EBay to sell part of Skype for $2B
San Francisco -- Rather than enduring the uncertainty of spinning off the Skype telecommunications service through a public stock offering, eBay Inc. has found a different way out: It is selling the majority of Skype for about $2 billion to a group of private investors. The deal will help eBay undo its 2005 acquisition of Skype, a deal that puzzled analysts. Despite Skype's strong, steady growth, it was hard to see how eBay, which specializes in running online marketplaces and facilitating...

Kidnap suspect blamed drugs for 'downfall'
San Francisco -- In March of 1977, Phillip Garrido was 25 and in federal prison pleading with a judge to reduce his 50-year prison sentence for Kidnapping a stranger. In neat handwriting and misspelled words, Garrido wrote in a letter that drugs had caused a "downfall" that led to his conviction a month earlier. He promised he had seen the error of his ways during his brief time behind bars. Garrido, now charged with the 1991 Kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Dugard, told U.S. District...

Man held for California toll bridge shootings
Police say they've arrested a man suspected of gunning down two people at a San Francisco Bay -area toll bridge. California Highway Patrol officers arrested 46-year-old Nathaniel Burris at about 3:15 a.m. Wednesday in Placer County , about 120 miles northeast of the shooting. Authorities say he was sleeping in an airport shuttle van, but drove off after CHP officers approached and surrendered after a chase. He's suspected of being the driver who opened fire with a shotgun Tuesday, killing a toll...

Fatal East San Jose House Fire
San Francisco (KCBS)  -- Firefighters were able to rescue two residents and two dogs from a burning house in East San Jose overnight, but not everyone made it out alive. Once the flames were extinguished, a body was discovered inside the building near where investigators suspect the fire may have began. The victim has not been identified.   KCBS' Matt Bigler reports The one-alarm fire in the Alum Rock neighborhood was reported around 4 a.m. on Thursday. The fire was under...

Editorial: Edsel Gadhafi
Libya's Moammar Gadhafi is a man of seemingly limitless talents, the most striking of them, in many people's minds, was fashion designer. Ex-Navy SEAL making waves in fitness circles By JANNY HU, San Francisco Chronicle Randy Hetrick had a problem. As a special-ops squadron commander deploying on ships, submarines and safe houses, he needed a way to keep his team in world-class shape without having access to world-class gyms. Home Editorial: Edsel Gadhafi Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 09/02/2009 -...

David Wright Helmet (PHOTO, VIDEO)
David Wright aka Speedballs, plays third base for the New York Mets. He received a concussion on August 15 after he was hit in the head with a 94 mph fastball by San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain. That wont stop the four year All Star from playingbut he will be sporting an over sized helmet. Picture of David Wright Helmet (PHOTO, VIDEO) [source:BittenBound.com] The 26 year old is test driving a new S100 Rawlings helmet that is engineered to provide additional protection against another...

At Least 1 Shot at Calif. College: PHOTO
San Bruno, Calif. - Police on Wednesday were searching for three suspects who fled a college campus after a shooting that left an 18-year-old wounded. The shooting happened at about 1 p.m. when two groups of teenage boys got into an argument in a parking lot at Skyline Community College in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno, police Cmdr. Marc Catalano said. Police do not believe any other students or faculty were targets in the shooting. "Our initial investigation shows that there was an...

Idol Headlines for 09/04/09
Allison Iraheta: The ultimate interview, Part Two Iraheta In the second part of this four-part interview, “American Idol” finalist Allison Iraheta discusses her first “Idol” audition in San Francisco and the beginning of her “Idol” journey. Read Part One here. LA Times Carrie Underwood rushes new single to YouTube NEW YORK (Billboard) – Carrie Underwood has rushed out the first single from her new album to YouTube, a day after an unfinished version of...

The Internet Turns 40: PHOTO
San Francisco, CA (AHN) - Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Internet in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. The 226 million websites now dotting the World Wide Web was an offshoot of an experiment by 20 UCLA engineers, who passed meaningless data from two computers 15 feet apart through a grey cable connection on September 2, 1969. Those two computers were the earliest network then called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET. The expansion of...

US couple deny Dugard kidnap charges
The US couple accused of Kidnapping the 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard and holding her for 18 years has denied all 28 charges. Phillip Garrido, 58, and his spouse Nancy, 54, denied the charges during a brief court appearance on Friday. Dugard, now 29, was abducted in 1991 while the girl was waiting for a school bus near her home in South Lake Tahoe, east of the city of San Francisco, by two people in a grey sedan. Dugard was reunited with her mother and half-sister at a motel outside San...

Epic Traffic Jams Possible During Bridge Closure
OAKLAND, Calif. (KCBS) - Bay Area transit agencies will be adding service to help accommodate travelers between the East Bay and San Francisco during this weekend's closure of the Bay Bridge for seismic retrofit work. The bridge will close beginning Thursday at 8 p.m. and will remain closed until 5 a.m. Tuesday, during which time crews will replace a 300-foot-long section of the eastern span of the bridge. According to Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman John Goodwin, the Bay Bridge...

9 out of 10 students pass high school exit exam
San Francisco — State education officials say just over 90 percent of California's Class of 2009 passed the exit high school exam by the end of their senior year. Data released Wednesday by the California Department of Education shows a 90.6 percent pass rate for this year's high school seniors, a slight increase from the previous year. The data found the performance of Hispanic and black students continues to lag those of white and Asian students. The pass rate was 81 percent for blacks,...

Commercial mortgage defaults in Bay Area rising
A predicted avalanche of commercial property loan defaults in the Bay Area and elsewhere looms large as mounting delinquent mortgages follow news in July that several San Francisco building owners relinquished properties after failing to make loan payments. Images View Larger Image More Realestate Data compiled by Real Estate research firm Foresight Analytics in Oakland last week showed that the percentage of commercial property owners in the Bay Area with mortgages 30 days or more past due had...

Noise pollution
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Oscar Grant's imprisoned dad sues BART
(09-01) 10:49 PDT San Francisco -- The imprisoned father of Oscar Grant, the unarmed rider shot to death by a BART police officer early New Year's Day, has filed a federal Civil Rights lawsuit against the transit agency.

Feuding neighbors
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Oil sheen spotted near Treasure Island
San Francisco — A cleanup effort was launched Monday afternoon in the San Francisco Bay near Treasure Island after an oil sheen was spotted in the water, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. A pedestrian called authorities shortly before noon to report that the U.S.S. Wenonah, a decommissioned naval tug moored to the east side of the island, was sitting low in the water and that an oil sheen and debris could be seen in the water nearby. Coast Guard Lt. jg Jeremy Pichette said shortly before...

Suspicious find in Richmond District
(09-01) 12:04 PDT San Francisco -- The San Francisco police bomb squad has removed two suspicious bottles containing liquid that were found in the Richmond District this morning, authorities said.

Penny throws 8 shutout innings in SF debut
PHILADELPHIA — Brad Penny pitched five-hit ball over eight shutout innings in his first start with the San Francisco Giants, leading the NL wild-card contenders to a 4-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday night. Penny (1-0) was back in his old All-Star form in his first outing since he was released last week by Boston. Penny went 7-8 with a 5.61 ERA this season — including 1-6 in his last 11 starts. Penny could be a huge boost to San Francisco's NL wild-card push if he...

Retox Presents Sunshine Jones at Blue on Friday
​ San Francisco's Sunshine Jones is something of a 21st-century house music troubadour. Originally half of '90s pioneering live electronica duo Dubtribe Sound System (which disbanded in 2005), Jones now produces and performs under his own name, using his DJ/MC persona as a forum for transgressive yet inspirational political and spiritual discourse. Combining live vocals and spoken word, live percussion, loops, and plenty of dreamy effects, he weaves a rich tapestry of melodic and techy deep...

US Fritzls secret garden of evil where he kept kidnapped girl as sex slave
London, Aug 30 - ANI: A filthy, ramshackle secret garden, hidden inside American Fritzl Phillip Garridos house in the small town of Antioch, east of San Francisco, has been revealed to be the place where he kept Jaycee Lee Dugard as sex slave for 18 years and fathered two children with her. Jaycee kidnapped from a bus stop by Garrido, 58, when she was just 11 was just 14 when she had the first of his two daughters, now 11 and 15, reports News of the World. The kidnapped victim had to raise her...

San Francisco Rail Union Sets Strike
San Francisco Rail Union Sets Strike

Garrido Lived Among Sex Offenders
ANTIOCH, Calif. - At least three other registered sex offenders live within a block or two of the Northern California home where Phillip Garrido allegedly imprisoned Jaycee Lee Dugard for nearly two decades. More than 100 sex offenders in all share his ZIP code in the hardscrabble, working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of this town about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco. The high concentration has raised concerns that laws to control some of the nation's roughly 686,000 registered sex...

Slight gains in exit exam results
(09-02) 10:31 PDT San Francisco -- More high school sophomores passed one or both parts of the California High School Exit Exam this year than 10th graders in previous years, but the failure rate - about 20 percent in each the English and math sections - means about 100,000 students in the class of 2011 still must pass it to graduate.