Singapore, a prosperous outpost in the sweltering heart of Southeast Asia, is growing up.
For years, this tiny island off the southern tip of Malaysia has been something of an anomaly for travelers. Westerners typically view it as a “safe” introduction to the region. Streets are spotless, crime is low, English is a second language and the street-food scene is humming.
It’s also a fascinating mix of strict laws, a highly educated populace and opulence to rival any city in the West.
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Low-hanging clouds hover above the blue-and-gold train as it eases out of a Vancouver rail yard at the beginning of a two-week excursion across Canada. Outside the city, verdant farmland will eventually yield to an ascent through canyons cut by glacial rivers on a stunning 600-mile passage to the frontier of the Canadian Rockies.
And that’s only the beginning.
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Thousands of people who rely on pricey payday lending and check cashing stores across the state may be entitled to millions of dollars in restitution for predatory lending practices by some of the industry’s biggest players, San Francisco officials said Thursday.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced an outreach effort for those who have not yet filed claims outside a Money Mart on a forlorn corner of Seventh and Market streets, one of the company’s 10 locations in The City.
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The Warriors may have forged a deal with Mayor Ed Lee for a new, privately financed arena along The City’s waterfront, but the team still faces the thorny city approval process and neighbors with many questions about a project initially presented as a foregone conclusion.
Supervisor Jane Kim — whose district includes the proposed site and who along with the rest of the Board of Supervisors has expressed support in principle for the development — introduced legislation Tuesday to set up a Citizens Advisory Committee to weigh in on the project.
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City officials say they beat their goal of providing summer jobs and paid internships to 5,000 low-income or at-risk youth, rallying private firms and nonprofits to step up when proposed federal funding fell through.
“We filled in — the private sector, the nonprofit sector and The City departments,” Mayor Ed Lee said Tuesday about San Francisco’s Summer Jobs+ Initiative, part of the Obama administration’s national effort on youth employment.
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San Francisco continues to extend a warm hand to the flush-with-cash Chinese business community. That was in evidence Tuesday at City Hall, where a delegation of more than 100 investors and government officials attended a celebration intended to further solidify economic ties with The City.
And while the event itself was largely ceremonial, it put on display the efforts of Mayor Ed Lee, San Francisco’s first Chinese-American mayor, to attract local investment from the world’s largest economy.
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The family of former Raiders offensive lineman Chris Riehm filed a lawsuit Friday contending that traumatic brain injury from repeated head injuries was a cause or contributing factor in Riehm’s death, asserting that the NFL “promoted and mythologized” violence.
Riehm, an offensive lineman for the Raiders from 1986 to 1988, died in March in his home state of Ohio at the age of 50, officially of a heart attack.
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Danielle Bologna’s family remains in hiding even after the recent conviction of an alleged MS-13 gang member for killing her husband and two of her sons four years ago. Now she must relive the trauma a second time.
Wilfredo “Flaco” Reyes is accused of conspiring with Edwin Ramos, the 25-year-old who was sentenced in June to three life terms in prison without the possibility of parole for his role in the 2008 fatal shootings of Anthony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16.
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A motorcyclist killed in a head-on collision on Cesar Chavez Street Saturday morning was identified Sunday by the Medical Examiner’s Office as 25-year-old Constantine Boyko, of San Francisco.
Boyko had been riding eastbound on Cesar Chavez between Evans and Pennsylvania avenues, an industrial area at the southern border of the Potrero Hill neighborhood, when he collided head on with a van traveling westbound, according to police.
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The victim of a fatal shooting Friday night in the Bayview district was identified by the Medical Examiner’s Office on Sunday as 22-year-old Henry Tautolo of San Francisco.
Tautolo was found on the unit block of Nichols Way at the Alice Griffith public-housing complex about 9 p.m. Friday, police reported. He had been shot multiple times in the upper body, police Officer Albie Esparza said.
Tautolo was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where he died.
No arrests have been made and no information about a suspect has been released, police said.
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New and expanding businesses would have to pay more for the transit impacts they have on The City under new legislation proposed by Mayor Ed Lee’s administration, but the Planning Commission agreed Thursday to spare some small businesses from the brunt of the charges.
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Following a marathon session at which supervisors who oppose a proposed $2.5 billion hospital development agreed to delay a vote on the project rather than potentially killing it, Mayor Ed Lee insisted Wednesday that the deal is not dead.
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It’s unclear exactly what Mayor Ed Lee had in mind when he first suggested some form of “stop and frisk” policy to combat The City’s recent surge in gun violence, but on Tuesday he pledged that his solution won’t violate residents’ civil rights.
With homicides and non-fatal shootings on the rise in Ingleside and Bayview, Lee has called for “bold” solutions. But his June suggestion that some form of “stop and frisk” policy could work in San Francisco has received a backlash from civil rights and community groups.
Tuesday, that backlash intensified.
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Even as negotiations over the preservation of St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission threaten to derail a $2.5 billion California Pacific Medical Center construction project, supervisors continue to review other aspects of the controversial deal.
The proposed development would include a new 555-bed acute-care hospital at Cathedral Hill and a seismic rebuild of St. Luke’s, which serves lower-income residents in The City’s southern neighborhoods.
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Court proceedings were thrown into disarray Monday when workers upset about pay cuts walked off the job in a one-day strike.
Only a handful of courtrooms were open to conduct criminal matters at the Hall of Justice as court clerks and other employees represented by Service Employees Union Local 1021 rallied outside. Strikes were also in effect at the civil and juvenile courthouses, totaling more than 200 workers.
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