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San Francisco is getting ready to raise its minimum wage to $12.25 an hour, a rate that will have the city joining Oakland as the locales with the nation's highest legally mandated pay for non-salaried workers. San Francisco's new minimum is set to go into effect on Friday. It was approved by voters as part of an initiative that will increase the minimum wage to $15 in 2018. The National Employment Law Project estimates that 142,000 workers will receive the higher wages.

Black communities are seething over the epidemic of police killings of unarmed black men — in Baltimore, Charleston, Ferguson, Los Angeles, New York, Tulsa and elsewhere. Every day the newspapers, TV and Internet show appalling images of police brutality. The mass incarceration and high unemployment of blacks and the sharp disparity of wealth throughout society are intensified by the militarization of the police. Policies such as “zero tolerance” and “stop and frisk” have spiked an increase in the killing of blacks and Latinos.

San Francisco is the worst market for renters, according to Forbes' latest list. The average rent in San Francisco is over $2,800. And the vacancy rate is only 3.6 percent. It is only slightly better in the East Bay and South Bay. The average rent in Oakland is about $1,800 a month, but the vacancy rate is even worse than San Francisco at 2.9 percent. In San Jose, rents run about $2,200. Still, Forbes listed all three cities as the worst places for renters nationwide.

Lon Simmons, beloved Bay Area sportscaster, dead at 91 Legendary broadcaster Lon Simmons, who introduced generations of Californians to major-league baseball and broadcast the 1989 earthquake-interrupted World Series and the 49ers’ road to Super Bowl XXIII, died at his Daly City home Sunday. He was 91. Mr. Simmons, who was honored by baseball’s Hall of Fame as the 2004 Ford C. Frick Award winner, had credited the success of Bay Area sports teams with helping him cope with his three-year battle with cancer, especially the Giants’ championship teams and more recently the Warriors. Featuring a baritone voice and a witty,...

Lon Simmons, the Hall of Fame broadcaster whose baritone voice and dry wit captured some of the most thrilling moments Bay Area sports history, has died. He was 91. The Giants sent a press release Sunday afternoon that said, "The Giants family and Bay Area sports community lost a true gentleman (Sunday) morning when Hall of Fame broadcaster Lon Simmons peacefully passed away."

Some businesses in Oakland's Chinatown neighborhood are feeling the effects from the city's new voter-approved minimum wage. The new $12.25, up from $9, went into effect on March 2 and was approved by 82 percent of voters. "With this minimum wage kicking in, it's the final nail to the coffin," said Carl Chan, a board member for the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. The new minimum wage forced owner of the Legendary Palace restaurant to close its doors on Feb. 26. Officials said four restaurants and six grocery stores have closed since January. Many business owners are blaming the 36 percent...

Seattle is about to embark on a civic experiment that most experts predict will be an economic disaster; a $15 an hour minimum wage is set to go into effect on April 1st. And some restuarants in the city have already shuttered their doors and are either going out of business or moving to friendlier climes. This was entirely predictable - and was predicted when the measure passed the Seattle city council. Restuarants are particularly sensitive to this sort of increase in wages since most of their employees are paid at the minimum, and such a large percentage of their...

When shots rang out on her West Oakland block, Chyemil Pierce’s first instinct was to protect her children. The 30-year-old mother screamed at her 7-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter to run as bullets flew. Her kids ran around their house and hid, cowering in fear. They were unhurt, but their mother was hit by a stray bullet — and died outside the family’s home.

OAKLAND - Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf made a pitch Wednesday morning for the 82 percent of Oakland voters who passed a minimum wage hike in November to support local businesses struggling to adjust to higher costs. "It's time for Oaklanders to put their money where their votes were," Schaaf said at a news conference outside of Farley's East coffee shop on Grand Avenue.

In the exposé ‘Poor Kids of Silicon Valley,’ a CNN reporter seems shocked to uncover a high level of child poverty in the affluent Bay Area. CNN concludes that after consulting with “economists and experts,” they learned that a minimum wage hike to $10.10 would significantly help end child poverty. But if CNN actually talked to the most impoverished families, they would have learned that raising minimum wage, the way Oakland just did, results in maximizing single young mothers and their children living in poverty. Most Americans’ perception of Silicon Valley jobs is “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” The hottest tech...

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) — The minimum wage in Oakland is about to become the highest in the Bay Area. Right now it’s $9/hour, but not for long. Thanks to voter-approved Measure FF, it will rise to $12.25/hour on Monday. But as this city’s minimum wage goes up, so go food prices. Most restaurants have said they’ll have to raise prices and cut worker hours. --SNIP-- But while Higginbotham can’t wait for the $12.25 hourly wage, small business owners like Sam Hori at 475 Café worry they may not survive. “It’s scary, because if things go down, we cannot to be...

#BlackLivesMatter Activists Shut Down Emeryville Home Depot; Demand Surveillance Tapes Of Fatal Police Shooting EMERYVILLE (CBS SF/KCBS) — Dozens of #BlackLivesMatter protesters forced Home Depot in Emeryville to close its doors for several hours Saturday. The group was demanding answers about the February 3 shooting death of Yuvette Henderson, an Oakland woman shot and killed outside Home Depot by two Emeryville officers. Henderson was accused of shoplifting and trying to carjack motorists. Police said Henderson pointed a gun at them, but protesters don’t believe that. They want the store to release security tapes of the incident.

An Oakland man was arrested on suspicion of felony animal cruelty for allegedly burning a dog alive in a crate that he dumped on a Sacramento street, officials said Friday.

It's never too early for any parent to instill their ignorance and prejudices into their children.  Deciding that the civic values of the Girl Scouts1 weren't good enough for their girls, the "Radical Brownies of Oakland" have stepped up to form their own independent group dedicated to teaching girls their important values. Christin Ayers for KPIX in San Fran reports: After the recent Black Lives Matter protests, there is a new brownie troop in Oakland. Instead of selling cookies, they are spreading a message. On a Saturday afternoon in Oakland, a handful of 8 to 10 year old girls are...

Described as an "edgier, younger version of the Girl Scouts," Anayvette Martinez created the "Radical Brownies" last year. The new group aims to push what it describes as "social justice" and badges can be earned protesting against police. Membership is specifically tailored toward young girls of African American or Hispanic ancestry. Children of different races are allowed to join, but the "program will always remain focused on young girls of color." With such goals, it is not surprising to learn that one of the group's main goals is to emulate "social justice movements such [as] the Black Panthers." The same...

<p>A Bay Area rapper was shot and killed Monday night in East Oakland, according to police and a media report.</p> <p>Dominic Newton, 37, better known by his stage name “The Jacka,” was killed in the shooting at 94th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard about 8:15 p.m., KPIX-TV reported.</p>

The attention starved pro-abortion group Stop Patriarchy made the rounds this week at pro-life rallies during the various march for life events. On Thursday, a handful of pro-choicers from Stop Patriarchy were arrested attempting to block hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers marching in D.C. at the March for Life, chanting that pro-lifers are for female enslavement! More video and pics here Friday, the group was in Oakland, California calling for a Ferguson style revolution after disrupting Black pro-life leaders at a rally there. (read story here) Bragging on their website, “As politicians continue to ramp up a national assault on...

Radical abortion supporters are calling for a Ferguson type revolution against pro-lifers in an odd place, outside a rally organized by Black preachers in California. The event was organized by Rev. Walter Hoye, a Black pro-life minister , and took place Friday in Oakland. An page on Hoye’s website about the rally reads, “We walk because abortion in the Black community is a form of genocide, it is the Darfur of America. We walk because abortion in Black America is the civil rights issue of our day. We walk because abortion does violence, both physically and emotionally, to men and...

Glenview Elementary, the Oakland public elementary school that last year horrified parents with its homosexual indoctrination of children as young as five, doesn’t limit itself to promoting perversity. Instilling Black Power dogma is also crucial if children are to grow up to be politically correct Democrats. This includes deification of the violent Black Panthers. A parent received this flyer by email:

As the dozens of protesters gathered in Oakland on Saturday, there was no sign of police in riot gear. And as the marchers briefly blocked traffic and chanted for peace and justice, there was no spray paint or broken windows, and no faces were covered with black bandannas. That’s because at this Black Lives Matter march at Eastshore Park near Lake Merritt, the participants read a Dr. Seuss story, ate snacks, got squirmy and then put glitter paint on cut-out stars. Most of the protesters were still in preschool, with the oldest topping out at age 10, and they all...