San Francisco is America's most "walkable" city...

Photo and discussion of the news conference concerning ped and biker safety. ...

Up to eleven people have been seriously injured this afternoon by a man driving around town, deliberately running over pedestrians. At least one person is dead. Among other things: this is not going to help our stats for this year's Walk SF numbers at all. The police caught a driver in a black Honda SUV in Laurel Heights, at Laurel and California Streets, where he'd hit two people (one who died). A child was also......

Lots of accident-related news today. First off -- crank up "Livin' On A Prayer" because like Bon Jovi says, it's slippery when wet. A sudden downpour in Santa Clara led to 13 -- yes, that's 13, not a typo -- separate accidents in under an hour on three separate highways -- 280, 680, and 87. No one was seriously injured, but a few drivers were taken to the hospital, and traffic was a nightmare. CHP......

Newsom's beleaguered this week! So beleaguered we broke it down into two posts! While the Chron calls up all the supervisors to get an explication of their beef, the Examiner reports that representatives from Walk SF are questioning Newsom as well, in light of the mayor's office's unprecedented offering of $10,000 for information concerning the hit-and-run death of jogger Ashlyn Dyer in the Presidio. (Because of the Examiner's strange new web design, we can't give......

Victor Willis, the Village People cop, is the gift that keeps giving to the Blotter patrol! (We especially liked the headline, "Willis's destiny is the J-A-I-L" from the San Mateo County Times.) Willis failed to show up for court -- again -- despite the fact that his lawyer's worked out a plea bargain where if he surrenders, he'll serve 16 months. America's Most Wanted had a film crew on site to film what turned out to be the no-show. And hey -- we had no idea Willis had been married to Phylicia Rashad! San Francisco Superior Court judge Newtom Lam's mother died of several heart attacks three days after being struck by a cable car on a blind hill at Filbert and Mason. At the time of the accident, Mrs. Lam seemed okay and was speaking with investigators, but it turns out she fractured her skull and had broken her ribs, collarbone, and hip as well. Walk SF is holding a vigil on Monday at noon and participants should bring bells. ...and you thought you were unenthusiastic about school starting again! San Jose State put out a nationwide APB when a meteorology professor went AWOL for the first week of class. The professor hadn't called in, hadn't been seen since finals last semester, and was reported to have been having "employment and personal issues." He was found when someone at a Comfort Inn in Pennsylvania looked up from browsing Merc News articles online and saw the very guy whose picture was filling up the screen. Turns out the professor had been hiding out there for over a month. ...