San Francisco-based Sugar Inc. (of popsugar.com, among others) has a brand spanking new site, one that will take care of all of your national political news needs: CitizenSugar. Launched last week, CS has everything from caucuses news, to citizen polls (e.g., "Your Thoughts on Politicians With Prior Drug Use?"), to suicide bombing by (progressive?) women. And best of all, it's estrogen-tinged, so you'll get less of those male TLDR-rambling posts that you might find......

Oh Lord. Is this for real? From the SFist inbox this morning we received alarming news that Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel, like, totally hate Africans, or something like that. After the New Year's Eve announcement that the two were to enter holy matrimony, one concerned reader called "Mayor Newsom's Communication Office," wondering if the "rock he bought for his fiancee was not a blood diamond." After talking to an "incompetent" Newsom staff member......

Update: Sen. Barack Obama's campaign office in Rochester and John Edwards' offices have also been evacuated. Our sister site, Bostonist is live-blogging the situation right now. Apparently, a man wants to "speak to Hillary Clinton. He has two hostages (maybe more) and [allegedly has] a bomb strapped to his chest ... police have asked the media not to take live shots of the building." Yikes. A little bit of breaking news well outside of......

Audet & Partners, LLP filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of commercial fishers and crab-based (?) businesses in San Francisco on November 20. Today on their site they claim the following, "Breaking News: Cosco Busan Vessel Arrested." Which? Okay then. We have yet to see footage of the vessel getting cuffed by the fuzz with its shirt off, and we can't imagine it heard its Miranda rights being read, but seeing as how......

If you fell in love with Sia when you were bawling your eyes out about the Fisher family then Thursday's night concert is for you. Sia, our favorite Australian pop singer, is coming to the Fillmore this Thursday. We recently downloaded her newest EP, Lady Crossiant - a live recording from New York's Bowery Ballroom. There is also one new track, Pictures, that is worth listening to as well. Breaking News Update: This tour......

(If it's "Breaking News" on SFGate, it's good enough for us!) Some fantastic news! It's going to rain! One of the two topics we remotely even care about (the other being our hair) is the possibility of rain. Baptismal, cleansing rain! San Francisco seems to have skipped a harsh Indian Summer, more or less, this year. And that? Tickles us ever so. Now we're in the sweet spot: the chilly weeks between now and......

Hey, newsflash! Gay people vote! Taking advantage of this breaking news, Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, will be addressing the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic club at their Sunday breakfast the day of the Pride parade. On the bright side, that's great that national politicians are finally recognizing the power of the gay-friendly voting bloc! On the down side -- well, it's not like John Edwards is coming to speak.......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

You know we love the Chronicle around here at SFist -- where else would we get breaking news updates, steal pictures, and follow the lives of the Gettys and Trainas? So we're still very much in shock about the news that they're going to be laying off 25% of their workforce. The reason given was that they can't make enough money in advertising and other sources to cover the cost of putting out the paper.......

Special single-issue Blotter! And please note: other SFist writers may very well take a crack at this same topic. Looking for news on Gavin's stalker? We've now rearranged this morning's blotter into our usual Breaking News format, latest updates on top. Read our original post after the jump too, we're quite proud of all the links we put in! Latest: Guess who else Han Shin was obsessed with? District 4 Supervisor Ed Jew! He's gotten......

Okay, to start things off, that's a YouTube clip of Daniel Powter's Had A Bad Day. Play it as you read this post! Gavin Newsom started off the first day of the rest of his life with a press conference at the Academy of Art College about PG&E's "Energy Watch" program. Since it was the first press conference he's done since announcing his plan to seek treatment for alcohol abuse, it was, predictably, mobbed......

>-Berkeley loves them some traffic circles. ...

"Gimme head with hair/ Long beautiful hair/Shining, gleaming/Streaming, flaxen, waxen..." In 1906, we had the Big One. In 1989, we had Loma Prieta. In 2004, we had the Winter of Love. In 2006? Gavin let his hair down. As Peter Hartlaub wrote in the Chron: "Where Were You the Day Gavin Changed His 'do?" Well, we here at SFist were all over the story, giving you the breaking news that his hair was de-gelled and then giving you the breaking news when he became gelled again. Then, of course, there was the debate: did he look more like Matt Gonzalez or Nick Carter? How come nobody thought of the obvious Clay Aiken 'do? And for those of you who wondered why there wasn't anything else important going on, we covered that too-- the new do of Gav's 20 year-old girlfriend....

BREAKING NEWS..... BREAKING NEWS.... MAYOR HAS RETURNED TO GEL STOP. HAIR HAS RESUMED PREVIOUS CONFIGURATION STOP. [yes, we know, the stop means period, so there is technically no need to put a period after it -- but it's hard to read like that is all. We're just thinking about your reading comfort!] Yes, folks, it's true -- the floppy-haired Matt Gonzalez look sported by Mayor Gavin Newsom was for one day only. Awwwwwww! We're back......

Well, it's not quite Bush stealing Florida or anything, but due to circumstances out of our control, the previous Gavin-Sofia couple name election has hit some woes -- it looks like the polling program we were using has crashed. Not only has it crashed, it appears to crash the whole site (at least on Internet Explorer) as well. Darn it! Here, though, because we're San Francisco, we're going to make the Democratic Party's 2000 dreams come true -- we're going to vote again! (There are so many free poll hosting sites out there!). Click away and we'll announce the winner on Monday!

Funny, we thought, as we stared blankly out of our downtown office window this morning. That's an awful lot of cop cars speeding down the street. Then we got an email from SFist Karen, asking if anyone had heard about a fire around Stockton Street. We checked the breaking news and it turns out there was a track fire on the BART between the Embarcadero and Montgomery Street stops. Witnesses (including SFist Karen) report seeing......

We usually run the blotter crime roundup on Tuesdays and Fridays, but we're sorry to say that there's been enough breaking news in the area that we're running a special edition today. Everyone's still in shock over Lashaun Harris, the schizophrenic mother who dropped her three children into the 50-degree waters of the San Francisco bay yesterday afternoon. Horrified witnesses reported seeing Harris strip the three boys naked and drop them one by one off the pier. As Harris wandered up and down the pier with her stroller, the police and fire departments (and Gavin Newsom) raced to the scene and began a frantic search. At 10:30 p.m., they located the body of 2 (or 3-, reports vary)-year-old Tavante Harris, which had drifted around the city to Fort Mason, but the bodies of 6-year-old Tayshaun and 1-year-old Joshua are still missing. Harris had apparently stopped taking her psychiatric medication, and told the authorities that voices in her head told her to do it. And in Lafayette, the Contra Costa police have arrested a suspect in the murder of attorney Daniel Horowitz's wife, Pamela Vitale. Police say that 16-year-old Scott Dyleski, for whose family Horowitz had provided pro bono legal services, had broken into the trailer in which Vitale was staying as part of his fundraising efforts for a pot-growing business. They believe Dyleski was surprised by Vitale, struck her 39 times with a piece of crown molding, and then carved a gothic symbol in her back. Dyleski, who had gotten his GED and was studying art at Diablo Valley College, is expected to be tried as an adult. Picture of Harris's stroller on Pier 7 from KGO...

You sitting down? OK. Listen, we've gotta talk. Such is your Oakland Raiders' schedule in the forthcoming three weeks before their bye week, that when October 9 comes, OAK could be 0 - 4. Don't think that we like saying this. Oh hell to-the-no! This ain't fun at all! It's a rough thing to think about, but it needs to be talked over. It's the road that's before us, and we've got to deal......

Though New Orleans was spared the worst of Katrina, it doesn't mean that's it's all coming up roses for the Big Easy. A levee has broken, folks who evacuated may not be able to return for days, and looting has broken out. Of course, as you all know, for breaking news and the personal stories behind the tragedy, check out Technorati's Katrina page, search Flickr for photos or drop in on New Orleans Metblogs.......

Courtesy of SFist Jon, creepiness a little outside our usual coverage area! Someone's been breaking into houses in San Lorenzo Valley, stealing stuff, and then writing on the walls, "I was here." Eep! However, this does also remind us of that old chestnut about the man who comes home to find that burglars have taken everything in his house except a toothbrush and a camera. We also feel obliged to report that the SF Alcoholic Beverage Control has finished an investigation of Les Natali and the various Castro bars he runs, and concluded that he did not discriminate against African-Americans, which allowed them to renew his liquor license. The ABC is requiring Natali to hang a big sign outside his door saying he doesn't discriminate, though, and public comment will be heard about the decision (no date given). Natali has also announced that he's selling the Pendulum, which is considered SF's main African-American gay bar. In other quick news items: Victor Conte, BALCO man, is taking a Martha Stewart-type plea (4 months in jail, 4 months house arrest). There was a shooting at the Hilltop Mall in Richmond. And they've ID'ed the guy who shot someone the other night at Van Ness and Post....

Happy birthday, America! The Bay Area news media are celebrating by running tut-tutting articles about the dangers of illegal fireworks (but reluctantly conceding that at least this year, no one lost a finger or an eye.) Now, it's not right to break the law, but we have to say, we saw some very lovely illegal fireworks in the Mission last night. People are spending some serious bank on those! You can't just buy one of those big starbursty-things on the street. (Can you?) Oakland saw its 40th homicide yesterday, as a man was stabbed to death at 35th and International Avenues. Last year at this time, there had been 41. And for the first time in about 20 years, an Emeryville cop shot a suspect to death, when the suspect attempted to run him over in the parking lot of the Oaks Card Room in response to a routine traffic stop (turned out the car was stolen). ..and yikes, breaking news, a woman was killed this morning at a day care center/elementary school in San Francisco at Pine and Scott Streets. Sorry the news is so grim today. ...

Breaking news! Breaking news! OMFG, breaking news!! They figured out whose finger was in the chili! The San Jose cops announced that they've positively identified the finger that Anna Ayala found in her Wendy's chili as the finger of a person who knows her husband. That person lost the finger in an industrial accident last December. As the cops said, "The jig is up." Ayala and her husband, Jaime Plascencia -- so busted. In other news, Wendy's is giving out free frosties across the country all weekend, in order to cash in on their non-culpability in the whole debacle. We do love a Frosty. ...

We s**t you not, we just went to the 'Gate to find a link to this brief news item buried in a Bay Area section sidebar about the FBI setting up a hotline for whistle blowers to report corruption and graft in local city, state and federal offices. Of course, we were going to make the inevitable comparisons to the poor, beleaguered staff of Kevin Shelley. "Haha, he's corrupt!" being the implication [Ed. Note:......

In breaking news, Billy Beane has shipped the Oakland A's ace, Tim Hudson, to the Atlanta Braves for three young players who, well, won't cost so much. From Atlanta's point of view, we think this may have something to do with the Mets signing Pedro Martinez. So the "Big Three" is now down to two, and since Mulder seems to have problems with his back and shoulder and Zito with his head, the days of......

SFist is about to bring the election week coverage. That's right - wall-to-wall interviews, ballot measure commentary, late-breaking news. Stay tuned to us here on the internets for the latest and greatest! While everyone's concerned about national results, we're more concerned with a bag of fajitas, a rather uninhinbited mayoral wife, and propositions, propositions, propositions (it's like a beat in the Tenderloin). Most of us will of course be home watching it all on......

DOJ declines to appeal Oracle takeover bid....

SFist had high hopes for a series sweep for the Giants throughout last night's game against the Astros, but the bullpen had different ideas. Taking a three-to-two lead into the ninth inning, the San Francisco relievers did their best early-August impression by allowing five ugly runs, costing Jason Schmidt a well-deserved victory and chipping away at his fading Cy Young chances. You have to wonder if the Giants let their emotions (or their testosterone) get......