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From the day Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums took office nearly two years ago, residents have witnessed a steady decline in city government function as public confidence has withered. The city's administrative structure and finances are in deep distress. In the coming weeks, the city's elected officials must make significant cuts to balance a budget deficit that has grown to $50 million since the start of the fiscal year less than three months ago.There's also the question of who's in charge at City Hall after Dellums, under pressure, fired City Administrator Deborah Edgerly amid allegations that she tipped her nephew, a...

If there's any good news coming out of Oakland's City Hall right now, we're having trouble finding it. The city faces a deficit that could exceed $50 million. Recently outsted city manager Deborah Edgerly is being investigated by the FBI for allegations of fraud and nepotism. City officials can't account for millions of dollars that have disappeared from the city's reserve funds. And as Oakland's already sky-high crime rates shift out of lower-income communities and into the city's restaurants and nail salons, city officials look not just negligent but downright clueless. (Which is something that those lower-income communities might have...

The NYT's have finally admitted what pretty much everyone has already figured out for themselves. The surge has worked. But all that we have gained, all we have achieved could be undone by a precipitous withdrawal: Yet for all the signs of fatigue, General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted. And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope,...

Russian troops on August 20 entered the Black Sea port city of Poti for the second day in a row, reportedly stationing columns of armed vehicles at the city’s main entrance and in an outlying district. The Georgian Ministry of the Interior states that Russian troops are "digging into" the port city, a strategic site and the location of a recent $200 million port development project. Although reports from the ground differ, Poti City Administration Chief Roin Gigiberia told EurasiaNet that Russian soldiers have started cutting potholes into the city’s streets and have set up check points on a bridge...

When bank robbery suspect Elmer Reyes crashed his getaway car on Interstate 880 in the East Bay, he told the officers who arrested him that the bad economy made him commit the crime. And when Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums responded to a spree of takeover robberies at restaurants in the city this month, he also blamed poor economic times as a motive for the crimes."The desperation of these crimes speaks to the broader issue of where we are in terms of this economy," the Quiet Mayor said. "When people become this desperate, they take desperate acts and we have to...

Russia apparently isn't in a quagmire. They apparently did go to the UN and ask for permission first. They are not in an unnecessary act of aggression. I haven't seen any drive by reporters lament any unilateral actions, have you?

<p>There is a neighborhood adjacent to Capitol Hill in Washington that is under siege. But the police can't turn things around on their own. On any given day, residents and visitors to the Trinidad area of Northeast are forced to traverse unfamiliar streets because D.C. police have barricaded the neighborhood as an anti-crime tactic - and when law enforcers accomplish that they are intent and in effect creating a police state in the nation's capital. Granted, there is considerable blood being shed in Trinidad. But how undemocratic to set up check points.</p>

After being led by two consecutive celebrity-politicians as mayor, the people of Oakland might be better served with a citizen-mayor, one with his - or her - feet firmly on the ground and familiar with residents' desires, government's challenges and the city's top priorities. With the scandal at City Hall in the past month as a backdrop, it's becoming increasingly clear that Oakland residents need a mayor with a ground-level view, not a fly-over assessment. Running a city where some crimes are skyrocketing, public schools are treading water and many residents are eager for independent leaders - who aren't beholden...

While Oakland officials dig out from their latest crisis - a criminal probe into the actions of City Hall's ousted chief administrator - the city's well-known gun violence and killings are again surging. In a city beset with social and structural ills, from political cronyism to budget and leadership shortfalls, about the only thing that seems to be on the rise in Oakland is the homicide rate. Since January, there have been 71 homicides in Oakland, 13 of them since police rounded up more than 50 alleged members of a violent street gang on June 17 - putting the city...

Over in Oakland they like it loud - so loud that all 45 of the Police Department's Harley-Davidson motorcycles have been equipped with shiny new tailpipes, at a cost of $500 apiece, to rev up their roar.It seems the cops just didn't feel safe on toned-down bikes."There's an old motorcycle adage that you are heard before you are seen," said Deputy Chief Dave Kozicki, explaining the department's decision to toss the bikes' muted factory-issued mufflers in favor of the more high-volume pipes.Kozicki cited an accident three months ago in which an Oakland officer riding a toned-down cycle was struck by...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A technical glitch on an unrelated piece of legislation forced Democrats Wednesday to jerk their election-year fiscal blueprint from the House floor. The nonbinding budget plan has already been delayed by more than a month when congressional leaders discovered Wednesday that they had failed to send to President Bush a portion of the farm bill. He vetoed the rest of that measure Wednesday and the House overrode the veto. In short, the glitch on the farm bill needs to be fixed before the budget can pass or else the boost to farm and food programs can't be...

HILLARY Clinton's campaign overnight predicted a rapid end to the Democratic White House race next month as the press read the last rites to her quest to be the first woman president. With more party elders drifting to Barack Obama's camp and the media declaring the nominating battle all but over, Senator Clinton aides battled back with appeals for voters to be heard and for new donors to come forward. Even as he vowed no surrender from the former first lady, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said party bosses known as "superdelegates" would coalesce behind a candidate once the final...

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, nearly 18 months in office, still reacts like a rookie to the most important events that affect the lives of city residents. When major breaking news has occurred while he was away, Dellums' office has issued generic, one-paragraph statements that are not only vague but leave the impression that he doesn't understand the city and the impact that such events have on the people who live there. His dispatches from afar no doubt are intended to convey a sense that the mayor is on the case, but they have the opposite effect - highlighting his emotional,...

Anthony Cataldo of Oakland first raised concerns about aggressive bullying at his son's elementary school last year after Zachary lost four teeth on the playground - but he said he received only a verbal assurance that things would change. Cataldo said he complained again when some boys at school kicked 7-year-old Zachary in the stomach three months ago but got no response. Now - two days after an older student slammed Zachary against a tree, fracturing his skull and sending the first-grader to intensive care - Cataldo is hiring a lawyer, and school officials are paying attention.

With Oakland citizens fearful and angry about crime, and some even fighting back against robbers and intruders, a top Oakland police official told city leaders Tuesday night that police alone can't solve the violence. "Right now, it's pretty clear we are in a time of increased crime," said Oakland police Deputy Chief Dave Kozicki, adding that crime nationwide is up due to the faltering economy. "But the bottom line is we believe we cannot arrest our way out of these problems." Oakland's crime problems are deeply rooted in economics and family values, and Kozicki called on the city's schools, families,...

A North Oakland resident shot and critically injured a suspected burglar this morning in the resident's home, police said, the third time in a week that a would-be crime victim in the city has fought back with gunfire. The shooting happened about 8 a.m. in a home on the 600 block of 59th Street near Shattuck Avenue, police spokesman Officer Roland Holmgren said. Police did not immediately release the name of the suspect or the resident. Today's shooting took place a block from where 59th Street resident Patrick McCullough shot and wounded a 15-year-old boy outside his home in February...

OAKLAND, Calif. (KCBS) -- Oakland police are worried that more and more people will take the law into their own hands, after two store owners shot two robbers in recent days. People have a right to protect themselves, but things can get out of hand quickly if everyone starts packing a weapon, said Deputy Police Chief Dave Kozicki. "That's a concern that law enforcement has all the time, that people will engage in vigilantism," said Kozicki. A 22-year-old Oakland man was shot at least three times and critically wounded when he tried to hold up a liquor store Saturday night....

I've been in neighborhoods in Detroit, Chicago and South Philly where store clerks do business from behind a formidable barrier of bulletproof glass - and customers place their money in a turnstile. In Oakland, some store owners are choosing hot lead as the best material to put between themselves and would-be robbers. On Saturday night, the owner of Ed's Liquors in the 2700 block of 23rd Avenue returned fire after being wounded in the leg and shot the gunman, an 18-year-old Pittsburg man, at least three times, authorities said. And two days earlier, a clerk at Wah Fay 8th Avenue...

CHICAGO -- The weekend has gotten off to an especially violent start, with no fewer than 20 people shot on the streets of Chicago, three of them fatally, from Friday afternoon through early Saturday. About 12:50 p.m. Friday, a girl was wounded in the arm when she and another person were shot at 2714 W. 66th St. A Chicago Lawn police sergeant said two people were shot and "one of the victims,'' a girl, was shot in the arm. The sergeant would not disclose the girl's age. The girl was taken to Holy Cross Hospital. About 3:30 p.m., a 15-year-old...

Oakland's hills are but a few miles from the flatlands of West Oakland, but the landscaped front yards up the hill and the unforgiving streets of the flatlands are culturally a world away from each other. When residents of Montclair hear gunfire, it's usually a distant popping sound, hardly distinguishable from a car backfiring, but no one in West Oakland would mistake it because warring groups there have turned the community into a combat zone. Whenever war has erupted on the streets, no one in the community feels safe. And everyone is traumatized one way or another. The latest violence,...

The Municipal Railway will not use buses from its new hybrid fleet on one line that runs through the public housing projects in San Francisco's Hunters Point neighborhood until officials can stop troublemakers there from turning off the buses' power switches. Muni drivers have reported over the last couple of weeks that people have been shutting down the power on their buses by flipping a switch that can be accessed easily through an unlocked panel on the outside of the bus. When that happens, the drivers can't accelerate, they lose radio contact with dispatchers and the interior lights on the...

Mr. Hess is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Editor's Note: Following is a column Mr. Hess wrote in June 1978, when Jimmy Carter was just midway through his term. We think it's worth reprinting. It shows how early Carter's flaws became apparent to eagle-eyed pundits like Mr. Hess. Let us assume that Jimmy Carter is an intelligent, decent, hardworking man. Assume, moreover, that he has appointed to his cabinet and sub-cabinet many men and women who are experienced and dedicated. How, then, can a president - certainly no less mentally alert than most past presidents - with many...

The next president may be stuck with more problems in Iraq than Bush ever faced. The next president, it now seems likely, will inherit a situation in Iraq that's as dreadful as any time since late 2006, before the troop surge and Gen. David Petraeus' new set of strategies. Three stories in today's papers forebode grimness. First, as is widely reported, Iraq's three-man presidential council vetoed a law that called for provincial elections in October. Mike McConnell, President Bush's director of national intelligence, called the veto "somewhat of a setback"—an understatement of staggering proportion. When the parliament passed that law...

North Oakland shopkeeper Scott Silvera tried for months to get Mayor Ron Dellums' attention about the explosion of crime in his neighborhood. Finally, fed up, he vowed to stop paying sales taxes until he heard from the mayor's office. Silvera is still waiting. But he did get an official visit the other day - from a representative of the state Franchise Tax Board, who warned the storekeeper to pay up the taxes he owes.Or else.Silvera, who runs Scout Home Hardware at 5026 Telegraph Ave. in the Temescal neighborhood, says he intends to pay the $3,000. The funny thing is, he...

In his final State of the Union address tonight, President George Bush plans to announce that the U.S. economy has become such a quagmire that the federal government will begin a phased withdrawal. The nation’s chief executive will reportedly tell the American people that the government got involved in the U.S. economy under false pretenses, has mismanaged the effort from the beginning, and the president believes now that “the only way forward is backward.” The president will propose immediate reductions in taxes, regulation, government spending and federal bureaucracies.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums may have thought his contribution to curbing the city's high crime and homicide rates would be to implement his trademark social programs, but now he needs a Plan B. Dellums' desire to hire qualified ex-felons for city jobs and to send intervention workers into the street to connect with parolees died soon after journalist Chauncey Bailey was killed by a shotgun blast on a downtown street in August. The execution-style slaying of a newspaper editor brought the city national attention it didn't want and raised the local conversation on crime a few notches overnight. The investigation...

BAGHDAD - Violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion, finally opening a window for reconciliation among rival sects, the second-ranking U.S. general said Sunday as Iraqi forces formally took control of security across half the country. Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the man responsible for the ground campaign in Iraq, said that the first six months of 2007 were probably the most violent period since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The past six months, however, had seen some of the lowest levels of violence since the conflict began, Odierno said, attributing the...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen shot a crime reporter 45 times in a Mexican town plagued by drug violence on Saturday after a high-speed chase as he tried to escape on his motorcycle. Cut off by a vehicle in Uruapan, in the state of Michoacan, Gerardo Garcia fled on his motorcycle as far as his home, where his pursuers killed him, police and a source at the newspaper where he worked told Reuters. Mexico's drug cartels are battling for control of regions key to trafficking South American cocaine and other drugs into the United States. Mexican journalists are targets of...

A police officer shot in the head by a doughnut shop robber died Thursday morning, the police commissioner announced. The gunman went into the shop and demanded money just before Cassidy opened the door, said Sandra Kim, a Dunkin' Donuts employee who was behind the counter at the time. He then spun around and shot the officer as he held the door. Cassidy was a regular customer who came in twice a day for a large coffee with cream and sugar, Kim said. "He's always nice to all the employees," she said. "The officer was just coming in for a...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Civilian deaths from violence in Iraq fell again in October to their lowest level this year, government figures showed on Wednesday, bolstering the U.S. military's assertion that a troop surge is reducing bloodshed.

Oakland residents are fed up with random crime - from assaults to burglaries to armed robberies - that is being carried out with seeming impunity on the city's streets. Whether the answer is more cops, a restructured department or something else, businesses and residents across the city want improvements in public safety - and sooner rather than later. In recent months, as I've repeatedly beaten the drum for Mayor Ron Dellums to step up the fight on crime, hundreds of residents have sent me e-mailed notes with their tales of horror. Many of the writers have been victims of crime,...

TRENTON, N.J., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- About half of New Jersey residents wish they were living somewhere else, with most citing high living costs as the reason, a newspaper poll found. Just over half of those who said they want to move expect to follow through on it, Gannet News Service reported. Frederick Huffenus, a retired police officer, said he plans to move to North Carolina as soon as he gets a heart transplant. He has one son already there and hopes his two children still in New Jersey will also make the move. "I love New Jersey," Huffenus said....

Oakland is redeveloping like crazy, particularly parts of West Oakland where new homes and retail spaces are rising near the BART station and the former Amtrak depot. Lafayette businessman Manoj Tripathi hoped to cash in on the renaissance. He knew he was taking a risk when he opened a Subway sandwich shop at the corner of Seventh Street and Mandela Parkway a year ago but he gambled anyway. With no competition within half a mile, his venture became a destination for residents and Port of Oakland truckers. At lunchtime, there were lines to get in the door, akin to 1980s...

SAN JOSE - Police are investigating a third shooting on Highway 101 in the past four days, but investigators said today they have no evidence the incidents are related. The latest shooting happened about 3:15 a.m. today in San Jose near the Story Road exit, police said. The victim was driving south when what he described to investigators as an older model, silver luxury sedan with custom rims pulled alongside him. The driver of the luxury sedan shot the man once in the leg as they approached the Story Road exit in central San Jose, police said. The man was...

MONTERREY, Mexico – Gunmen murdered a police chief in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi Thursday as he drove to a restaurant with his family, the latest killing in a spike in drug violence in Mexico. A group of men shot dead state police chief Jaime Flores in a daylight ambush in the city of San Luis Potosi, destroying his SUV vehicle and leaving 40 bullet casings on the street, the state attorney general's office said. “We believe drug gangs were behind this,” said a spokesman who declined to be named. Flores' wife and two children survived the...

Iraq crash kills 14 US soldiers Fourteen US soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash overnight in northern Iraq, the US military has said. The UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter carrying 10 soldiers and four crewmembers crashed after experiencing a mechanical malfunction, a US statement said. There were reportedly no indications of hostile fire and the cause of the malfunction is under investigation. The Task Force Lightning helicopter was one of two Blackhawks carrying out a night operation, the military added.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has denounced the speech President Bush’s gave on the “War on Terror” to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “President Bush's attempt to compare the war in Iraq to past military conflicts in East Asia ignores the fundamental difference between the two,” Reid said. “In the case of Vietnam, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson carefully built a measured response at the invitation of South Vietnam’s President Diem. It was only when Nixon assumed the presidency that things started to go downhill. It was a Democratic congress that courageously ‘pulled the plug,’ extricating our troops from the...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New statistics show a crime wave is intensifying in a city already beset by the uncertainties of a flagging recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Despite an infusion of money and manpower into the justice system, the murder rate is growing and armed robbers are preying on Hispanic day laborers flush with cash from rebuilding jobs, the Police Department says. The city, which led the nation in murders per capita in 2006, is on track to retain its title, according to data presented Thursday for April through June. The report shows a 14 percent increase in murders and...

Fighting in Somalia's capital has killed more than 30 civilians and wounded 60 in the past 24 hours, a local human rights group said on Tuesday, a day after Britain circulated a draft resolution that would keep an African Union (AU) force in the war-torn country for six months and start planning for UN peacekeepers to possibly replace it. The most violent 24 hours in Mogadishu in two months began Monday when insurgents attacked government bases, said Sudan Ali Ahmad, chairman of Elman Human Rights, an independent Somali group. His organization arrived at the death toll by contacting hospitals and...

An Iranian official says US failure in Iraq will become more evident as times goes by, since the US can neither stay in Iraq nor leave it. Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Brigadier General Yahya Rahim Safavi made the remarks at the inaugural ceremony of a conference held in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, ISNA reported. "In fact, the US begged for talks with Iran. Iran-US talks on Iraq indicate the failure of American politicians, who are facing a Catch- 22 situation in the country," he added. He said that Iraq was turning into another Vietnam and that if US troops were...

Police said a man was shot to death by his wife Monday evening in the Central City neighborhood, the fourth killing in New Orleans in three days and the second Monday, police said. The Orleans Parish coroner's office identified the dead man as George Hammond, 45, of New Orleans. Police said his wife, Janet Hammond, was a suspect. Police responded to a call about gunshots in the 1800 block of Second Street shortly before 7:30 p.m. and found George Hammond inside a blue shotgun double, police spokeswoman Sabrina Richardson said. Hammond was pronounced dead at the scene. He had been...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday laid out her criticism of the immigration compromise introduced in the Senate, calling the temporary worker program “disruptive of families.” “I have serious objection to the point system that is in the bill now,” the speaker said on ABC’s This Week. “Yes, we should deal with the backlog [of workers seeking citizenship]. I completely agree with that. But the family unification principles which had been fundamental to American immigration are disrupted by what is in there now.” The point system Pelosi refers to would grant those seeking citizenship points based on English proficiency,...

Monday's events brought that impact home starkly. On the one hand, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad came as the US wages a seemingly last-ditch attempt to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. On the other hand, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's performance at the Natanz nuclear installation where he said, "With great pride, I announce as of today our dear country is among the countries of the world that produces nuclear fuel on an industrial scale," indicated that he for one, does not believe he has anything to worry about from America.

PHILADELPHIA - The City Council approved limits to gun purchases with the promise to sue state lawmakers to enforce it, saying the city could no longer wait for the Legislature as the murder rate skyrockets. Only state lawmakers can enact firearms laws in Pennsylvania. But with 137 homicides in Philadelphia so far this year, Councilman Darrell Clarke said the city had to do something. "It's utterly ridiculous where we are right now. It's an aberration when somebody doesn't get killed," Clarke said. "We can't wait any longer." The council approved measures Thursday that would limit gun purchases to one a...

GROZNY. April 27 (Interfax-AVN) - According to preliminary information, 17 people were killed in a crash of an Mi-8 helicopter carrying a landing party in southern Chechnya, a source in the headquarters of the joint group of forces in the North Caucasus told Interfax-AVN on Friday. "Three crewmembers and 14 soldiers died. According to preliminary information, the helicopter was hit from the ground," the source said. A special operation to eliminate an illegal armed group has been under way to the south from the Shatoi town. Three Mi-8 helicopters with landing parties were sent to the district. One of...

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Three Atlanta police officers were indicted Thursday -- two on felony murder charges -- in the shooting death of an elderly woman during a botched drug raid on Thanksgiving eve. Fulton County Superior Court documents show Officer Gregg Junnier was indicted by a local grand jury on charges of three counts of felony murder, two counts of burglary and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Officer Jason Smith was charged with four counts of felony murder, two counts of false statements, two counts of burglary and one count of aggravated assault with a...

(CBS 3) PHILADELPHIA -- A violent night left two people dead, several injured and the city marked a grim murder milestone. The city’s 100th homicide this year occurred on the 4900 block of Aspen street around 5:45 a.m. Saturday morning. 36-year-old, Dwayne Green was shot in the torso and taken to HUP where he was later pronounced dead. Three males were shot, one fatal, on the 2800 block of North Ringold Street in North Philadelphia around 10:00 p.m. Friday night. The fatally injured male was 14-year-old Taron George of North Philadelphia. One of the injured males is in critical condition,...

Sixty-four-year-old Vivian Westerman rode out Hurricane Katrina in her 19th-century house. So terrible was the experience that she wanted two things before the 2006 season arrived: "I got a 6,000-watt generator and the cutest little Smith & Wesson, snub nose .38 you ever saw," she boasted. "I've never been more confident." People across New Orleans are arming themselves -- not only against the possibility of another storm bringing anarchy, but against the violence that has engulfed the metropolitan area in the 19 months since Katrina, making New Orleans the nation's murder capital. The number of permits issued to carry concealed...

A new study by a Tulane University professor says New Orleans? murder rate as the highest in the country. The report estimates the city?s 2006 murder rate at 96 per every 100,000 people. A key factor in New Orleans vault to the top of the ratings was the large decline in the city?s population following Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called the study results ?bittersweet.? ?Everybody wants to be number one at something,? Nagin said. ?We?re not in the running for the high prestige titles like ?cleanest? or ?best educated.? In fact, we?re on the bottom of those...