Delicious, effervescent cold remedy Airborne, it seems, exaggerated their sniffle-fighting prowess. Turns out they faked their clinical trials, and are now offering you, the customer, some cash back. According to a 2006 ABC report: Airborne said that a double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted with “care and professionalism” by a company specializing in clinical trial management, GNG Pharmaceutical Services. GNG is actually a two-man operation started up just to do the Airborne study. There was......

Did you hear? Matt Gonzalez was in the news today. [SFBG]Which seawall lot plan do you like best? [Curbed]Set in SF, ABC's Eli Stone uses faux cable cars. The nerve! [SFGate]Frozen yogurt is back, and it's getting ugly. [Eater]Innocent trees exploited for UC Berkeley's numerous political agendas. [Daily Clog]Hooligans take yoga, stress relieved. [Oakland Tribune] Image credit: Capobianco Gallery......

*FILM: Before she was hooked on aerobics and uttering "cunt" on live TV, Jane Fonda had a memorable career as an actress. She won her first Oscar for playing "Bree," a whore, in Klute, a taut '70s thriller by Alan J. Pakula. Tonight's screening is a part of Cinewhores, brought to you by Whore! magazine and St. James Infirmary. A talk about the sex-selling business follows. Show starts tonight at Artists' Television Access. MUSIC:......

As many of you know, Bernie Ward, former Catholic priest and KGO 810 AM host, was fired from his job after the Feds hit him with charges of child pornography. Although he used the Pete Townsend defense that he was merely doing a little kiddie porn research, that doesn't seem to be the case. Dan Noyes, who takes on the difficult task of having to do an investigatory report on a former colleague, says......

UndergroundfilmMaker Festival: It goes a little something like this, "In an era where filmmakers are called 'users' who 'generate content,' [Hey now! -- sfist] Undergroundfilm wishes to put the spotlight back where it belongs: behind the camera." So far the festival has had three rounds. The portfolio submission, filmmaker interview, and finally, new projects. Now, the filmmakers have been narrowed down to six and-- sigh. Okay, this is starting to sound a bit convoluted.......

Local-TV Tivo alert! We've got some exciting news about everyone's favorite concerned local investigative reporter, Dan "My Rumpled Tie Says No But My Piercing Gaze Says Yes" Noyes. The next installment of his long-running Muni investigation airs tonight at 6pm on ABC-7, and it sounds like it's going to be awesome: after spending months pouring through Muni's complaint records (while simultaneously fighting off the drivers' union), Dan's I-Team has the goods on Muni's most......

Due to a gasoline tanker truck accident -- which resulted in an eco-unfriendly dousing of over "26 gallons" (?) of gasoline, or so said CBS 5's Judge Judy breaking-news interruption -- all northbound and southbound lanes on Highway 101 in Redwood City are closed. That? Blows. It seems that a 26,000 gallon gasoline tanker big rig overturned just north of Maple Street near Woodside. According to ABC 7, a "Coast Guard crew is heading......

Tiger attack emergency 911 calls released. [ABC 7]Totally! Macworld Expo's banners blow. Hard. And not in a good way. [Curbed] MAPI is hard. [eWEEK]"Flesh-eating, sexually-transmitted bacteria" hitting SF? Oh dear. [io9] MacBook Air Biscuit unveiled. (Tee hee.) [Laughing Squid]Joyce Slaton hearts gun-shaped egg fryers. And so should you. [CHOW] AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez......

According to the Coast Guard, "a barge has hit the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge" around 6 p.m. this evening. Yikes! The barge, reportedly carrying 63,000 barrels of heavy black oil, hit the east piling of the west span. So far there are no reports of any injuries or leakage. Ah, a light day. Anyway, according to ABC 7, this isn't the first time that a barge has smacked the bridge in question. It seems that......

St. Mary's Medical Center got a tip of the hat care of VH1's Best Week Ever blog. For what, exactly? Why, for acting like Dr. Frankenstein and slicing off carpenter Garrett La Fever's big toe and reattaching it as his thumb. According to to ABC 7: The thumb is responsible for 40 percent of the function of the hand which is why when doctors proposed removing Garrett's big toe and using it to create......

-- Fallout from yesterday's tiger-ian death of 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. continues. [CBS 5, SFGate, Spotswood, FCJ, SF MetBlog, Peta (cuckoo!)] -- We simply refuse to believe that One Rincon Hill is anything less than perfect. But? Alas. [Curbed] -- Search for Alameda boater suspended. [ABC 7] -- West Oakland shooting victim identified. [Oakland Tribune] -- Buy! Buy! Buy! [SF Gate] -- Where to tango dance in SF. [Gridskipper] -- Did you know that Mark......

Although ABC 7's Cheryl Jennings -- who we find kicky and whimsical -- told us that a cleaning solvent spilled into the bay this morning, we're getting conflicting reports as to whether or not the spill actually hit precious, precious SF waters. See, after a blaze at an Oakland warehouse today, it was originally reported that "an unknown amount of chemical -- possibly isopropyl alcohol -- may have spilled into a drainage system that......

For reasons better left unsaid (and in the name of tasteful censorship), we here at SFist are enjoying ABC 7 Dan Noyes' new publicity shot. Very much so. (Even better than the old one, yes? Yes.)......

Sounds like a mess down on 880 just north of Highway 84, where a big rig ran off the highway at around 1 a.m. this morning and spilled its cargo all over the highway. The cargo in question -- crushed cars. The driver suffered major injuries and was sent to the hospital; traffic is currently moving at about 20 mph and is expected to be snarled until 10 a.m. at the earliest, and CHP has......

This one goes out to all of you octogenarians out there who still receive print papers at your door every morning. You know how you notify the Chronicle to temporarily halt having the paper sent to your house? You know, before you go on vacation? That way burglars won't see piled up papers and break into your house and steal all of your diamonds and rubies you had since the war between the states?......

Egads! The west span of the Bay Bridge was struck this morning by a container ship, the Cosco Busan. According to the Chronicle, "Coast Guard officials said the incident was not serious enough to merit a bridge closure." Still, that looks like some serious damage. A witness on the ship claims that the Cosco struck the second tower west of Yerba Buena Island, and says the the extent of the damage isn't known. If......

According Eric Thomas from ABC 7, who went into mighty graphic detail about what happened, a suspect was arrested today for the kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old Palo Alto teen. A press conference is scheduled at noon (now!), where even more details, names will surely unfold. This past Wednesday a teen was kidnapped in Palo Alto, taken to Sunnyvale (on the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue), and then sexually assaulted. She survived......

Photo of protest by Filipino-American's at the Disney Store....

The remaining fall TV premieres are trickling in, with two bowing tonight. The first is another in a string of current shows to be set in our fair city. It's called "Women's Murder Club" and it premieres on ABC at 9 p.m. Has anyone seen Angie Harmon running around town sporting a badge? If not, it's probably because like so many other San Francisco shows, much of it is actually filmed elsewhere. Based on......

Hey, remember angry Sarah Nome, the lady who refused to move out of the Kaiser hospital in Marin for over a year, and ran up a $1.4 million bill? Well, Kaiser's 1) gotten ownership of her house in San Anselmo and 2) will be auctioning it off to pay off her tab. Kaiser was awarded the house after Nome was put in the care of the state (after her daughter refused to take her in),......

Tonight's big premiere is the quirky comedy "Pushing Daisies" which premieres at 8 p.m. on ABC. There are a lot of big names associated with this dramedy, including executive producer Bryan Fuller, whose previous shows include "Wonderfalls" and "Heroes." Director Barry Sonnenfeld also produces, and directed the pilot. Lee Pace stars as a piemaker who can bring the dead back to life if he touches them. Problem is, if he touches them again, they're......

OK, we're kind of loathe to even mention one of tonight's series premieres because it is that infamous sitcom that's based on a series of Geico commercials. We're speaking, of course, of "Cavemen", and it premieres on ABC at 8 p.m. Now, the last time a TV sitcom was based on a series of commercials, the result was "Baby Bob," so we can't blame people and their knee-jerk reactions to this. That trailer up......

Tonight's most exciting season premiere is probably the return of "Dexter" on Showtime at 9 p.m. The show, starring Michael C. Hall as a forensics expert who is also a serial killer (who only kills other serial killers), was both disturbing, funny, and oddly touching last season, and we're curious to see what this season will bring since Dexter has done away with his nemesis. Of course, the revelation of who that nemesis really......

Thursday is almost as bad as Monday when it comes to overcrowded primetime line-ups. We'll start with ABC and the "Ugly Betty" premiere at 8 p.m. Every time we watched an episode last year we thought, "Wow. We should really be enjoying this more than we are." Occasionally cute, occasionally funny, it was never consistently anything. And we especially hated how they decided to change an entire storyline during the middle of the season......

Oh lordy, but Mondays are going to be a crowded night of television. Let's go through tonight's premieres network-by-network, starting with ABC. America's inexplicable love for dancing continues with another season of "Dancing With the Stars" at 8 p.m. You can find a complete list of the "stars" who'll be hoofing along this time around on the show's Web site, but we'll admit, we don't really have a horse in this race. Although as far......

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. LAist saw national headlines soar this week with......

-- RIP: Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank dies. [Chron] -- Busted water pipe downtown = Bay Bridge entrance difficulties. [ABC 7] -- What a good idea! MUNI cop ride-alongs. (Oh, you know you also love to see fellow riders get busted for no transfer/pass.) [The Snitch] -- Google's crusade for international privacy. Yay, Google! [Examiner] -- Yusuf Bey sexual assault lawsuit settled. [Oakland Tribune] -- US online video popularity soars. [Macworld, via IDG] -- The Cinematic......

Bad series of news items for the SFPD -- the rookie cop who accidentally shot himself at a party earlier this month when trying to demonstrate tips on gun safety was legally drunk (just barely), and that cop, Jesse Serna, who keeps (allegedly) beating up people like Barry Bonds' trainer and Willie Brown's friends in North Beach just got the city sued again, this time for beating up a doctor starting his residency at Harvard......

You think Gavin means it when he tells Ken Garcia that it's kind of freaking him out that no one's running against him? Well, there's one more down: ABC 7's Dan Noyes has the scoop that Tony Hall has dropped out of the race too. Hall was the one unambiguously-serious mayoral candidate running against Gavin Newsom (and by "unambiguously-serious" we mean was a wedding singer but does not have an animal in his name and......

"Cult Alert!" flyers garnished lamp posts on Third and Market Streets the other night -- a siren song if ever we've heard one. (It seems like forever since SF's been plagued with a jazzy, crazy-ass cult. No offense, L. Ron.) In case you missed them, or in case the quality of life sect tore them down, the missives cried out: Cult Alert! Please be advised: Youth With a Mission (YWAM) has been under investigation......