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Paul Gackle

At Cow Palace gun show, background checks are nothing new – or burdensome

cow palace gun show
DALY CITY — California state law requires background checks for firearm purchases at gun shows, and local owners think the law should be adopted nationwide. The national gun debate is heating up again as Congress considers legislation that would close loopholes on background checks for firearm purchases at gun shows. While some Second Amendment advocates are up in arms, several owners attending the Crossroads Gun Show at the Cow Palace over the weekend said California’s laws make sense. Read More

SF Bulls stumble in Game 3, fall behind in playoff series

DALY CITY — Back-to-back second-period goals by the Alaska Aces sunk the San Francisco Bulls in Game 3 of their first-round Kelly Cup playoff series against the ECHL’s top team. The Aces bounced back from Thomas Heemskerk’s Game 2 shutout with a 4-1 win Thursday, taking a 2-1 series lead over the Bulls. Top-seeded Alaska jumped on the board first when Alex Hudson beat Heemskerk with a quick snapper on the rush at the 2:58 mark of the second. The Aces entered the game 34-0-6 when scoring the first goal. Read More

SF trash rates would increase for many under new proposal

A new trash rate proposal being discussed today could lead to higher garbage bills in the near future for San Franciscans, but also lower rates for those who reduce the waste sent to landfills. As the structure stands now, residents pay only for the refuse can — the recycling and compost bins are free. That would change under the proposal being heard today at City Hall for the first of several public meetings. “As we move toward zero waste, we’re going to have to change the way the pricing of the industry works,” Recology spokesman Adam Alberti said. Read More

Warriors guard Stephen Curry has star power

stephen curry
Mark Jackson delivered on his promise, albeit a year behind schedule. No one is complaining. As the 2011-12 season winded down, the Warriors’ playoff drought seemed destined to continue in perpetuity and Jackson looked like a blustering blowhard, headed for a quick exit from his first coaching gig. Lofty ambitions seemed incapable of solving the primary problem: The team lacked a megastar, a marquee name, a nucleus to build a playoff team around. Read More

Goalie Heemskerk peaking at just the right time for San Francisco Bulls

sf bulls
DALY CITY — Thomas Heemskerk didn’t know if he’d be starting in between the pipes for Game 2 of the San Francisco Bulls’ first-round playoff series with the Alaska Aces when he awoke on Saturday morning. He had surrendered four goals on 28 shots in Game 1 and coach Pat Curcio yanked him after 35 minutes.    But Heemskerk returned to the net after Curcio challenged him in a face-to-face meeting and he recorded the first shutout in franchise history to even the series at 1-1. Read More

Black, Pacific Islander students in San Francisco improve graduation rates

international studies academy
Black and Pacific Islander students in The City have been graduating high school at a higher rate, and local educators say the key has been changing the mindset of kids living in disadvantaged communities. In the past two years, the graduation rate among black students in the San Francisco Unified School District has increased significantly, jumping from 56.9 percent in the 2009-10 school year to 70.8 percent last school year, according to data released Tuesday by the California Department of Education. Read More

Cal's Michael Weaver hitting the big stage at the Masters

michael weaver
Unlike his teammates Michael Kim, Joel Stalter and Brandon Hagy, Michael Weaver has not been ranked No. 1 among NCAA golfers at any point this season. But all three members of the No. 1-ranked Cal men’s golf team would surely trade that honor for a chance to stand in his spikes this week. Read More

Cal appears poised to challenge Stanford for Pac-12 supremacy

Lindsay Gottlieb, Tara VanDerveer
A record-breaking season for the Cal women’s basketball team ended in agonizing defeat Sunday, but the Bears’ first Final Four appearance is just the first rung in a high ladder for Lindsay Gottlieb’s program. Throughout the season, Gottlieb said one of her team’s goals was to “put Cal in the conversation of the most elite teams in the country.” Cal succeeded. The Bears won a record 32 games, a share of the Pac-12 Conference title and even President Barack Obama recognized them as one of the country’s top teams in his presidential bracket. Read More

Brittany Boyd’s enduring drive is a big reason why Cal is in the Final Four

Brittany Boyd
Brittany Boyd is super-competitive and it was obvious to her best friend, Elisha Davis, the first time they met at AAU practice 10 years ago. As a third-grader, Davis knew how to spin a basketball on the tips of her fingers and Boyd, a fourth-grader, was more than frustrated that she couldn’t keep up. Read More

Baseball is back at AT&T Park, and so is business

MoMo's San Francisco
As baseball returns to the ballpark by the Bay, it brings with it brisk business for the neighborhood. Barry Zito will cut the ribbon on six months of excitement, agony and joy at China Basin when he tosses out the first pitch to the St. Louis Cardinals at AT&T Park today. And at the numerous bars and restaurants surrounding the ballpark, it marks one of the biggest days of the year and also kicks off six months of good business. Read More

SF Bulls embrace underdog role as ECHL playoffs open

After weeks of anticipation, the puck is finally dropping on the San Francisco Bulls’ first-ever playoff series and the team will need to play near-perfect hockey to advance. The eighth-place Bulls (25-38-9) will be wearing the underdog hat when they faceoff against the Alaska Aces (49-15-8) for Game 1 of their first-round Kelly Cup Playoff series in Anchorage tonight. But if they limit their mistakes, receive solid goaltending and play with a balanced attack, coach Pat Curcio believes they can upset the ECHL’s top team. Read More

America’s Cup unveils plans for waterfront village, park

america's cup
With America’s Cup racing set to kick off in three months, a key piece of The City’s waterfront is about to undergo a major facelift. The summer of racing begins July 4 when the first boats take to the water for the Louis Vuitton Cup, and in the next couple of weeks organizers will begin transforming Piers 27-29 into America’s Cup Park, the hub of the world’s biggest sailing event. “It will be a focal point for the 2013 America’s Cup,” CEO Stephen Barclay said. “It is part of the re-energized city waterfront.” Read More

Lindsay Gottlieb making remarkable impact on Cal in just her second year

Lindsay Gottlieb
Sandy Barbour raised some eyebrows when she hired Sonny Dykes to replace Jeff Tedford as Cal’s football coach in December. Dykes’ Louisiana Tech team didn’t qualify for a bowl game last year, his defense allowed 526 yards per outing (the most in the nation) and his Texas roots seemed to clash with Berkeley’s uber-lefty persona. Yes, Dykes might seem like an odd choice, but we should probably give Barbour the benefit of the doubt. In her eight-plus years at Cal, she’s proved that she knows how to pick a winner. Read More

Ouellet, Grant part of Bulls’ playoff roster

sf bulls
DALY CITY — Dean Ouellet is back in town and the San Francisco Bulls are keeping forward Tommy Grant for the playoffs. But top-scorer Peter Sivak is staying in Worcester for at least another week. Read More

SF schools net nearly $20,000 through fundraiser

Fresh & Easy’s Shop for Schools program
San Francisco schools raised $19,624 last year through Fresh & Easy’s Shop for Schools program, the company announced The program is simple: schools within three miles of a Fresh & Easy store collected receipts from Sept. 12 to Dec. 31 and received $1 for every $20 in purchases. Schools also held a “Shopping night” where students, teachers and parents worked the register and bagged groceries while collecting 5 percent of the store’s revenue that night. Read More
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