Young San Franciscans aren’t drinking at bars. They’re at the library

Opinion // Emily Hoeven

Young San Franciscans aren’t going to bars. They’re hanging at the library

Is it any surprise that young people like me are forgoing moody bars for free books when a glass of wine can set you back $20?

By Emily Hoeven, Opinion Columnist, Aug 16, 2025

San Francisco Main Library, photographed in 2023. The library’s marketing and community engagement teams have made concerted efforts to capture the attention of millennial and Gen-Z audiences.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

It’s no secret that young people in San Francisco don’t frequent bars and nightclubs the way they once did.

This has left many perplexed. If the city’s dwindling population of 20-somethings isn’t drinking and dancing, what are they doing?

This 20-something has spent much of her time this summer at the San Francisco Public Library. And based on my observations, plenty of other young adults have, too.

No, we aren’t geeks. The library is cool.

To start, it’s a free third space — a perk that cannot be overstated in this ridiculously expensive city.

I recently visited the Chinatown library shortly before it closed at 8 p.m. There was barely an empty seat in the house. And it was impossible not to notice the sizable number of young adults.

Is it any surprise we’d forgo a moody bar when a glass of wine can set you back $20 these days?

Meanwhile, the library’s marketing and community engagement teams have made concerted efforts to capture the attention of millennial and Gen-Z audiences.

Their smart gamification strategy is working.

The library offers a tote bag as a prize for completing its Summer Stride program — which challenges residents to complete 20 hours of reading from June through August.

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Trump’s D.C. crackdown: Hundreds protest outside White House : NPR

National

Hundreds march to White House to protest Trump’s D.C. crackdown

August 16, 2025 9:03 PM ET

By Brian Mann

,

Chandelis Duster

Hundreds of protesters march to White House on Aug. 16, 2025. Brian Mann/NPR

WASHINGTON — Hundreds gathered peacefully in the nation’s capital on Saturday afternoon to protest President Trump’s attempted takeover of the city’s police department and deployment of  National Guard units alongside federal agents.

National

Three Republican-led states to send hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington

Starting with a rally in the northwest neighborhood of DuPont Circle, protesters chanted, “Shame” and “Trump must go now!” while demanding an end to the “crime emergency” that Trump declared in an executive order on Monday.

Protesters later marched to the White House, continuing to chant, as D.C. Metropolitan Police officers and National Park Service police looked on from a distance.

Law

Teenagers in Washington, D.C., say the federal police takeover makes them feel unsafe

Mason Weber of Maryland told NPR he attended the march because he was concerned that the deployment of troops is a “serious ethical and legal breach.”

“The most concerning thing about it is there’s been no check and balance of the systems of power,” Weber said. “Congress, if it comes to it, we expect to authorize it for longer.”

A protester stands in front of Metropolitan Police Department officers and National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 16, 2025. Brian/Mann

The demonstration took place two days after Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to appoint Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole as an “emergency police commissioner” who would assume full operational control over D.C. police. Trump officials backed off that effort on Friday after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit in federal court.

“The hostile takeover of our police force is not going to happen — a very important win for home rule today,” Schwalb told reporters late Friday.

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Celebrating 50 years of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – Ars Technica

A video musical introduction…

https://youtu.be/GKhPVHoodrU?si=3HL5c-VqXjknl3dT

And some memorable images…

“He had a pickup truck and the devil’s eyes”: Columbia (Little Nell) is mad about Eddie.“It’s just a jump to the left”: castle denizens love doing the Time Warp 20th Century Studios“There’s a light over at the Frankenstein place”: Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) seek shelter from the storm. 20th Century StudiosCredit: 20th Century Studios

Celebrating 50 years of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – Ars Technica

When The Rocky Horror Picture Show premiered in 1975, no one could have dreamed that it would become the longest-running theatrical release film in history. But that’s what happened. Thanks to a killer soundtrack, campy humor, and a devoted cult following, Rocky Horror is still a mainstay of midnight movie culture. In honor of its 50th anniversary, Disney/20th Century Studios is releasing a newly restored 4K HDR version in October, along with deluxe special editions on DVD and Blu-ray. And the film has inspired not one, but two documentaries marking its five decades of existence: Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror and Sane Inside Insanity: The Phenomenon of Rocky Horror.

(Spoilers below, because it’s been 50 years.)

The film is an adaption of Richard O’Brien‘s 1973 musical for the stage, The Rocky Horror Show. At the time, he was a struggling actor and wrote the musical as an homage to the science fiction and B horror movies he’d loved since a child. In fact, the opening song (“Science Fiction/Double Feature“) makes explicit reference to many of those, including 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, Flash Gordon (1936), King Kong (1933), The Invisible Man (1933), Forbidden Planet (1956), and The Day of the Triffids (1962), among others.

The musical ran for six years in London and was well-received when it was staged in Los Angeles. But the New York City production bombed. By then the film was already in development with O’Brien—who plays the hunchbacked butler Riff Raff in the film—co-writing the script. Director Jim Sharman retained most of the London stage cast, but brought in American actors Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon to play Brad and Janet, respectively. And he shot much of the film at the Victorian Gothic manor Oakley Court in Berkshire, England, where several Hammer horror movies had been filmed.  In fact, Sharman made use of several old props and set pieces from old Hammer productions, most notably the tank and dummy from 1958’s The Revenge of Frankenstein.

The film opens with nice wholesome couple Brad and Janet attending a wedding and awkwardly getting engaged themselves. They decide to visit their high school science teacher, Dr. Scott (Jonathan Adams), because they met in his class, but they get a flat tire en route and end up stranded in the rain. They seek refuge and a phone at a nearby castle, hoping to call for roadside assistance. Instead, they are pressured into becoming guests of the castle’s owner, a transvestite mad scientist called Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), and his merry bad of misfits.

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Trump-Putin documents left on hotel printer : NPR

Exclusive , Investigations

Government papers found in an Alaskan hotel reveal new details of Trump-Putin summit

Updated August 16, 20251:56 PM ET

By Chiara Eisner

President Donald Trump, right, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin arrive for a joint press conference at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo / Jae C. Hong)

Papers with U.S. State Department markings, found Friday morning in the business center of an Alaskan hotel, revealed previously undisclosed and potentially sensitive details about the Aug. 15 meetings between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Anchorage.

Eight pages, that appear to have been produced by U.S. staff and left behind accidentally, shared precise locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of U.S. government employees.

At around 9 a.m. on Friday, three guests at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel located 20 minutes from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage where leaders from the U.S. and Russia convened, found the documents left behind in one of the hotel’s public printers. NPR reviewed photos of the documents taken by one of the guests, who NPR agreed not to identify because the guest said they feared retaliation.

Pictures of two documents about the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska that were found in a public hotel printer in Anchorage. NPR

The first page in the printed packet disclosed the sequence of meetings for August 15, including the specific names of the rooms inside the base in Anchorage where they would take place. It also revealed that Trump intended to give Putin a ceremonial present.

“POTUS to President Putin,” the document states, “American Bald Eagle Desk Statue.”

On Saturday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the papers as a “multi-page lunch menu” and suggested leaving the information on a public printer was not a security breach. The U.S. Department of State did not respond to requests for comment.

Pages 2 through 5 of the documents listed the names and phone numbers of three U.S. staff members as well as the names of 13 U.S. and Russian state leaders. The list provided phonetic pronouncers for all the Russian men expected at the summit, including “Mr. President POO-tihn.”

Pages 6 and 7 in the packet described how lunch at the summit would be served, and for whom. A menu included in the documents indicated that the luncheon was to be held “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin.”

A seating chart shows that Putin and Trump were supposed to sit across from each other during the luncheon. Trump would be flanked by six officials: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to his right, and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff to his left. Putin would be seated immediately next to his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, and his Aide to the President for Foreign Policy, Yuri Ushakov.

During the summit Friday, lunch was apparently cancelled. But it was intended to be a simple, three-course meal, the documents showed. After a green salad, the world leaders would dine on filet mignon and halibut olympia. Crème brûlée would be served for dessert.

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