Even wrapped in plastic, the Pergamon Altar is a striking sight. A monumental structure with ornate friezes depicting a battle between giants and gods, it was sculpted in what is now Turkey in the 2nd century B.C. and is one of the most imposing known examples of antique art. Housed in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum for over a century, the altar has long been one of the main attractions in the German capital.

That is, when visitors can see it. The altar has been inaccessible since 2014, amid construction work on the museum’s north wing. On Oct. 23, the rest of the museum — one of the most visited in Germany — will close for four years. Although the altar room and north wing are set to reopen in 2027, other parts of the building will not be accessible for a further decade.

The project comes at a delicate time. In recent years, European institutions exhibiting archaeological objects from other parts of the world, such as the Pergamon Museum, and the British Museum, in London, have faced increased scrutiny over the provenance of their exhibits. With more than $1.5 billion of public money being invested into the Pergamon Museum refurbishment, its leaders now face new calls to justify their work.

“The institution of the museum, as a product of the Enlightenment, is being questioned,” Andreas Scholl, the director of the Pergamon’s antiquities collection said during a recent tour of the site. “Nobody knows how the debate will progress.”

The Pergamon Museum’s administrators, however, are betting that much will remain the same in the next 14 years. In addition to structural work, the renovations will add new spaces for exhibits and visitors, and update infrastructure, lighting and climate control. But, as Scholl put it, “The fundamental concept isn’t changing.”

Opened in 1930 on Museum Island, in central Berlin, the building was custom-designed to showcase the altar and several other spectacular items of antique architecture, including parts of the so-called Ishtar Gate from the ancient city of Babylon.

But the building was built on oak pylons driven into unstable, sandy ground, and Jens Küchler, the project manager in charge of the renovations, said renewing its foundations was crucial for long-term stability. The work, he said, is partly focused on a metal underground structure stretching across the island that “holds up the building.”

The Pergamon Altar has always been the museum’s most prized attraction. Discovered in the 1870s by Carl Humann, a German engineer, its transfer to Berlin was made possible by a series of agreements between Ottoman Empire administrators and German officials that allowed Germany to retain a portion of the artifacts that Humann and his collaborators discovered.

Public attention has also turned to other high-profile items in Berlin’s museums, such as the bust of Queen Nefertiti housed in the nearby Neues Museum. The museum acquired the bust, which is considered a crown jewel of the city’s collections, in 1920 after approval from Egyptian authorities, but some activists argue that this was a cozy deal between colonial powers, because France controlled Egypt’s antiquities department at the time. Museum officials insist it was legally obtained.

A similar debate has erupted around the Pergamon Altar. A 2021 book, “The Kaiser’s Treasure Hunter,” by Jürgen Gottschlich and Dilek Zapticioglu-Gottschlich, explored the ethical ambiguities of the exhibit’s acquisition.

In an interview, Gottschlich argued that the German authorities exerted unfair influence to get the complete altar to Berlin. Its excavation, he said, took place at a time when European powers were competing to acquire prominent exhibits for their museums, and he said that the Germans exploited the difficult financial positions of the Sultans ruling that area of the Ottoman Empire to extract disproportionate concessions. “Legally, a restitution process is hopeless,” he said. “But the story is morally unclean.”

Turkish politicians, including the mayor of the city of Izmir, which is near the excavation site, have called for the altar’s return. In 2022, Saraya Gomis, Berlin’s state secretary for diversity and anti-discrimination at the time, weighed in to support returning the altar, as well as the Nefertiti bust. She told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that, from her perspective, “all the cultural items from other world regions do not belong to us.”

In an emailed statement, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said that it had received no “requests regarding restitution” for the objects by Egypt or Turkey.

Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees Berlin’s major museums, including the Pergamon Museum, Neues Museum and part of the Humboldt Forum, said that there was “a different awareness now among visitors” of provenance questions and that he felt “museums needed to answer them.”

He said that although the debate has been omnipresent, the number of formal requests received by all the museums he oversaw was still low, at around “five to seven” in recent years. He emphasized that both the Pergamon Altar and the Nefertiti bust were “clear cases” of legal acquisitions. “There will be no restitution” of the two objects, he said.

“We need to show visitors that collections’ histories are inseparable from political history,” he said, but added: “The future cannot be that German museums only show German art.”

Before the altar was closed to the public in 2014, nearly approximately 1.3 million visitors came to the Pergamon Museum annually. That number has dipped since then, with approximately 800,000 annual museumgoers in 2019. Ticket sales are a significant moneymaker for the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and the Pergamon’s closure will be a financial burden.

On a recent Wednesday, the building was packed with visitors aiming to see its collection of Islamic art and items from the region encompassing what is now Iraq, Syria and Turkey before it closes its doors.

Bernd Mikuszeit, 80, said he had been visiting the Pergamon since the 1960s and that, while he was aware of the concerns around ownership of the altar, it had done little to change his appreciation of the museum. “This isn’t Turkish history, it’s world history,” he said. “If our forefathers hadn’t saved it from the rubble, it wouldn’t exist,” he added.

A visitor from Montreal, Daniel Bühler, 23, said institutions like the Pergamon were a crucial way to experience global culture. “If everything was sent back to the home country,” he said, “you wouldn’t have museums like this.”

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Meanwhile, reports have also shown that hundreds of the city’s permanent supportive housing units may sit vacant on any given day. Advocates for unhoused San Franciscans have criticized the stark contrast between the volume of vacant units and the city’s well-documented need for housing.

San Francisco’s vacancy rate for units that are eligible for the rapid housing program is currently at around 9.5%, or around 1,000 units, according to Chris Block, housing placement manager at HSH. Only about a third of those units are immediately available, he said.

“This is a real opportunity for us to move people directly off the street and into housing,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of HSH. “It really helps with our vacancy rate in permanent supportive housing.”

The city’s main housing pipeline will continue to function as-is. That program, called Coordinated Entry, is used to assess someone’s needs and prioritize their placement for limited subsidized housing slots.

This new effort comes after San Francisco and other cities in California opened up hotels for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic and were able to rapidly house thousands of people by reducing some bureaucratic barriers before moving them in, Cohen said.

Shireen McSpadden, director of the Dept. of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, sits in a newly renovated room at the Abigail Hotel in San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

The city has already started using the so-called “presumptive eligibility” approach and housed seven people in September, Block said.

The approach focuses on people who are engaged with social services but may not have all their necessary documents to show they qualify for housing.

HSH is currently using the approach for vacant units funded directly by the city. Cohen said that her department has requested permission from federal officials to use the same process for some federally funded housing sites.

Although the city sheltered thousands of people through short-term pandemic relief programs, San Francisco still has a higher portion of its unhoused population living outdoors compared to cities such as San José, Long Beach, Denver, Boston and Washington, D.C., according to a 2023 report from the city’s controller (PDF).

In addition, more than 340 people were on the city’s waiting list for temporary shelter as of Wednesday morning.

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EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — For all the mistakes the Minnesota Vikings made to waste a significant amount of their good work in the season opener, the feeling was strong on their sideline — and throughout the stadium, for that matter — that they would ultimately extract a victory from a tight game.

The Vikings turned that into an art form last year, after all, setting an NFL record with 11 wins in 11 decisions by eight points or fewer.

This time, those vital fourth-quarter plays just weren’t made.

“There’s an unwavering belief in this locker room. Even when there’s five minutes left and we were down by a field goal, we thought we had that one for sure,” tight end T.J. Hockenson said.

The offense went three-and-out on its last two possessions. The defense allowed a fourth-down conversion to extend Tampa Bay’s drive for the tiebreaking field goal and later let the Buccaneers drain the final 3:52 off the clock Sunday with a 15-yard facemask penalty and two third-down conversions for a 20-17 victory.

“We have to find a way to do something there whether it’s offense or defense,” safety Harrison Smith said. “We have too special of a group not to do something.”

The Vikings widely outgained the Buccaneers by an average of 5.9 to 3.6 yards per play, but their three first-half turnovers not only cost them a prime crack at two scores but gave Tampa Bay three easy points.

“A lot of credit to that team on the other side, but we beat ourselves,” running back Alexander Mattison said. “It’s hard to win a game that close when the turnover margin is three to zero. It’s one of those things we just have to make sure we clean up.”

That process has to happen quickly, because the Vikings play Thursday at Philadelphia.

“I’ve got nothing but confidence in our football team, and maybe even more so after watching the tape yesterday knowing how close things were to being maybe a different result,” coach Kevin O’Connell said.

WHAT’S WORKING

The connection between Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson — and the play calling by O’Connell that contributed to their potency — picked up where it left off last season. Eight different receivers caught passes, but four of the five completions by Cousins that topped 20 yards went to Jefferson.

WHAT NEEDS HELP

The blocking left much to be desired. The Buccaneers sent some well-timed blitzes at Cousins that weren’t picked up, most glaringly by safety Antoine Winfield Jr. on a strip-sack he recovered at the Minnesota 18. Mattison and Ty Chandler combined for just 34 yards on 14 carries.

“Efficiency is something we’re going to continue to strive for,” O’Connell said. “We did not get it done.”

STOCK UP

Jordan Addison became the seventh rookie in Vikings history to score in his NFL debut when he caught a 39-yard touchdown pass from Cousins in the second quarter. He had four receptions for 61 yards.

STOCK DOWN

Right guard Ed Ingram remains the starter on the offensive line of greatest concern. He accidentally caused one of the fumbles by Cousins when he tried to seal the nose tackle with a block to his left and knocked the ball out of the quarterback’s hand with his left arm to thwart a third-and-2 running play at the Tampa Bay 26 in the first quarter.

“I don’t know how that happened. That was some type of freak accident,” Ingram said.

KEY NUMBER

9 — That’s how many times Jefferson has gained at least 150 receiving yards in 51 career games, the second most in NFL history in a player’s first four years. If Jefferson gets there twice more this season he’ll break Lance Alworth’s record.

INJURY REPORT

The shortened week will make it tougher for center Garrett Bradbury to recover in time from the back injury that forced him out in the first quarter. O’Connell said Monday that Bradbury’s status was day to day and that he was “feeling pretty good.” He had a similar injury last season that cost him five games.

Left tackle Christian Darrisaw was able to return from an ankle injury that sidelined him during the first half. Outside linebacker Marcus Davenport also has an ankle injury that landed him on the inactive list. Both players were listed on the estimated Monday injury report as limited participants had the Vikings held a practice. Players had the day off.

NEXT STEPS

The Vikings, who lost in Week 2 at Philadelphia last year after winning their opener, don’t have much margin for further errors, given opening wins by Detroit and Green Bay and a daunting early schedule. Their next three home games are against the Los Angeles Chargers, Kansas City and San Francisco.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Artificial intelligence and robotics

Law firms rapidly migrating to AI are weighing benefits against risks and unknowns

By Matt Reynolds

Jul 20, 2023 8:46 am CDT

“When you think about its ability to collect, analyze and summarize a lot of data, that’s a tremendous head start for any legal project,” says DLA Piper partner and data scientist Bennett B. Borden. Image from Shutterstock.

Updated: In autumn 2022, David Wakeling, head of the Markets Innovation Group at law firm Allen & Overy in London, got a glimpse into the future. Months before the release of ChatGPT, he demoed Harvey, a platform built on OpenAI’s GPT technology and tailored for large law firms.

“As I peeled the onion, I could see that it was quite a serious matter. I’ve been involved with technology for a long time. It’s the first time the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end,” says Wakeling.

Allen & Overy were soon among the first to adopt Harvey, announcing in March that 3,500 lawyers in 43 offices were using it. Then, in March, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers announced a “strategic alliance” with the San Francisco-based startup, which recently secured $21 million in funding.

Other major law firms have adopted generative AI products at breakneck speed or are developing their own platforms. DLA Piper partner and data scientist Bennett B. Borden calls the technology “the most transformative technology” since computers. And it works well for lawyers, as it can speed up mundane legal tasks and help them focus on more meaningful work.

“When you think about its ability to collect, analyze, and summarize a lot of data, that’s a tremendous head start for any legal project,” says Borden, whose firm uses Casetext’s CoCounsel AI generative legal assistant for legal research, document reviews, and contract analysis. (In June, Thomson Reuters announced that it had agreed to buy Casetext for $650 million.)

But generative AI is forcing companies to address the risks of deploying the new technology, which is largely unregulated. In May, Gary Marcus, a leading expert on artificial intelligence, warned a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on privacy, technology and law that even the makers of generative AI platforms “don’t quite understand how they work.”

Law firms and legal technology companies face the unique security and privacy challenges that come with using the software and with a tendency to provide inaccurate and biased answers.

Those concerns became clear when it emerged that an attorney relied on ChatGPT for citations in a brief filed in New York federal court in March. The problem? The cases mentioned did not exist. The chatbot had invented them.

Careful, proactive

Harvey representatives did not respond to several interview requests. But to guard against inaccuracies and bias, Allen & Overy’s New York partner Karen Buzard says the firm has a solid training and vetting program in place, and attorneys are greeted with “rules of use” before using the platform.

“No matter what level you’re at — from youngest to oldest — if you’re using it, you have to validate the output or you could embarrass yourself,” says Wakeling. “It’s really disruptive, but wasn’t every major technological change disruptive?”

However, other law firms are more cautious. In April, Thomson Reuters surveyed mid-to-large law firm attitudes toward generative AI, concluding that the majority “take a cautious but hands-on approach.” It found that 60% of respondents had no “current plans” to use the technology. Only 3% reported using it and only 2% “actively plan to use it”.

David Cunningham, chief innovation officer at Reed Smith, says his company is proactive when it comes to generative AI. The company is currently testing Lexis+ AI and CoCounsel and will try out Harvey this summer and BloombergGPT when it comes out.

“I wouldn’t say we’re more conservative,” says Cunningham. “I would say we put more emphasis on making sure we’re doing this with guidance, guidelines and training and really focusing on the quality of the results.”

He says the law firm’s pilot program focuses on commercial systems where the firm “knows the guard rails.” “We know the security, we know the retention policies,” he adds. “We know the governance issues.”

“The reason we are cautious is because the products are still immature. The products still do not offer the quality, reliability, transparency and consistency that we would expect from a lawyer,” he says.

Pablo Arredondo, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Casetext, says there’s a big difference between “generic chatbots” like ChatGPT and CoCounsel, which are based on OpenAI’s large GPT-4 language model, but are trained on rights-based datasets, and where Data is secure and is monitored, encrypted and audited.

He understands why some are taking a more cautious approach, but predicts that the benefits will soon be “so noticeable and undeniable that I think the adoption rate will increase.”

New rules

Meanwhile, regulators are catching up. In May, Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, called on lawmakers in Congress to regulate the technology. He first said that OpenAI could withdraw from the European Union due to the proposed artificial intelligence law, which includes requirements to prevent illegal content and disclose copyrighted works that manufacturers use to train their platforms.

In October, the White House released a draft AI Bill of Rights. This includes safeguards against “unsafe or ineffective” AI systems. Algorithms that make a difference; practices that violate privacy; a notification system so people know how AI is being used and what impact it is having; and the ability to completely opt out of AI systems.

In January, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released an AI risk management framework to foster innovation and help organizations create trusted AI systems by controlling, mapping, measuring, and managing risk.

But the public had to wait until June for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to unveil a much-anticipated strategy to regulate the technology. He introduced a regulatory framework and said the Senate will hold a series of forums with AI experts before formulating policy proposals. Then, in July, the Washington Post reported that the Federal Trade Commission was investigating OpenAI’s data security practices and whether they had harmed consumers.

Still, DLA Piper partner Danny Tobey argues there is a risk of over-regulation due to scaremongering and misconceptions about how advanced the technology is.

“I worry that regulations will become obsolete before they even come into effect, or stifle innovation and creativity,” he says.

But speaking to lawmakers in May, Marcus said AI systems must be unbiased, transparent, protect privacy and “above all, be safe.”

“Current systems are not transparent, they don’t adequately protect our privacy, and they continue to encourage bias,” Marcus said. “Most importantly, we cannot remotely guarantee that they are safe.”

Others are calling for a halt to the development of large language models until the risks are better understood. In March, the technology ethics group Center for AI and Digital Policy filed a complaint with the FTC, asking it to stop further commercial releases of GPT-4. The complaint was followed by an open letter signed by thousands of technology experts, including SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, calling for a six-month pause in research into generative AI language models that are more powerful than GPT-4.

Ernest Davis, a professor of computer science at New York University, was one of the signers of the letter and considers a moratorium a “very good idea”.

“They release software before it’s ready for general use simply because the competitive pressure is so intense,” he says.

But Borden says there is “no global authority” or global governance of AI. Even if freezing is a good idea, “it’s not possible.”

“Pausing AI is like pausing weather,” Tobey adds. “We have to innovate because countries like China are doing it at the same time. Still, companies and industries need to play a role in shaping their own internal governance to ensure these tools are used securely like any other tool.”

Updated July 20 at 11:20 am to include additional reports and information on the Federal Trade Commission investigation into OpenAI and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s announcement of a regulatory framework.

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NEW YORK — After announcing a collaboration with Intermountain Health spinout Culmination Bio earlier this week, Cofactor Genomics is moving “aggressively” to advance its OncoPrism test, which can predict whether patients with a number of cancers are likely to develop cancers will benefit from immunotherapy.

San Francisco-based Cofactor has validated OncoPrism, an RNA sequencing-based T-cell subtyping and immune cell quantification test, in the United States ADJUST AHEAD Study using anonymized tumor samples and matched clinical data. According to Jarret Glasscock, CEO of Cofactor, the goal is to commercialize OncoPrism as a tool to identify the patients most likely to respond to PD-1/L1 checkpoint inhibitors such as Merck’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) or Bristol’s Opdivo (nivolumab). Approach Myers Squibb.

The prospective observational study has a target enrollment of 1,650 patients across 11 cancer types. But the new Culmination partnership is also critical to validating the test, Glasscock said, as it gives Cofactor access to a database of 4.5 million patient samples, each with data on longitudinal clinical outcomes as well as whole-genome, transcriptome, Exome sequencing and proteomics data are aligned. and other omics analysis.

This wealth of data, which Culmination calls its “Culmination Intelligence Platform”, is offered to partners such as Cofactor. Although the prospective validation of OncoPrism using samples collected in PREDAPT is critical to demonstrate its predictive power across multiple cancer types, Glasscock says the data from Culmination Cofactor offers significant benefits, not just in terms of the sheer number of patient samples in the repository, but also in terms of time.

“We need to know the patient outcomes of these immunotherapy treatments [to validate OncoPrism]. “With the prospective data that will be collected as part of PREDAPT, we will have to wait months for the outcome to have the full data,” Glasscock said. “For prospective studies, we wait for patients.” [to respond]The value of Culmination Bio is that these patient samples and the high quality patient data have already been collected and stored. This allows us to move forward with our efforts much faster.”

Cofactor’s OncoPrism test is essentially an immune profiling platform, as described by Glasscock. “We are looking at the most meaningful gene expression signatures, which can be assigned to the immune cell types and immune cell states, and which are most likely to allow predictions about possible responders and non-responders to immunotherapy,” he said, explaining that the OncoPrism platform essentially provides a measurement of these several analytes. “The clinical data comes into play when we train the model to say, ‘What does a profile look like for lung cancer responders? What does a non-responder profile look like?’”

While the OncoPrism platform is already in place, the millions of linked clinical data in the Culmination Intelligence Platform will help Cofactor train its test to predict immunotherapy responses in different types of cancer, much faster.

To date, Cofactor has made the most progress validating OncoPrism for predicting which head and neck cancer patients will benefit from immunotherapy, in what Glasscock described as the company’s “curbstone indication”. In September 2022, The company presented data This shows that OncoPrism more accurately predicted the anti-PD-1 benefit in head and neck cancer patients than immunohistochemistry-based PD-L1 expression, which many oncologists consider “on”.lousy biomarker” to identify the best responders to immunotherapy. In this study, OncoPrism showed a 75 percent accuracy in predicting immune checkpoint inhibitor responders, while PD-L1 immunohistochemistry tests showed an accuracy of 42 percent.

With this readout, Cofactor is “on the right track in head and neck cancer” and, according to Glasscock, is aiming to commercialize OncoPrism in this setting as a lab-developed test in the “very near future,” according to Glasscock. He added that the company is already working with physicians across the country to prepare for commercial launch in the treatment of head and neck cancer later this year, and eyeing lung cancer shortly thereafter.

“We’re nearing the finish line, but I’m also very excited about the next nine cancer indications and how Culmination’s data will really accelerate timelines for those,” he said, noting that Cofactor placed particular emphasis on the depth and quality of the Data places points that partners can query in Culmination Bio’s repository when attempting to identify populations of interest.

Spinout Intermountain Health – which was incorporated as a company in June 2022 and launched publicly in March 2023 – is showcasing its Culmination Intelligence Platform as a search engine for building precision medicine cohorts. According to the information on the website, partners can query the data archive based on factors such as age, gender, race, cancer type, biomarker status and ICD codes, and focus on the patient cohort they wish to study.

“Culmination Bio was designed to expand the success of Intermountain’s precision medicine efforts by creating multimodal longitudinal datasets,” said Lincoln Nadauld, Culmination’s CEO, in a statement in March announcing the formation of the company. “Our partnership with Intermountain Health has enabled us to build a platform that will revolutionize the way we identify new clinical insights and translate them to the benefit of patients.”

Culmination Bio, which has not disclosed any partnerships other than those with Cofactor, declined an interview for this article. Therefore, no details are known about the diversity and geographical representation of the database. Intermountain Health operates 33 hospitals primarily in Utah, Idaho and Nevada, but also has affiliated locations in other areas.

“I know [Intermountain] They’ve been building this database for decades and it’s an extensive collection of samples that they use in their own homes,” Glasscock said. “This commercial launch of Culmination Bio is an attempt to harness this rich resource outside of your four walls.”

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A unique mid-century modern home in San Francisco designed for a famous furniture designer Jules Heumann was sold after only 10 days on the market.

The valuable property, which towers over the city and boasts astounding views, was acquired at full price for $3,750,000 in cash.

The spectacular three-story beauty was custom designed in 1965 by San Francisco architects Marquis & Stoller.

The room features vaulted ceilings and floor to ceiling windows to take in the views from the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin and the East Bay.

‘Amazing Home’

“This is one of the most amazing homes I’ve ever sold,” says the real estate agent Trecia Knapp, from Sotheby’s International Realty. “It’s clad in original redwood in the main living room and has this expansive view that’s just stunning.”

Beautiful view

Immobilienmakler.com

living area

Immobilienmakler.com

From the interior walls of windows to the outdoor patios, you can enjoy the view from almost every room in the 3,258-square-foot home.

The modern kitchen has a spacious dining area that opens onto an interior patio. The cozy den features a fireplace and a patio just off the main living and dining rooms.

Upstairs you will find a master suite with a fireplace, office, living room and dressing rooms. Two further bedrooms share a bathroom and there is a gym that could be converted into a fourth bedroom.

Kitchen

Immobilienmakler.com

bedroom

Immobilienmakler.com

Heumann was not only a famous furniture designer, but also had a soft spot for cars. He was chairman of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, a prestigious motor show.

“There’s a three-car garage here, and one has a double garage,” says Knapp. “He put air conditioning in the garage! When you walk in, you can almost feel him tinkering. He also had a bay built under the garage for people to tinker with his cars. He even put an elevator in the house, so go ahead – think it was him.”

The car collector died in 2017 at the age of 93. The sellers bought the house in 2018 from Heumann’s estate.

“During COVID, their lives changed and they had to move out of town for work,” says Knapp. “They wouldn’t have left if they didn’t have to move because of their work.”

bar area

Immobilienmakler.com

Elevator

Immobilienmakler.com

The property is a detached home in San Francisco, making it a desirable rarity. Also, the locale is off the beaten path.

“It’s in Clarendon Heights, which I would call ‘San Francisco’s undiscovered Gold Coast,'” says Knapp. “It’s a vertical house, so it captures all the views. One of the founders of Instagram also lives on St. Germain Avenue.”

San Francisco is known for its fog, and when it does, Knapp says, “Home is like a beautiful cocoon that keeps you warm and cozy.”

Midcentury Modern San Francisco Home With Jaw-Dropping Views Sells Quick Sells post appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

The post Midcentury fashionable San Francisco dwelling with jaw-dropping views shortly sells appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

A one-of-a-kind midcentury modern home in San Francisco designed for famed furniture designer Jules Heumann was sold after just 10 days on the market.

The prized property perched above the city with astonishing views was snapped up at full price for $3,750,000 in a cash deal.

The spectacular, trilevel beauty was custom-designed in 1965 by the San Francisco architecture firm Marquis & Stoller.

The space features vaulted ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows to take in the views that span from the Pacific Ocean and Golden Gate Bridge to Marin and the East Bay.

‘amazing home’

“This is one of the most amazing homes I have ever sold,” says listing agent Trecia Knapp, of Sotheby’s International Realty. “It is encased in original redwood in the main living room and has these sweeping views that are just stunning.”

Beautiful views

Realtor.com

Living area

Realtor.com

From the interior walls of windows to the exterior decks, you can take in views from nearly every room in the 3,258-square-foot house.

The modern kitchen features a spacious dining area which opens to an outdoor courtyard. The cozy den comes with a fireplace and a deck just off the main living and dining rooms.

Upstairs, you will find a primary suite complete with a fireplace, office, sitting room, and dressing rooms. Two additional bedrooms share a bath, and there’s an exercise room that could be turned into a fourth bedroom.

Kitchen

Realtor.com

Bedroom

Realtor.com

In addition to being a famous furniture designer, Heumann also had a thing for cars. He served as chairman of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, a renowned car show.

“There is a three-car garage here, and one has a double bay,” Knapp says. “He put air conditioning in the garage! When you walk in, you can almost feel him tinkering. He also had a bay built under the garage so you can tinker on your cars. He even put an elevator in the home; that’s how forward – thinking hey what.”

The car collector died in 2017 at the age of 93. The sellers bought the home from Heumann’s estate in 2018.

“During COVID, their lives changed and they had to move out of town for work,” Knapp says. “They would not have left if they didn’t have to relocate for their jobs.”

Bar area

Realtor.com

elevator

Realtor.com

The property is a standalone house in San Francisco, which makes it a coveted rarity. Plus, the locale is off the beaten path.

“It’s located in Clarendon Heights, which I would call the ‘undiscovered Gold Coast of San Francisco,'” Knapp says. “It’s a vertical house, so it captures all of the views. One of the founders of Instagram also lives on St. Germain Avenue.”

San Francisco is known for its fog, and when it rolls in, Knapp says, “The home is like being in a beautiful cocoon to keep you warm and cozy.”

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Now that the draft is done and the NFL schedule is finalized, we’re going to start seeing projections for how the Detroit Lions will fare in wins and losses in the 2022 season. One of those predictive models takes a slightly different course and it produces an interesting outcome for Detroit.

ESPN’s analytics department, notably analyst Seth Walder, operates what they call the FPI, or Football Power Index. Instead of straight-up picking wins and losses, it formulates a value for each team based on analytical factors including roster makeup, coaching and expected performance. And their model values ​​the Lions at No. 23 overall out of 32 teams.

Not bad for a Detroit team that finished 31st in 2021 with a 3-13-1 record and was the last team to win a game a year ago.

But what is our Football Power Index? It is our predictive model that includes ratings and projections for every NFL team, from how good they are on defense to what their chances are of winning their division.

This is not your typical power rankings. The Lions evaluate at -4.3, sandwiched between the New York Giants (-4.1) and San Francisco 49ers (-6.1). Those 49ers made the NFC Championship game last year, while the Giants were the last-place team in the AFC East at 4-13.

At the bottom of the list: The Chicago Bears, with an abysmal -13.2 rating. They are one of five NFC teams ranked below the Lions, who had the worst record in the conference in 2021.

2022 Football Power Index ratings and rankings!

The rating itself indicates approximately how much better or worse — in points — that team is predicted to be, relative to an average NFL team on a neutral field.

It is a predictive rating. pic.twitter.com/9oDRKm8nKR

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) May 17, 2022

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The stolen devices were all traced back to one location: A Quickly boba tea shop on Larkin Street right in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.

Quoc Le, 41, was arrested Monday and faces at least a dozen felony and misdemeanor charges of “possession of stolen property.” Le’s wife is the owner and franchisee of the Taiwanese-based chain; she has not been charged.

And on Tuesday, in a stunning revelation, Boudin announced his arrest was part of an operation known as “Operation Auto Pilot” — which uncovered an “massive global operation” of car thefts and illicit electronic sales that reached as far wide as Vietnam and Hong Kong.

“Auto burglaries in San Francisco have, for at least a decade, been one of the leading categories of crime. We know that it’s had a devastating impact, not only on our own residents, but on … the entire tourist industry.”

In 2021, there was a total of 20,663 “theft from vehicle” incidents reported to police — a 39 percent increase from the year before, but lower than the peak of over 31,000 in 2017. Only a fraction of them lead to an arrest, Boudin said.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin speaks to reporters in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press 2020

How the sting worked, Boudin explained in a press conference Tuesday afternoon, feels ripped out of a “Law and Order” episode.

Under Operation Auto Pilot, which has been in the works for at least two years, “bait cars” were placed in “strategic locations” throughout San Francisco with high rates of car theft — Japantown and Alamo Square among them.

Inside these vehicles were bags of electronics, embedded with tracking devices. The goal was not to arrest thieves on the street, Boudin said, but to see how far this trade of stolen goods went. “The goal of this operation was to map out the flow of stolen goods in San Francisco and beyond, to identify the networks that are moving millions and millions of dollars of stolen goods from cars in San Francisco around the country and the world.”

Where those devices traveled to was stunning. Not only did they find these decoy devices and other stolen goods led to the Larkin St. location of the stalwart boba franchise, but stolen devices were found as far as Europe and Asia.

Boudin said the team wrote and secured over a dozen search warrants that let them dig through “financial transactions and shipping activity.”

“Large volumes” of wares were being shipped to Texas, he added.

In all, Boudin said that his team of individuals gathered 130 boxes of electronics from the Quickly — and hope to find more connected to this network of car break-ins. He alluded to “numerous locations under surveillance that are storage operations” for these rings.

This operation puts into question one of the tentpole advertisements made by the campaign to recall Boudin, in which former prosecutor Shirin Oloumi alleged that Boudin “dissolved that unit and prevented me from collaborating with the police.” (A report from progressive local outlet 48 Hills said that Oloumi, in her resignation letter, alluded to Operation Auto Pilot and commended its future success.)

Boudin responded to the recall effort explicitly in the presser. “There’s lots of people who are long on money and short on facts who have criticisms of this office,” he said. “I couldn’t be prouder of the work that our team is doing and has done with this operation.”

The operation was conducted in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, SF SAFE and local law enforcement. It is ongoing.

Le will be arranged in court Tuesday afternoon.

Editor’s note: This article was updated at 4:05 pm, May 10, to correct information about the owner of the Larkin Street Quickly.

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Jeff Chiu/AP

Oakland Athletics’ Yusmeiro Petit, bottom center, pitches against the Boston Red Sox during the eighth inning of a baseball game in Oakland, Calif., Saturday, July 3, 2021.

By Casey Harrison (contact)

Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 4:34pm

A subcommittee for a cross-jurisdictional body that governs the San Francisco Bay voted today against removing port authority protections for a proposed site for a multibillion-dollar commercial district that includes a proposed waterfront stadium for the Oakland Athletics, a setback that could help the baseball team ultimately relocate to Las Vegas.

The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission’s Seaport Planning Advisory Committee voted 6-3 against removing port priority use at the proposed Howard Terminal site, which would transfer maritime use of the site from the port authority to proposed $12 billion development which would also include a 35,000-seat waterfront ballpark for the A’s.

The commission, however, will hold a final vote on the matter June 2, likely determining the fate of the project. A’s President Dave Kaval said the development can’t move forward without approval.

“It’s very disappointing that an unelected body would choose a parking lot over a privately-financed ballpark and development including housing, which is sorely needed in the Bay Area,” Kaval said. “But that’s exactly what they did. And those are some of the challenges of doing business in California in the Bay Area.”

“The site has to be removed from the sea port plan for the project to move forward. And their recommendation was don’t allow a ballpark and the development to be built there (sic).”

Justin Berton, a spokesman for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement the mayor agrees with the subcommittee’s decision.

“We believe the Port of Oakland and its leadership knows its best capacity, and we agree with their detailed analysis that shows they can continue to thrive and grow port activities well into the future, as well as support a transformational, world-class development that will open 18 acres of public parks along the waterfront and create more affordable housing and thousands of great union jobs for the region” the statement said.

The A’s remain on what Kaval is calling a “parallel path” in negotiating with partners in both Oakland and the Las Vegas valley to build a new stadium to replace the outdated RingCenter Coliseum. The team has played there since 1968, and it is considered by many to be among the worst stadiums in the big leagues.

Kaval said the organization within the last week have submitted another offer to purchase a site for a similarly-sized stadium here in Las Vegas. He did not specify where, stating only the bid was made to a private entity.

Kaval, however, did hint that should the team move to the valley, it is “focused like a laser beam” on building a stadium along the resort corridor, and that the team has made several offers at various sites.

“We have these handful of sites in and around the resort corridor, and we’re working very diligently both with resort operators/casinos as well as landowners to kind of get to a final site,” Kaval said. “We think that provides the best balance for locals and tourists, and that’s going to be critically important.”

Kaval said the nature of talks in both Oakland and Las Vegas are “moving quickly” and that he hopes to announce the location of a new ballpark sometime this summer.

“(We’re) hopeful that we can get to the point where the different parties would be comfortable, maybe even announcing it,” Kaval said. “I think that’d be a big moment to announce the site and show people what the vision of that is.”

Major League Baseball in May gave the A’s the green light to seek a new home and permission to speak with entities in other cities about possible relocation after deeming the Coliseum unfit to play. The team’s lease with the stadium expires in 2024, while Kaval and other team executives have made several trips to Las Vegas since.

On Feb. 17, Oakland City Council voted 7-2 to certify the environmental impact report for the Howard Terminal plan, at the time clearing a key hurdle for the city to keep the team in the Bay Area. Kaval said at the time the vote was a “necessary step” to continue negotiations, while also working on securing a spot in Southern Nevada.

The A’s have narrowed down a list of “about three or four” stadium sites in Las Vegas, Kaval said in February. Media reports in December indicated the A’s submitted a bid to build a stadium at the site of the Tropicana hotel, which is owned by Bally’s Corp.

“All of that is happening at a deliberate pace, a pace that balances the need to make progress with the importance of being thoughtful and smart,” Kaval said.

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