Travel between San Francisco and the Big Easy just got a little bit easier.More than five years after United Airlines suspended direct service between San Francisco and New Orleans, the airline announced its first such direct flight since Hurricane Katrina will depart Thursday morning.Direct service, which had been suspended immediately following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, will resume with a flight departing from New Orleans on Thursday that is expected to arrive in San Francisco shortly before 10 a.m.
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Traffic is once again flowing on northbound Interstate Highway 280 in San Francisco after a minor-injury collision blocked a segment of the roadway Thursday morning, a California Highway Patrol sergeant said.Located just north of U.S. Highway 101, the crash was reported by a driver at 4:56 a.m. and involved three vehicles, CHP Sgt. John Carman said.Emergency medical personnel from the San Francisco fire department responded to the scene of the crash and transported an unknown number of victims who sustained minor injuries, Carman said.
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A former American Airlines employee at Mineta San Jose International Airport is facing 66 felony charges for allegedly stealing and using customer credit card numbers.Prosecutors claim Micheline Johnson, 49, of Concord, skimmed customers' credit card numbers for several years while she worked as a customer service agent.They say she used those numbers on counterfeit credit cards to make purchases of more than $480,000 at Safeway stores in California, Nevada and Washington.
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Santa Clara County's new district attorney, Jeff Rosen, Wednesday announced the formation of a unit that will use DNA evidence to investigate unsolved crimes, fulfilling a promise he made at the outset of his campaign.The cold-case unit will use DNA evidence to investigate unsolved murders, rapes and violent assaults.
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The Carnival Splendor cruise ship, which underwent weeks of repair at the Port of San Francisco, is leaving for Long Beach tonight.A fire started in the engine room of the Carnival Splendor on Nov. 8, and knocked out the ship's propulsion abilities. The ship was left drifting 150 miles south of San Diego without any way of getting to land.No one was injured in the fire, but about 4,500 crewmembers and passengers were stuck at sea for three days. Coast Guard crews and others had to fly in food, water and medical assistance before the ship was tugged to San Diego.
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A cookware store in San Francisco's Marina District was robbed at gunpoint on Tuesday night, police and an employee at a nearby business said.The robbery was reported at about 7:30 p.m. at a store in the 2000 block of Chestnut Street, police said.An employee at a nearby store, who asked not to be named, said the robbery happened at the Williams-Sonoma at the corner of Chestnut and Fillmore streets.
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The Berkeley City Council has rejected a resolution that would have invited "one or two" Guantanamo Bay detainees to resettle in Berkeley.Four council members voted in favor of the resolution late Tuesday night and only one member, Gordon Wozniak, voted against it. However, four members abstained and the measure failed because it needed five "yes" votes to pass.
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A judge ruled today that a man accused of fatally shooting three in-laws at their Oakland apartment on Thanksgiving Day 2006 can no longer represent himself because he has repeatedly engaged in misconduct in front of jurors.Alameda County Superior Court Judge Vernon Nakahara said Asmerom Gebreselassie, 47, "subverted the integrity of the trial" by refusing to follow the court's orders, making what the judge described as "self-serving statements" and trying to intimidate a key prosecution witness by yelling at him.
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A large sculpture that has been in San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza since May was being removed Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Arts Commission said.
Click on the photo to the right to see a slideshow of the sculpture being dismantled.
"Three Heads Six Arms," a 26-foot-tall sculpture by Chinese artist Zhang Huan, was installed on the east side of the plaza in May to celebrate the 30th anniversary of San Francisco's sister-city relationship with Shanghai, China, commission spokeswoman Kate Patterson said.
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An employee at a market in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood pleaded not guilty Wednesday morning to charges that he shot a customer after an argument over a dog last week.Sam Kazzouh, 43, of Fairfield, allegedly shot a man inside Fred’s New Lite Supermarket, located near the intersection of Haight Street and Masonic Avenue, at about 1:15 p.m. on Feb. 9, police said.
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Redwood City officials are hoping rain will not dampen the arrival of the San Francisco Giants World Series trophy, which is scheduled to be on display in Courthouse Square on Wednesday afternoon.
A public viewing of the trophy is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. in the outdoor plaza in front of the old county courthouse, located at Broadway and Middlefield Road.
The city has set up a tent to protect the trophy and fans coming to see it in the event of rain, according to the city manager's office.
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After a month-long narcotics investigation, police on Tuesday seized more than 37 pounds of marijuana, thousands of dollars in drug sale proceeds and a semiautomatic pistol from a Fairfield home.Police said members of the narcotic investigations unit were looking into drug sales by a man living in the 100 block of Valencia Drive.The narcotics and gang units served a search warrant at the home at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. During the search, detectives located and confiscated the processed marijuana, a pistol, and approximately $4,500 in cash, police said.
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The California Highway Patrol has reopened the connector from northbound U.S. Highway 101 to northbound Interstate Highway 280 in San Francisco after a nearly seven-hour closure related to a fallen sign.The connector was shut down shortly before 12:30 a.m. The damaged sign was a large green highway sign pointing motorists toward Highway 280 and downtown San Francisco.CHP Officer Jonathan Short did not know how the sign became damaged and could not confirm reports that a passing truck had struck it.The connector reopened at about 7:20 a.m.
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The death sentence of a San Francisco man who tortured, stabbed and murdered a graduate student in 1985 was upheld by a federal appeals court Tuesday.Robert Fairbank, now 58, was convicted and sentenced to death in San Mateo County Superior Court in 1989 for the murder of San Francisco State University graduate student Wendy Cheek, 24. Cheek disappeared on Dec. 12, 1985, and her body was found near the Crystal Springs Reservoir in San Mateo County two days later. She had been beaten and stabbed and her body was partly burned.
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A heavily traveled commuter route in San Francisco remains closed Wednesday morning while Caltrans crews work to remove debris scattered across the roadway, according to the California Highway Patrol.The connector between northbound U.S. Highway 101 and northbound Interstate Highway 280 has been closed since just after midnight, when the CHP received reports of debris dangling from a sign over the slow lane.
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