In more pink slip sadness today, San Jose Mercury News (owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group) eliminated 50 jobs. Fifteen newsroom employees and 19 employees from "other parts of the paper" were let go today. Citing a loss of advertising revenue because to the evil Internet, this most recent workforce slashing represents "a cut of about 5 percent" of the over Merc staff. On the flip side, two editors received promotions: Barbara J. Marshman, associate......

535 San Francisco Unified School District teachers will receive layoff notices this morning due to state cuts in education funding. Today's pink slip handouts stem from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget '09, which will see San Francisco schools losing around $40 million. According to CBS 5, Mayor Newsom is doing what he can, even if it's a Band-Aid solution to a longterm problem. Mayor Gavin Newsom has said he plans to ask the Board of......

Politically-correct, conservative KSFO talk show host Melanie Morgan annonced yesterday that her contract would not be renewed due to financial issues over at KSFO's corporate parent, Citadel Broadcasting Corp. Co-host of the Lee Rodgers & Melanie Morgan Show, Morgan is somewhat (in)famous for jump starting the Gov. Gray Davis recall, which has since left us with Gov. Schwarzenegger; and calling for the rape, murder, hair-pulling, and vivisection of New York Times editor Bill Keller.......

According to a Valleywag tipster: FYI - I've heard the word from my peeps over at Yahoo Search Marketing in Burbank CA that the layoffs are going down as we speak, and people are being let go today. They're apparently walking the people into a meeting room, and then walking them out of the building. And according to an SFist tipster: [Layoffs will] occur over the next few days as employees are sent packing.......

The Denver Biz Times is reporting that Denver-based MediaNews Group -- the owner of the Alameda Newspaper Group (which includes the Oakland Tribune) and the Contra Costa Times, will be reducing staff in its NoCal operations....

--Our city rules. [Examiner.] --Today's Matt Gonzalez Mayoral Candidate Magic Eight-Ball reading: Maybe yes. [Left in SF.] --The Punk Rock Sideshow at the Hemlock is hosting a benefit concert next Monday (July 16th) for Roisin Isner, the girl hit by the firecracker on July 4th. It'll feature a lot of all-girl bands. We're wishing you the best, Roisin! [Hemlock Tavern, via All Shook Down] --Do you play the piano? Paul Hogarth wants to talk......

--We're up to 130 Galaxies now. [picture from the Fillmore Jazz Fest this weekend by megac0rp, from the SFist Flickr stream.] --Huge fire on University Avenue in Palo Alto; officials suspect arson. [Merc News, Palo Alto Daily News.] --A drag Loretta Lynn? Awesome! [Civic Center.] --Building housing over the main Caltrain station. [The Examiner.] --The return of the N-Judah to Mission Bay seems to have worked okay. [Chron, N Judah Chronicles.] --31 layoffs at......

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian! Oh, Tim Redmond, we're so sorry to hear about your dad. [Moment of silence.] Okay. The Guardian's with Daly on the budget. They got a letter from someone saying Ed Jew is innocent. More info on the layoffs at the Merc News. A man with psychiatric problems gets no help from the city. More people upset with Newsom's proposed budget. They're going to crack down on pot clubs --......

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......

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......

--We feel so bad for the Chron with the layoffs. They try to lift everyone's mood with a zillion articles about animals in today's paper. --Someone's listed a Pinole bridge for sale on Craigslist. --Dumpster diving in Berkeley. --A lifesize Mousetrap game! --Hyphy's played out. --Former SFist editor Jackson West brings his blog roundup to the SFGate Culture Blog! --And what with all the excitement yesterday, we plumb forgot to give you guys this......

--Whoa, Ed Jew! See below. Aaron Peskin told the I-Team that the FBI was searching Jew's City Hall office for "$100 bills with specific serial numbers listed." That does not sound good at all. Jew told the Chron he's being investigated for accepting $40,000 from businessmen needing permit approvals. The businessmen were trying to open Quickly stores. --Also, there's going to be massive layoffs at the Chron. Oh, we hope they're not going to......

-A SFPD police officer was shot in killed trying to serve a felony warrant on somebody who was under suspicion for a variety of burglaries in the Taraval district. It's the third cop to die in the line of fire this year. The suspect was also killed in the shooting -A tiger mauled a trainer at the San Francisco zoo during feeding time yesterday afternoon. This happened in plain sight of everyone who was watching. ...

The Board of Supes' budget committee were doing performance reviews of various departments in the city to see who is doing what and how well. When they did a review of the SFPD, the results weren't so hot. According to the report, Homicide investigators only "cleared" just thirty-three murders for the 2006 fiscal year that ended July 1. The hoped for number was fifty-five cases. In other words, if the SFPD were a major corporation, there'd be layoffs, pension cuts, and more outsourcing to India. You know, that's one good thing about being a cop: it's probably one of the few jobs that won't eventually be outsourced to India. ...

--Chemo the cancer dog was returned! As was Dixie, the other stolen dog of a sick child. --Intel: Layoffs inside. --HP catches a board member leaking information to the press. --Free wifi throughout the Valley. --You may as well just buy a billboard with your name and Social Security name on it if you bank at Wells Fargo. --There might not be as much fighting on the school board this year. --Willie Brown loses it......

Our pals at Shanghaiist tipped us of to David Friedman's blog, Ironic Sans. We already had an internet crush on David from his site on GameBoy camera photography (a not so secret obsession of ours), but we didn't know about his blog until we saw http://www.ironicsans.com/2006/07/a_parallel_istaverse.html">this awesome post. So I got to thinking. What if the “istaverse” people existed in fictional cities? I’m sure they would write about the new Starbucks being built in that......

Last week's winner, the Guardian: Hey, we've received late-breaking word of some layoffs at the Bay Area's Oldest Alternative Newspaper. Hope you guys are all doing okay. Onto the pre-layoff news: It's the Freedom of Information issue! Hey, here's some free information -- the Guardian laid off some people. Slumlords, first in a three-part series. Cover: FOIA, FOIA, FOIA. Vanessa Hua gets some love for breaking the Kevin Shelley story. RIP, Octavia Butler. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are so much better than No Doubt! New DVD magazine by McSweeney's. Bars and Clubs insert: how to open your own bar, and barronista gossip. And SFist Eve's horoscope: a gust of wind could destroy your potential this week, so proteck ya neck! (don't feel bad, SFist Eve, our horoscope says that our inner fears have paralyzed us. Why, we can hardly move our fingers to type this post!) Next, the East Bay Express: Bottom Feeder! A collection of funny Jerry Brown quotes, and an update on the social worker that let a teenager slash an old lady's throat in Berkeley. Ferries aren't really going to save us in an earthquake, are they? (no.) Cover: using citrus-based anti-bacterial lotions to stop AIDS (really!). Chinese buffets. Rob Harvilla warns about the dangers of Dem Franchise Boyz's song "Lean wit It, Rock with it": "If you lean wit it at the exact moment the person behind you chooses to rock wit it, you may collide and knock each other unconscious." That wins the prestigious "sentence of the alternative week" award! And trendy band alert: Arctic Monkeys. And hey, the SF Weekly's Nate Cavalieri shows up across the bay! Lean wit the SF Weekly, rock wit the Metro, after the jump. Also, the weekly of the week!...

We've had a soft spot for Macromedia since our days hanging out in Multimedia Gulch (you know, back when it was Multimedia Gulch and not just "that neighborhood around the stadium"). We know it officially became part of Adobe Software on December 3, so this post-merger news isn't exactly unexpected, but it's a little sad all the same: Adobe's cutting 10% of its new, combined workforce, or 650-700 jobs. San Francisco won't be the......

Via Slashdot, we see that ZDNet is reporting that Hewlett Packard is going to lay off 15,000 employees, or 10% of their total worldwide workforce of 150,000. HP's CEO Mark Hurd wants to slash $1 billion in operating costs over the next year. ZDNet's source says: "Almost every area will be affected across-the-board, but it won't be 10 percent cuts in every department. It'll be in areas where (HP) need to improve their benchmark......

While you're worrying about how you're going to get to work next week if there's a strike on the BART, we're worrying about our friends who toil for Hearst over at 5th and Mission. That's right, there's not one but two big contracts expiring today -- many Chronicle unions, including the Pressman's Union and the Media Workers Guild, among others, are in the 11th hour of negotiations. And if Frank "Darth" Vega's behavior is......

First MUNI announced they wanted to raise fares. Then Caltrain hopped on board the fare raising train (ha! we made a pun). And now BART. Why, raising fares is the new black. Thanks to the usual assortment of reasons- budget shortfalls, rising employee benefits, mismanagement- BART is now facing a budget deficit of $53 million dollars. Unlike MUNI, the BART Board doesn't want to cut service, but is proposing a combination fare hikes, cutting discounts to children and seniors, staff layoffs, and raising parking fees. Oh, and introducing valet service at some of the more popular parking lots. Yes, valet services and no, that doesn't sound elitist at all. At a meeting last week, BART directors heard from the horde of angry commuters who raised the fairly decent point that with gas prices so high, raising fares to make BART prohibitively more expensive might not be the smartest thing to do (maybe it's because we only got a C in economics, but if there's a belief that lowering prices can increase profits by making it cheaper for people to buy things and crack dealers often sell their crack at a low cost to get more people hooked, wouldn't that also be true of public transportation? Like if you lower fares, maybe more people would ride and more money would be brought in? But what do we know?) The Board of Directors pretty much shrugged their shoulders in response. ...

Hey, so supposedly the economy's all better- companies are hiring and there's no more layoffs! Oh, except for at E*Trade. Two weeks ago, they laid-off the entire QA department, about forty people. Strike that, they weren't laid off. Instead, a meeting was called and it was announced just like that that the entire QA department will longer be employed with E*Trade but will be outsourced to another company, Cognizant. And not full-time either, but on a temporary basis, for four to six weeks. Then, once that four to six weeks is over, they will either be asked back for a significantly reduced wage or buh-bye. If let go, they would get a severance, but to get it, they would have to do their job and meet Cognizant's standards. Not to mention train somebody in Bangalore to do their job. ...

By a 2-1 margin, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Finance Committee Ok-a-lee-do-keed a proposal to give one million dollars out of the San Francisco General Fund for tsunami relief. The two supervisors voting to spend the money were Chris Daly (who proposed the idea) and Tom Ammiano. Voting no was Supervisor Sean Elsbernd. Next step is a full vote in front of the board and then approval by the Mayor. Says Daly: "A donation......

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......

Layoffs, health insurance cuts and a new cooking school director for the Chron....