warehouse

Food delivery app DoorDash is setting its sights on a new destination to test out flying drone deliveries: San Francisco.

The tech company leased a warehouse in the Mission District last month that will serve as a research and development space to advance its autonomous delivery technology, a June letter sent to San Francisco Zoning Administrator Corey Teague shows.

“This project reflects a broader commitment to reinvesting in San Francisco’s innovation economy and creating pathways for local employment in emerging technologies,” the letter said.

The 34,325-square-foot building at 1960 Folsom St. is roughly two miles away from DoorDash’s headquarters. About 200 people are expected to be employed at the site.

DoorDash confirmed on Wednesday that the company will use the facility to test autonomous delivery technology and support research and development for its robotics and automation arm. The company didn’t immediately answer questions about whether California residents will soon be able to get food delivery via a drone.

The San Francisco Chronicle first reported on DoorDash’s drone delivery plans.

Most of the testing would happen inside the warehouse but some of it will also occur outdoors during normal business hours in a gated area. The property includes a big outdoor area with surface parking, the letter said.

DoorDash has been piloting drone deliveries in other states including Texas, Virginia and North Carolina as well as Australia. DoorDash has partnered with aviation companies Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Flytrek, an Israeli drone delivery company.

Drone delivery companies have also teamed up with other businesses, including Amazon and Walmart.

The expansion of drone delivery highlights how automation and robotics, powered by artificial intelligence, could reshape the future of work. Companies have been experimenting with drone delivery as a way to get food to customers’ doorsteps within minutes.

DoorDash and Flytrek launched drone delivery in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, in June. The drones delivered from restaurants such as Papa Johns and The Brass Tap and could carry up to 6.6 pounds, according to a news release about the partnership.

In the letter sent to Teague, a San Francisco attorney writes she’s reaching out on behalf of a “leading technology company focused on last-mile delivery solutions” to confirm their client is permitted to use the site as “research and development (R&D) space for autonomous delivery technologies.”

Even though the attorney doesn’t name DoorDash in the letter, the building’s lease has been linked to the company.

“The test flights outdoors are anticipated to be up to approximately 150 feet above ground. No more than two drones would be operated at the same time, and no individual flight would exceed 30 minutes in duration,” the letter said.

DoorDash has also been expanding other types of delivery, including a partnership with Coco Robotics in which boxy robots with wheels deliver food throughout Los Angeles and Chicago.

While San Francisco is a leading hub for technology and innovation, city officials have also encountered safety concerns from residents concerned about running into robots as they take up space on sidewalks. In 2017, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to restrict delivery robots.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Transportation in August proposed a new rule that would make it easier for companies to fly drones over longer distances. A DoorDash spokesperson said the company is encouraged by the steps taken “towards making drone delivery a scalable, safe, and reliable option for more communities across the country.”

As of December 2024, roughly 42 million people used DoorDash monthly, according to the company’s full-year financial results.

Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili reports from inside the main UNRWA warehouse in Gaza City, showing the completely empty shelves where food aid used to be stored. The UN officially declared famine in Gaza on Friday with Israeli-imposed food insecurity and starvation having reached critical levels.

July 7 (UPI) — Authorities in northern California have confirmed the recovery of the bodies of seven people who had been reported missing following last week’s explosion of a warehouse storing fireworks near Sacramento.

“In accordance with standard procedure and out of respect for the families, the identities of the deceased will be withheld until formal identification is complete and next of kin have been notified,” Yolo County said in a statement Sunday.

The fireworks warehouse, located near County Roads 23 and 86A in the Esparto area of Yolo County, exploded Tuesday at about 5:50 p.m. following a fire that erupted on the compound.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

On Sunday, authorities executed a controlled explosion at the site “to safely remove hazardous materials identified at the scene,” Yolo County said in a statement.

The explosion was scheduled to occur between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. PDT.

“Residents may hear loud noises or notice smoke and odors in the area during this time,” the county said. “This is expected and part of the controlled process … There is no immediate threat to public safety, and all necessary safety protocols are in place.”

Authorities had confirmed on Friday that remains of at least some of the seven people reported unaccounted for had been found.

The fire and the ensuing explosion resulted in the Oakdale Fire, which burned 78 acres before it was 100% contained on Sunday, according to Cal Fire.

July 4 (UPI) — The remains of at least some of the seven people missing at the site of Tuesday’s deadly fireworks warehouse explosion in Yolo County, Calif., have been found, authorities said.

Personnel with the Yolo County Coroner’s Division accessed the site on Thursday and located human remains, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office announced on Friday.

“Out of respect for the families, the identities of the deceased will not be released publicly until official identification has been made and the next of kin have been formally notified,” the YCSO announced.

Coroner’s office staff have contacted the families of the seven people who are missing and will continue to provide them with updates.

The search for missing victims began Thursday afternoon, and stretchers containing what appeared to be human remains were seen outside the site, KCRA reported.

The fireworks warehouse site is located near county roads 23 and 86A in the Esparto area of Yolo County.

The facility caught fire at 5:50 p.m. PDT on Tuesday and produced a plume of black smoke that could be seen for miles before triggering multiple explosions.

Officials with the Esparto Fire Protection District have asked Cal Fire arson and bomb investigators to lead the investigation into the explosion’s cause.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also has some of its investigators at the site.

Cal Fire officials on Wednesday announced seven were missing but did not begin searching for survivors until the site was deemed safe on Thursday.

The California Fire Marshal’s office and other agencies delayed the search due to the potentially dangerous chemicals and unignited fireworks that remained after the explosion.

Yolo County is located directly west of Sacramento in northern California, and the warehouse location is 36 miles northwest of the city.

July 2 (UPI) — A warehouse storing fireworks outside of Sacramento, Calif., exploded Tuesday evening, according to authorities, who said the facility was still on fire.

The Yolo County Sheriff’s Office said the warehouse is located near the small California town of Esparto, about 36 miles northwest of Sacramento.

“We urge everyone to avoid the area so fire crews and emergency responders can safely do their work,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement on Facebook.

“At this time, the cause of the explosion remains unknown.”

Authorities have issued a 1-mile evacuation zone surrounding the warehouse.

Aerial video of the incident captured by local station KCRA 3 shows flames burning through the roof of the warehouse as large spot fires burn on the compound. When it exploded, a large fireball was ejected into the air followed by fireworks and smoke.

Curtis Lawrence, fire chief of the Esparto Fire Protection District, told reporters during a Tuesday night press briefing that they responded to calls of an explosion at the warehouse at 5:50 p.m. PDT.

He said they believe that a large fire, which ignited at one warehouse facility on the compound, spread, causing numerous spot fires in the area, burning a total of approximately 80 acres.

He would not state whether there were any casualties.

CalFire’s Office of the State Fire Marshal Arson and Bomb Unit is investigating, but the local sheriff’s office said it has not opened a criminal investigation, at least not at this time.

This is a developing story.

The two towering sculptures comprising thousands of pounds of bronze and stainless steel took artist and filmmaker Sir Daniel Winn more than a year to complete.

They vanished in a weekend.

Police believe that on June 14 or 15 at least one thief made off with both “Icarus Within” and “Quantum Mechanics: Homme,” — sculptures valued at a combined $2.1 million — from a warehouse in Anaheim Hills. Other artwork and valuables inside the warehouse that would have been easier to move were untouched. Authorities have scant details about the heist.

“Unfortunately, we have little information but we are investigating,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Matt Sutter said.

The life-sized “Quantum Mechanics: Homme” artwork, composed of lucite, bronze and stainless steel, depicts a winged and horned man and was featured in the award-winning short film “Creation” in 2022. It’s valued at $1.8 million.

A second Winn piece, “Icarus Within,” based partially on the sculptor’s chaotic childhood escape from Vietnam, is a steel and bronze sculpture that also stands 8 feet tall, weighs a ton, and is valued at $350,000.

Both sculptures were being stored in a temporary facility and were last seen by warehouse workers in Anaheim Hills on Saturday, according to the Anaheim Police Department.

When the workers returned to the facility Monday, both pieces were missing, according to police.

Winn believes the pieces may have been stolen by an unscrupulous collector while an art recovery expert suspects the two sculptures will be destroyed for scrap metal.

“Typically these sculptures, when we do exhibitions, take about a dozen men and two forklifts to move it and a flatbed or a truck to carry it,” Winn said. “This is not an easy task.”

Winn told The Times that the last few days have been stressful and that his anxiety has been “through the roof.” Winn is considered a blue-chip artist, meaning his work is highly sought after and has a high monetary value.

The former UC Irvine medical student, who was once homeless after switching his major from medicine to art, said he blends fine art, quantum metaphysics and philosophy into his work.

The Vietnamese refugee owns the Winn Slavin Fine Art gallery on Rodeo Drive and was appointed earlier this month as Art Commissioner for John Wayne Airport.

The loss of his art has pushed Winn “to a dark place,” he said, though he’s found some catharsis in talking about the situation.

“These are my children,” he said of each of his individual works. “I have no physical, organic children. Every artwork I create is my child.”

The larger of two sculptures, “Homme,” was the seventh and only unsold work in Winn’s Quantum Mechanics series, which explores philosophical concepts, universal truths and tries to answer the enduring question: why are we here?

The smaller “Icarus Within” focused on Winn’s struggle around the age of 9 in emigrating to the United States in the final days of the Vietnam War. The sculpture was tied to Winn’s movie “Chrysalis,” based on his memoirs, that is supposed to premier this fall.

Winn said the level of sophistication in the theft led him to suspect he was targeted and that his pieces may be on the black market.

He turned over a list of individuals who have recently inquired about his sculptures to police, he said.

Sutter, the Anaheim Police sergeant, said this is the largest burglary he’s seen in his 25 years with the department.

“We’ve had our share of high-end homes that were burglarized, but this type of crime, involving forklifts, trucks, crews and the sheer size of the sculptures is something I can’t remember us having before,” Sutter said.

Sutter said investigators are asking businesses near the warehouse for any footage that could help them identify a suspect.

“I have no idea where these sculptures are,” Sutter said. “They could be in somebody’s house or in a shipping container somewhere. That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

Chris Marinello, founder of the dispute resolution and art recovery service named Art Recovery International, said the sculptures will likely be scrapped for their metals.

Marinello said scrap yards tear apart such works into thousands of small pieces to cloak the metal’s origin.

“Unfortunately, the criminals are not that bright and they don’t see artwork but, instead, a sculpture worth millions that is more valuable to them for the raw metals like steel and bronze,” Marinello said.

Marinello pointed to a two-ton Henry Moore bronze sculpture, known as the Reclining Figure, stolen from the artist’s foundation in Hertfordshire, England in 2005.

The piece was valued at 3 million pounds, but authorities believe it was scrapped for just 1,500 pounds.

“You can’t sell sculptures of this magnitude on the market,” Marinello said of the Winn’s stolen pieces.

May 29 (UPI) — Hungry Gazans broke into an aid warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday, which caused two reported deaths, according to officials with the U.N. World Food Program.

“Hordes of hungry people broke into WFP’s Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, in search of food supplies that were pre-positioned for distribution,” the WFP said Wednesday in a prepared statement.

“Humanitarian needs have spiraled out of control after 80 days of complete blockade of all food assistance and other aid into Gaza,” the WFP said.

The agency said “alarming and deteriorating conditions” in Gaza and a limited availability of humanitarian aid to “hungry people in desperate need of assistance” have increased risks associated with aid distribution.

“Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance,” the WFP said. “This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve.”

The WFP said initial reports indicate two died and several more were injured, but those reports were not confirmed as of Wednesday night.

Another 121 trucks owned by the United Nations and international organizations carrying flour, food and other aid entered Gaza on Wednesday, the BBC reported.

Wednesday’s warehouse incident occurred after Gazans overwhelmed two aid distribution sites in southern Gaza on Tuesday.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported three Gazans were killed, 46 injured and seven others were missing after Israel Defense Forces fired warning shots into the air as crowds of hungry Gazans swarmed over one of the aid distribution sites, NBC News reported.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said 47 people were injured during Tuesday’s aid-distribution chaos and gunfire from Israel Defense Forces caused most of the injuries.

IDF and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation officials initially denied the reports and said no one was injured or killed during the first three days of food and aid distribution.

IDF soldiers fired into the air and did not shoot towards people, an IDF spokesperson told the BBC. The IDF is investigating the incident.

They said the GHF and IDF are preventing Hamas militants from stealing the aid from four distribution sites in southern and central Gaza, which Hamas has denied, the BBC reported.

The U.S.-supported GHF is in charge of distributing aid within Gaza after Israel ended an 11-week blockade of all aid into the war-torn Gaza Strip after a recent cease-fire deal collapsed.

At least four distribution points in southern Gaza are being used to deliver aid to Gazans, and more distribution sites are to be added, NBC News reported.

Thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a UN World Food Programme warehouse in central Gaza on Wednesday, taking bags of flour after nearly three months of an Israeli blockade. The WFP said initial reports indicated that two people had died and several more were injured in the incident.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says that “hordes of hungry people” have broken into a food supply warehouse in central Gaza.

Two people are reported to have died and several others injured in the incident, the programme said, adding that it was still confirming details.

Video footage from AFP news agency showed crowds breaking into the Al-Ghafari warehouse in Deir Al-Balah and taking bags of flour and cartons of food as gunshots rang out. It was not immediately clear where the gunshots came from.

In a statement, the WFP said humanitarian needs in Gaza had “spiralled out of control” after an almost three-month Israeli blockade that was eased last week.

The WFP said that food supplies had been pre-positioned at the warehouse for distribution.

The programme added: “Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve.”

The WFP said it had “consistently warned of alarming and deteriorating conditions on the ground, and the risks imposed by limiting humanitarian aid to hungry people in desperate need of assistance”.

Israeli authorities said on Wednesday that 121 trucks belonging to the UN and the international community carrying humanitarian aid including flour and food were transferred into Gaza.

Israel began to allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza last week. However, UN Middle East envoy Sigrid Kaag told the UN Security Council this was “comparable to a lifeboat after the ship has sunk” when everyone in Gaza was facing the risk of famine.

A controversial US and Israeli-backed group – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – was also established as a private aid distribution system. It uses US security contractors and bypasses the UN, which said it was unworkable and unethical.

The US and Israeli governments say the GHF, which has set up four distribution centres in southern and central Gaza, is preventing aid from being stolen by Hamas, which the armed group denies doing.

The UN Humans Right Office said 47 people were injured on Tuesday after people overran one of the GHF distribution sites in the southern city of Rafah, a day after it began working there.

Another senior UN official told journalists on Wednesday that desperate crowds were looting cargo off of UN aid trucks.

Jonathan Whittall, the head of the UN’s humanitarian office for the occupied Palestinian territories, also said there was no evidence that Hamas was diverting aid coordinated through credible humanitarian channels.

He said the real theft of relief goods since the beginning of the war had been carried out by criminal gangs which the Israeli army “allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point in Gaza”.

The UN has argued that a surge of aid like the one during the recent ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas would reduce the threat of looting by hungry people and allow it to make full use of its well-established network of distribution across the Gaza Strip.

Gaza’s Nasser Hospital is “suffering immensely” from a shortage of medical supplies after an Israeli attack hit a medical warehouse early Monday morning. The entire area of Khan Younis is now also under a forced displacement order by the Israeli military.

May 13 (UPI) — More than two dozen West Baltimore residents were evacuated from their homes overnight as firefighters continued to battle a six-alarm blaze at a mattress warehouse that was sending plumes of smoke above the city.

The Baltimore City Fire Department confirmed in an early Tuesday statement on social media that at least 30 residents near the fire at Edmondson Avenue have been temporarily evacuated.

Officials were also working to restore Amtrak services by 2:30 a.m. EDT as overhead lines on tracks abutting the rear of the warehouse at Edmondson Avenue and Bantalou Street were de-energized due to the fire. Amtrak confirmed online that local municipal officials had placed “a hold on all tracks in West Baltimore.”

Firefighters were dispatched to the multi-story mattress warehouse shortly before 7 p.m. Monday to find what officials described as a “heavy fire,” which was upgraded to a four-alarm blaze 22 minutes later.

Some 200 firefighters were battling the blaze, officials said. No injures have been reported.

During a press conference on Monday night, Baltimore fire chief James Wallace said it had become a six-alarm blaze.

“This has become a bigger city operation now,” he said.

He said the building, which stands three stories above ground, also has two sub-level floors.

“It’s a large basement area. It’s the size of the building and we’re told it’s stacked full of mattresses,” he said.

He added that authorities are unsure of exactly what is fueling fire. While they’ve been told it’s mattresses, there were also informed at one point paint was also in the facility, concrete and brick.

“We’re fighting what we see,” he said.

In an earlier press conference, Wallace told reporters the challenge was they were fighting the blaze from the outside and they had yet to gain access to the large facility.

“Given the size of this building, the size of the fire, we’re having to be very cautious, very meticulous as we move in there,” he said.

The cause of the fire was under investigation, and the blaze was still uncontrolled early Tuesday.

Wallace said they are working to prevent it from spreading to other buildings.

Wind, he explained, which is usually a hindrance, was aiding firefighters by pushing the blaze toward the back of the facility where the train tracks were and away from nearby buildings.

“That’s what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to cut this off,” he said.