Pacific Sun

Pacific Sun's cover story this week is "Beyond the Meal," Nikki Silverstein's profile of Kieawnie Clar, founder and director of Marin's Street Chaplaincy and The Bethany Project. Clar has helped unhoused residents pay for motel rooms before medical procedures, move cars before they're towed, and find a warm meal and a sense of belonging. Marin County counted 1,090 homeless residents in 2024, and Clar says her work aims to restore dignity and help people "reenter the community." The full story is on page 6, alongside the issue's Fall Arts preview on page 8.

Pacific Sun's annual Best of Marin issue is here, celebrating the county's favorite people, places and businesses as voted by readers.

The wait is over! The results are in, and the Pacific Sun Best of Marin 2026 Winners Issue has officially hit newsstands and digital screens. From top-tier dining and local retail to essential services and community icons, find out who took home top honors in this year's annual Readers' Poll.

Explore the complete list of local favorites and celebrate the exceptional businesses that make Marin County thrive.

Read the Winners Issue here: 👉 https://wklys.co/pacific-sun-weekly

Marin County's "Roller Disco Daze" has grown steadily since opening July 17 at Lagoon Island in San Rafael, with weekly attendance rising and Fridays through Sundays now running through Aug. 16. Andie Davis of the county's Department of Cultural Services said the free event, with DJs, a mirror ball and a covered rink for skaters of all levels, was built to be "a place where anyone can just show up and have a good time." Writer Bruce Dexter has the story on page 16.

Angad "Munny" Singh Hira

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/pacificsun/name/angad-hira-obituary?id=62104947

The government built 300 Nike Hercules missile sites, nuclear warheads included, deliberately close to the civilian centers they were meant to protect, and Marin got one of them at the height of the Cold War. The piece walks that math to its logical end, if the plan required detonating a nuclear weapon 75 miles out to stop an incoming bomber, the defense system and the disaster it was built to prevent start looking hard to tell apart.

Read more here ➤ wklys.co/marin-nuclear-base

SF-88, a decommissioned Nike Missile site in the Marin Headlands, is the most fully restored Nike museum in the country and the only one with an operational missile elevator. Run by the National Park Service, the site offers free tours led by volunteer docents, some of whom served at Nike sites during the Cold War. On the first Saturday of the month, visitors can see a decommissioned Nike Hercules missile displayed on its launch pad.

A German court already ruled this year that Google's AI Overviews can be held liable for generating false statements, yet roughly 60% of Americans now read AI search summaries and many don't realize the text is AI-generated or that they can opt out. The piece argues that treating these overviews as authoritative rather than checking them against the actual sources is exactly how systemic bias and unverified claims slip into what people accept as fact.

Read more here ➤ wklys.co/chatbot-transparency

Grahame Lesh and the Lesh family bring the Terrapin Roadshow back to Marin for three nights at Forest Meadows Amphitheatre in San Rafael, July 24-26. The rotating lineup includes Jackie Greene, Amy Helm and Elliott Peck for a weekend built on improvisation rather than a fixed set. Doors open at 5pm Friday, with set times varying each night.

A hand-painted costume sketch by John Pratt sat in a curbside trash pile in San Francisco's Inner Richmond for years before a passerby rescued it, and 17 years later its full backstory is still unresolved. The bigger question isn't what the piece depicts but who owned it and how it ended up on the sidewalk in the first place.

Read more here ➤ wklys.co/theatrical-history