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San Francisco Transit Workers Call in Sick Again SAN FRANCISCO June 2, 2014 (AP) By SUDHIN THANAWALA and TERRY COLLINS Associated Press Associated Press San Francisco's famed cable cars halted for a second straight day, and the rest of the city's transit system experienced delays after drivers called in sick again on Tuesday, days after overwhelmingly rejecting a new labor contract, officials said. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said it was running about half of its normal weekday service. Though that was up from a day earlier, riders were warned that they would still experience significant delays. Cable cars...

In more than twenty years of columns, I’ve never written one specifically for a new publication. But every rule has its exceptions. This is for the San Francisco News, launched just a week ago by my friends from the Canyon News in Los Angeles. And, if any place in the US is nostalgic to me, San Francisco is the place. I graduated from college and got married in 1964. My intention was to go to law school, and I applied various places. Boalt Hall, at the University of California in Berkeley, gave me a maybe, so I drove to California...

The problem started when the primary electrical system failed. Sixty-eight people were trapped in the air aboard two red-and-white gondolas. Sunset was still three hours off. The tramway's supervisor of operations drove in from Westchester to get it going again. When that proved impossible, he turned on a diesel-powered hydraulic backup with just enough power to pull the gondolas back to shore. For a moment, it worked: the gondolas moved. But then the hydraulic backup failed, too. The supervisor, Armando Cordova, was out of options — beyond talking to the engineers at the European company that built the tramway and...

One would think that with his tall figure, movie star looks and trademark gelled hair, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom would be a tough guy to miss if he hopped onto your cable car -- but that doesn't seem to be the case. "Get him out of that suit and you'd be surprised at how many people don't recognize him -- especially if he's in jeans, a baseball cap and sunglasses, which is what he normally wears on his day off," said mayoral press secretary Peter Ragone. Apparently so. Last week, the mayor let it be known that, while traveling...