Academy Award winning actor and quasi-Bay Area resident Sean Penn helped get Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer released by visiting Hugo Chavez. Penn reportedly visited Venezuela months ago to talk about the UC Berkeley hiker's imprisonment with President Chavez, a pal of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. more ›

In what may have been a piece of political stagecraft, Iran announced the release of the two UC Berkeley-grad hikers they've been holding prisoner for two years just moments before President Barack Obama addressed the UN General Assembly today. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were flown out of Tehran to the Omanian capital of Muscat as evening fell in the Middle East Wednesday. From there, they will fly out to the U.S. They were released on $1 million bail, per an earlier announced agreement. more ›

New updates this morning in the case of the two UC Berkeley grads detained in Iran since accidentally crossing the Iranian border while hiking back in 2009. An Iranian court has set bail of $500,000 apiece for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who were convicted last month of illegally entering Iranian territory and spying for U.S. intelligence forces and sentenced to 8 years in prison. more ›

Well, it looks like all that talk of Ramadan and forgiveness may have been a load of false hope, and the Iranian judiciary remains as kooky and unforgiving as ever. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, detained now for two years in an Iranian prison for mistakenly hiking over the Iran-Iraq border in a mountainous region they were vacationing in in 2009, have been convicted and sentenced to eight years apiece for "illegal entry into Iranian territory" and "cooperating with American intelligence service." It seems obvious to us that the Iranians couldn't possibly have a shred of evidence that these two were working for American intelligence services, but that obviously doesn't matter. There remains a small glimmer of hope that this is just more political theater, but it is small. more ›

Though they've now spent exactly two years in an Iranian prison, Berkeley grads Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal had their final hearing yesterday in the trial that's been ongoing since February in an Iranian court. The hearing ended without a decision from the court, but rather with an announcement that they would make a decision next week, during Ramadan. Some observers in the case feel this is a good sign, since Ramadan is traditionally a month of peace and forgiveness. more ›

Eighteen months after their ordeal began, after they mistakenly hiked over the Iranian border in northern Iraq, detained U.C. Berkeley grads Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer finally saw a courtroom yesterday in Tehran -- or did they? Judicial proceedings are kept extremely private in Iran, so we don't know if Josh and Shane were present for the first day of their trial, but we do know that their lawyer entered a not guilty plea. Technically, Sarah Shourd, who was freed last fall on $500,000 bail, should have been there too, and whoever posted her bail will be forfeiting that. more ›

We had no idea that Sarah Shroud, former Iran hostage/UC Berkeley hiker, was so delightfully wacky. Take, for example, the song she just released about her ordeal. It's called "Piece of Time" (which we first mistook for Ashlee Simpson's "Pieces of Me," which, of course, would have been several shades of brilliant.) Written while she was held captive, Shroud's ditty is also about the two men with whom she illegally crossed the border last year, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer. more ›

While the rest of the Bay Areacelebrated the World Series victory, earnest-college-students-who-get-arrested-in-dangerous-countries-while-traveling-abroad poster girl Sarah Shourd, right, held candles during a vigil for her hiker pals still jailed in Iran. Alas, what with a record-breaking crowd gathered just across the Bay, Wednesday was not the best day to call attention to oneself or one's classmates. (AP Photo/Darryl Bush) more ›

UC Berkeley grad Sarah Shourd was released today on $500,000 bail. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Shourd was being released on compassionate grounds because of health reasons," reports AP (via CBS 5) "Her mother says she has serious medical problems, including a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells." more ›

Sarah Shourd, one of the three Cal hikers arrested for crossing the Iran border, will be released on Sunday, according AP/CBS 5. "Bak Sahraei, second counselor of the UN mission confirmed Thursday in an e-mail that Sarah Shourd would be the one set free on Saturday," in a gesture of sorts to mark the end of Ramadan. more ›

The mothers of the three hikers detained in Iran after accidentally tip-toeing across the border while hiking in Northern Iraq last summer have just sent a new letter to the head of the judiciary in Iran pleading for their children's release. We're approaching the one-year anniversary of their capture on July 31st, and the mothers of Berkeley grads Joshua Fattal, Sarah Shourd, and Shane Bauer are using stern words regarding what they call an "unjust and arbitrary detention" that they say "harms" Iran in the eyes of the world. Good luck with that. more ›

When we last checked in regarding the three UC Berkeley grads who are currently being detained in Iran, they were still doing OK and their siblings had launched a probably hopeless YouTube campaign to plea for their release. Then late last month there were reports that two of the three were in "poor health", and they were considering staging a hunger strike. more ›

It's now been over six months since those three Berkeley grads were taken hostage by the Iranian government after mistakenly crossing the border into the country while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan. A couple weeks back, Iranian President Ahmadinejad offered to swap the three hostages for 11 Iranians held in the U.S. for various crimes including arms deals; Hillary Clinton balked and refused. The siblings of the hikers have put up a website, with a petition and a video plea (after the jump) asking for YouTube submissions to give the kids "strength" while in captivity -- though it seems doubtful that they have YouTube access. more ›

The parents of the three U.C. Berkeley grads being held in an Iranian prison since July have retained a prominent Iranian lawyer to argue on their behalf. The three hostages -- Shane Bauer, his girlfriend Sarah Shourd and their friend Joshua Fattal -- wandered inadvertently across the Iranian border in July while hiking (for reasons unfathomable to SFist) in the mountains of Kurdistan. They have not been permitted to call home, but their families recently read reports that they may face undisclosed charges in an Iranian court, and the Chron has learned that they have hired the services of Attorney Masoud Shafii to represent them in court. more ›

He says it was "a long-shot," but Berkeley professor Ken Light was hoping Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would take a moment out from invoking Allah and predicting the downfall of global capitalism at the U.N. General Assembly to mention the fates of three former Berkeley students who have been sitting in an Iranian jail since July. Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd were, for reasons that the more sedentary and warzone-averse among us cannot understand, hiking in the mountainous Kurdistan region of Iraq when they wandered mistakenly over the border into Iran. They got arrested, and now they're being used as political pawns, much like Laura Ling and Euna Lee were in North Korea. more ›

Three hikers (Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal) were captured by Iranian authorities last week, "after they strayed across the border while hiking in Northern Iraq in a tourist area." Two of the three hikers placed under arrested in Iran have Bay Area connections. Bauer and Shourd are both UC Berkeley graduates who worked as freelance journos with New American Media. According to Bauer's website, he is a freelance journalist and photographer based in the Middle East." Bauer was "born in Minnesota and graduated with honors from UC Berkeley with a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies." Shourd was an English major and describes herself as a "teacher-activist-writer." Former First Lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now on the case. According to Associated Press, "Clinton said that Swiss diplomats who represent U.S. interests in Iran are asking officials from the Iranian Foreign Ministry for details but have not yet gotten official confirmation of the trio's arrest. She asked that Iran determine the facts of the case and to 'return them as quickly as possible.'" more ›

Rumor has it there's more you can do to voice your support for Iranians protesting a fraudulent election than turning your Twitter avatar green. Take, for example, participating in a protest or a rally, like yesterday's event at the UN Plaza. (An aside: we love the color palate popping up at these protests. Green, white and red -- so bold and vibrant without overpowering the eye. Just lovely, really.) more ›

Thanks to loyal SFist contributing photog Steve Rhodes, we have these pictures of the sizable protest that went down in Union Square last night, in which activists, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and local Iranian-Americans gathered to voice their support for the post-election protests in Tehran and to ask President Obama to support reform leader Mir Hussein Moussavi. more ›

Hey there, did you know Iran is having some sort of brouhaha, and Twitter will single-handedly bring democracy, sunshine and gumdrops to the nation? Or something like that? Anyway, reader and activist Michael Petrelis writes SFist to ask the following. Ahem: more ›

Marine biologists, nature spiritualists, and media hounds are concerned after this morning's reports from a fishing boat that they saw the body of a dead whale floating just outside the Golden Gate Bridge around 5:30 a.m. Could it be Delta or Dawn? more ›

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Now hating the war isn't just the domain of tree hugging hippies and the Defeatocrats-- it's the entire state of California. Today, State Senator Don Perata announced that he wants the entire state to vote on a referendum on pulling troops out of Iraq. Perata might be announcing it, but we see the evil workings of Barbara Streisand behind all this, probably in cahoots with David Geffen and Michael Moore. And even if Rosie lives on the East Coast, she probably has something to do with all of this too more ›

Here's todays wrap up of the news more ›

-Last night, a vigil for the slain officer, Bryan Tuvera, was held at St. Mary's. There will be a funeral procession today which will affect traffic as Geary will be closed. more ›

A few interesting tech stories have come out recently. Hey, we can't do Gavin all day. The Washington Post is reporting today that the State Department has come up with a new, super technologically advanced way of spying on Iran, mainly Googling people. Aahh...Google, is there anything you can't do? The hope, we guess, is that they'll stumble on some Iranian's nuclear scientist’s MySpace page and hope it mentions under their likes "developing nuclear bomb to fend off the Great Satan." The CIA, however, says that this is probably not a good way to look for intelligence and then fell over in laughter. There's actually a lot more to the story, mainly involving turf wars between the State Department and the CIA (again) over sharing information and the meaning of it all. more ›

Two Marin county activists have announced that December 22nd will be the ""First Annual Solstice Synchronized Global Orgasm for Peace" day. In short, it's Orgasm for Peace Day. The gist-- if everyone has an orgasm that day, war will be over. It's just that easy. Talk about thinking locally to act globally. Or, as the site says, to: "effect change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy." To be more specific, to somehow have just enough sex to make all those battleships lining up outside Iran to turn around immediately upon the wave of human sexual energy hitting upon it like that wave hitting the S.S. Poseidon (the original, not the sequel). Although, according to the Chron in a nice, dryly written article, the Navy has actually never seen anything like that happen. more ›

It looks like Larry & Sergey have themselves a nice new pet as they went and bought YouTube today for $1.65 billion in stock. And it's even housebroken too. You could look at it a couple of ways-- two great tastes in one or the Borg about to assimilate somebody. All this for a company that has yet to turn a profit. more ›

If you happen to be walking down the street this week and hear this sonic boom over your head and the street rumble, it's not the Kin Jong Il finally launching one of his Dong Rockets, it's just that time of the year again, Fleet Week. This year featuring, once again, the Blue Angels. more ›

Okay, so hopefully we got you into the idea of watching games. Now what? How do you know whom to root for? And most importantly, how can you pretend that you know what's going on? After all, you don't want to walk into a pub full of drunken Swedes and come off looking like you just wandered in by accident. That would make you look like the worst of the worst-- an Ugly American. You don't want to look like an Ugly American, now do you? more ›

Yesterday, the Board of Supes approved by a 7-4 vote a measure to close off part of Kennedy Drive on Saturdays just as it is on Sundays. Well, for a "six-month" trail run at least. The measure was passed without rancor, with serious intellectual debate, and a strict adherence to democratic principles. Nah, not really. It actually involved dueling rallies, people shouting each other down with bullhorns and the use of fresh-faced children and decrepit old people in wheel chairs as props. more ›