A
    Aaron Sankin

    Aaron Sankin

    Assistant San Francisco Editor, The Huffington Post

  • A Major Victory For Trans Rights

    Transgender advocates were handed a victory earlier this week when the Department of Justice ruled that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) broke the law in not offering a job to a ballistics expert after discovering that she was transgender. In June of 2011, Mia Macy, a military veteran who had worked as a detective on the Phoenix, Ariz. police force, filed suit against the ATF. In it, she claimed that her transgender status was the reason she was not selected for a position as a ballistics forensics technician at an agency field office in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek.

  • Will This State Introduce Saturday Voting?

    One California legislator, state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), is looking to increase the number of Golden State voters who actually to make it to their polling places by allowing them to cast ballots on Saturdays. Yee's bill, which was approved by the California Senate's Elections Committee earlier this month, would require all municipalities in the state to open up polling stations for at least one Saturday during the month preceding each Election Day. "The fact that elections are held on a workday leaves many Californians in a situation where they have to choose between voting and fulfilling personal and professional obligations," Yee said in a statement.

  • Too Dangerous To Study?

    Amid the unrest in Egypt, colleges across the United States -- most prominently the entire University of California system -- have suspended their study abroad programs in Cairo, a move that's sparked outrage among some students and alumni. "The situation in Egypt deteriorated very quickly" said Ines DeRomana, director of health safety and emergency response at the University of California's Education Abroad Program. The decision to suspend the program was made after the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning telling American citizens to avoid visiting Egypt due to the country's political and social unrest.

  • Meet The Future Of Cycling

    San Francisco's Department of Public Health had a problem: the only thing growing faster than the number of bikers pedaling though the city's streets was the number of bike-related accidents. The class's professor, Indhira Rojas, explained that the overall goal of the project was less about developing a fully functioning project from scratch than was it was about pushing forward the ideas about what's possible when it comes to bike safety--both with Intel and the city of San Francisco.

  • 'People Were Staring At Us Like We Were Terrorists'

    With two young kids at home, it isn't often that Manjot Singh and his wife get a night to themselves. When an evening opened up earlier this month, the couple took the opportunity to take in a showing of Man of Steel at an AMC movie theater in the San Francisco suburb of Emeryville. Singh and his wife bought their tickets, found their seats and, before the film started, Singh got up to get something to drink from the concession stand.

  • 'Hope Has Triumphed'

    An ebullient crowd at San Francisco City Hall erupted into cheers early Wednesday morning upon hearing the news that the Supreme Court had handed supporters of gay marriage two major victories: a ruling of unconstitutionality on the Defense of Marriage Act and an effective dismissal of California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8. Only moments after the results of both decisions were broadcast, dozens of city and state officials descended the City Hall steps into the rotunda, a room that had seen a multitude of gay and lesbian marriage ceremonies during the last period when gay marriage was legal in the city. "It feels good to have love triumph over ignorance, to have equality triumph over discrimination, and have that discrimination end here in San Francisco," said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who entered the room accompanied by Phyllis Lyon, a nearly 90-year-old member of the first lesbian couple to be married in the city in 2004.

  • OH SNAP! Rock Legend Burns '90s Pop Icon

    In an interview published earlier this week, Vanderslice told The Onion's A.V. Club that his one interaction with the '90s alt-rock superstars left such a bad taste in his mouth that every time he hears the song "Semi-Charmed Life" it triggers, "this feeling of total anguish. Vanderslice was participating in a recurring feature called HateSong where the pop culture blog invites artists, actors and comedians to dish about their least favorite songs of all time. The series has previously seen Al Madrigal complain about how Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop" made him nervous about having to explain the concept of "golden showers" to his 10-year old and Echo & The Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch slagging off The Beatles.

  • Your Commute May Get A Whole Lot Worse...

    As negotiations between BART management and the unions representing nearly 3,000 employees grow more contentious, a strike that could leave the transit system's 400,000 daily riders stranded seems nearly inevitable. The contract between BART and its workers expires on June 30. An affirmative vote seems relatively likely, considering the unions filed a lawsuit in Alameda County court on Monday charging that BART management was not bargaining in good faith.

  • CA Taxpayers Footing Massive Bil For Govt Employee Perk

    To understand the hidden costs of one of California's sweetest public employee perks, feast your eyes on Exhibit A: Alameda County's top-paid public official, Susan Muranishi. Not only did the county administrator rack up $462,000 in gross pay last year, and not only did taxpayers contribute an additional $118,000 to her retirement plan, they also picked up the bill for something Muranishi was supposed to pay: the $43,000 "employee" contribution to her pension. It's called the "pension pickup" -- and like a rich uncle picking up the tab at a big family dinner, Bay Area taxpayers footed the bill for more than $221 million last year for the employee share of 63,000 public workers' pension contributions.

  • Bay Area Firefighter Crowned 'Toughest Competitor Alive'

    On June 9, Father's Day, Ben Crew became the "toughest competitor alive" at the 2013 U.S. Police and Firefighter Championships in San Diego. Battalion Chief Dave Urrutia said the U.S. Police and Firefighter Championship, which began in 1967, is an Olympic style event with different categories. Police and firefighters can compete in group events or, like Crew, compete solo in the Toughest Competitor Alive.

  • Football Player Crossbow Murderer Up For Parole

    The freedom of James Mackey, after spending almost half his life in state prison for the crossbow murder of a Stockton real estate agent, could be in the hands of Gov. Jerry Brown by next month. Mackey, 49, was found eligible for parole at a March 21 hearing at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione. Mackey and Carl Charles Hancock each agreed to a guilty plea in 1989 to the bizarre first-degree murder of Stockton Realtor Laurence J. Carnegie.

  • WATCH: Hero Passenger Saves Runaway Bus From Four Lanes Of Traffic

    When a San Francisco city bus accidentally careened through a public park on Thursday afternoon, it was only the quick thinking heroics of one passenger that stopped the massive vehicle from driving straight into four lanes of oncoming traffic. At around 6:20 p.m., a 43-Masonic Muni bus carrying a dozen passenger collided with a black Volkswagen Jetta that was attempting to make an allegedly illegal turn in front of the bus. "People were falling on the ground, glass was shattering, we were running into trees," passenger Dr. Frank Primus, who is in his residency to become a surgeon at University of California San Francisco, told KTVU.

  • DRINK UP: California Eyes Nonprofit Bar

    To that effect, a group in San Francisco called United Libations is looking to create California's first nonprofit bar, where all of the money generated by the operation will be donated to fund small scale charity projects in countries around the world. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • Great News For California College Students

    Earlier this week, the California legislature approved a bill that would cut the fees charged to many middle class Golden State college students by up to 40 percent. "For far too long, Californians have been squeezed out of a higher education by the skyrocketing tuition rates at the CSU and UC systems, forcing students to drop out of college or take on massive student debt that will negatively impact them for years, possibly decades, to come," the bill's author, California State Assembly Speaker John Peréz (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. The legislation would slash fees by 40 percent for students whose families make less than $100,000 per year and by 10 percent for families earning less than $150,000.

  • The Landlords From Hell

    San Francisco couple Kip and Nicole Macy were sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison and labeled the "landlords from hell" for waging what could only be described as a campaign of terror. "The actions of these defendants are so outlandish and brazen that it sounds like the plot line of a horror movie," said San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón in a statement announcing the couple's sentencing on Wednesday. The Macys, both in their 30s, pleaded guilty to felony counts of residential burglary, stalking and attempted grand theft stemming from their efforts to evict tenants from an apartment building on Clementina Street in San Francisco's South of Market district.

  • The Unluckiest Group In The Search For An Affordable Apartment

    Marisol was at the end of her rope. The 24-year-old San Francisco State University student, her husband Zach and their dog Lucy had spent months vainly searching for a new place to live. "We'd meet the landlord and we'd be getting along great," recounted Marisol, who didn't want to be identified by her last name to avoid unwanted attention to her immigration status.

  • Anti-Gay Musician Playing During Pride?

    UPDATE: According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Michelle Shocked show scheduled during San Francisco Pride has been cancelled. In a statement, San Francisco Examiner Publisher Todd Vogt said: "I am officially canceling the plan to have Michelle Shocked come to San Francisco and perform a free concert and apologize for her recent anti-gay comments. Having Ms. Shocked stand in front of a San Francisco audience and perform her music was intended to help heal, but has only further angered and offended the community.

  • Well That's One Reason To Tip Your Cabbie...

    Rule number one: always tip your cab driver. One unfortunate San Francisco passenger learned that the hard way after a fateful decision not to tip landed him in the hospital. Unsurprisingly, according to San Francisco Police Department spokesman Sgt. Dennis Toomer, this led to an argument because zero dollars is well below the industry standard of 15 to 20 percent.

  • Oldest Black Bookstore In America May Close Doors

    Founded in San Francisco's Fillmore District in 1960 by Raye and Julian Richardson, Marcus Books has been a hub of the city's black culture for over half a century. The store has hosted readings by luminaries like Toni Morrison, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Oprah Winfrey. Marcus Books has teamed up with local nonprofit Westside Community Services in an effort to save the business.

  • Willie Brown Bridge?

    For the past half century, there's arguably been no California politician more successful than Willie Brown. Now a group of legislators want to rename the Bay Bridge in his honor. A resolution to rename the bridge was introduced earlier this week by Assemblyman Isadore Hall, III (D-Compton) at the request of the California NAACP.