While doing a story on ">smash-and-grab robberies in the Western Addition, NBC 11 reporter Cheryl Hurd herself became a victim of a smash-and-grab theft. (Cue Morissette.) While waiting in her NBC 11 van, with a laptop on her lap, three dicks opened the door to the van and snatched the computer right off of Hurd's lap. Mean! We like us some Cheryl Hurd!...

• Valencia Street and cyclist safety, or lack thereof. [Mission Mission]
• Chiropractor/alleged rapist threatens victims post-attack, surrenders. [SFGate]
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Continue Reading "Day Around the Bay"

Please welcome Joe K (AKA DJTennessee) who has made the leap from commenter to contributor. He'll be writing about sporting events that many of you seem to enjoy. Yay, Joe K! What's more, please welcome his new bi-weekly sports brief. It's like Day Around the Bay, but with ball throwing, defensive tackles, using last names, home runs, less homosexuality, and gruff stuff like that there. Alex Smith turns up drunk, tonguing females on gossip......

Well, this is some sad news. An unidentified woman was sent to the hospital today with life-threatening injuries after part of a redwood tree fell and smashed her at Stern Grove today. It seems, according to KCBS, that the woman had just walked her dog, who was not hurt, and as she was getting into her Subaru Outback near Concert Meadow, "part of a tree broke off and fell," crushing her as it came......

SF Crime reports (via CBS 5) that a 39 year-old man was shot and killed on Friday night in Hunters Point at Hudson Avenue and Cashmere Street. So far: no suspects, no arrests. As we already mentioned, girls had gone wild during a San Jose Jack In the Box robbery.Early Thursday morning, a man walking on Battery Street in the Financial District was stabbed in his left arm. The victim, who suffered non-life threatening......

Mills High School English teacher David Lista, 35, of Belmont has admitted to filming underage girls using the bathroom at the high school where he taught. it seems he was arrested yesterday afternoon after a Mills technology coordinator came across Lista's cinematic restroom work while checking the school computer server. Police then searched Lista's home, which turned up a "small amount" of methamphetamine as well. Ouch. But this wasn't the first time Lista's alleged......

Alas, it was not a good weekend for cyclists of the Bay Area. The sheriff's deputy that accidentally crashed into three cyclists in Cupertinio over the weekend -- a collision that killed Olympic hopeful 31-year-old Kristy Gough of Oakland (the third-fastest, non-professional women's triathlete in the world); and 30-year-old Matt Peterson of San Francisco -- has been identified as 27-year-old James Council. A deputy at the West Valley Patrol Division of Santa Clara County,......

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......

Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier sues City Hall over wheelchair ramplessness. [Curbed]Beth Spotswoodle [sic] hits up SFO's gay night. [SFGate]Valleywag 's happy hour watering hole, Moose's, comes to an end. Might we suggest the St. Regis or Ginger's Trois as a replacement? No? Okay. [Valleywag]In a staunch effort to remain dull, San Jose kills "Little Saigon." Again. [Mercury News]Gay celebrity babies outed. [The Sword]......

After a local jury found SF Weekly guilty of illegal predatory pricing and awarded the local alt weekly a cool $6.39 million (the verdict subject to "treble damages," which bring the total award to $15.6 million), SFBG Executive Editor Tim Redmond tells the harrowing tale of the five-week trial in his own words: But the verdict sends a clear signal to small businesses, independent newspapers and the alternative press that a locally owned publication......

With regard to the SFBG vs. SF Weekly (VVM) lawsuit -- you know, the one where the Guardian sued the Weekly and its parent company for predatory pricing practices? where the Guardian's Publisher, Bruce Brugmann, claimed that the competition was so unreasonable that it could force the Guardian out of business? -- our sources confirm that: Word just came that Guardian won the lawsuit and were awarded 6.3 million [the Gate is claiming $15M]......

Laughing Squid broke the news that game designer Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons (1974)/co-founder of Tactical Studies Rules, died today at the ripe age of 69. According to LS, his death was announced on the Troll Lord Games forum. Steve (AKA the High Lord, Coburg the Undying, he who sits on the elephants back of the Castle and Crusade Society) had this to say on the forums: It is almost too much......

Billion-dollar expansion work at Mineta San Jose International Airport came to a halt this morning after a 28-year-old construction worker's arms were severed below his elbows in an accident. Yikes. According to NBC 11, "the 28-year-old construction worker somehow became entangled in the equipment that drives long posts into the ground with quick movements, the San Jose Mercury News reported." It appears that the accident involved pile driving work for "a new roadway just......

An update on today's story about a UC Santa Cruz faculty member whose home was invaded by, according to local media outlets, members of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty animal rights group: the animal rights group claims zero responsibility for last night's attack. We just made contacted with a member of the reportedly elusive SHAC7. They told us the following: No--we are not responsible. In fact, the only knowledge we have of the whole......

Let's not think about that mauling incident or the possibility that one or both of the Dhaliwal brothers pissed into the tiger grotto, prompting the Christmas Day attacks. No, instead let's think about the bundle of joy born at the Zoo this past weekend: a little giraffe, right. Sure, it was yesterday's news, but the adorable image was just released, and the story wouldn't have been complete without it. All together now: aw. Also,......

A 245-pound Sumatra tiger in Hawaii was found wandering the grounds of the Honolulu Zoo on Thursday morning. it seems she "wandered out of her cage" during closing hours. According to AP (via the Merc): A startled female volunteer reported the escape after the tiger brushed past her. The volunteer quickly retreated and secured a second gate that kept the tiger from going into a public area. It took zoo workers several minutes to......

In January we mentioned a global Monopoly board game where you could vote on which cities you want on Hasbro's latest version of the popular board game, Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition. Fun, right? Well, not for some. Hasbro recently removed the country name "Israel" after "Jerusalem" when it received complaints from pro-Palestinian groups. And then, you guessed it, Hasbro received even more heat from people online who noticed the only city......

Nancy Pelosi dedicates a campus and opines on the presidential race....

Yowza! Yowza! Yowza! This Saturday afternoon at Dolores Park, Cash Tomato, a San Francisco "video sharing website that gives weekly large cash prizes to its highest rated videos," is giving away free cash. According to the press release, "from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. the general public will be able to find hundreds of tomatoes hidden in Dolores Park (map) San Francisco, each and every one with cash attached." Nifty. In addition to the......

The woman who sent KGO radio host Bernie Ward's career and reputation into freefall is thirty-three-year-old mother of three Linda Figueiredo. She also goes by the online moniker "Sexfairy," or more intimately, "Mistress". Ward and Figueiredo developed an online relationship in 2004, which hit a pocket of turbulence after Ward sent his "Mistress" some juicy yet hardly-legal child pornography. Dan Noyes refreshes out memory thusly: ...it’s clear Ward and Figueiredo already had a relationship......

That global hegemony is finally paying off....

According to Marin County officials, about "1,500 gallons of raw sewage" was dumped into the San Francisco Bay today near Point San Quentin. Grody. According to the Gate: Deartment of Corrections officials have taken action to contain the spill, and are also conducting water testing in the area, authorities said. The public should not go in the water near San Quentin until the area is deemed safe, authorities said. Warning signs will be posted......

As many of you know, Bernie Ward, former Catholic priest and KGO 810 AM host, was fired from his job after the Feds hit him with charges of child pornography. Although he used the Pete Townsend defense that he was merely doing a little kiddie porn research, that doesn't seem to be the case. Dan Noyes, who takes on the difficult task of having to do an investigatory report on a former colleague, says......

So, you didn't like Microsoft, did you? Well, how about News Corp.? In an attempt to rejuvenate Yahoo and fend off Microsoft's advances, Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate is reportedly in talks to purchase Yahoo. Although claiming that his company is "not interested in buying Yahoo," the Merc reports: The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp., reported Wednesday that its parent company is considering taking a stake in Yahoo that could exceed......

California's First Lady makes yet another visit to S.F...

Last night, according to an SFist tipster: A few blocks in the Marina around Cervantes and Beach were shut down to traffic and residents for about an hour and a half this afternoon. Helicopters, police, and bomb squad were all present. Anyone know what was going on??? I asked the cop who was blocking the street and he said "Whatever it is, it's bad." Gee, thanks. Well, it turns out that all of the......

Police believe that a Santa Rosa man, who recently stabbed himself with a homemade spear just seconds before the fuzz burst through his front door early Sunday morning, is possibly connected to last Thursday's carjacking and rape incident involving a 29-year-old mother. According to the Gate, "Aristotle Quadra, 30, faces charges of carjacking, kidnapping, sexual assault and attempted murder. He is being held at a Santa Rosa hospital while being treated for self-inflicted stab......

And honk they did. Yesterday a worldwide Scientology protest took place by "Anonymous" (AKA Project Chanology, an Internet-based protest against the Church of Scientology), and we caught a few images of the action on our rickety, old cellular communication device. Had we had a better camera, we could've gotten images of the police surrounding the Scientology building entrance; the tour guide telling his gaggle of tourists that John Travolta was, in fact, inside the......

Chez Panisse mafia don Alice Waters speaks to Charlie Rose. [Eater]Your alt weekly lawsuit word count. [Guardian 796, SF Weekly 1,559]SFPD deputy chief demoted. [SFGate]Minor earthquake grooves Pacifica. [Examiner]CBS 5 done got themselves a blog, they did. [CBS5]Tablehopper does Playboy? [Tablehopper]......

There was some sort of election yesterday. [Examiner, Mercury News, Citizen Sugar]With the makeup almost off and the little baggies nearly empty, Trannyshack calls it quits. [SFBG]Want to see candid shots of Muni bus riders? Of course your do. [Nature abhors a vacuum]Siouxsie Sioux is a comin' to town. We're so there. [SF Weekly]Twittering while dining, yay or nay? [CHOW] Da Vid's absurd attempt to make Alcatraz Island a "Jewel of Light" fails at......