Ann Sherry's North Beach mural "Gold Mountain," a work that depicts Chinese influence to San Francisco and American history, fell victim to hooligan defacing. Specifically, the recent addition of Betty Ong, a San Francisco flight attendant who died in the World Trade Center attacks. While it doesn't seem like an intentional hit on Ong's heroism, 9/11-ness, or whatever -- because murals in this city get defaced the second the paint starts drying -- it is......

Still not a lot of info on Ed Jew's prelim court proceedings, but there is a new tidbit, a small glimpse behind the Tapioca Curtain. NBC11's Web site is telling of the Postal Inspector's testimony that Mr. Jew only received third-class mail at his Sunset residence! His Burlingame estate, on the other hand, was subject to both first-class and third-class deliveries....

Speedy trial? Say it fast: OhNoEdJew! At yesterday's hearing, residentially-challenged Supervisor Ed Jew's legal team went against conventional criminal defendant wisdom, and requested an early trial. The trial could go as early as October of this year. Ed Jew's state criminal attorney (as opposed to his federal criminal attorney and his state civil attorney) Bill Fazio, who ran for DA and lost to Kamala Harris, says he wants a trial to exonerate Ed as soon......

And the layoffs begin -- a source tells us the first person to be let go from the Chronicle in their 25% reduction-in-staff campaign is managing editor Robert "Rosey" Rosenthal. We got the news confirmed by Friend of SFist and Chron Blogging/Interactive Editor Eve Batey, who says: It's no secret that we're losing at least 20 managers, but I was still shocked to hear that Rosey would be leaving. The instant rapport I had with......

Where we summarize reports written by actual media sources because they're really important but we don't feel like we're in any position to be able to comment on them! The Chron revived its semi-regular profile of life on the streets with a three-part series (which concluded yesterday) about how things are looking for the San Francisco homeless population after the implementation of Newsom's Care Not Cash program. Answer: definitely at least some good, maybe part......

The man to your left is a cabdriver named Jack Neeley, not rogue cop John Haggett -- and he's richer by an undisclosed amount after settling his lawsuit with the Chronicle for their misidentification of him in a cover story as Haggett, in their otherwise-strong weeklong report on police brutality from earlier this year. The Chron continues to maintain that they have no idea how it happened, but has apologized, run two corrections (one on......

The creative team behind J.T. Leroy should send James Frey flowers, since his little revelations have given the J. T. Leroy hoax story a sort of also-ran quality. However, we were pleased to see the San Francisco Chronicle finally pick up the story and give it a well-sourced local angle. First up: the local literary Who's Who with regard to who was sucked in: Dave Eggers, Susie Bright, David Wigand, Michael Ray, Michael Chabon......

We had a lump in our throat Saturday when we read that Ember, the Bayview pit bull who had been set on fire, was euthanized due to the severity of her injuries. And before we get any comments/hate mail on why pit bulls are good prospects for euthanasia regardless, let's all think about this again: someone set this animal on fire, and left it to die. This dog fought to live for three weeks......

Hey! Have you wondered what the heck that big building across the street from the parking lot for the Metreon at Fifth and Mission is? Why, it's the Old San Francisco Mint! The original SF Mint was established by President Millard Fillmore in 1850, to facilitate the quicker minting of all the "that there's gold in them thar Sierra hills" business. The mint was then moved to the Fifth and Mission building in 1874, which survived the 1908 quake, but was then deemed too small for the vast coinage required for our great land, at which point the Mint moved to its current location, the bunker surrounded by barbed wire behind the Market Street Safeway....