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I prank, therefore I am Engineering students have pulled some amazing pranks over the years. But UBC's Golden Gate prank may have been the greatest everBy ERIN MILLAR -- Maclean'sAt about 3:40 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2001, a moving van stopped abruptly in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although it was still dark, witnesses said they saw around a dozen figures emerge and push a large object over the side of the bridge. They then reboarded the van, and sped away into the night. Nothing to see here. Move along. A couple of hours later, as the morning...

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to issue municipal identification cards to city residents - regardless of whether they are in the country legally - and to double the amount of public money available to candidates running for supervisor. Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who authored the ID card legislation, said the program is a smart public safety measure because it would make residents living on the social margins of San Francisco more likely to seek the help of police and could give them more access to banking services. "People are afraid to report crimes," Ammiano said, referring to illegal immigrants who...

11/12/2007 - Several remain closed, as crews in hazmat suits work to clean up the shoreline. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi grilled the U.S. Coast Guard Monday during a tour of her district's environmental disaster caused by last week's 58,000 gallon oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. It's clear a Congressional investigation is coming over the notification: why it took 8 hours to determine it was much more than the 140-gallon spill, they first reported. And why it took another four hours after that to notify the public. "The fact that this could happen raises serious questions about what the...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Heavy-duty bunker fuel oil has washed up on beaches throughout the San Francisco and Marin coastlines all day, leaving purplish sheens on the water, ugly black blobs in the sand, and hundreds of injured or dead birds.

Spill closes S.F. beaches; oil washes up on Marin Headlands Jonathan Curiel, Peter Fimrite, Jane Kay, Chronicle Staff Writers Thursday, November 8, 2007 (11-08) 13:00 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Heavy-duty bunker fuel oil from the 58,000 gallons that spilled from a container ship when it rammed the Bay Bridge has washed up on several San Francisco beaches and the Marin Headlands, officials said today. Some 8,000 gallons of oil have been contained since Wednesday's accident, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. William Uberti said this morning. Large patches are still floating in the bay. Dozens of birds coated in the oil have...

Gavin Newsom's political strategist Eric Jaye jokes that he already knows what the analysis of today's mayoral election will be. "However many votes we get," Jaye says, "we know the Bay Guardian will say it wasn't enough." He's got a point. In most elections, pundits try to pick the winner. That's already been handled in this one. Newsom will certainly win a second term as mayor in a cakewalk over a group of offbeat candidates. That's not in doubt. But it does lead to a second question, best expressed by local political consultant Mark Mosher, who asks, "What kind of...

SAN FRANCISCO, California, November 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an open letter, Anthony Gonzales, President St. Joseph’s Men Society in San Francisco, California, has challenged the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco to shut down the homosexual and anti-Catholic activities at Most Holy Redeemer (MHR) parish and remove its pastor, Fr. Steven Meriwether.   The letter calls upon Archbishop George Niederauer to sack the pastor and formally excommunicate members of anti-Catholic homosexual activist groups. “If you are unwilling or unable to take these necessary steps,” Gonzales writes, “then in humility you have the responsibility to offer your resignation to Pope Benedict...

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson was spotted in some pretty unusual venues on Wednesday seeking to boost financial and voter support - Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Unusual for the former senator from Tennessee to spend time in such liberal outposts when he's been insisting since his post-Labor Day entry into the race that he is a true voice for conservatives. But Southern California fires postponed the first leg of his trip and a campaign spokesman said the former star on NBC's "Law and Order" sees opportunity in appearing in GOP-light regions. Primary delegates, he noted, will be doled out...

The hundreds of thousands of people who usually flock to an annual Halloween street party here are being warned to stay home or go elsewhere after several episodes of violence in recent years. City officials have advised would-be revelers through fliers, public service announcements and juvenile probation officers that they won't find many treats in the Castro District, home in past years to the largest Halloween happening in the San Francisco Bay area. What they will find are hundreds of extra police officers, shuttered restaurants, stepped up sobriety checks and no bus or train service after 8:30 p.m. "This is...

Magnitude 5.6 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CALIF. 2007 October 31 03:04:54 UTC Earthquake Location USGS Topographic Map, Resolution: 16.0 meters/pixel 1 km USGS Aerial Photo, Resolution: 16.0 meters/pixel 1 km Preliminary Earthquake Report U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center World Data Center for Seismology, Denver About UsContact UsSite MapSite Search

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24 — This Halloween, the Glindas, gladiators and harem boys of the Castro — along with untold numbers who plan to dress up as Senator Larry E. Craig, this year’s camp celebrity — will be celebrating behind closed doors. The city’s most popular Halloween party, in America’s largest gay neighborhood, is canceled. The once-exuberant street party, a symbol of sexual liberation since 1979 has in recent years become a Nightmare on Castro Street, drawing as many as 200,000 people, many of them costumeless outsiders, and there has been talk of moving it outside the district because of...

SAN FRANCISCO - The man accused of setting the Burning Man on fire four days early has been arrested for allegedly planning to set Grace Cathedral ablaze, San Francisco police said today. Paul David Addis, 35, was arrested on the cathedral steps at 11:40 p.m. Sunday by police who said they had been tipped that someone intended to set fire to the Episcopal church, police spokesman Sgt. Steve Mannina said. Addis was wearing an old ammunition belt that carried small explosives, Mannina said. He was booked on suspicion of attempted arson, possession of an incendiary substance, possession of explosives and...

CBS 5 / AP / BCN) SAN FRANCISCO Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown San Francisco under sunny skies on Saturday, chanting and carrying bright blue, orange and yellow anti-war signs that read: "Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die" or "Drop Tuition Not Bombs." The streets of San Francisco were filled with thousands as labor union members, anti-war activists, clergy and others rallied near City Hall before marching to Dolores Park. Protestors of every age and race flooded Civic Center plaza sporting homemade shirts and signs...

Miller Brewing Apologizes for 'Last Supper' Poster By Randy Hall CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor October 26, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - The Miller Brewing Company issued a formal apology on Friday for any offense caused by the use of its logos on a poster promoting the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco during late September by replacing Jesus and his disciples in Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of "The Last Supper" with half-naked homosexual sadomasochists. In an email statement sent to Cybercast News Service by Senior Manager of Media Relations Julian Green, the company said it "has taken action to ensure that such an...

The third-graders looked puzzled when asked what they liked best about science. No answer. OK, then, next question: "What is science?" a visitor asked the children in a hallway at Bessie Carmichael Elementary School in San Francisco. "Science is like art," said Manuel, 7, who let that cryptic response hang in the air as he ducked away. He might have meant that both can open the heart to beauty. Or maybe he was saying that science, like art, is something students don't get much of these days in elementary school. If it were the latter, a new survey of 923...

SAN FRANCISCO, October 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On October 7, two homosexual men, dressed in costumes meant to mock the traditional habits of Catholic sisters, were filmed receiving Holy Communion from San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer. Reaction to the incident forced Niederauer to apologise publicly for what he called his “mistake.” Now Father Stephen Meriwether, pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Parish where the Mass was held, has told the Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocesan newspaper, “This incident has been blown way out of proportion.” The two men are members of an anti-Catholic homosexual activist group condemned by faithful Catholics,...

Top 5 Declining U.S. Markets Published on: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 Written by: Elizabeth Smith Although the overall U.S. population grew by 6.39 percent between 2000 and 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, certain areas of the nation actually declined in population during that period. Many of those areas also experienced negative economic factors and job losses. An abandoned train station in Detroit, MichiganNuWire analyzed Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and divisions of MSAs with populations of more than one million to determine the Top 5 Declining U.S. Markets. Each of these markets experienced negative job growth between 2000 and...

Vincent DeDomenico, a pasta maker who paid homage to his hometown when he invented the Rice-A-Roni side dish, has died at age 92, his family said. Along with his brothers, DeDomenico, the son of Italian immigrants, created the packaged blend of rice and pasta during the early 1960s. It became known as "the San Francisco treat" through television advertisements that featured a catchy jingle and cable cars. After the brothers sold the Golden Grain Macaroni Co. to Quaker Oats in 1986, DeDomenico bought 21 miles of railroad track in Napa Valley and several vintage passenger cars that he put to...

Labor leaders from around the world gathered in San Francisco today to call on workers to stand up and take organized action against war in Iraq, saying that politicians can't be counted on to halt the bloodshed. Several speakers cited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s as models to follow, saying that both achieved change that would not have occurred if matters had been left in the hands of those running the country. "Until people get off their asses and do something, there won't be a change," Clarence Thomas, past secretary-treasurer...

Excerpt - PITTSBURG, Calif. - A senior editor for PC World Magazine was shot to death in his home in what police described as a drug-related attack, authorities said Wednesday. Rex Farrance, 59, the San Francisco-based magazine's senior technical editor, was shot in the chest after four masked men broke into his home in a suburb east of the city around 9 p.m. Tuesday, Pittsburg police said. The assailants also pistol-whipped Farrance's wife, Lenore Vantosh-Farrance, 56, a registered nurse. She called 911, but the attackers fled before officers arrived. "We have substantial reason to believe that the victim and his...