Road toll scams that besieged the Bay Area and and other parts of the country last year have ramped up again, with insistent text messages that demand payment — and sometimes threaten penalties.

Links to the Bay Area News Group articles about the crimes are below. Click here if you can’t see the map on your mobile device. Previous homicide maps: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 ...

A warm weekend after a big spring rain is the optimal time for a hike to one of the Bay Area’s waterfalls. The map above shows 10 of them; more details in the stories linked at the end.

For the first time in more than a decade, Cal Fire is reassessing wildfire risk in Bay Area cities. New fire hazard severity maps show dramatic increases in some areas of Sonoma and Napa counties ...

That compares with one of 35 cities seeing such a decrease for Cal Fire’s inland Northern California map released two weeks ago.