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Oakland A’s fans may be singing the praises of the rally possum at the Coliseum. Sure there have been sewage problems at the ballpark and various other issues, but none of them came before a game-winning rally in extra innings like this little marsupial did on Monday. But it was at the beginning of the inning after the first out, as centerfielder Sam Fuld walked up to the plate, that a possum went running along the warning track and vanished under the stands. Fuld would go on to a hit and later score the game-winning run for Oakland. Derek Norris...

As a hardcore baseball guy, I often wonder why people needlessly waste their time on all those other, lesser sports. But I suppose everyone has a right to their insane opinions. In any case, football fans may want to keep an eye on this development: The NFL announced this week that it will be using RFID tracking chips on players during select games in the 2014 season. The high-tech chips — RFID stands for radio-frequency identification — will generate precise positioning data on each player on every play. Football Uniforms Throughout History For the initial rollout, the RFID system will...

San Antonio - Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis and two top lieutenants met recently with several San Antonio officials to discuss the potential of moving his NFL team from the Bay Area to the Alamo City, local leaders involved in the talks confirmed Tuesday.

A day after a minor fender bender that has blossomed into a political conundrum because of the players involved, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan told reporters in no uncertain terms that she was not on her phone when her city SUV was rear-ended. Stephanie Chuang reports. A day after a minor fender-bender that blossomed into a political conundrum because of the players involved, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan told reporters in no uncertain terms that she was not on her phone when her city SUV was rear-ended. "I learned my lesson," Quan said. "I was not on my phone. My phone records...

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Involved in Car Crash: Police A car damaged in Sunday's accident involving Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan was involved in a car crash Sunday evening, police said. Oakland police said Quan was a driver in a two-car crash on 26th and Market streets at about 5:30 p.m. Police are investigating the accident, and they do not know who is at fault. But police said they have conflicting reports from witnesses about whether the mayor had the right of way. The mayor’s spokesman did not have a response as to whether or not Quan...

OAKLAND (CBS SF) – An act of retribution may have provoked a woman to brutally attack a third grader inside an Oakland elementary school bathroom, police say. Students at Oakland’s Lafayette school knew something was wrong when they saw officers arrive at school Friday morning. They arrived to arrest Haseemah Diame, a parent and volunteer at the school. Police say Diame walked onto the campus during recess armed with a hammer and pulled a 9-year-old girl aside.

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is questioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the agency’s decision to prosecute a tree-trimmer who accidentally knocked herons out of a tree. Ernest Pulido is expected to face charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office within a week for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. He could face a maximum fine of $15,000 and six months in jail. Pulido was hired by the U.S. Postal Service to prune trees May 3 outside an Oakland, Calif., branch, where postal officials were upset with birds pooping on mail trucks. One branch...

Laney College students marched in protest and some heckled University of California President Janet Napolitano as she gave a commencement address at the community college's graduation ceremony Saturday. Booing and at one point turning their backs on her, dozens of students, faculty and supporters in the audience objected to remarks by the former chief of Homeland Security, who has been faulted for her stance on immigration issues during her time with the Obama administration. Many pumped their fists as a gesture of defiance. "No one could hear her as she was speaking, the whole time," said Yvette Felarca, one of...

Oakland officials are investigating why a former police officer is collecting $52,488 a year in medical disability benefits from the city even though he has been working as an FBI agent in Boston. The unusual case of FBI Special Agent Aaron McFarlane, 41, came to the attention of Oakland officials after the agent was identified last week as the federal officer who shot and killed a key figure last year in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation. The disability benefit that McFarlane is collecting under the California Public Employees' Retirement System is awarded when a worker is unable to perform the...

You may remember that Oakland teachers are being required to sign a new contract similar to one in Hawaii and Cincinnati, requiring them to “model behavior in conformity with the teaching of the Roman Catholic faith.”That hasn’t gone over well with some in Oakland: Tim Newman, who has taught science at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland for 23 years, says some of his colleagues won’t sign a contract forcing them to be disingenuous. Others worry the contract gives the diocese a reason to discipline them for actions outside the classroom.“I will lose good teachers in my department,” he said.Diocese...

The tree trimmer at the center of a federal and state investigation into the destruction of nests and slaughter of baby birds in Oakland said Thursday that he "screwed up" because he allowed his crews to chain-saw trees even as baby birds were falling out. Pulido was the supervisor for a crew of tree trimmers hired Saturday by the U.S. Postal Service's Civic Center Annex in Oakland. The post office ordered trees containing the nests of egrets and black-crowned night herons, species protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Act, to be cut because the nesting birds were defecating on mail...

The two men allegedly fired shots at true-crime enthusiast Salamon, after a heated argument over her cellphone and then made their getaway, leaving the dog-lover fatally wounded. The two men are well known to police said Sgt. Gantt and both belonged to a local gang he said. Sgt. Gantt said that Salamon, who had advocated her neighborhood hiring a private security firm only days before the shooting, was a 'brave lady.'

She's a wife, a mom and Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry’s biggest cheerleader. Ayesha Curry wears a lot of hats, but on Thursday night she was focusing on only one thing: How to keep her husband focused on leading his team to victory in the NBA playoffs against the Los Angeles Clippers. More than 20,000 fans filled Oracle Arena to cheer the Warriors on until the very end of Thursday night's Game 3 nail-biter -- the Clippers won 98-96 -- and a very emotional Ayesha was among them. “Our day-to-day life isn’t this,” she said, referring to the crazed...

Alameda County prosecutors said Thursday that they will seek the death penalty for a man accused of firing the shots that killed an 8-year-old girl during a sleepover at a friend's house in Oakland.

The backlash by Chinese-American activists against a measure aimed at restoring affirmative action in the admissions process at California's public universities has set off political fisticuffs between ethnic groups accustomed to battling side-by-side.

Wednesday night at the Oakland International Airport, a flight had to make an emergency evacuation at the gate after it safely landed because of smoke in the plane. The video was shot by Linton Johnson, a passenger onboard the Delta connection Flight 4454, which was operated by SkyWest. Johnson said on his Facebook page that the plane's cabin filled with smoke and that the flight attendants yelled at passengers to exit the plane. The video shows a chaotic scene. The Oakland Fire Department told ABC7 News they responded to the gate for a red alert.

Police are like the rest of us; they suffer from information overload. The data pour in from 21st century sources ranging from license plate readers to Twitter. But as the information comes in, it hits an old-fashioned bottleneck: human beings."They all have access to different databases," says Dave Mosher, vice president of program management at Microsoft Services. He describes the typical law enforcement command center as a room full of people at computers. "And they all stand up and walk around and talk to each other and they'll say, 'Tell me about this,' or 'Tell me about that.' "Microsoft believes...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A chaotic gunbattle in East Oakland left one man dead and another injured, and a bullet hit the windshield of a passing AC Transit bus, police said. The incident capped a violent day in Oakland in which three other people were injured in shootings.

OAKLAND -- Steve Kopff was one of many San Franciscans who cascaded last year into sunnier, cheaper, hipper Oakland. He bought and began restoring a historic but rundown mansion. He planted vegetables, raised backyard hens and bees, launched a neighborhood newsletter and peppered his Facebook account with paeans to his new city. But this year, Kopff became a scorned symbol of the angst over Oakland gentrification. He wrote an online essay describing his diverse, working-class neighborhood east of Lake Merritt as "mostly undiscovered" and a "virtual food desert" in need of an organic supermarket, better restaurants and "a coffee kiosk...

We've had several reports that Silicon Valley is moving north to San Francisco, but one report asks, "Why not Oakland?" Oakland is cheaper than San Francisco and easy to commute to and from, argues GigaOm editor Tom Krazit, and despite its problems boasts a central location and a "vibrant" community. Krazit doesn't oversell Oakland, in fact, he mentions it "isn't exactly paradise." However he does tout the culture, restaurants, weather and plenty of vacant commercial real estate. The main commercial district of Oakland — which for the sake of this discussion we’ll consider the area roughly bordered by Jack London...