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Cops used cell phone signal to track down porn king's son accused in Novato killingPolice say they have located the 1-year-old girl who was abducted by her father from her Novato home after he allegedly beat the girl's mother to death. Novato police Sgt. Jennifer Welch said the girl was found unharmed and that 27-year-old James Raphael Mitchell, the son of San Francisco porn king Jim Mitchell, was arrested early today. She declined to give further details, but several media outlets reported the arrest took place in Citrus Heights near Sacramento. The abduction had triggered a statewide Amber Alert. Mitchell,...

SAN FRANCISCO—Doughnuts could be a distant memory for San Francisco city workers. They must now follow "healthy meeting" guidelines under a sweeping initiative unveiled by Mayor Gavin Newsom Thursday to encourage better eating. That means less junk food and smaller portions at staff meetings. The mayor is also ordering all city departments to help locate vacant or unused city-owned land that could be used to grow food. Vendors that offer healthy food will get preference for city contracts and permits. All vending machines on city property additionally will have to meet new nutrition standards.

SAN FRANCISCO — A proposal by the mayor to add a per-pack fee to cigarettes sold in San Francisco was approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee. The ordinance, which is expected to receive full board approval, would boost the cost of a pack by 33 cents starting Oct. 1. Newsom said the fee will help The City’s budget and offset the cost incurred to clean up butts.

The chief counsel with the Pacific Justice Institute is fighting for the rights of parents to opt out of a controversial curriculum. San Francisco Bay-area Alameda Unified School District has approved a "lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender" (LGBT) curriculum for use with kindergarten through fifth-grade students. The curriculum is intended to deal with issues such as bullying and harassment. Kevin Snider with the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) says the board passed the curriculum despite the objection of 73 percent of the speakers from the community who attended the board meeting. "The fundamental problem with the curriculum is it gives a...

San Francisco celebrates diversity with the 39th annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade & Festival this weekend. Dozens of pride-related events take place throughout the Bay Area during the week to entertain the thousands of celebrants making the pilgrimage to San Francisco, but the big weekend party at Civic Center Plaza has been known to draw vast crowds in the hundreds of thousands. This year's event theme keeps the recent struggle for the legalization of same-sex marriage at the forefront of the celebration, drawing the theme concept “In Order to Form a More Perfect Union” from the Preamble to...

San Francisco Supervisor Sophie Maxwell and other African American leaders in the Bayview are not at all happy about how this week's visit by first lady Michelle Obama was handled. "One look at the picture on the front of The Chronicle says it all," Maxwell said. "The people in the neighborhood had to climb fences to even get a look at what was going on. "The people I have talked with felt very disengaged and somewhat offended," Maxwell said. At issue was the planning - or lack thereof - for the first lady's visit to Bret Harte Elementary School, where...

D.A.'s office let illegal immigrants go Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, June 23, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris' office on Monday defended allowing about a half dozen first-time drug offenders to clear their records by going through a job-training program, even after prosecutors learned they were deportable as undocumented immigrants. But Harris' aides said they have since made changes in the program that would prevent a recurrence of instances in which illegal immigrants got their criminal records cleared by going through the Back on Track jobs program, which trains offenders for jobs that...

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced that he will not running for governor of California, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this afternoon. He said he made up his decision “for a long time” but waited until now to make an official announcement. “I can’t leave this city in the middle of a crisis. This was an agonizing decision," Villaraigosa said. “I was re-elected by the people of the city, they’ve given me the honor of a second term. I feel compelled to complete the promise I made to them.” In 2005, Villaraigosa became the first Hispanic mayor of...

New video from Mr. Yankovic about the Internet site Craigslist in the style of Jim Morrison and the Doors. Enjoy!

SAN FRANCISCO -- First Lady Michelle Obama will be in San Francisco on Monday to deliver the keynote address to the National Conference on Volunteering and Service. More than 4,000 national and international volunteer and service leaders are expected for the three-day conference at the Moscone Center. The event also kicks off United We Serve, a national call to community service from President Obama.

What is needed to reform U.S. health care? -A means to control costs -A scorecard to measure reform proposals -A campaign on Twitter and Facebook to influence Congress -Broad legislation -- figure out the details later

Mayor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly boasted of balancing San Francisco's dire budget deficit without raising taxes - but has quietly introduced hundreds of new fees and fee increases that would make living, working and traveling in the city more expensive. Some of them are likely to be controversial, including charging youths a daily fee if they're detained at juvenile hall, charging poor people a monthly fee if they need help managing their welfare money and charging tourists - including those who live as close as Daly City - more to enjoy Golden Gate Park facilities. The mayor has widely discussed...

SAN FRANCISCO - Trash collectors in San Francisco will soon be doing more than just gathering garbage: They'll be keeping an eye out for people who toss food scraps out with their rubbish. San Francisco this week passed a mandatory composting law that is believed to be the strictest such ordinance in the nation.

Lawyers for a Catholic advocacy group that sued San Francisco for condemning the Vatican's policy on same-sex adoptions are comparing the city's supervisors to Nazis laying the groundwork for the slaughter of Jews. "It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco board's actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of Gleichschaltung, vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination."

To recycle, or not to recycle? That may no longer be a matter of debate in San Francisco, where a new mandatory recycling and composting law is poised for approval. The ordinance, which will be considered by the city’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, would require residential and commercial building owners to sign up for recycling and composting services. Fines of up to $500 would await those who refuse. There would also be penalties for those who put recyclable or compostable material in landfill-bound bins. By its own estimation, San Francisco already has the highest recycling rate in the nation...

For the past 10 years, a homeless man has been living in the doorway of Norton's Vault on Sacramento Street. He's been there longer than Bill Dunkle has owned the bar, longer than Nick Gaffney, who has an office on the block and has been trying to find him housing, and longer than Gavin Newsom has been mayor. "Ten years," Gaffney said. "Isn't that crazy?" Not in San Francisco. Matthew - he only offered his first name - is a prime example of city's often-dysfunctional homeless network. He insisted he wants to move into supportive housing. "That's not true," sighed...

The Santa Clara City Council may decide tonight to bless a $937 million stadium project for the San Francisco 49ers. But San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has some advice for the voters in the South Bay city, who will have to agree: Don't do it. Instead of using nearly $80 million in city funds on a 68,500-seat stadium that will host only a handful of football games each year, Santa Clara should instead spend the money on other city needs like schools, Newsom said. "That's a lot of money to spend on a team that won't even change its name,"...

San Francisco police commissioners cleared a police captain of misconduct charges related to his alleged interference with a police investigation of off-duty officers accused in the beating of two men on the street in 2002. The so-called "fajita-gate" scandal grew out of an early morning incident outside a Union Street bar on Nov. 20, 2002, between three officers and two men, one of whom allegedly refused to hand over a bag of steak fajitas to the officers. The men said they were punched and kicked, and one was reportedly hit with a bottle. The disciplinary charges, filed by the city's...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2010 gubernatorial campaign announced Friday it will return a $25,000 contribution from a businessman who also is the son of Bay Area-based conservative radio talk personality Michael Savage. "The Newsom for California campaign is returning the contribution of Russell G. Weiner," campaign director Eric Jaye said in an e-mailed statement. "We believe that the confusion caused by the conflicts between the views expressed by Mr. Weiner in his campaign for State Assembly and the views and values of Mayor Newsom are best addressed this way." Rockstar energy drink founder and CEO Russell Weiner — son...

Don't believe what the movies say. Lionized by Hollywood and California state legislators, the real Milk was a demagogue and pal of Jim Jones.

Around 175 people were arrested in San Francisco while taking part in peaceful protests against a California Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on same-sex marriage, police said. A spokeswoman for the San Francisco Police Department said the arrests came as demonstrators blocked an intersection near the court building. Those arrested were released at the scene, Sergeant Lyn Tomioka told AFP. California's Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a referendum that outlawed gay marriage, but said 18,000 same-sex weddings carried out before the ban would remain valid. Gay and lesbian activists had sought to overturn the result of a November...

San Francisco police arrested about 175 protesters who were part of a group that blocked a major intersection for hours today in response to the state Supreme Court's ruling upholding Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. Hundreds of people filled the intersection of Grove Street and Van Ness Avenue late this morning after word spread of the ruling. The court also ruled that roughly 18,000 existing same-sex marriages in California remain valid. Around 12:45 p.m., officers were seen placing plastic handcuffs on protesters and leading them to police vans waiting nearby. With each new arrest, the crowd cheered....

Thomas Friedman is being forced to turn in a $75,000 speaking fee he received for talking to the San Francisco Bay Area's Air Quality Management District, last weekend, the LA Times is reporting. The hefty fee given to Friedman raised quite a stink, particularly amongst jealous journalists, and anyone looking to poke at the New York Times. Apparently, the fee is out of bounds within the Times ethical guidebook. Reporters can only get paid from "educational and other nonprofit groups for which lobbying and political activity are not a major focus," which the Bay Area group is not.

"Obama!" people shouted when they looked up and saw the lifelike figure. "Oh my God, it's the president," said one startled young woman. School children ran up, onlookers waved and hundreds of cameras - who knew so many people carried cameras? - recorded the moment. "What a treat," said Mandy Wagner, 58, a U.S. citizen visiting San Francisco from Honduras. "I absentee voted for him."

SAN FRANCISCO -- Calling his proposal an attack on babies and their heterosexual parents alike, Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to impose a tax on an age-old inhabitant of city landfills: the diaper. San Francisco spends an estimated $10.7 million a year burying infant and toddler diapers in the city’s landfill. The proposal, to be introduced next month to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, would add 33 cents to the cost of every diaper, to offset the city’s estimated expense of making sure the messy diapers get worked way down into the landfill. The added cost, Mr. Newsom hopes, will...

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is hoping to impose a fee on one of the biggest culprits of streets and sanitation systems across the nation: the cigarette butt. Newsom's proposal, which is slated to be introduced next month to the San Francisco Boards of Supervisors, would add 33 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes in an effort to offset the $10.7 million the city spends removing discarded butts from the city streets, gutter, and drainpipes. Despite the likely protests from tobacco companies and smokers, Newsom maintains that the new law will help...

Mayor Gavin Newsom said Friday that 1,000 city workers would lose their jobs in the coming months to help close a growing budget deficit, a swift response after the city's biggest union this week rejected $38 million in wage concessions. The layoffs will hurt all city departments, according to the mayor's office, but will have the most drastic effect on the Department of Public Health, the city's largest agency. In addition to health care workers, recreation directors, security guards and others will lose their jobs. A total of 262 city workers have already lost their jobs over the last six...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich debuts in tomorrow’s edition of The Examiner as a weekly political commentator, writing a broadly focused column on national and international politics, personalities and issues.

San Francisco -- A three-year battle over whether Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps belongs in San Francisco schools ended Tuesday night with a 4-3 vote by the school board to restore the military leadership program weeks before its scheduled expiration. More than 200 supporters and opponents of the program crowded into the school district headquarters to make their final pleas to the board. And their arguments were as emotionally charged as they were when the fight began in 2006. "To some of you, this is a political issue," Balboa High School sophomore Malik Douglas told the board. "But to me...

César Chávez Elementary School 825 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA. 94110 Voice/TTY (415) 695-5765 Fax (415) 695-5843 Email: sch603@muse.sfusd.edu Silent Language of the Soul (©1990), mural by Juana Alicia & Susan Cervantes, welcomes diversity in our school. Full image (500 K) Si Se Puede (©1996) mural by Susan Cervantes, keeps César Chávez' s struggle for justice and dignity alive. Full image (340K) Our Mission Statement César Chávez School is a community of life-long learners, achievers and activists who support self determination. We incorporate and integrate academic skills, leadership development, and cultural awareness that is relative to the reality of our...

Ammo a popular purchase at Cow Palace gun show Jim Doyle, May 3, 2009 The youth held the black, high-powered assault rifle, took aim at an imaginary target and fingered the trigger. "I like the weight of it," said Kyle Masingale, 16, of San Leandro, referring to the sleek, military-style weapon with a price tag of $2,800. But he and his father were just browsing. Thousands of gun lovers attended the Crossroads of the West Gun Show over the weekend at the Cow Palace in Daly City. "We love to go out to the (shooting) range," said Kyle's father, Kevin...

DALY CITY, Calif. (KCBS) -- The owner of the Crossroads of the West Gun Show is firing back at accusations that guns are being sold illegally at his show and infiltrating neighborhoods. State Senator Mark Leno has been pushing for new legislation that would ban gun shows at the Cow Palace. In 2008, the former assemblyman tried to rally support for a similar bill but was defeated. Bob Templeton, owner of the gun show, says a formal investigation by Daly City police found that none of the weapons sold at the show were making their way onto the streets. At...

An art exhibition in Civic Center Plaza could kill trees and should be removed immediately, a certified arborist has warned city officials. Acclaimed artist Patrick Dougherty in March installed his “The Upper Crust” exhibit, which is 18,000 pounds of freshly cut willow saplings interwoven in the sycamore treetops. Tree advocates at the time expressed concerns that the exhibit could harm the trees, and a March 31 arborist report seems to validate those worries. “To protect the trees from possible harm, it is my recommendation that the sculptures be removed from the trees immediately,” certified arborist Roy Leggitt said in a...

The attacks on Miss California Carrie Prejean have gotten so bad that even same-sex marriage champion and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking notice. Prejean, the runner-up of last Sunday's Miss USA pageant, has been the target of reports from the Hollywood media intelligentsia after her feud with gossip blogger Perez Hilton for the stance she took on same-sex marriage. And Newsom, who had just announced his intentions to run for governor of California, has noticed. "I want to challenge her on her point-of-view," Newsom said in an appearance at Sapphire Energy, a bio-tech company, which aired on NBC's...

Former Supervisor Ed Jew was sentenced Wednesday morning to one year in county jail for lying on election-related documents about where he lived when he ran for office. The sentencing caps an arduous legal journey for Jew that began when the former District 4 representative solicited cash bribes from owners of Quickly tapioca-drink shops in exchange for promising to help them obtain city permits to operate legally. Jew was under FBI surveillance when he accepted $40,000 in bills marked by federal agents, as a partial payment from the business owners. Jew pleaded guilty in October to soliciting cash bribes and...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has made it official—he's running to become California's next governor. The 41-year-old mayor used the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook to announce on Tuesday that he was seeking the Democratic nomination to succeed Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Aiming to stake his claim to the tech-savvy young voters who helped elect President Obama, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, 41, today took to the new media to formally announce he's running for governor - by directly addressing hundreds of thousands of supporters simultaneously via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. "We can't afford to keep returning to the same old tired ideas and expect the same result," the Democrat told supporters in his three-minute YouTube announcement, part of the unprecedented "virtual fly-around" campaign announcement done entirely in the new media. The gubernatorial candidate's announcement video, which premiered on his Web page,...

We went into the heart of darkness and came out ok. Started out at Civic Center Park. Then marched to the Federal Building for a rally and then to the steps of City Hall. SFPD Captain said we were about 250-350, not bad considering it was a work day. Nothing too exciting only about 10 counterprotestors. Maybe there was more but many got scared off seeing the size of the Tea Party crowd. News coverage ok. Here's some photos ____________________________ Above is an interesting little San Francisco scene. These anarchist Black Bloc'ers came to disrupt the protest. When the march...

Pundits escalate attacks against Obama Carla Marinucci,Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writers Thursday, April 9, 2009 PRINT E-MAIL SHARE COMMENTS (1905) FONT | SIZE: It took fewer than 100 days for conservative critics to start lobbing the F-bomb at President Obama. "F" as in "fascist." Take Glenn Beck, the bombastic Fox News host, who in recent weeks has repeatedly used the term - along with references to Mussolini and pictures of Hitler and Lenin - to describe Obama's efforts to revive struggling banks and automakers. The American Spectator, a conservative publication, earlier this month ran an essay on Obama titled "Il...

San Franciscans have recently been finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of riding around on public buses plastered with the words “ISLAM - Submission to God.” I say “uncomfortable” because San Francisco is famously amongst the most secular and non-religious cities in the nation. But there has been nary a peep of comment or protest about these ubiquitous in-your-face ads, which are shown here in photos taken on March 2 in San Francisco. Such was not the case a few weeks ago in Ft. Lauderdale, however, which is one of the cities where the ads first appeared on buses. As...

Former San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew. Property at 2450 28th Ave. in San Francisco was claimed a... Ed Jew tried to shake down Chinese immigrant owners of ta... Disgraced former San Francisco Supervisor was sentenced to 64 months in prison today after earlier pleading guilty to federal bribery and corruption charges. Jew tried to shake down Chinese immigrant owners of tapioca drink shops in the Sunset District for $84,000 in bribes. The sentence was longer than prosecutors had asked for. Prosecutors had sought a 57-month prison term for Jew, saying he "preyed upon and victimized the very people whom he...

It was a remarkable tribute to four men who lost their lives in the line of duty, and a tragic reminder of the sacrifices made all too often by those who protect and serve our communities as well as our great nation. LIBERALISM is the reason why these 4 honorable men are dead today.

One week after President Barack Obama's top law enforcement official seemed to indicate the feds would no longer raid pot clubs, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco Wednesday night. As agents carried large plastic containers of marijuana plants out of Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard Street, a small crowd of protesters formed a gauntlet outside the door, booing the agents and chanting, "our medicine is marijuana … listen to Obama!" DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry told CBS 5 the documents regarding the raid are sealed, so the DEA was not able to give any details....

There goes Nancy Pelosi again. First she wanted bail-out money to save some mice in the San Francisco wetlands. Now she wants bail-out money to save some rats in the San Francisco media. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Duh) asked Attorney General Eric Holder “to weigh the public benefit of saving The Chronicle and other papers from closure against the agency’s anti-trust mission to guard against anti-competitive behavior.” She neglected to mention anti-competitive behavior by the government. .......

San Francisco Even in a culture in which sex toys are a booming business and Oprah Winfrey discusses living your best life in the bedroom, a coed live-in commune dedicated to the female orgasm hovers at the extremes. The founder of the One Taste Urban Retreat Center, Nicole Daedone, sees herself as leading “the slow-sex movement,” one that places a near-exclusive emphasis on women’s pleasure — in which love, romance and even flirtation are not required. ... A core of 38 men and women — their average age the late 20s — live full time in the retreat center, a...

San Franciscans concerned with a lack of government transperancy rest easy. Twitter is coming to the rescue. Everybody's favorite mayor running for governor, Gavin Newsom, was at Twitter's headquarters on Tuesday morning to twitterfy San Francisco. Newsom is no stranger to the Twitter phenomenon as he seeks all the attention he can get ahead of his run for governor. He often tweets what he is up to from his cell phone. In fact he tweeted his meeting with the head of Twitter and his recent apperances on network television and his radio show. "Heading over to Twitter HQ tomorrow --...

"[T]he College Republicans must be punished or sanctioned for throwing shoes at the Hamas flag; pending charges should be dropped against the two protestors who assaulted the College Republicans and seized the Hamas flag; and, most ominously for defenders of free _expression on campus, a forum should be created to 'educate' students about what forms of speech the 'offended' students deem acceptable or unacceptable, including what the Left regularly tries to proscribe as 'hate speech.'"

LIVE WEBCAST - 03/05/09 California Supreme Court Oral Arguments on Proposition 8 - Same Sex Marriage 9:00AM (PST) http://www.calchannel.com The California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Thursday, March 5, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a statewide ballot initiative that was passed by a majority of California voters in November 2008. The California Channel will broadcast this event live via your local cable provider and on our website*.*Due to the high demand we expect for this event, if you have problems connecting then the server has reached its...

In a time when governments across the country are raising every manner of fee to battle nasty budget deficits, one 86-year-old man here drew the line. Ed Leong decided to fight City Hall over badminton. And, soon, City Hall found it too hard to fight Ed Leong. Since January, Mr. Leong has campaigned against new court fees he called "disturbing and unfair" because they particularly affected ethnic Asians, especially Chinese-American players. The retiree collected 200 signatures opposing the charge, presented a petition to Mayor Gavin Newsom's office, staged a rally in front of City Hall and persistently called local politicians...

The Hearst Corp. said Tuesday that unless the San Francisco Chronicle can undertake "critical" cost cutting measures including job cuts within weeks, the company will be forced to sell or close the newspaper. Hearst said the Chronicle lost more than $50 million last year and added that, "this year's losses to date are worse." The Chronicle has had major losses each year since 2001, Hearst said. The closely-held media company said cost reductions including an unspecified reduction in union and non-union employees are needed to restore the Chronicle to health.