- The Giants knocked previously unflappable, unhittable Cliff Lee out of the box in the fifth inning on their way to an 11-7 victory over the Rangers in Game 1 of the World Series. Matt Cain goes up against C.J. Wilson in Game 2, tonight, 4:57 p.m., AT&T Park.
Also, in the Chronicle today: Giants' President Larry Baer speaks about the team's desire to develop the area behind AT&T Park. From the report: "Giants President Larry Baer looks at the parking lots and decrepit docks sitting just beyond the right-field wall and envisions a cultural, residential and retail complex."
- PG&E has affirmed a commitment to move the San Bruno gas pipeline in a letter to San Bruno Mayor Jim Ruane. Last week, Ruane and State Sen. Leland Yee held a press conference announcing that PG&E had agreed to re-located the pipeline, but the company's statements appeared to be much less certain.
- The electric car company Tesla Motors re-opened the former Nummi plant in Fremont, shut down by GM and Toyota this year. Read Rachael Myrow's Shifting Gears blog post or listen to her short report on KQED to find out how some former NUMMI workers are faring.
- Narcotics agents raided a Santa Clara pot dispensary for the second time in two weeks, arresting nine people and seizing 30 pounds of pot, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
- The resisting-arrest trial of a San Jose couple who were attacked by a San Jose police officer has gone to jury. Officer Joseph Paolini shocked Cindy Zuniga with a stun gun and shot Marcos Zuniga in the face during an encounter outside a restaurant. Last year, a San Jose Mercury News investigation found that San Jose police frequently use force in resisting-arrest cases.
- California's Inspector General released an audit of the California High-Speed Rail Authority giving the agency mixed grades. From the San Mateo County Times:
The agency in charge of the state's $43 billion high-speed railroad project isn't fully equipped to spend taxpayer dollars and has signed big checks to contractors without checking their work, California's inspector general said Wednesday.
However, the audit from Inspector General Laura Chick also said the California High-Speed Rail Authority is making strides to correct many problems associated with planning the largest public project in the state's history. By 2020, the bullet trains are expected to zip along the Caltrain line from San Francisco to San Jose at speeds of 125 mph on their way to Los Angeles.
This week, Palo Alto voted against building a high-speed rail station in the city.
- Google has launched Google Place Search. What is it? Let's turn to Wired:
Google knows 50 million places, and when you search for say "museums new york," it now shows you a new kind of search result that replaces a list of links with a list of mini-pages for museums in the Big Apple with a map on the right. Each mini-page has links to reviews around the Web on sites like Citisearch and Yelp, as well as the address and phone number. The mini-profile also has a photo and a algorithmically chosen snippet from a typical review.
Google will automatically choose the so-called Place search, rather than a general web search, if it thinks your query is about a place -- something Place Search product manager Jackie Bavaro says accounts for about 20 percent of Google searches.
More ambiguous queries such as "soccer field" will use the main search, since the user could be trying to learn the official FIFA regulations for a soccer field, not find one to scrimmage on. But Place Search remains an option for all searches, joining the left navigation on Google's search results, alongside Images, Shopping, News and Video.
If that doesn't help, try reading about the new feature on the Official Google Blog. Or just type in, oh, let's say "baseball" in the regular Google search box, then click on the "Places" link on the left side of the page. See?