That whole church/state overlap thing? Didn't we already go over this, that not performing a same-sex wedding might lead a government worker to lose their job?

Anyway, once Newsom heard about San Diego's latest stance on gay marriage, he waved his finger in the air, cocked his head back and forth, and shrieked:

If you don't want to provide a marriage certificate and you've got a job that does that, then you should think twice about why you got the job in the first place and maybe you should get a new job...[t]alk about a slippery slope, Mr. County Clerk down in San Diego.

Not very good for business, San Diego. Gay marriages = gay dollars.

Today a federal judge told the prosecutors to "re-craft its perjury case against Barry Bonds." The judge on the Bonds case, Susan Illston, claims that they "improperly lumped multiple alleged offenses into each of four counts of its indictment of the former Giants star." Whoops. Illston slammed the Bonds indictment, which was handed up last November, as "duplicitous." According to the Chron:

By law, the government can only accuse a person of one crime per count of an indictment. But the judge said that in Bonds' perjury case, the slugger was being accused of telling as many as five different lies under oath in each count of the indictment.

She said the government could correct the flaws by rewriting the indictment or filing a new one.

To recap: former baseball great, Barry Bonds, in case you've been living under a rock or only watch womens figure skating to get your sports fix, is charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying under oath after denying that he used illegal from care of BACLO. The prosecutors have until March 21 to get it together.

After a 10-month protest atop an oak grove next to Memorial Stadium, a judge ruled on Monday that UC Berkeley can now start removing up-in-a-tree protesters, as well as their ground support, even if police can't identify the protesters by name.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard Keller amended his ruling from a month ago. At that time, his decree gave authorities the power to strip the environmental activists off of the UC-owned land, but only if they could identify the protesters by name.

According to the Chronicle, only one protester could be identified "David Galloway, 36, because the other dozen sitters wear masks and would not give their real names." And now? The students and activists protesting a proposed sports training facility in the place of the grand old oak are all fair game.

But the university (wisely) will take its time to proceed with any forcible action. UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof also claims that "this ruling means it's all but impossible for reasonable people to see this protest as something benign."


Image: George Derk / Daily Cal