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WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve said on Thursday to accept a decision by the San Francisco Fed Bank to raise its discount rate to 6.25 percent from 6 percent, successful immediately.
Earlier in the day, the Fed permitted discount rate increases by 10 other Fed banks to 6.25 percent. Only the Kansas City Fed Bank has not raised its discount rate.
Police are searching for a man who turned the tables on three would-be robbers and shot them early Tuesday in the Tenderloin.
Police say the three first attempts to rob a man at 3:30 a.m. at Turk and Leavenworth streets, but he was able to flee. The man then watched as the suspects tackle a couple and tried to grip a backpack from them, police said.
The man with the backpack pulled a gun and gunshot the three, police said. One man was injured in the leg and was quickly arrested, and a second man injured in the arm and buttocks was found around the corner.
The third man, hurt in the buttocks and groin, went to the Tenderloin Task Force police station for help.
"You've got to go somewhere," Inspector John Peterson said. "Where he was shot, he needed the help.'"
Three masked men enforced their way into a public housing apartment Monday and mortally shot a 42-year-old man, police said.
The gunfire happened just before 4:30 a.m. at the Potrero Terrace public housing development near 25th and Connecticut streets.
The medical examiner's workplace identified the dupe as Willie Cole of San Francisco.
Cole emerges to be the target of the shooting, police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens said.
Cole was gunshot repeatedly and died at the scene, police said. He was the 40th person slain in San Francisco this year.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - Oakland mayor-elect Ron Dellums is collecting a task force to deem options for cover the estimated 80,000 city residents without health insurance.
The move comes after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaims a plan for universal health coverage in his city last week.
Dellums was elected mayor this month after a close race, which saw the vote count go on for weeks after Election Day. He is planned to take office Jan. 1.
As both a city and the county, San Francisco owns and operates San Francisco General Hospital and some community clinics.
By contrast, the Alameda County Medical Center and public health clinics in the East Bay's major city are run by the county - and Oakland does not control them.
Alameda County has health plans to assist residents purchase coverage. But the plans don't assure anywhere near the 160,000 county residents lacking private health insurance.
June 24, 2006 - Tens of thousands of people wearing complex costumes and waving banners rattled sound makers, blew whistles and cheered as participants marched in San Francisco's 36th annual Gay Pride parade.
There was a grave side to this year's parade, too, with national corporations noticeably present and the national debate over the matter such as gay marriage looming large.
Thousands of people in multi-colored wigs and face coat lined Market Street downtown as marching bands, dancers and floats behavior corporate logos streamed by.
"They're gay," said Michael Crowe, 63, as a marching band playing "ABC" by the Jackson 5 filed past. "How do they march straight?"
Crowe, a resident of near Newark, Calif., said he does attend the parade for years. One of the most prominent differences this year, he said, was the high-profile presence of corporations such as Delta Airlines, Wells Fargo and Kaiser Permanente. The companies sponsored drifts with corporate logos emblazoned on them. Delta's float was a tease jetliner.
(SAN FRANCISCO, CA) --SFJAZZ, the chief non-profit jazz organization on the West Coast, has proclaimed the dates and absolute schedule for the 24th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival. Starts October 17 and running through November 12, the Festival would feature artists such as Sonny Rollins, Marisa Monte, the Heath Brothers, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Charles Lloyd with Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland, Alice Coltrane featuring Ravi Coltrane with Charlie Haden and Roy Haynes, Ana Moura, The Django Reinhardt Festival, Pablo Ziegler, and more. SFJAZZ would present a special pre-Festival concert by Planet Drum with Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgo on September 23.
Asked about the wide-ranging mix of artists in this fall's 24th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival line-up, SFJAZZ Executive Director Randall Kline commented, "The diversity of the music is actually a testament to the diversity of the Bay Area jazz audience--and of visitors from all over who share that love of musical exploration. It's their ongoing support that allows us to present artists as far apart musically as Sonny Rollins, Marisa Monte, and the Kamikaze Ground Crew in a relatively short period of time."
"That time element is something that sets the fall Festival apart from our longer SFJAZZ Spring Season, in fact," Kline continued. "Over the three weeks of the Festival, you get the feeling that every night, all over City, something exciting and different is happening. That's a very San Franciscan feeling."
TICKETS AND INFORMATION
Tickets go on sale to the public July 23. Schedule and artists are subject to change.
There are three ways to purchase tickets:
Visit www.sfjazz.org, service charge applied
Call 800.225.2277, service charge applied
Go to SFJAZZ Box Office, 3 Embarcadero Center, Lobby Level, and no service charge
All lanes of southbound Highway 101 in San Francisco are release this morning after a female pedestrian was killed Tuesday night on the highway mere south of Silver Avenue, the California Highway Patrol reported.
Reports from callers came in to CHP around 10:20 p.m. about a body in the roadway that might have been hit some times, CHP officer Ben Chaney said.
CHP officer's inwards and shut down lanes 1 and 2 of the highway to conduct an investigation.
The officers reported that the woman was probable hit by a vehicle, and then further strike by other vehicles, Chaney said.
CHP investigators were annoying to contact a person who called earlier saying that they smack something in the road, according to Chaney.
Officials make public a plan Tuesday to make the city the first in the state to provide health care to all its residents through contributions from the community government and private employers.
The proposal, aimed at 82,000 uninsured San Franciscans who take home too much to qualify for federally finance insurance, will offer access to a doctor and hospital network to any mature who lives in the city regardless of their immigration or the employment status, said Mayor Gavin Newsom. The city by now provides universal health care for children.
"Rather than lamenting about the fact that we live in a country with 45.8 million Americans that don't have health insurance ... San Francisco is doing something about it," Newsom said. "San Francisco is moving forward to fulfill its moral obligation."
Newsom stressed that the so-called Health Access Plan was not destined to take the place of private health insurance, but somewhat provide a way to constantly treat people without insurance so they don't end up looking for medical care in hospital emergency rooms.
SAN FRANCISCO--Community members and faith leader's obtainable city officials with a set of charges for rising access to health care, just before the city chooses its trail toward "universal access."
Acting now, faith leaders said, takes benefit of a "window of opportunity" in San Francisco. They insist a plan that covers both defensive and mental health services for people of all ages and income levels. Costs require weighing fairly on users, employers and the city, they say.
They also advise city officials to push for statewide and nationwide solutions.
Months ago, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a promise to cover all city residents, in spite of their ability to pay, with basic health care access. He created the Universal Healthcare Council and gave it 100 days to expand the idea.
Several city officials attended "Coming Out on healthcare!" at the parishioners Sha'ar Zahav in the city's Mission District on Wed., June 14. Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Julian Potter, Director of Public Policy in the Mayor's Office, and Mitchell Katz, MD, Director of Health at the Dept. of Public Health, vows to follow the congregation's recommendations.
San Francisco Book Center has planned an exhibition of translated versions of chief literary masterpieces from dissimilar countries counting Mathnavi by the great Iranian poet Molana Jalaleddin Mohammad Rumi and illustrative script from Chinese Zaobing and also the lost works of Tibetan literature.
According to CHN, the trade fair sponsored by San Francisco Book Center opened on May 12 and would continue until July 21. The event which is posh 'Findings of Translation' features masterpieces in literature from different countries as well as the work by the renowned Iranian poet Molavi.
The organizers of the event said that the show is aimed at exposing the differences in languages which was the basis of an extremely wide and important variation in translating the world's great masterpieces. San Francisco Book Center, they said, seeks to thin this gap by encouraging international understanding and cultural exchanges.
"The exhibit takes a deep look at the personal attitude influencing translation of masterpieces and has a specific program on technical matters for interpreting translations from two or several perspectives namely languages, cultures, genders and outlook of the authors. They deal with similarities rather than differences," the organizers pointed out.
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - The city has decided to a half-million dollar fine for discarding untreated sewage into the San Francisco Bay and Colma Creek.
South San Francisco would pay $516,000 under terms of the settlement reached with the Regional Water Quality Control Board on Wednesday.
The city was cited for 147 breaches from May 2003 through March 2006.
In the worst incident, almost 2 million gallons of dirt overflowed into Colma Creek from manholes in December 2004 after a pump station failed. The city did not dispute the allegations.
Recent improvements to the city's wastewater plant and also collection systems probably would not have prevented the December 2004 spill, said Lila Tang, head of the board's wastewater division.
About 1,200 temporary city employees in San Francisco would obtain health benefits under a lately ratified contract with the largest city employee's union, city bureaucrats announced Tuesday.
The coverage for such workers as library aides, custodians and health workers can cost the city as much as $4.5 million over the subsequently three years.
The city arrives at a three-year labor agreement in May with Local 790 of the Service Employees International Union that covers more than 12,000 employees. Union members awesomely ratified the contract on June 2.
Mayor Gavin Newsom was flank by union members and Supervisor Tom Ammiano Tuesday when he made the announcement, saying that not as long as health coverage to all city workers "simply is wrong."
A judge has upturned a law that made it illegal to sell or to own guns in San Francisco.
The city's regulation was passed by voters last fall, but was at once challenged in court by the NRA.
The judge's ruling said that the city cannot ban guns for the reason that state law allows for their sale and possession.
A federal court in Washington is bearing in mind a challenge to a similar ban.
SAN FRANCISCO - A state trial judge on Monday over-turned a voter-approved city ordinance that banned pistol possession and also firearm sales in San Francisco, siding with gun owners who said the city did not have the power to prohibit the weapons.
Measure H was located on the November ballot by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, who were aggravated by a increasing number of gun-related homicides in the city of 740,000. San Francisco recorded at least 95 murders last year, a 10-year high.
The National Rifle Association sued a day after 57 percent of voters approved the law.
In siding with the gun owners, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge James Warren said a local government cannot ban weapons because the California Legislature permits their sale and possession.
"My clients are thrilled that the court recognized that law-abiding firearms owners who choose to own a gun to defend themselves or their families are part of the solution and not part of the problem," NRA attorney Chuck Michel said. "Hopefully, the city will recognize that gun owners can contribute to the effort to fight the criminal misuse of firearms, a goal that we all share."
San Francisco's Department of Public Health would offer free medical tests and immunizations to refugees duped by an unlicensed former doctor who lately pleaded at fault to performing hundreds of fake exams over several years.
Public Health Director Mitch Katz, a doctor, and District Attorney Kamala Harris proclaimed Wednesday that anyone who was defrauded by Stephen Brian Turner and still requires a new immigration medical exam could call a telephone line set up by the Department of Public Health and arrange for services.
The phone line, (415) 554-2681, has information in English, Spanish, Cantonese and Russian and would operate through July 28.
Turner, 52, who is serving seven years and eight months in state prison, paid $138,511 in restitution after admitting to performing bogus exams on more than 1,300 immigrants in San Francisco.
Federal immigration officials incorrectly maintained Turner's name on an agency Web site as a doctor expert to look at applicants for green cards as late as the fall of 2002. His physician's license was canceled years earlier after he failed to get psychological action ordered by the California Medical Board when he was criminal of indecent exposure.
San Francisco would fund the new exams and make them available to any of Turner's victims, regardless of where they live, said district attorney spokeswoman Debbie Mesloh.
SAN FRANCISCO - Police arrested a man suspected of shooting a teenage girl, the first take into custody resulting from a city program that fitted video cameras in troubled neighborhoods, authorities said.
Bennie Powell, 21, was arrested on attempted murder charges Tuesday night on doubt of shooting the 13-year-old girl at the Ale many housing projects in the Bernal Heights neighborhood, police said. The anonymous victim was hospitalized for two days after being shot in the buttocks.
Since late last year, the city has installed 34 cameras in crime-ridden neighborhoods, and additional than 20 more are planned.
In the videotape, Powell is seen heavy next to the man supposed to be his intended target. Powell then stops his car, gets out and pursues the man until they disappear from view, police said.
Although the shooting was not filmed, the video was active in identifying Powell and corroborating the events that led to the crime, investigators said.
DUBLIN, Calif. - The City Council commonly decided to ban medical marijuana dispensaries in Dublin.
The ordinance describes a dispensary as any place where medical marijuana is provided to two or more patients or caregivers.
But it will not affect clinics, health care facilities, or residential care facilities for people with chronic or life-threatening illnesses. Residential care facilities for the aged or hospices caring for dying patients also will remain unaffected.
"There are facilities obtainable for those who need it," Councilwoman Claudia McCormick said.
Several other cities in California by now have banned pot dispensaries
Most age-old questions -- Do all dogs actually go to heaven? Does a cat actually have nine lives? -- might never be answered.
But the San Francisco SPCA could answer one: What happens to your pet if you die?
"Apparently, this woman believed that no one could possibly love or take care of her dog the way she could," said Katy Volz, an SPCA employee who coordinates the Sido program. "Well, it turned out there were plenty of people here at the SPCA who believed they could."
"I don't even want to think about what could have happened to Dolly if it weren't for the Sido program," said Dolly's new owner, Robyn Paret. "First of all, she's an older dog -- and she had a cast on her leg at the time. Dogs like that don't get adopted very easily."
"And we knew she loved music," said Paret. "We also sing 'Hello Dolly' to her every day."
Small familiarities like that could make a big difference to a puzzled and distraught pet, said Louisa DeRosa, Sido's animal grief counselor. "Heath cliff here was so depressed when we got him," she said of a Sido cat currently up for adoption. "He'd put his face up against the wall and just stare at it."
"They belonged to a doctor here in the city that left us with instructions on exactly what each cat needed," said Volz.
Now open for cats and dogs, the Sido program has put away hundreds of animal lives since the 1980s. Hundreds more still don't make it for the reason that many pet owners don't think of their animals when they die.
"I hear it all the time -- things like, 'My auntie died, and she left us all these cats that we don't know what to do with.' Well, now you know what you can do. Sign them up in the Sido program, and we'll make sure they find happy homes," said Volz.
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO - Police arrested three suspects Wednesday on doubt of attempting to pass fake checks at a South San Francisco bank.
The three suspects, Gary Ganson, 33, Janelle Jones, 17, and Martina Coulter, 22, all reside in the Los Angeles area and also drove up to the Bay Area to commit the bank fraud, according to the South San Francisco Police Department.
Officers arrested the suspects -- who are thought to part of a fraud ring that uses sham checks, stolen recognition and bank information to drain bank accounts -- at a bank in the 300 block of Grand Avenue.
Police consider the suspects have by now targeted other Bay Area banks, and the investigation is ongoing.
All three were booked in Redwood City. Ganson was also required on a felony warrant.
SAN FRANCISCO - San Franciscan Michael Lynch has been living with HIV for six years and expects to live a lot of more years with the virus that basis AIDS as long as he takes his medication - a obvious contrast to when an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence.
"My doctor told me the toxicity of the drugs will probably kill me before the disease does," Lynch, 46, told on Thursday of how San Francisco has responded to AIDS since doctors identify its first case on June 5, 1981.
AIDS-related illnesses have since killed nearly 17,000 in San Francisco, striking particularly its large gay community. HIV infection has grown into a worldwide epidemic, infecting 60 million, of whom 25 million have died, according to the United Nations.
From the first diagnosis a sector century ago when HIV predominantly affected gay men in North America, San Francisco materialize quickly in the 1980s as the epicenter for AIDS activism.
Over the past two decades, politicians, public health staff and the network of AIDS charities implemented a variety of projects helping contain the number of new infections in the city, which now marks about 350 AIDS-related deaths a year.
The number is small compared to how AIDS sweep across San Francisco after doctors accomplished a new and confounding disease had arrived, said speakers at the retrospective. AIDS-related deaths pointed in the city at somewhat more than 1,800 in 1994.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a San Franciscan and House Democratic leader, said she recalls twice-a-day funerals for AIDS victims. "It was so sad," she said. "Along the way we lost so many friends."
Google has introduced its first mash-up - a map-based website with information about earth-friendly locations in five of the US' top travel destinations.
The site, at maps.google.com/green, features information on and video tours of spots in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando and also San Francisco as well as tips for "traveling green" during the summer using Google Maps.
Luanne Calvert, creative director at Google, said on Tuesday: "This is important to us. One of the big objectives for Google as a corporation is to promote environmental protection."
Listings comprise the Las Vegas Natural History Museum and the Go Raw Cafe in Las Vegas; the Tree People Park and EcoLimo in Los Angeles; the Skyscraper Museum and Central Park in New York: the everlastingly Florida nature preserve and Horse World Riding Stables in Orlando: and the Red Victorian Bed and Breakfast and the Exploratorium in the San Francisco.
The Earth Day Network that sponsors Earth Day every May recommended the locations listed. Additional listings, cities and countries will be added in the future.
Calvert said: "The goal is to have everyone using Google Maps to get around this summer. The motto is Green not Grim... green could be fun."
By "green" Google means "things that are earth friendly", Calvert said. That includes "restaurants that are about sustainable living" and "a car service in New York that only uses [gas-electric hybrid] Prius vehicles," she said.
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