Let's catch up...

In Silicon Valley, Caltrain Upgrade Is Imperiled as Trump Withholds Funds, New York Times

For more than a decade, the managers of the Silicon Valley railway, known as Caltrain, have been planning to upgrade to faster and less polluting electric trains.

But those plans are now imperiled by the Trump administration's decision in February to withhold a $647 million federal grant.

In this impasse, some transportation experts see a foretaste of the political infighting and financial hurdles that could plague the nationwide infrastructure projects that President Trump is promising. Reviving America's rusted and sagging infrastructure is one of the few areas where it seemed Democrats and Republicans could agree. But making these projects a reality — the "new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways gleaming across our beautiful land" that Mr. Trump enumerated to Congress last week — will require political cooperation and accommodations that are increasingly rare in ultrapartisan times. Read more.

Girl Scouts Challenge Weed Dispensary To Fundraiser, Winner Gets The Cookies, SFist

Capitalizing on an association between their popular cookies and ravenous stoners fostered in 2014 when a 13-year-old Girl Scout started selling Thin Mints and Tagalongs in front of Mission District medical marijuana dispensary The Green Cross, an entire SF Girl Scout troop upped the ante this year by challenging Market Street pot shop the Apothecarium to a fundraising challenge. Regardless of who raised the most dough, the real winner was Kindergarten to College "K2C" as the beneficiary of the fundraiser, a San Francisco municipal program to create a college savings account of $50 for every child entering kindergarten in San Francisco. But in the end, the bragging rights — and the wagered gift of fresh-baked cookies from the loser — went to the Girl Scouts. Read more.

Here's Why the Defiant Girl Statue in Front of the Wall Street Bull Is So Important, Fortune

Between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Tuesday, lower Manhattan got its newest resident: a 50-inch defiant little girl, cast in bronze, standing opposite Wall Street's famous charging bull.

State Street Global Advisors installed the statue, sculpted by artist Kristen Visbal of Delaware, on the eve of International Women's Day to serve as the visual component of the money manager's new commitment to gender parity in corporate boardrooms. The firm, with roughly $2.5 trillion under management, announced Tuesday that it would pressure 3,500 companies worth $30 trillion in market cap to aim for gender parity on their boards.

So far the little girl—modeled after a seven-year-old whom Visbal knows and a 9-year-old Latina girl—is a sensation, generating headlines the world over and attracting onlookers to a brick-laid patch at the foot of Broadway. Read more.

A Black-Owned, Woman-Owned Craft Bottle Shop Is Coming to Uptown Oakland, East Bay Express

Now, Moncada is planning to bring something else that's new to Oakland's booming food and beverage scene: a Black-owned, woman-owned craft bottle shop located in the heart of Uptown. Located near the intersection of Broadway and Grand Avenue, Proof: Oakland's Bottle Shop is tentatively slated to open in August.

Proof won't be the first retail bottle shop focused on craft spirits to open in Oakland — though Moncada stressed that there aren't nearly as many as you might think. But the East Oakland native thinks her shop will have several aspects that set it apart. The first, and perhaps the most important, is that she's an accomplished bartender herself. Her resume includes a stint at the San Francisco speakeasy Bourbon & Branch and, more recently, she co-founded a cocktail catering company called Doble Bar. Who better to create a store that's meant to be a resource to the bartenders in the area than someone who has plenty of experience mixing drinks? Read more.