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A "screwed-up" repair project at a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. control station in Milpitas caused pressure levels to rise on all the natural gas transmission lines serving the Peninsula just 50 minutes before the San Bruno pipeline exploded, newly released federal documents show. The repair project set in motion a chain of unforeseen problems and blunders leading up to the Sept. 9 explosion that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes, records released by the National Transportation Safety Board show. Electricity was cut off to equipment that controls gas pressure in the Peninsula pipelines, two backup power supplies failed...

(09-16) 14:36 PDT SAN BRUNO -- Two women were charged Thursday with trying to impersonate victims of last week's deadly pipeline blast in San Bruno, as state and local authorities warned that identity thieves, unscrupulous contractors and others seeking to wring profit from tragedy would be punished severely. "We view them as vermin," said Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County's chief deputy district attorney, referring to anyone caught exploiting the fiery rupture of a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. natural gas transmission line, which destroyed 37 homes and killed at least four people. He said suspects would not be offered plea...

State regulators in 2007 gave Pacific Gas and Electric Co. the go-ahead to spend $5 million of ratepayer money to replace a 62-year-old section of the same pipeline that exploded last week in San Bruno. But the work never got done as scheduled in 2009, and this year the utility asked for another $5 million to do the same job by 2013, according to documents submitted by PG&E to the California Public Utility Commission as part of a general rate-hike request. While the cause of the pipeline explosion has yet to be determined, experts say that in general older lines...

Dear FRiends, Please send prayers up for my nephew and my family. His wife and beautiful 13 year old daughter were killed in the San Bruno fire yesterday. Mercifully he and his 15 year old daughter had left with my sister only a few minutes before the explosion but materially he has lost everything and I can only imagine the horror he is suffering at losing his beloved wife and daughter. My family in the Bay Area is large and they will be doing everything humanly possible to care for them in these trying times but prayers are always welcome....

It just happened. Not much info on it yet. **URGENT** KGO-TV: Reported "explosion" near San Francisco grows to 6-alarm fire. http://twitter.com/USABreakingNews

A plane just crashed near SFO in San Bruno, CA. Prayers to all affected.

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

SAN BRUNO, Calif. - A woman who used a butcher knife to beat a Jehovah's Witness who knocked on her door on Christmas Day was sentenced to three months in jail. Cathy Infusino, 52, was also ordered Thursday to spend three months in a work program and serve three years of probation. She pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon. Infusino was paranoid and was being harassed by neighbors at the time of the attack, said her lawyer LeRue Grim. "She wasn't mentally well enough to understand the situation," Grim said. "She thought someone was trying to harm...