SFGate

VP Biden hits town for VIP fundraiser

It will be at least a few more weeks before President Obama makes his first post-election visit to San Francisco, but Vice President Joe Biden will be in town this weekend on a fundraising mission for U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Biden is slated to join Boxer and fellow Democrats at back-to-back events on Saturday: a $500-a-head cocktail affair at the Fairmont, followed by a $5,000-a-head dinner at the home of Lydia and Doug Shorenstein.

With ex-Hewlett Packard CEO and Republican Carly Fiorina revving up to challenge Boxer, you can bet they'll have plenty to dish about.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 11 at 01:12 PM

Savage silenced in S.F.

Acid-tongued, conservative talk show host Michael Savage has been silenced in the very city he loves to whack -- San Francisco. The syndicated host of "Savage Nation'' has been dropped from local Clear Channel station KNEW-910 AM.

According to the station's Web site, "We have decided to go in a different philosophical and ideological direction, featuring more contemporary content and more local information."

Savage is being replaced during the 3 p.m.-7 p.m. drive-time slot by John and Ken, a couple of younger and conservative-leaning Southern California talkers. A Wikipedia check shows they are pro-death penalty, anti-tax, anti-illegal immigration and pro-gays in the military.

Savage, who has made plenty of headlines over the years by ripping San Francisco liberals, claims to have an audience of 8 million to 10 million listeners on nearly 400 stations nationwide.

The Marin County resident recently made headlines when he asked Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- whom he once described as a "dangerous human being'' -- to help him after he was banned from Britain for failing to represent the United Kingdom's "values."

He did not immediately return a call today seeking comment.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 10 at 11:56 AM

Stabbed boy's fear

The young boy who was stabbed on his first solo Muni bus ride last week is scared to leave the hospital -- the scruffy man who plunged a knife into his abdomen still hasn't been caught. Check the update here.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 09 at 09:44 AM

No help from S.F. on big SoCal fire

When the state asked for help from San Francisco's Fire Department in fighting the huge Station Fire north of Los Angeles, the city -- for the first time anyone could remember -- had to say no. Find out why here.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 08 at 10:00 AM

A boy's horror on his first solo Muni ride

Laila Elfazouzi says she'll never let her son ride Muni again -- not after the 11-year-old was stabbed and critically wounded by an apparently homeless man in an unprovoked attack while riding home from school.

It was the boy's very first time riding the bus alone.

Police have been searching for a "scruffy-looking'' suspect since the attack Tuesday, but haven't had much luck -- in part, because the rear security camera on the 49-Mission bus where the attack occurred was on the fritz.

The boy, Hatim Mansori, had been in the intensive care unit at San Francisco General Hospital after undergoing surgery for a stab wound to his liver and stomach. But today, he was listed in good condition as doctors prepared to move him to another unit.

"He's doing much better,'' hospital spokeswoman Rachael Kagan said.

According to the boy's mother, Hatim -- a sixth-grader at Marina Middle School -- called her after baseball practice to say the team had finished up early and "not to worry, he would take the bus home."

Elfazouzi, a single mother who lives with her three children off Alemany Boulevard, said she was concerned -- and made sure her son repeatedly called her from his cell phone to give progress reports on his ride home.

She spoke to him last as the bus was headed down Mission Street, at about 13th Street.

A short time later, at about 6:10 p.m., Elfazouzi said she tried calling again -- just as her phone rang. This time it was a woman calling from her son's phone at 19th and Mission streets to say he had been hurt.

Elfazouzi said she didn't understand most of the call, other than there was "something about a knife'' and that she needed to get to San Francisco General.

Elfazouzi said doctors performed emergency surgery on her son, and told her that had he arrived five minutes later he would have bled to death.

"It was like something you see on TV -- only it was in this life with my child,'' Elfazouzi said.

Witnesses provided police with a full description of the suspect, who apparently ran off the bus following the attack.

Authorities say they hope to release a composite sketch of the man soon. He is described as a "scruffy-looking'' African American, in his mid-20s to 30s, 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, with dark facial hair. He was wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans and dark shoes, and was described as having "a strong body odor."

But a Muni surveillance tape that might have captured a full view of the man,as well as the attack,turned up blank.

Muni spokesman Judson True told us today that the equipment simply wasn't working. "It's quite unfortunate,'' he said.

As for Elfazouzi, she's furious.

"What happened to my son could happen to anybody -- it doesn't matter the age,'' she said. "Muni is very dangerous."

Police ask anyone with information to call the department's annonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 04 at 04:03 PM

TV's Ross McGowan retiring

Venerable TV host Ross McGowan plans to retire next month from KTVU Channel 2 after a four-decade career in broadcasting, the station said today.

McGowan, for 15 years the host of KTVU's "Mornings On Two,'' disclosed his plans this morning to station employees. His retirement will be effective Oct. 2.

McGowan got his start in radio before hosting a nightly talk show in Seattle on KING-TV. He moved to San Francisco in 1978, and for 14 years was the co-host of "People Are Talking'' on KPIX.

But his most enduring role has been as the "Mornings on Two" host, holding his own with a Bay Area-focused news show opposite the likes of NBC's "Today" show and ABC's "Good Morning America."

In a statement released by Channel 2, McGowan said, "I've had a great run at KTVU, and getting up at 2 o'clock in the morning for the past 17 years hasn’t been as difficult as you might think, although I'm looking forward to tossing out the alarm clock.

"Every morning, Bay Area viewers have allowed me into their homes," McGowan said. "That's an invite I've never taken for granted."

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 03 at 10:30 AM

It's an outrage! Or not

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger seized on the Jaycee Lee Dugard case to press his call for more state agents to monitor parolees, seeing as how kidnap-rape suspect Phillip Craig Garrido was a paroled sex offender whose alleged abduction of Dugard when she was 11 went undetected for 18 years.

One problem: Garrido's current parole agent already had a reduced caseload.

The agent had "about 40 to 50 cases, compared to the average of 70," said Gordon Hinkle, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabiliation.

The reason, said Hinkle: "He was handling sex offenders and others who required more maintenance."

That's information the governor apparently didn't have Tuesday when, commenting publicly for the first time on the Garrido case, he said: "There's too many parolees for one parole agent. It's a 70-to-1 ratio. What we want to do is cut it down to a 45-to-1 ratio."

A spokesman for the governor said his boss was speaking only in general terms about the need for parole reform, and wasn't necessarily talking specifically about the Garrido case.

Garrido's parole agent, by the way, managed to make it out to the alleged kidnapper's home outside Antioch two or three times a month since December, Hinkle said. So checking up on him wasn't the problem. The problem turned out to be that the agent never saw the backyard compound where Garrido allegedly kept Dugard and the two daughters authorities say he fathered with her.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 02 at 11:10 AM

Model parents or murderers?

Oakland police suspect Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell of harboring dark secrets in the disappearance of their foster son, 5-year-old Hasanni Campbell. But if that's the case, it will come as a big surprise to San Francisco social workers. They've been monitoring the Fremont couple's care of the boy and his year-old sister and report nothing but good things. Read all about it here.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 02 at 09:19 AM

Caption this

Matier & Ross invite readers to caption this photograph. Send suggestions to matierandross@sfchronicle.com.

Posted By: Max Garrone (Email) | Sep 01 at 05:06 PM

Mail-order spy cams do Chevron's dirty work

Chevron's hopes for knocking out a $27 billion environmental lawsuit over decades-old oil spills down in Ecuador ride on a pair of pen and watch recording devices, straight from an airline's mail-order SkyMall magazine.

Chevron officials went public this week with secret video recordings they say show the judge has already decided to rule against the company, and that purportedly links others to a $3 million bribery scheme.

Chevron claims it was given the explosive tapes in June by an a couple of businessmen -- one an Ecuadoran who once worked as a Chevron logistics contractor and the other an American with no connection to the oil company -- who were looking to line up water cleanup work when they stumbled across the allegedly corrupt scheme against Chevron.

With that, the would-be crime busters made their mail-order purchases -- a $150 camcorder pen and a $150 "Spyer Agent Watch" with a hidden color camcorder -- and began their secret tapings.

Posted By: Matier and Ross (Email) | Sep 01 at 04:37 PM