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......

The South Bay gets it. California's High Speed Rail Authority picked the Pacheco Pass as the future route for the 200-mph train that will help you get from SF to LA in record time. According to SFGate, "without a vote, the authority accepted its staff's recommendation last month to run trains from the San Joaquin Valley to the Bay Area over Pacheco Pass, east of Gilroy." Well then. After a four-hour meeting with Mayor......

Never having to drive through this again? Sob. The East Bay and South Bay (more or less) are vying to be one of the destination points that will send travelers from SF to LA in 2½ hours. (Can you imagine? You're watch HSM and HSM2 on your iPhone and -- poof! -- you're kicking it in LA!) Over 700 miles of track would be devoted to getting you from SF to LA in record......

-- Explanation for last night's brief Bay Bridge light outage. [Oakland Tribune] -- Need a home in the Mission? And you're a web ninja and/or hacker? And a bit of an arsonist? Well, then you're in luck! [CraigsList] -- Police are on the lookout for a former South Bay man, Christopher Melvin Holland, for a 1983 rape and murder. [SFGate] -- Oakland environmental group claims that iPhones contain reproductive toxins. And yet, we still......

Newsflash! It costs a lot of money to live here in the Bay Area -- 40% above the national average. Fortunately, salaries are generally higher here to cover at least some of the cost. The U.S. Dept. of Commerce issued a report showing that the SF-Oakland area ranks number 2 in income per person for 2005 ($52.543/year, as opposed to the national average of $34.471), behind only Connecticut, which is where hedge fund people......

We know there's no shortage of young, successful, smart people in this town, but we still turn a little green with envy when we hear about guys like Ben Keighran. The Australia native is only 25 years old. After successfully launching bluepulse in his native land in 2002, he took the show on the road and ended up here in the Bay Area. Like another young tech-maestro we recently spoke to, Keighran houses his company in Silicon Valley (in fact, in YouTube's former quarters), but lives here in the city by the bay....

Last week's winner, the San Jose Metro: Google Earth gets sound. Free spay/neuter for pit bulls in the South Bay (females over 6 months pay a little extra.). Cover article: Profile of an improv cartoonist. Crosswording favorite Etta James in performance. The Three Sisters in Mountain View. Russian food and deli in Campbell. And a vegan wedding! And next up, the Bay Guardian: Tim Redmond and the Guardian editorial board go in with both fists......

...And that's not even the curviest part! A car chase that started in Marin County around 3:00 a.m. Monday morning ended abruptly when the driver, speeding at around 75 mph over the Golden Gate Bridge, overshot the turn from Doyle Drive onto Lombard Street and flipped over. A open fifth of Hennessey was found in the car, and the passengers are in SF General with non-fatal injuries. Your SF Labor Day weekend homicide count: 3.......

A warm spell is rolling into the Bay Area -- so it's time for our perennial post complaining about how much we haaaaaaate it when it's hot. Bring back the fog! Bring back the fog! So it's going to be stiflingly hot for the next few days (yes, we know, it's not as bad as it is in every other part of the country, but that's why we don't live in those other parts of......

Last week's winner, the San Jose Metro: Gary Singh wants the San Jose flea market to move to City Hall. Folks moving from city to city to run for office -- hey, at least they actually move into the city they want to represent down in the South Bay. Ed Jew, take a note! Cover: yay the environment, reduce your carbon footprint by buying a Prius. There's a gymnastics meet on the Olympics circuit this......

Sigh. For those of us for whom a MUNI FastPass is not enough (i.e., with commutes outside the SF city limits), we really have been eagerly awaiting The One Card To Rule Them All Translink system, which promised to let you buy one magnetic card that would give you access to all Bay Area public transportation systems. No more fumbling around for BART tickets, or waiting in line by the cable car to buy MUNI......

This isn't strictly new, but you can be forgiven for having missed it if you're not one of those people who trolls the Apple website all day long, slobbering all over the keyboard with each new reflective GIF you find and having conversations that contain the repeated use of the phrase "brushed metal." It's a BART Widget! (Or "Bidget.") You can use it for getting all over the East and South Bay, in the......

It's our turn to read the Weeklies this week, and we start with SFist Sarah L's pick of last week, the newly-re-indied East Bay Express. Congrats! The letters hate on the UC Regents. Something about racial bias in contracting, we didn't really understand it. The story behind those "nappy headed hos" t-shirts at Bear Basics. Cover article: Some well-paid lackey of "Golden Pig" Don Perata. Bless their hearts at the EBX! They've also started summarizing......

--They are going to reopen the Macarthur Maze by Memorial Day weekend! That construction company totally deserves their $5 million bonus. --We know why Chris Daly interrupted Newsom's meeting with the Venezuelan ambassador! To tell Gavin there's another Daly on the way! Congratulations, Chris and Sarah! --Someone died at Bay to Breakers. --The city may try to move Halloween to behind AT&T Park. --They're going to try and get Wi-Fi on BART. --Condoleeza Rice is......

A fight on the Cal campus last Saturday left a senior with a fractured skull and brain damage and a member of the rugby team looking for an attorney. The resident went outside when he heard someone breaking a window of his co-op (at Prospect and Channing), and got in a confrontation with a guy wearing a Cal rugby shirt. The rugby team had won the national championship that night. The victim claims the rugby......

Sorry for the delay in reading your alt-weeklies this week; there was a comical mixup in our attempts to implement the weekly switchoff between us and SFist Sarah L. We'll try again in a few weeks, and we also briefly considered just not doing something this week, and then we thought, Oh no -- what about the YTD count? Everyone in December will say "that only adds up to 51!". So here we are! Last......

We got a frantic call from SFist Jon about a power failure making it impossible for him to do Day Around The Bay today, so we're subbing in. --There was a shooting outside the Power Exchange during rush hour yesterday. The cops did manage to catch the guy, but traffic was a mess. --Your best buys are always at Fry's -- along with an exhaustive listing of the finite dimensional representations of the closed......

Can you help identify the man in a coma at SF General? The man, who appears to be in his 20s, was dropped off about a week ago, by someone who said he was a pastor or minister but who left the hospital before they could get any more information. 5'10, 190 pounds, short brown hair and brown eyes, and he has several tattoos (one of which pictured at left, because we couldn't bear to......

ith fare evasion and it's effect on MUNI's budget being one of last week's big stories, we thought we'd ask our MUNI driver what the what is about all things MUNI fares. And remember, if you have any questions you'd like answered, send them to editor@sfist.com ...

The autopsy of the Stanford student who was found dead in the trunk of her car last month was found to have toxically-high levels of a substance normally found in Benadryl. Her father remains unconvinced it was a suicide, saying maybe someone forced her to take the drug before killing her. Hey, remember the naked South Bay jogger? He's a 43 year old married engineer who says there's nothing wrong with the human body. He's......

To Little Miss Golden Gate Park, princess of the City,

Honey, I'm sick of you and your flat-ass panhandle getting all the attention. You think you're the only park in the whole City of San Francisco? Well listen up greenbeard, 'cause it's time somebody showed you the real San Francisco.

You know that sparkling brilliance that lights up the night sky south of Chavez? That's me GG, and my name is Miss McLaren Park -- Lady McLaren if you're nasty.

Hey, does anyone know what the mayor of San Francisco's up to? --M&R report that Gavin has been attending rehab sessions every day this last week -- some as individual sessions with the head of Delancey Street, and some as group sessions, and his community service will take the form of activities he was already doing as mayor. He's dealing with "interpersonal issues, friendship issues, and issues that have been locked up for some time......

We see it all the time, and we are fairly certain there is good money to be made doing it - public art is the topic of tonight's workshop in Southern Exposure's SoExchange series of artist-led workshops. How Do I Make My Art Public Art? features panelists, Seyed Alavi, Louise Bertelsen, Packard Jennings, Wang Po Shu, and Rigo 23. It takes place at the Mission Cultural Center (2868 Mission St at 25th) and covers how......

A devoted VW van owner and dedicated "VW Heads" managed to find the owner's prized avocado-green 1971 bus (valued between $16,000 and $20,000) after it was stolen from the Ashby BART station last Friday. The owner had passed out flyers all over Oakland and Berkeley asking for information, and other VW devotees got in touch with him to let him know they'd seen the van in the area. After some sleuthing all day Wednesday, they......

-Barry Bonds? Still not signed by the Giants. Barry Zito? Just signed....

Nothing definitive yet on the missing Noe Valley family. Parents James and Kati Kim were traveling back from Washington in the family station wagon (license plate DOESF) with daughters Penelope and Sabine when they disappeared a week ago today on the way to the Tu Tu Tun Lodge on the Oregon coast. The weather was reported to have been very bad that Saturday. The latest news is that they have a confirmed sighting of the......

Last week's winner, the Bay Guardian. Tim Redmond didn't like being in jail (congrats on your Society of Professional Journalism award, Tim!). As expected, the Guardian came out against those PG&E grass sofas. Also, the Guardian decides that the enemy of their enemy (the SFPOA, Bevan Dufty) is their friend, so they're now backing Police Chief Heather Fong. However, they also ask: who should replace her? Annalee Newitz is pretty happy. Sonic Reducer on French......

The Chron's got the wrapup of the results from this year's problem-solving Chronicle Watch reports -- from October 2005-October 2006. We've got a wrap-up of the wrap-up, right here! Total number of problems fixed: 139. Breakdown by region: San Francisco -- 70 (29 street repairs, 23 park fixes, 7 public transportation fixes, 11 signs). East Bay -- 44 (21 street, 14 park, 5 signs, 4 public transit). South Bay -- 16, North Bay 9. Number......

Last week's winner, the SF Weekly. Josh Wolf's mom writes a letter, as does transgender activist Chris Daley and an angry rebutter to Hiya Swanhuyser 's article about a rural rock documentary. The Bouncer's article about Huey Lewis and the mentally disabled won an award and is included in the Best Music Writing of 2006 anthology. Congrats, Bouncer! Are you an Apologist for the Blue Angels? If you're SFist Jon, the answer is yes. Skater......

No winner last week, so we're going in random order. First up: the SJ Metro. Gary Singh had a crazy South Bay weekend. Is Palo Alto really as crime-ridden as they say? Cover article: The South Bay Best Of. Wow, this font is hard to read. It's broken down by city, with a readers' choice section. We didn't win their Best Blog award, which is only fair since we almost never talk about the South......