September 20, 2012, 12:05 AM
As Treasure Island residents express alarm about a radioactive waste investigation that’s expanded into their yards, and even living rooms, San Francisco health officials and a local nonprofit are stepping in to separate fact from speculation. Since 2003, Navy contractors have searched...
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September 19, 2012, 6:46 PM
A state court today ordered the California Department of Public Health to disclose uncensored copies of dozens of patient abuse cases at institutions for the developmentally disabled. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Investigative Reporting in Sacramento County Superior...
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September 19, 2012, 12:05 AM
Tens of thousands of California schoolchildren ride aging school buses that emit harmful pollutants, an analysis of state data shows. Unlike many states, California does not require bus owners to take buses off the road after a set number of years. As a result, California has some of the...
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September 19, 2012, 12:05 AM
From the 1970s through the 1990s, police say, young male hustlers worked street corners and bars in San Francisco’s Castro District and along Polk Street, blocks away from City Hall. But in recent years, that population has largely faded from view – along with the whereabouts of...
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September 18, 2012, 12:05 AM
When a change to federal law meant many immigrants would lose access to certain welfare benefits, Santa Clara County faced having to absorb thousands of residents in local safety net programs. So the county pursued a way to keep immigrants eligible for federal benefits: citizenship. Since 1996...
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September 17, 2012, 12:05 AM
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by hospital chain Prime Healthcare Services that alleged Kaiser Permanente conspired with a health care workers union to drive Prime out of business. The lawsuit cited the Sherman Antitrust Act, which is meant to limit monopolies, and claimed Kaiser...
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September 17, 2012, 12:05 AM
Sifting through thousands of proteins, researchers have identified an antibody that not only prevents the influenza virus from taking hold of its victims' cells, but also cures already infected animals. And by examining the cell and virus in their crystalline, or 3-D forms, the researchers...
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September 17, 2012, 12:05 AM
For the first time in more than a decade, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency released a report on the on-time arrival rate of its buses and trains without inflating the numbers. Muni’s vehicles were on time 57.2 percent of the time in August, leaving passengers waiting,...
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September 14, 2012, 12:05 AM
Six air monitoring stations that Chevron agreed to install at its Richmond refinery in 2010 were not put in place, which might have slowed warnings about the danger of pollutants released during the refinery’s disastrous August fire, city officials and air quality regulators say. The...
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September 14, 2012, 12:04 AM
Church faithful from around the world gather in Tampa, Fla., where they are lobbied by progressive and conservative camps, provoking heated debate and then a vote.
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September 13, 2012, 12:05 AM
Bain Capital, the private equity firm co-founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney – and portrayed by President Barack Obama’s supporters as a gang of corporate raiders – has pumped nearly $4.5 million into Democratic campaigns and causes, public records show. A...
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September 13, 2012, 12:05 AM
State corrections officials are moving forward with a plan for handling prison gangs and other violent groups, including changing rules that have kept some inmates locked in special isolation units for decades. But the initiative is raising concern among prisoner rights advocates and...
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September 12, 2012, 12:05 AM
Not all of Facebook’s 900 million global users are pleased with the mega-site’s slow lurch toward what it calls Timeline, a new profile format that displays photos, updates, wall messages and more based on when the material was posted over the lifetime of the user. Internet...
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September 12, 2012, 12:05 AM
California's political watchdog agency is investigating a Fremont health care district official to determine whether he violated the state’s conflict-of-interest laws. Michael Wallace, president of the Washington Township Health Care District board, is also the chairman of the...
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September 11, 2012, 12:05 AM
San Francisco will ask the state to conduct its own investigation of the cleanup of radioactive waste on Treasure Island, after receiving complaints that contractors hired by the U.S. Navy might have mishandled contaminated material. “We would like (state officials) to go out and...
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