Yes, Paris Hilton is a noted admirer of the species -- which then lead to their astounding popularity among Daly City teenage girls, at least according to an unofficial SFist survey conducted at the Serramonte Center on Saturday -- but that's hardly the dogs' fault. See, the Marin Human society needs your help. This last Friday they took in over 750 dogs, most of them Chihuahuas, according to CBS 5, found at an Arizona......

Today Gavin Newsom announced that "a series of public hearings on the fatal Christmas Day tiger attack" that resulted in the killing of 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. will start as soon as this Friday. After these hearings, the Recreation and Parks Department Commission will "make a set of recommendations to improve the agreement that allows a nonprofit to run the public zoo." Or something like that. Although it's an attempt to appease the mayor......

News from the non-Nancy Pelosi side of the San Francisco House of Representatives delegation -- Tom Lantos, the fourteen-term representative for the Sunset, along with northern San Mateo County, has announced that he will not be seeking reelection, because he's been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Jackie "Jonestown survivor" Speier is considered the early favorite to fill Lantos's seat, and reliable object of fun Leland Yee is reported to be considering a run as well. Lantos,......

One of the greatest misunderstandings in the history of US cinema -- oh please, as far as repeated viewings go, Ordinary People is a superior and more devastating film than Raging Bull -- is the genius of Sophia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette. A fantastic flick, really. It's gorgeous, laced with a few Bay Area inside jokes, oddly nerve-wrecking to watch, and the ending is perfect. Brilliant. In every way. And, yes, while many would (with much......

Sorry for the day late post, but it was a hectic weekend, and we just couldn't bear having to recount the tragedy that was this week's "Project Runway" without at least one good night's sleep behind us. Let's get this over with. Last week's pathetic challenge still hung in the air this week with the designers discussing Carmen's exit, and Chris proposing a "Project Runway" fragrance that would be a mixture of tears, sweat,......

Bless you, Drew Altizer, for your always-fun pictures of the local celebs in town! We wish we were Vegasist, so you'd have some pictures of Britney Spears's flabtastic performance at the VMAs last night. (aaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!) Anyhow, so Paris Hilton was in San Francisco earlier this week, at a Macy's event, and friend of Jennifer Siebel Molly Sims was at Cartier (after the jump). Drew's got the pics! Enjoy. All pictures by Drew Altizer.......

We feel way dirty for posting this, but maybe someone cares. According to what is supposedly actually Paris Hilton's blog via some youth-oriented contraption called "MySpace," the omnipresent socialite is going to be at Macy's Union Square tomorrow at 3 p.m. to launch her clothing line....

We can't really get ourselves too worked up about the billboards or campaign finance allegations that Mark Leno's tossing around about his rival for the State Senate seat, Carole Migden (sorry) -- but we certainly do pay attention to her reckless-driving woes! The Solano County DA has decided to charge Migden with a misdemeanor based on her wild lane-changing and fender-bending ways from earlier this year. Like Paris Hilton, only without the DUI or the......

Here's todays sports news...

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

10:30 p.m.: We went out to dinner and missed Ed Jew's surrender to the authorities.... in Burlingame!!! Awesome. Hey, that way he could just go straight home afterwards. Jew posted bail and was released on his own recognizance. His first court appearance is scheduled for July 16. 7:42 p.m.: KCBS has an audio clip (3:53) of their interview with Bill Fazio up. Jew found out a warrant was being issued at around 4 p.m. today,......

The entries are coming in fast and furious on the Photoshop Frank Chu's Sign challenge! Here's our top two so far -- send yours in too! And while we have you here, we might as well give you some news updates too. Oh No, Ed Jew!: Turns out the money that the Quicklys paid off to Tapioca Ed was marked bills from the FBI. The whole money swap was probably bugged too. MOOOOOM!: Apparently......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Did anything happen at all in the San Francisco Bay Area today? All we've been doing is monitoring the Paris Hilton back to jail news! MOOOOOOM!!!!! --Beer and wine are okay for the North Beach Festival next week, but no hard alcohol. --More folks are getting laid off from the Chronicle. The Chron has launched a Portraits In Grief-like feature. --The Special Olympics are in Berkeley this weekend. --An old theater on Market Street (the......

Photo of car with a CHP 11-99 Foundation license plate holder...

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. ...

Photographer Drew Altizer goes to all the good parties! Drew reports in from Saturday's birthday party for DJ AM (Adam Goldstein, former fiance of Nicole Richie and just-dumped boyfriend of Mandy Moore) at Mezzanine, featuring not only the birthday boy himself on the turntables, but also Travis Barker (from +44 and the defunct Blink-182, as well as a former Paris Hilton fling and the back-on again husband of Shana Moakler, of reality TV fame).......

So the blog LA Observed ran a caption contest for the picture you see at your left, of Paris Hilton with their mayor-about-town Antonio Villaraigosa. They got the usual level of "that's hot" Paris references and obscure "I'd like to join YOUR LA school board" inside-politics commentary, but, entertainingly enough, look who else got invited to the Villaraigosa-Hilton party! Here's two of the winning captions: --Wait until Gavin Newsom sees this picture. and --So, um,......

The latest new fangled idea being dangled out there is for so called HOT Lanes. HOT Lanes is short for High occupancy/toll lanes and for once has nothing to do with Paris Hilton for which we thank the Good Lord. ...

--Homicides are down about 10% (.pdf, page 4) (76 for the year as opposed to 86 at this time last year). Good! What's the SFPD solve rate on those homicides? [sorry for the .pdf links to the Examiner -- for some reason, none of today's articles are online yet.] --The chomping sea lion's disappeared. They think he might have died, or moved on. --They debate the public schools and an unflattering drawing of Chris Daly......

We have a Paris Hilton alert! Code Red! Paris Hilton Alert! Yes, it’s true, the lovely and talented Ms. Hilton herself will be in town tomorrow as she signs autographs to promote her new perfume, Heiress. Yes, Heiress, the perfume for people who want nothing more out of life than fall back-ass into money and the people who wish they were (after watching Zoolander for the umpteenth time last night, we’re a little surprised it’s not called "Derelict") The signing will be at Macy's in Union Square tomorrow around twelve noon. We're so excited we're schvitzing right now. ...

A Federal Appeals Court today ruled that Josh Wolf had to turn over what is quickly becoming the hottest video since the Paris Hilton sex-tape or else go back to prison. The three-person court ruled unanimously that Wolf had to turn over the tape because there were no grounds for resisting the subpoena. The reason? "He simply videotaped what people did in a public place," the judges wrote. ....

Awright! It's time for another SFist contest! Where was Gavin Newsom last week? a) On the playa at Burning Man; b) On a date with a barely-legal model; c) On a date with a C-list reality TV star; d) Trying out for Skating With Celebrities; e) Ably leading San Francisco through its current crisis of high crime rates and a fractiously-divided Board of Supervisors. or ..... f) something else entirely? Was he.... babysitting Suri Cruise?......

Now that our long, national nightmare is over and Brett Favre has announced that he's both playing this season and maybe next season, it's time to check in with our Bay Area teams as both have made significant additions to their rosters over the past week or so. ...

Am I the only one who found 2005 to be one of the fastest years on record? I can't even believe it's over - I remember it just starting. I didn't even get everything on my list done! Here's a more leisurely 2006! Politics - Voters rejecting the Governor was awesome but I'm still waiting for something, anything, to take down Bush. What the hell will it take?! Federal Government Department - We know......

Man, every day in 2005 had some kind of good San Francisco Bay Area news story -- whether it was the lady who planted the finger in the Wendy's chili, Bill O'Reilly, explosions downtown, anarchist yutzes in the Mission, and nude art in bars, to pick some totally random examples we pulled from a disorganized riffling through the SFist archives search engine. How can we pick just one favorite news story for the entire......

So if you tuned into KRON this morning to catch Phil Matier (and really, who doesn't love that moustache?), you might have noticed that he was a bit cranky, since a certain be-gelled guest was late arriving. Turns out that it's because, unlike us plebes who were never Paris Hilton's BFF, Gavin was tipped about Dave Chappelle sweeping into town by his homeboy (seriously, he described him as "my good friend") Chris Tucker and......

It looks like the Bay Area is going to be getting a new film studio. In Oakland. Take that San Francisco. The people behind the new studio? The Wayans brothers-- Keenan Ivory, Damon, Shawn, Marlon, and Tito-- the auteurs behind "In Living Color," Scary Movie and White Chicks. On Tuesday, an Oakland City Council committee unanimously approved a preliminary plan to move their production facilities to the old Oakland Army Base. If the City Council approves the plan, the brothers have a year to put together an agreement. So far, the plan calls for retail stores, a 30-acre film production studio with offices and a 10-acre back lot for production. Oh, and a 30-acre theme park with a hotel. Yes, we said an amusement park. According to the plans, the brothers want to build an amusement park adjacent to the studio. The park will be like "Universal Studios in Los Angeles but with a hip, urban atmosphere reflected in the Wayans brothers' comedies." And yes, the mind boggles. The Homey the Clown Funland Park? Fly Girls of the Caribbean? The White Chicks Nightclub Ride featuring an animatronic Lindsey Lohan getting into a cat fight with animatronic Simpson sisters while an animatronic Paris Hilton does blow in the bathroom? Either way, we can hardly wait. ...