Police said around 5:42 p.m. Tuesday, a trio of men took five Coach handbags, valued at $1,180, from the Macy’s store at the shopping center. The store’s security alarms activated as the men fled. Macy’s staff were not able to stop the suspects, and they called the police. An officer went to Macy’s to take a report and view their security footage.

The men were detained by Nordstrom loss prevention staff — at the same shopping center — around 6:22 p.m.; they had allegedly tried to leave the store with over $800 worth of cologne. Police said they determined that it was the same group that stole the handbags from Macy’s.

After officers located the men’s car in the parking lot, they reportedly found four of the five stolen bags in the car, along with other handbags, bedding and clothing. Palo Alto police said the investigating officers were still working to identify the stores from which the other merchandise may have been taken.

The three men — all San Francisco residents, in their 20s and 30s, police said — were booked into Santa Clara County Main Jail on suspicion of organized retail theft. One of the men was also charged on suspicion of having a fake ID. Another man had an outstanding arrest warrant related to a theft charge.

All three men were set to appear in court Friday afternoon. Their bails ranged from $10,000 to $13,000.

Another retail theft incident occurred last week at the same shopping center, but no arrests were made, Palo Alto police said.

Loss prevention officers at Lululemon discovered a theft that occurred around 12:19 p.m. June 1. According to police, video footage showed two women entering the store with empty shopping bags, stuffing their bags with $1,630 worth of clothing and leaving the store. The same women returned to the store and took more clothing, leaving with a total of $2,200 worth of jackets, leggings, tank tops, shirts and pants.

Officers are still investigating the thefts, Palo Alto police said.

A Bonus Scratchers ticket bought from a Shell gas station on Winchester Boulevard in San Jose made Vahidin Arnaut $10 million richer (before taxes), officials said.

Mugdim Dedic bought an Instant Prize Crossword Scratchers ticket from a 76 station on Webster Street in Alameda, winning $2 million as a result.

Neither store where the winners bought their tickets from could immediately be reached for comment.

A Powerball player who bought a ticket in Milpitas won more than $620,000 by matching the 5 numbers drawn but not the Powerball number, officials said earlier this week.

As shareholders and company officials gathered to discuss financial results for the oil and gas giant, chants from the crowd rang out: “Chevron, Chevron, you can’t hide! Blood for oil is a crime!”

Wassim Haj, a member of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, said the aim of the protest was to “demand an end to Chevron’s complicity in the ongoing war in Gaza.” Haj said the protesters demanded that Chevron completely withdraw from their holdings in and around Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and encouraged consumers to boycott Chevron until a full divestment was reached.

“We see here the ties between resource extraction from here all the way to the Bay Area that has negative impacts on our country, on the Middle East, about the environment in a moment of acute climate crisis that is only getting worse and these these massive spikes in violence against people, indigenous people in the Middle East, particularly in this case, the Palestinians in Gaza,” Haj said.

The protesters argued that Chevron supplies Israel with light and power that enable attacks in Gaza due to the company’s co-ownership and operation of deep-water gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Reuters reported last year that the energy corporation retains 25% ownership in the Tamar gas field and operates and produces form the Tamar, Dalit and Leviathan gas fields, located off the coast of Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. In February, The Times of Israel reported that the fossil fuel giant intended to invest $24 million into producing natural gas from the Tamar gas field.

“Chevron has a considerable profit, motive and stake in offshore drilling in Gaza. A significant majority of Israel’s energy is powered by stolen oil that Chevron is actually the main provider of,” Haj said.

The protesters chanted to a beat performed by 10 drummers, most of whom were wearing keffiyehs draped over their shoulders or tied around their heads. Some walked in circles, holding signs that read “Chevron out of Palestine” colored similarly to the Palestinian flag’s red, black and green design. A banner in front of them read, “Chevron stop fueling genocide in Gaza.”

Six protesters sat in front of an entrance to the building — some tied together by small chains — next to two large oil drums with signs saying “Chevron out of Palestine” plastered on them. A few members of the Thousand Grandmas, a climate justice organization, sat along the edges of the group.

“The grandmothers have tended to stand up when it’s scary for others to stand up because in some ways, we feel we have less to lose than others,” said Nancy Feinstein, a member of the Thousand Grandmas.

Shelley Seola, another member of the Thousand Grandmas, said Chevron was complicit in polluting both the air and water in the U.S., and in the destruction of life of Palestinians. She pointed out the Chevron’s hand in the injustice, saying Israel cut off fuel and electricity for the people in Gaza, while Chevron was supplying 70% of Israel’s energy needs.

“I would like the genocide to end. I would like there to be peace. I would like everyone to be able to breathe clean air, have fresh water,” Seola said. “Not just here, but around the world and certainly in Palestine.”

During the protest, a shareholder attending the meeting noted that the CEO had acknowledged the protesters’ presence. According to an account shared with the Bay Area News Group, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in the meeting that the company is deeply concerned with war and tension in the Middle East, but their goal is to safely deliver natural gas to Israel and Jordan — for which operations in the area have increased recently. The annual meeting was available for viewing online, but some shareholders attended in-person.

“Chevron respects the rights of people to express their views peacefully and lawfully, and we expect a similar level of respect for our employees,” a Chevron spokesperson wrote in an email to Bay Area News Group.

The protest ended around 9 a.m.

Matt Leonard, a member of Oil and Gas Action Network and Chevron Out of Palestine, criticized Wirth’s response to their protest.

“They are talking out of both sides of their mouth. They claim concern for the communities they operate in while using those atrocities as a way to profit,” Leonard said.

Leonard is part of the the global Boycott Chevron campaign, which is led by the Boycott Divestment Sanctions committee. He said the group has collectively sent 10,000 emails to the CEO, and said the CEO’s response shows that they are making an impact.

Haj, who is Lebanese, said that both wars and resource extraction play a role in militarizing many homelands and creates negative environmental effects, brutalizing the people who live there.

“The shareholders are just very calmly, very normally meeting amidst one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the 21st century with the complicity in their back pocket,” Haj said.

On Wednesday, some of the same scientists who worked on that “flying laboratory” looked on as it made one last flight over Ames Research Center in Mountain View before its retirement.

Reem Hannun, a research scientist in the atmospheric science branch, attended the flyover with her two children before taking them to school. As the twins played around the trees and commented on the big plane that flew close to the ground for them to see, she recalled how she got her start at NASA doing science and reading field measurements on the plane.

“It’s just cool to see all these different measurements for atmospheric composition, and it’s a great community to be a part of, and you get to travel the world doing science,” Hannun said.

The plane, owned by NASA, was one of seven DC-8 planes still in operation internationally. Thomas Matthews, lead operations engineer for the aircraft and main mission director, said that NASA used the plane for 37 years, but the aging aircraft needed to be replaced as it was getting harder to sustain. A new Boeing-777 will replace the DC-8, which will retire at the aircraft maintenance school at Idaho State University in Pocatello.

Jhony Zavaleta, a project manager with the Earth Science Project Office, said he normally does not need to ride the plane for missions, but that he took every opportunity he could to climb aboard. He recalled one of the many flights the plane had taken over Antarctica between 2011 and 2017, calling it the “most amazing scenery you could see.”

The flight was part of Operation IceBridge, which aimed to continue collecting data on polar ice while NASA was switching satellites. Zavaleta recalled seeing mountain ranges and glaciers as far as the eye could see.

“I’d never seen anything so beautiful as that, (and) at the same time, so inhospitable,” Zavaleta said. “It was pretty nice, it was like being on another planet.”

The plane was originally a passenger aircraft with Alitalia, the former national airline of Italy, changing ownership to Braniff International Airways before it was eventually sold to NASA to be used at Ames Research Center in 1986, Matthews said.

Matthews also reflected on his own experience seeing the awe-inspiring visuals while riding the plane over the Hudson River to record atmospheric conditions: The plane was flying about 2,000 feet above Manhattan, following the island’s coast and around the Statue of Liberty.

The moment — coming in low over America’s biggest city — was a culmination, he said, of all the coordination required to do some “low-level flying in some of the busiest places you can possibly fly while doing it safely.”

“It was an amazing thing to accomplish with amazing scenery as well, with all of the towers and seeing Central Park,” Matthews said.

The plane underwent numerous modifications to perform the research work, Matthews said, with added ports and racks for scientific components, new landing gear and engines at one point.

Those changes made it possible for the aircraft to gather data on air quality and climate investigations. Chris Scofield, a former research scientist on the DC-8, wiped away tears as she watched the plane fly off for the last time and recalled one of the most significant uses of data gathered on the aircraft.

Before she was brought onto the plane, Scofield said, the research was used to locate and measure a hole in the earth’s ozone layer in the 1980s, finding where chlorofluorocarbons — chemicals commonly used as refrigerants — were destroying ozone in the atmosphere. This discovery led to the passage of a 1987 global agreement phasing out the use of the chemicals and leading to a natural repair in the hole.

“The DC-8 actually was another part of the picture, so you could see, yes, it was really happening the way we think it is chemically,” Scofield said.

Aside from being a main research vessel, the plane was a workplace with fond memories for many NASA employees. Jim Podolske, a research scientist who flew on the DC-8 for 21 years, praised the interactive community effort of about 40 scientists calling out interesting observations and making decisions together in real time.

“They have done some pretty amazing science, so I think the triple-7 has big shoes to fill,” Zavaleta said, mentioning the new plane that will replace the DC-8. “Through all this time, it kind of became the perfect platform for people to do research.”

The Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners, which oversees the East Bay transit hub, voted unanimously Thursday to re-name the Metropolitan Oakland International Airport the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. The airport will retain its International Air Transport Association code OAK — and that’s not the only thing, said Interim Director of Aviation Craig Simon.

“The convenience and ease of traveling through OAK won’t change with our name,” said Simon. “OAK is the closest major airport to 58 percent of the Bay Area population. The combined population of the counties closest to OAK is 4.1 million compared with 1.5 million in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. This designation will let the world know who we serve.”

The same day, the port also fired back at angry officials across the bay who say the move will cause confusion among travelers with a new lawsuit — in part responding to a lawsuit San Francisco filed in April on behalf of San Francisco International Airport arguing that the name change would infringe on the trademark status of the Peninsula travel hub’s name.

“The Port is asking for a declaratory judgment, which is a ruling by the court that the new name does not infringe upon SFO’s trademark … and that SFO’s trademark does not extend to use of ‘San Francisco Bay’,” the Port of Oakland said in a statement.

SFO, which is south of San Francisco in San Mateo County, and OAK sit on opposite sides of the San Francisco Bay.

Renaming the East Bay aviation hub, and the increasingly tangled legal war the process has generated, is part of a push by OAK airport officials to dramatically raise the profile of the travel complex, which has struggled to rebound in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2023, Oakland handled only about 11.24 million passengers. San Francisco, by contrast, handled more than 50 million. OAK has also lost dozens of routes.

San Francisco officials say that on multiple occasions they attempted to collaborate with Port of Oakland officials to find an alternative name for the East Bay airport as a way to avoid a full-fledged legal battle.

“We had hoped Oakland would come to its senses,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement.

San Francisco officials say they are concerned the new name with “San Francisco” at the beginning will leave tourists perplexed.

“In particular, Oakland Airport’s proposal to include ‘San Francisco’ at the front of its new name, closely followed by the words ‘International Airport’ is problematic, as it will almost certainly cause confusion among consumers and the public generally,” the San Francisco City Attorney’s office said in its lawsuit.

But Oakland airport officials believe the San Francisco lawsuit is an attempt to keep consumers in the dark about the air travel choices they have when deciding between SFO and OAK.

East Bay airport officials say they want to broaden choices for air travelers.

“Oakland International Airport is committed to enhancing its airline routes and increasing competition for the benefit of all of San Francisco Bay Area’s visitors and residents, including those residing in the city and county of San Francisco,” Richardson said.

The move has already met with strong criticism from officials at San Francisco International Airport, and is almost certain to result in legal battles over whether the new name infringes on SFO’s existing brand.

The decision to rename the airport was based on the airport’s location on San Francisco Bay and its proximity to numerous notable locations, such as Wine Country, several colleges and universities, and the cities of San Francisco and Berkeley, officials said. The airport’s three-letter code, OAK, will not change.

“The convenience and ease of traveling through OAK won’t change with our name,” said interim Director of Aviation Craig Simon. “OAK is the closest major airport to 58 percent of the Bay Area population. The combined population of the counties closest to OAK is 4.1 million compared with 1.5 million in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. This designation will let the world know who we serve.”

On Thursday, the Port of Oakland also announced that they will pursue a lawsuit in response to San Francisco’s lawsuit over the name change. They have asked the U.S. District Court to rule that the name “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport” does not infringe on San Francisco International Airport’s trademark.

On April 18, San Francisco filed a lawsuit seeking to block the renaming of Oakland International Airport to “protect SFO’s trademark.” The move has also been widely criticized by several Bay Area figures, including San Francisco tourism and hospitality interests, travelers, California legislators and the Oakland Chapter of the NAACP.

“I fully understand the importance of passenger growth to an airport, but this current renaming proposal does not represent the best interests of Bay Area travelers,” SFO Airport Director Ivar C. Satero said in a statement Wednesday. “I urge the Port to Oakland to work with San Francisco to find a collaborative solution that averts a protracted legal challenge.”

While San Francisco has argued that the name will confuse people flying into the region, the port asserted that “the San Francisco Bay Area can contain more than one airport.” The port stated that the new name does not infringe on SFO’s trademark because the airport’s “I FLY OAK” logo and IATA code, OAK, will not change.

In a letter to the port’s board of commissioners on May 7, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu urged them to reconsider their plans to rename the Oakland International Airport. According to Chiu, his letter continued to urge the port to collaborate to avoid the lawsuit.

“The San Francisco’s City Attorney’s decision to pursue litigation is an attempt to stop consumer education, prevent expanded air travel options for Bay Area residents and visitors, and is a misguided use of San Francisco taxpayer dollars,” said port attorney Mary Richardson. “OAK is committed to enhancing its airline routes and increasing competition for the benefit of all of San Francisco Bay Area’s visitors and residents, including those residing in the city and county of San Francisco. We stand ready and willing to partner with SFO to increase choices for travelers and invite any productive dialogue to this end.”

This is a developing story. Check back for more updates.

In the East Bay, Oakland Sin Fronteras, a coalition of organizations that support workers and immigrant rights, held a march to recognize and celebrate International Worker’s Day and in solidarity with Palestinian people. Nearly a thousand or more protesters marched down Telegraph Avenue and Broadway on their way to a rally at City Hall’s Frank H. Ogawa Plaza.

The Port of Oakland shutdown, which was organized by several groups including Bay Resistance, Anti-Police Terror Project and Palestinian Youth Movement ended up not taking place as the port shut down in advance of the protest. A smaller group did gather at the West Oakland BART station in the late afternoon.

Protests also place in San Jose, San Francisco and at college campuses including UC Berkeley and Stanford, where tent cities have been erected in solidarity.

— by Nollyanne Delacruz

East Bay

• Oakland Sin Fronteras, a coalition of organizations that support workers and immigrant rights, will be holding a march to recognize and celebrate International Worker’s Day and in solidarity with Palestinian people.
  • Where: Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building, 1301 Clay St. in Oakland
  • When: 2 p.m.
• Port of Oakland Shutdown, which was organized by several groups, including Bay Resistance, Anti-Police Terror Project and Palestinian Youth Movement.
  • Where: Port of Oakland
  • When: 4 p.m.

South Bay

• San Jose May Day March, which will include cultural performances and a march to celebrate “historic wins and fighting for a better future.”
  • Where: begins at Roosevelt Park, ends at Plaza de César Chavéz
  • When: 4 p.m.
• Unite Here, Local 19; hotel workers will be marching for a fair contract.
  • Where: downtown San Jose in front of the San Jose Convention Center at 150 W San Carlos St.
  • When: 4:15 p.m.
• SDS May Day parade, which is being held by the Students for a Democratic Society at San Jose State University to celebrate May Day and protest tuition increases, underfunded life-affirming programs, repression and other concerns for students.
  • Where: MLK Library, march starts at City Hall
  • When: 4:30 p.m.

San Francisco

• San Francisco International Workers’ Day march, which is being held by several community groups, including SF Living Wage Coalition, Bay Area Labor for Palestine, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, and Dolores Street Community Services.
  • Where: BART Plaza at 24th Street in the Mission District
  • When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• May Day General Strike to Stop Genocide
  • Where: Harry Bridges Plaza in front of the Ferry Building on Embarcardero at the foot of Market Street
  • When: 12:30 p.m.
• SF International Workers’ Day March and Rally, which is being held by SEIU 87 and Unite Here Local 2, in support of a fair contract for janitors and hotel workers.
  • Where: Union Square
  • When: 4 p.m.

Several college campuses will also continue their pro-Palestine encampments:

• Stanford University at White Memorial Plaza
• UC Berkeley at Sproul Hall
• San Francisco State at Malcolm X Plaza

SUNNYVALE — A group of disappointed and angry Google employees protested outside a company building on Tuesday after it was reported that the search giant had deepened a contract with the Israeli government.

Googlers in New York City and Sunnyvale took action with the activist group No Tech for Apartheid, demanding that the company drop a cloud contract with the Israeli military and government. They also called on the company to stop the harassment, intimidation and censorship of Muslim, Arab and Palestinian employees; and stop retaliation against workers who speak out against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud-computing project spearheaded by the Israeli government with collaboration from Google and Amazon Web Services.

Emaan Haseem, a software engineer, said that working at Google and supporting human rights issues by speaking out against the war in Gaza should not be mutually exclusive.

“To find out that your labor is being used for war still is very jarring to my coworkers and myself,” Haseem said.

The group staged a sit-in Tuesday morning outside Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office in Sunnyvale. Haseem said she had joined the sit-in outside Kurian’s office. Software engineer Marie Vachovsky said a group of more than a dozen people had occupied the office, but did not impede work or block anyone from entering or exiting; they were eventually escorted out of the building by security.

Outside the Google office, dozens of employees wore shirts with the phrase “Googlers against genocide” on it, with ‘genocide’ being colored in Google’s classic colors. Some passed out “Free Palestine” buttons and others waved Palestinian flags. One of the signs even called out Google’s onetime slogan, “Don’t be evil,” as they called for an end to retaliation against employees who spoke out against Project Nimbus.

According to Wired magazine, another sit-in was being held at the Google office in New York and outdoor protests were taking place in San Francisco and Seattle. Tuesday’s action came a day after protesters opposed to the war in Gaza blocked two major Bay Area freeways during the Monday morning commute.

This protest followed an article by Time Magazine reporting that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has its own “landing zone” into Google Cloud, giving them a way to store and process data and access AI services. The agreement, which was dated March 27, also gave the Israeli government a 15% discount on consulting fees.

On April 8, a Google spokesperson told the magazine that their work is largely for civilian purposes; this was the first time the Israeli Ministry of Defense was revealed as a Google Cloud customer. A spokesperson for Google could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

“I did not join Google to use the technology that I’m building towards a military,” Vachovsky said during the protest. “I also didn’t join Google to have my salary funded by technology and by contracts used by militaries.”

This isn’t the first time that Google workers held protests against their employer or against Project Nimbus. In December, hundreds of people marched in San Francisco while about a dozen lied under white shrouds marked with “Genocide” in Google’s trademark colors in protest of the contract with Israel’s government.

Thousands of Googlers worldwide also walked out in 2018 over how the company dealt with sexual harassment after Andy Rubin, who spearheaded Google’s Android operating system, was given a $90 million severance package after he was asked to resign over allegations of sexual misconduct. The next year, Googlers held another sit-in at several offices to protest alleged retaliation against employees who organized the last walkout. That same year, Google banned forced arbitration for directly employed workers after an employee pressure campaign.

Noura Khouri, a preschool teacher and community organizer with Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, said she felt proud and honored to be standing with the protesting Googlers who put their livelihoods at risk to demand that the company not use technology to aid the war in Gaza.

“Google is known for its culture of openness and human rights, of equity and justice, and we’re just asking that they uphold their own values to do no harm, to do no evil and to do the right thing,” Khouri said. “And we really want to support them in doing the right thing.”

The president and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, will be meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, and his wife, Yuko Kishida. This is the fifth state dinner of Biden’s term, and a number of people with connections to the Bay Area are expected to be in attendance.

Biden and Kishida have been in diplomatic talks regarding increasing U.S.-Japan military cooperation, the wars in Ukraine and Israel and the growing security threats in the Pacific by China and North Korea.

Per Jill Biden’s guidance, the theme of the dinner is “bounty of spring,” featuring decorations of cherry blossoms and peonies. Kishida announced that Japan will be gifting 250 cherry trees to the nation in celebration of the U.S.’s upcoming 250th birthday in 2026.

Guests will be served an upgraded version of a California roll made with house-cured salmon with shiso leaf tempura, dry-aged beef with morel mushrooms from Oregon with shishito pepper butter, and salted caramel pistachio cake and cherry ice cream.

The dinner will be capped with a performance by pop and rock singer-songwriter Paul Simon.

Among the Bay Area names on the White House invite list:

• Apple CEO Tim Cook and vice president Lisa Jackson
• Steve Westly, a former California state controller and venture capitalist, and his wife, Anita Yu Westly
• Former Olympic gold medalist and Hayward native Kristi Yamaguchi
• San Francisco native and Israel activist/adviser Susie Gelman and husband Michael Gelman
• Rene Haas, the Silicon Valley-based CEO of U.K. semiconductor and software design firm Arm Holdings.
• Stanford University alumnus William T. Freeman, now a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT
• Kent Walker, the president of global affairs of Google and Alphabet, who is accompanied by his wife, former San Francisco Chronicle reporter Diana Walsh
• Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, longtime business professor, now professor emerita, at UC Berkeley
• And of course, Oakland native Vice President Kamala Harris will be in attendance.