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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Seven San Francisco police officers accused of sending racist and homophobic text messages have been suspended, and the police chief has recommended that they be fired. Chief Greg Suhr announced Friday that he has asked a police oversight committee to approve firing the officers. Six others face disciplinary actions that include reassignment to positions that don't have contact with the public. Another officer tied to the investigation already has resigned. The text messages "are of such despicable thinking that those responsible clearly fall below the minimum standards required to be a police officer," Suhr said in...

One may think twice after receiving unsolicited advice from a laundromat. And yet, the joint at Hayes and Laguna made a fair point. Locals toting sacks of soiled clothing or just out for a stroll while wondering what the neighborhood washeteria would demand of them were regaled by the Don't Call It Frisco Laundromat. Obeying the pronouncements of a laundromat is a matter of personal choice. But it's less so when the identical dictum emanates from the mouth of a judge — which happened in San Francisco. A 1918 article in the Examiner recounts the opprobrium heaped upon a divorce...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Department of Homeland Security is beefing up its presence at airports, train stations and other travel hubs in the United States in the wake of global travel warning imposed on all U.S. citizens Local authorities are not going into specifics but the San Francisco Police Department does acknowledge receiving a bulletin by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and DHS. The SFPD says their officers are monitoring various areas of the city and will determine if additional resources are necessary. areas of the city and will determine if additional resources are necessary. They say they have...

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun control Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) shot down a proposed amendment to her “assault weapons” ban that would exempt military veterans from the gun ban. She also made some questionable claims. Pushing a ban on high-capacity magazines, Feinstein argued that it is “legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines.” Here’s her dubious rationale: “The time has come, America, to step up and ban these weapons. The other very important part of this bill is to ban large capacity ammunition feeding devices, those that hold more than 10 rounds. We...

On a non-stop fundraising roll, President Barack Obama is making his 16th trip to California next week, hitting two San Francisco campaign events on Wednesday to pick up more cash. He’ll star at a luncheon at the fabulous Julia Morgan Ballroom in Clint Reilly’s historic Merchants Exchange building on California Street — site of a Michelle Obama fundraiser last year. The San Francisco events come just two weeks after his last Bay Area fundraising trip which included three Bay Area events — a Redwood City Fox Theatre appearance and an Atherton fundraiser at the home of Doug Goldman on May...

The president's trip to the Bay Area last week made it painfully clear that the Barack Obama re-election campaign has lost its mojo. There was no life, no personality, no memorable line or moment and no real enthusiasm in the entire fundraising foray. In short, there was no buzz. It was like a summer rerun of a show that wasn't very interesting to begin with. Worse yet, Obama sounded like he was playing catch-up to Mitt Romney. I can't think of anything that should have him in that role, but he's acting like the underdog.

California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. But one wouldn’t know that going to the firing range these days. AR-15s and AK-47s are the must-have guns of choice. How can that be? Every time California tightens up the assault weapons ban, the gun industry finds a way around it. The latest example involves a tiny device...

Business owners in San Francisco's Mission District, cleaning up after a night in which protesters damaged more than 30 stores and restaurants and vandalized cars, questioned Tuesday why activists had singled them out and why police hadn't done more to halt the rampage. Among those dealing with the damage were officers at the neighborhood police station, where black-clad, masked activists threw paint and bashed the front door Monday night. Even as they defended themselves from criticism that they had allowed the vandals to run wild - one restaurant owner said officers even appeared to be "escorting" the group - high-level...

Ceremony to honor memory of 1906 quake survivorOne of the last known survivors of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake died over the weekend. The San Francisco Chronicle reports, Rose Cliver was just 3 years old on April 18, 1906, when the quake and resulting fire killed more than 1,000 people and ruined more than 28,000 buildings. Cliver was 109 when she passed away Saturday at a residential care home in Santa Rosa. Cliver once spoke with NBC Bay Area about her memories of the quake, saying her family climbed up a hill in Bernal Heights, where they lived at the time,...

Two former San Francisco environmental health inspectors have been charged with taking bribes and falsifying food safety manager certifications for hundreds of local restaurant managers and owners, prosecutors said Wednesday. Clifton Sanders, 41, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to bribery and falsification of public records charges. Ajamu Stewart, 54, pleaded not guilty to bribery, perjury and falsification of public records at his arraignment Dec. 6. Both Sanders and Stewart are former employees of the city Public Health Department. Each took hundreds of bribes of $100 to $200 apiece from restaurant managers and owners in 2007 and 2008 in exchange for allowing...

Early risers Saturday will see a total eclipse of the moon low in the western sky, and if the Bay Area's clear weather persists, the sight should be spectacular. "The full moon should appear even larger than normal when the eclipse is total because it will be so low in the sky that Earth's atmosphere will magnify it into a blood-red monster," said astronomer Andrew Fraknoi of Foothill College in Los Alto Hills. The partial eclipse will begin at 4:45 a.m. and will become total at 6:05 a.m., Fraknoi said. Totality will last until 6:57 a.m.

Come Dec. 1, you can still buy the Happy Meal. But it doesn’t come with a toy. For that, you’ll have to pay an extra 10 cents. Huh. That hardly seems to have solved the problem (though adults and children purchasing unhealthy food can at least take solace that the 10 cents is going to Ronald McDonald House charities). But it actually gets worse from here. Thanks to Supervisor Eric Mar’s much-ballyhooed new law, parents browbeaten into supplementing their preteens’ Happy Meal toy collections are now mandated to buy the Happy Meals. Today and tomorrow mark the last days that...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Most Americans spent Thanksgiving snug inside homes with families and football. Others used the holiday to give thanks alongside strangers at outdoor Occupy encampments, serving turkey or donating their time in solidarity with the anti-Wall Street movement that has gripped a nation consumed by economic despair. In San Francisco, 400 occupiers at a plaza in the financial district were served traditional Thanksgiving fixings sent by the renowned Glide Memorial Church to volunteers and supporters of the movement fighting social and economic inequality. "We are thankful that we are, first and foremost, in a country where we...

A winery owner, a tech executive and venture capitalists are among the Texas governor's local backersWant to meet Rick Perry? The Republican governor from Texas will be at the Four Seasons in East Palo Alto for a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser on Friday during his first trip to the Bay Area since declaring his candidacy for president. Perry's campaign says the GOP candidate has no public appearances scheduled for the region. He has a packed schedule, with three fundraisers on Thursday (in San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles) and three more on Friday (in Bakersfield, Fresno and East Palo Alto). But...

The San Francisco Giants won the 2010 World Series thanks to great pitching performances from Tim Lincecum(notes), Matt Cain(notes) and Brian Wilson(notes). And they got timely offensive contributions from the likes of rookie Buster Posey(notes), Aubrey Huff(notes) and Juan Uribe(notes). You remember those guys. How could anyone forget? And what about Robin O'Connor, a payroll department manager? There's no way the Giants get past the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS without her.

The amorphous hacker group known as Anonymous made good Sunday on its threat to strike BART, breaching an agency website and releasing customers' personal information in retaliation for BART's decision to cut cellular phone service to prevent an antipolice protest in San Francisco. The hack attack sent BART scrambling to protect its websites, and it infuriated some riders whose information was leaked. It came as the hackers also called for a 5 p.m. protest today at BART's Civic Center Station, where a police officer fatally shot a knife-wielding man on July 3. BART, which ignited a debate about technology and...

By now, you’ve no-doubt heard that residents in San Francisco want to vote on banning circumcision for male children. As if that was not controversial enough - now the state is getting involved. That’s right… Assembly Bill 768 - would apply to any city or county government. Its being introduced in response to a San Francisco ballot measure. AB 768 is designed to derail the San Francisco measure - if its approved by voters. "To enact an outright ban on an expression of personal, medical and religious freedom is an affront to all who value liberty," said Assemblyman Mike Gatto,...

<p>California has become the first state in the nation to require public schools to add lessons about gay history to social studies classes, after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed the landmark bill on Thursday.</p> <p>The Democratic-majority Legislature passed the bill last week on a largely party-line vote.</p>

You have to wonder very seriously if these people are insane. The San Diego-based group that is laboring to get circumcision banned in San Francisco has perpetrated a comic book. In it, a superhero named Foreskin Man saves a baby boy from being circumcised by the evil Monster Mohel, a vicious-looking Orthodox Jewish rabbi who could have been drawn by an acolyte of Joseph Goebbels. Indeed, Foreskin Man has a distinctly Hitlerian “Aryan” look to him. It’s crystal clear from the dialogue that the perpetrator of this literary opus intends to depict the Judaic religious view of circumcision as evil...

As you may have heard by now, San Francisco will be voting this November on whether or not to ban circumcision in the city. Defenders of the measure say it’s all about “human rights” and “protecting babies” from unnecessary procedures. But critics suspected there was something vaguely anti-Semitic about the whole proposal, since among Jews (and Muslims, as well) circumcising male babies is a religious duty, not just a mistaken medical procedure. Ban proponents insisted their proposal had nothing to do with Jews — really, it’s all about the rights of children. Well, any doubt that they were lying have...