• A man went missing in Big Sur Saturday near the same spot as a father and his seven-year-old daughter were killed last week. Despite warnings of 13- to 18-foot sneaker waves, the victim and two female companions were swept away while climbing rocks along the coastline; the women made it back to shore. [Bay Area News Group]  
• A multi-agency raid in Santa Rosa Wednesday resulted in the discovery of a large illegal cannabis extraction laboratory full of “dangerous and highly volatile chemicals.” Authorities say the 17,000-square-foot lab, which contained several million dollars worth of marijuana concentrates, posed a risk to the lives of its employees and neighbors when it allegedly violated multiple county codes. [KRON4]
• The East Bay city of Antioch is now receiving 30% of its water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as a result of its new $120 million desalination plant, which treats a mix of saltwater and freshwater, referred to as brackish water. [Chronicle]
• Investigators from the California Highway Patrol office in Santa Rosa are seeking information about a bicyclist in Petaluma who was found dead Saturday morning following a suspected hit-and-run during foggy conditions. [KPIX]
• The death of a woman who sustained severe trauma at an Oakland residence on Friday morning is being investigated as a homicide, but no further information has been released pending autopsy results. [Bay Area News Group]
• BART is hosting its third annual SweaterFest on December 13 at Rockridge Station Plaza in Oakland, featuring a slew of activities, including rides on the BARTmobile, and lots of BART swag. [KRON4]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

District Attorney (and former SFPD Chief) George Gascón announced today that, according to The Chronicle, "The misconduct investigation into a San Francisco police unit of undercover officers will force prosecutors to drop another 42 criminal cases." This morning, as reported on SFist, the tally was at 13. The total number has since jumped to 57.

Public Defender Jeff Adachi released footage of officers allegedly conducting searches and seizures that contradict police reports, "along with an officer covering up the camera for fifteen seconds, which is reportedly a technique that police often utilize to prevent front desk employees fro tipping off the suspects."

"That information should be given to us immediately," Gascón, who was chief at the time of the searches, told the Chon. "This is not a game, this is not something that we want to have a press conference every other day when we have a new tape. This is real. It involves people's lives."

Below: videos of the search and seizures in question with commentary from the San Francisco Public Defender's Office.

The kids at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek had a money-making scheme this past weekend. One that, for better or for worse, involved the school's water polo team wearing only regulation Speedos, standing on a street corner, and luring passersby.

Now that we have your attention, this car wash benefit, at right, has stirred much controversy. It seems before Saturday's incident, area girls -- underage women, mind you -- have done the same thing, too, in high school-fundraising efforts.

Hm. Anyway.

The Mayor of Claycord, who writes one of the finest blogs on the other side of the Bay, posed a question: "High school kids standing on a busy street corner while wearing speedos, is it inappropriate, or just a harmless way to promote a high school water polo team's fundraiser?"

What say you, readers? Are you OK with a business model that uses high schoolers' budding sex parts as a way to raise funds? Is it OK for schools, just like Disney, to prostitute their underage students for cash?

Also, if you found the image to the right enticing, sign up here for more.

After allegedly being beaten, sexually assaulted, threatened by a Guatemalan congressman, and chronically harassed by Guatemalan police, gay Bay Area resident Saul Martinez fled to the United States in 1992. Now, after years of living in the U.S., the Feds are trying to send him back to his country of origin. According to the National Center for Lesbian Rights:

In 1992, when Martinez initially applied for asylum, the U.S. had not yet recognized sexual orientation as a ground for asylum. Afraid of being forced back to Guatemala, where he feared for his life, and unaware that persecution based on sexual orientation might be a basis for asylum in this country, Martinez did not disclose his sexual orientation in his initial asylum application, stating that he feared returning to Guatemala because of his political opinion.

Unfortunately, since Martinez failed to claim sexual orientation as his reason for escape, and with a jarring disregard to Guatemala's treatment of LGBT ilk, the Ninth Circuit says he's not credible and denied his claim to stay in the U.S. Even though "Martinez’s life partner testified in court about their relationship," there's a very good chance he will be sent back to a place where he must live in fear. Again. (At the very least, aome of this mess, perhaps, might not be problem if same-sex marriage was still legal in California.)

College students, when will you ever learn? Never--never!-- try to to do the right thing by organizing a worker's union at your job. This is the quickest way to get wrongfully terminated. Case in point: Mountain View-based Uloop.com, a start-up online company that bills itself as "a marketplace for college students" (see also: Craigslist), fired two of their Cal Poly student workers allegedly for trying to unionize the company.

Oops.

According to Indybay:

After being subjected an unannounced pay cut from $10/hr to $8/hr, Cal Poly student marketing representatives Austin Garrido and Sarah Doolittle were fired by their employer, Mountain View-based Uloop.com, for attempting to organize a worker's union. The students were fired from their part-time jobs 20 minutes after posting a message in an online inter-company form announcing their intention to form a union. Doolittle and Garrido have filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

Since the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 rendered it illegal to can an employee for trying to organize a union, we feel bad for these two. Especially if they were in fact fired for being shit-stirrers. But then again, using the inter-company form to announce their plans for unionization? That is, for lack of a better word, adorable. It's always cute to hear about dewy-fresh-out-college types whose souls have yet to be pulverized by the reality of the workplace.

Anyway, according to Poly Post, Uloop.com has yet to comment on the two, possibly illegal firings.

See what happens, conservative counties of California? Whenever you do something like this, we then have to do something like this. It's the way we balance things out. Tis the circle of life.

Yesterday, Mayor Newsom signed into action the Tommy Ammiano-introduced legislation that requires the city to handout ID cards to undocumented immigrants and other residents who either can't or just won't apply for driver's licenses. The good news is that these IDs will help (formerly) undocumented residents gain access to the wonderful world of banking, a sense of peace before calling the fuzz, as well as "health services at city-run clinics, public library privileges, and resident discounts at museums and other cultural institutions." (Entry fee discounts at the Exploratorium: the American dream realized.)

And the down side? These cards do not parallel Social Security numbers "for those seeking employment." What's more these cards could simply start signifying "alien" and the assumption that said card holder is here illegally.

Still, we want one. For kicks. And the program will go into effect in August of 2008. Also: good.