• Adam Thomas Cordle, 50, was convicted of indecent exposure Wednesday for an incident in July in which he was caught masturbating in the bushes by a local woman walking alone in SF’s Crocker Amazon Park. [KRON4]
• The Trump administration announced Thursday it’s allowing new oil drilling off the coasts of Florida and Southern California for the first time in decades. [Associated Press]

• Students at Sonoma County’s Windsor Middle School found a loaded gun Friday during a field trip to Foothill Regional Park, which police suspect was hidden during an investigation of a nearby car crash in October. [KRON4]
• As part of a recent $2.5 billion settlement over Amazon’s alleged misleading Prime enrollment process, the company has begun sending out automatic refunds to customers who signed up between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025 — and used three or fewer Prime services in any 12-month period, which should hit customers’ PayPal or VenMo accounts by December 24. [CBS News]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• Anthropic AI has agreed to pay $1.5 billion in a copyright settlement over a lawsuit alleging the company illegally pirated almost half a million books. The plaintiffs — a group of authors and publishers — will be awarded $3,000 for each publication listed in the case. [Associated Press]
• Thirty inmates were involved in a fight at Maguire Correctional Facility in San Mateo County Friday morning, and deputies reportedly used gas to break it up. Six officers had minor injuries, and six inmates were hospitalized, three of whom have since been sent back to jail and the others in stable condition. [KTVU]
• Caltrans is replacing a misspelled sign on southbound 101 in Novato/Petaluma. The sign, which should read “San Marin Drive” instead of the currently incorrect “San Martin Drive,” is scheduled to arrive in a couple weeks — at no extra cost to taxpayers. [KGO]

• Oakland-born world figure skating champion Alysa Liu told the Associated Press she’s replacing the d4vd song she’d planned to use for one of her programs in the Milan Olympics due to the artist’s potential involvement in the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. [Associated Press]

National:

• Elon Musk is listed in a newly released Epstein document, along with Steve Banon, Peter Thiel, and Prince Andrew. The file, released Friday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, contains portions of Epstein’s daily schedule from 2014, 2017 and 2019, as well as a flight manifest from 2000. [USA Today]
• Black Panther and Black Liberation activist Assata Shakur, who had been living in Cuba under political asylum for the past several decades, has died. Shakur was given a life sentence in 1977 in the killing of a New Jersey state trooper and was rescued by members of the Black Liberation Army during a jail break in 1979. [Associated Press]
• In a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Amazon agreed to pay its customers $1.5 billion in refunds — in addition to a $1 billion civil penalty — over its “deceptive Prime enrollment practices.” [CBS News]
• Sinclair Broadcasting and Nexstar Media Group, which boycotted the airing of Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week, announced Friday they’ll both be airing the show again on all 38 and 33 of their ABC affiliate stations effective immediately. [CBS News]

Video of the Day:

• This Bay Area couple had a wedding to remember with Vallejo’s own E-40 as their wedding officiant. Big congrats, to the Kinders!

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Several people were injured by a dangerously installed speed bump on Clay Street back in August 2022. A few are suing for about $1 million, but one of them just scored a $9 million settlement for his injuries.

Back in August 2022, the Chronicle had a story about several people being injured by a dangerously implemented construction bump on a Slow Street area of Clay Street in Presidio Heights. The problem was not the fact that it was a Slow Street, but instead a rather an obstruction in the road left behind after some underground water-line work by the SF Public Utilities Commission.  Numerous people on scooters or bicycles were injured in accidents on that bump in the 11 days until it was smoothed over, and the SF Standard reported last month that four of them were suing for “well under $1 million.”

But one of them, former Cruise robotaxi project manager Mason Masuda, sued for a staggering $9 million. Supervisor Aaron Peskin told the Standard, "I haven't seen payouts like this even for wrongful deaths." Indeed, wrongful death suits — where someone died — typically net $2 million to $3 million.

Regardless, Peskin and the rest of the supervisors unanimously approved the $9 million settlement to Masuda at Tuesday’s board meeting, with no discussion and an immediate bang of the gavel.

It's not clear why the injuries, or the case, warranted this settlement.

To be fair, this is not the largest injury settlement San Francisco has ever paid out. Back in 2015, the supervisors approved an $11 million settlement to a woman who was permanently disabled by a Muni light-rail train.

A City Attorney's Office spokesperson told the Standard last month, regarding the Masuda case, that "We believe the proposed settlement is an appropriate resolution given the inherent costs of continued litigation."

Related: $2.25 Million Settlement Expected For Woman Injured During Early-Morning Fall From Palace Of Fine Arts Structure [SFist]

Image Google Street View

A year later, we now know the details of “Hillsborough Heiress” Tiffany Li's settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit related to the 2016 killing of Keith Green, brought by Green's mother and joined by Li's two daughters.

Li will have to pay her two preteen daughters a total of $10 million, according to the settlement reached in early 2023. As ABC 7 was first to report, each girl will reportedly receive $5 million (minus attorney and litigation fees), and they will be able to access the funds when they turn 18.

The backstory, if you don’t recall: Li, whose father is a construction magnate in China and grew up primarily in the Bay Area, made national news when she was accused of conspiring to murder Green. (Green's body was found by a road outside of Healdsburg in April of 2016.) She was tried and acquitted in 2019 for lack of evidence against her, but soon faced another civil suit from Green’s mother, Colleen Cudd, who wanted a previously undisclosed sum of money for the girls and a modest $100,000 for herself.

Cudd tells ABC7 that she's glad the settlement money ensured "that the girls had something for themselves when they turned 18 and that they weren't controlled by their mother."

As we reported, this case has been a rollercoaster. Li agreed to settle, but there was a bunch of last-minte courtroom drama as Li avoided taking the stand in the case. She fired multiple lawyers — at one point, she retained attorneys from four different law firms, per the AP — and the settlement was renegotiated several times. Li also petitioned the judge at least twice to keep the terms of the civil settlement secret, blaming “xenophobia, Asian hate, and falsehoods publicized against [her],” according to one filing in 2022. She relocated with her kids to China several years ago, after her brief imprisonment and the media frenzy around the case.

In the wake of the murder, her family posted her $35 million bail. Prosecutors said that Li and her new boyfriend, Kaveh Bayat, a former friend of Green's and a big MMA fan, conspired with another MMA fighter, Olivier Adella (also known as Mustapha Traore), to carry out the murder. Li and Green were apparently involved in tense negotiations over the custody of their children after their romantic relationship ended. Adella admitted to being an accessory after the fact and served time, while Li maintained her innocence, suggesting at times that Bayat may have acted alone. The 2019 murder trial resulted in a mistrial for Bayat and an acquittal for Li.

Adella was ultimately freed in this case but re-arrested in 2020 for passport fraud. And to this day, no one has been convicted in the actual murder.

Now, Cudd’s lawyer says the settlement will allow the girls to have financial independence from the Li family, as well as reach out to the Green family when they want. For what it’s worth, Cudd also said she wanted to keep the settlement amount kept secret, for the sake of the girls' privacy.

But San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Danny Chou, who was trying the case, said there is no legal precedent for him to keep the amount under seal.

Previously: Hillsborough Heiress and Accused Murder Mastermind Tiffany Li Avoids Civil Trial and Settles Wrongful Death Case

Kaiser Permanente, California's largest healthcare provider, has reached a $49 million settlement with state prosecutors following allegations of illegal disposing of patient records, hazardous materials, and medical waste, including blood and body parts.

The settlement was announced by Attorney General Rob Bonta on Friday in a statement.

The settlement follows years of state investigation into Kaiser Permanente's waste disposal practices. Beginning in 2015, undercover state trash inspectors rifled through its hospitals' municipal dumpsters and found pharmaceutical drugs, syringes and vials containing bio-hazardous human blood and bodily fluids, and hazardous materials (batteries, aerosols, cleansers, sanitizers, electronic waste), at 16 different facilities, as the Mercury News reported. That’s a violation of the state’s Hazardous Waste Control Law and Medical Waste Management Act, which mandates these types of materials be collected into marked containers and disposed at licensed facilities.

Plus, the inspectors reportedly found over 10,000 paper records containing the medical information of more than 7,700 patients during these inspections — flouting laws that require customer and medical records be disposed of in a way that protects privacy like shredding or burning.

And as KTVU reported, state inspectors also said that they found “surgical body parts,” though it’s not clear which ones. Kaiser has reportedly denied that claim,

“As a health care provider, Kaiser should know that it has specific legal obligations to properly dispose of medical waste and safeguard patients’ medical information,” AG Bonta said in the press release. He also added that Kaiser agreed to the settlement and took immediate action to address the alleged violations.

According to Bonta, as part of the settlement, Kaiser Permanente will be required to retain an independent third-party auditor, approved by the Attorney General's Office and the district attorneys involved, for a period of five years. This auditor will apparently assess Kaiser's compliance with California laws related to the handling of hazardous and medical waste, as well as patient health information protection.

Kaiser, headquartered in Oakland, operates over 700 facilities statewide and provides healthcare to approximately 8.8 million Californians. Hope that their health insurance costs won’t go up to cover the payout.

Photo of Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

It was 8:40 a.m. on Friday October 18, 2013, when 78-year-old cyclist Cheng Jin Lai was crushed by a 27-Bryant Muni bus as it turned from 11th Street onto Bryant Street.

According to Ghost Bikes of San Francisco, the Vietnam native had moved to the US from China in 1996 at the age of 61, became a US citizen in 2003, and "found a sense of stability in his hobbies. Fishing at Fort Mason with his friends, cooking for his family, biking to the recycling facility." He was pursuing that latter interest when he was killed, struck by a 10-year Muni veteran behind the wheel of a bus that that SF Weekly discovered was missing "a safety device specifically designed to prevent cyclists or pedestrians from being crushed by a bus' back-right tire - and which is standard-issue on Muni vehicles."

Known as an "S-1 Gard," which is a sort of deflecting bumper, a Muni staffer that spoke with the Weekly said that the transit agency doesn't "keep enough in stock to reinstall them. There are a lot of coaches that do not have them." The Weekly's investigation into the missing safety device — which many said might have prevented Lai's death — was the first time Muni chief Ed Reiskin learned what an S-1 Gard was, they reported at the time. Reiskin subsequently called for a fleet-wide inspection of the agency's vehicles, which culminated in a memo saying that any bus found to be missing the device "will be grounded and is [out of service] until it has a guard. ... the bus is on hold and not to be in revenue service until repaired, NO exceptions, period. NONE."

As you'd expect, Lai's widow, Guang-Mei Qui, as well as his three kids who live in the US (four more of his children live in China) retained a lawyer and in July 2014 filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city. The suit cited not only the missing Muni safety device but drubbed the Department of Public Works over the intersection, saying DPW "negligently failed to inspect, maintain, control and/or repair the subject roadway, lanes and intersection for motorists, bicyclist, and pedestrians in this area, so as to create this dangerous condition which caused and contributed to the death of the Decedent.”

And nearly three years after Lai's death, the city appears to tacitly concur with those claims. In a "closed session" during Thursday's SFMTA board meeting, the transit agency's board approved a $3.25 million settlement in Lai's death, SF Bay reports. An email to an SFMTA spokesperson for comment on the settlement was not returned at publication time.

"Mr. Lai was the fourth person this year to lose their life while biking on SoMa's fast moving and deadly streets," his attorney, B. Mark Fong, wrote shortly after Lai's death.

"In each of these deadly crashes, the rider was hit by a large vehicle. SoMa high-speed streets are also deadly for those walking. These deadly and serious crashes on SoMa streets are not one off 'accidents.' These deaths are preventable and within the power of the City to change immediately."

Previously: Cyclist Killed By Muni Bus Friday ID'd As 78-Year-Old Man

Remember when former Senator Carole Migden went on a drunk driving spree on I-80, minus the alcohol? Well, the state of California will pay out $335,00 in settlement riches to a victim of her "erratic driving." If you recall, back in May 2007, "State Sen. Carole Migden bounced her state-issued SUV off the concrete median on Interstate 80 and nearly ran other motorists off the freeway before slamming into the back of another vehicle last week, the California Highway Patrol and witnesses said Tuesday." Paring this vehicular incident with her massive mound of blond hair, Migden has forever been cemented in our hearts as a crazy-ass, awesome dame.

Anyway, has word that "last month the state signed off on a $335,000 settlement with [Ellen] Butawan," a 31-year-old Vallejo lady who had the pleasure of being rear-ended by la Midgen.

The victims (instigators?) of the Christmastime tiger mauling that left their (sort of) friend, Carlos Sousa Jr., dead, Kulbir and Amritpal Dhaliwal will receive a cool $900.000 from the San Francisco Zoo. According to SF Chronicle, this settlement by the zoo "resolves claims the brothers brought in U.S. District Court against the city, zoo and Sam Singer, a crisis public relations consultant the zoo hired after the attack." The brothers' lawsuit, among other claims, says that the SF Zoo failed at "keeping the 243-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana in an enclosure that had walls 4 feet lower that what is recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums." It also says that Kulbir Dhaliwal "wasn't attacked until after an employee refused to allow him into the safety of a zoo cafe." Which, yeah, regardless of what you think of the hoodlum brothers, that's kind of cold. Anyway, the Dhaliwal brothers will split the money, which is sure to buy all of the Grey Goose, Drakkar Noir, and criminal defense attorneys they will ever need.

Delicious, effervescent cold remedy Airborne, it seems, exaggerated their sniffle-fighting prowess. Turns out they faked their clinical trials, and are now offering you, the customer, some cash back. According to a 2006 ABC report:

Airborne said that a double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted with “care and professionalism” by a company specializing in clinical trial management, GNG Pharmaceutical Services.

GNG is actually a two-man operation started up just to do the Airborne study. There was no clinic, no scientists and no doctors. The man who ran things said he had lots of clinical trial experience. He added that he had a degree from Indiana University, but the school says he never graduated.

And after angry customers sued the company, they now have to pay up. Sigh.

Although almost every schoolteacher recommends this product to everyone they meet, "fake cold remedy" is a damaging term. Airborne is, in a word, done. If you want in on the settlement, or to find out more about the lawsuit, check out their settlement page.

After a local jury found SF Weekly guilty of illegal predatory pricing and awarded the local alt weekly a cool $6.39 million (the verdict subject to "treble damages," which bring the total award to $15.6 million), SFBG Executive Editor Tim Redmond tells the harrowing tale of the five-week trial in his own words:

But the verdict sends a clear signal to small businesses, independent newspapers and the alternative press that a locally owned publication has the right to a level playing field and that a chain can’t intentionally cut prices and sell below cost to injure a smaller competitor.

The trial had been underway for more than five weeks. The Guardian charged the Weekly with violating the state’s Unfair Practices Act, a Progressive-era law that bars a company from selling a product below cost for the purpose of destroying competition.

Evidence produced in the trial showed clearly that the Weekly had been selling ads below cost. In fact, the paper had lost money every year since the New Times chain, now known as Village Voice Media, bought it in 1995.

But wait. It gets better! Redmond goes on to say "Lacey [VVM Editor In Chief] could be heard mumbling 'shit' over and over again." Ouch. Anyway, an appeal is more than certain, a process that "can take years."

Years? Ack. Let's hope that print publishing is still around by then.

In the end, though, this litigiousness all boils down to two important thing: where is the an open-bar celebratory party and is SFist invited?

Other than hawking some of the cheapest yet most breakable electronics around, we simply refuse to believe that Walgreen's can do wrong. Just walking thought their aisles of colorful and affordable products makes us giddy. Well, at least we thought that they were affordable.

According to CBS 5, San Mateo County prosecutors claim that our beloved Walgreens has "agreed to pay $767,000 to four California counties to settle a claim of overcharging customers at its stores." (What! How could you?) It seems that after a routine inspection of Walgreens' price scanners, the Illinois-based chain failed to give many of their customers the lowest advertised price. And at times, according to the report, they even marked up the prices. The nerve.

Guess this means that we'll have to start checking our receipts, which could possibly lead to other dangerous behavior like balancing our checkbook and paying our bills in a timely fashion. Shudder. Still, how dare you, Walgreens. We now plan on buying our two-for-one sleeves of Pringles elsewhere. Hrumph.

Weep no more, my lady.

After handing over an apology to the sobbing mother of a Chinese journalist that they helped imprison, Yahoo now must hand over an undisclosed amount to the scribes. Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao, the latter a former journalist at Contemporary Business News, will receive a hefty, unknown amount from Yahoo, Inc. The Chinese journalists sued Yahoo, blaming them for their imprisonment and torture by Chinese government officials.

"According to the suit, the other journalist, Wang Xiaoning, was arrested in 2002 after Yahoo HK gave police information linking him to his anonymous e-mails and other political writings he posted online," says the Chronicle.

Aaaand, in related news, this might be the perfect time for you to switch over that e-mail account to Gmail. What? We're just saying is all.