SF Bay Area news

Fausto Vitello created an empire by catering to Northern California's independent skateboarding culture and spotlighting the backyard skateboarders who created a stage out of the everyday urban landscape. For three decades, Mr. Vitello, fueled the...

Residents of private Sawmill Road in the Gold Country town of Alta knew that shafts from the old Nary Red Mine snaked underneath their hillside homes. But they never expected this. After a wet winter, the ground opened and swallowed a 27-year-old...

Locked out of his stepmother's home, a 23-year-old man tried to slide down the chimney like St. Nick, except without any presents -- or clothes. Or success, according to police, who weren't in a festive mood after they spent an hour pushing the naked...

A landslide in a mountainous area off state Highway 92 cut phone service to much of the San Mateo coast and forced shoppers to scramble for cash Sunday because businesses couldn't verify their credit or debit cards. The landslide damaged a fiber-optic...

Oakland mayoral candidate Ron Dellums has enraptured and inspired supporters with passionate, often fiery speeches that have left audiences clamoring for more every time he's left the dais. His vision of Oakland as a model city -- a national mecca for...

It used to be that when Craig Williams told people he was going up against the Pentagon, challenging U.S. defense plans to destroy chemical weapons stashed in communities all over the country, they'd say he was crazy. "You can't turn the Pentagon...

What's in the works Bad road in Pinole: An eroded street has one Pinole resident at her wits end. Tipster Debbie Cyr says portions of Pinon Avenue have been in bad condition for more than a year, but in the last three months the road has developed "...

Faced with declining state revenue, UC Berkeley deans are stepping up their efforts to raise money from private donors, amid academic leaders' rising concern that California's premier public university risks slipping in the competition with wealthier rivals...

A coalition of Bay Area religious leaders including San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer joined forces with about 10,000 protesters Sunday in denouncing a House of Representatives bill that would make illegal immigration a felony. Calling for a...

San Francisco's de Young Museum is the latest big-name art center to find itself answering embarrassing questions about showcasing looted treasures. Since reopening last October, the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum has caught the eye of art experts and...

Telephone service in several San Mateo County coastal cities is expected to be back to normal by around 4 p.m. today, after a landslide in Half Moon Bay downed fiber-optic phone lines on Saturday evening, AT&T spokesman Ted Carr said. Phone service...

(04-23) 12:15 PDT -- HAYWARD -- Locked out of his stepmother's home, a 23-year-old man tried to slide down the chimney like Saint Nick, except without any presents -- or clothes. Or success, according to police officers who weren't in a festive mood...

A San Francisco parking lot owner pleaded guilty Friday to charges of evading $358,000 in federal income taxes. Minesh Mehta, 44, of South San Francisco admitted failing to report $926,000 in income he received from his network of parking lots in 1999...

A school board lawyer from Sonoma County and a former lawyer for low-income youth from Santa Clara County were appointed as Superior Court judges on Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arthur Wick, 54, of Windsor was named to the Sonoma County bench....

Oakland officials are heralding the installation of two solar panel systems they say will save the city $250,000 a year in utility costs. Mayor Jerry Brown said the panels underscore the city's commitment to easing its reliance on fossil fuel. Although...

Mayor Gavin Newsom has appointed new members to San Francisco's film and library commissions. Melanie Blum will sit on the San Francisco Film Commission, which promotes and oversees film production in the city. Blum is president of the board of the San...

Two Bay Area school districts, Oakland Unified in Alameda County and East Side Union High in Santa Clara County, are among 10 districts across the state to share in $1.3 million intended to help refugee children who have been persecuted in their home...

Stanley Hiller Jr., a boy wonder, inventor, helicopter pioneer and corporate wizard whose aviation museum is a popular destination on the Peninsula, died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer's disease. He was 81 and a longtime resident of Atherton....

George C. Minden, who ran a secret American program for 37 years that put 10 million Western books and magazines in the hands of intellectuals and professionals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, died April 9 at his home in New York. He was 85....

When he was younger, Ellis McCune used to sell fried chicken from a cart. A few decades later, he was running a state university. Known for the bow ties he wore and the pipe he smoked, he was the epitome of a tweedy academic -- but the native Texan...