San Francisco Chronicle

A vandal, apparently well versed in poetry, is slicing through libraries in California's Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, chopping out the contents of volumes of modern verse. Armed with...

Blues man John Lee Hooker, wearing a suit and tie, sits on the queen-size bed that crowds the tiny bedroom in his home. His handshake is feather-light, and he has...

Poor Olive. She's a Magellanic penguin, mated for life to Bluto, the stud of Penguin Island at the San Francisco Zoo. For years she has endured his philandering with most...

Scientists in Ethiopia reported the astonishing discovery of a largely complete, 4.4 million-year-old skeleton, a representative of mankind's oldest known ancestor. The find includes hip, foot and leg bones that...

The opera isn't over until the fat lady scratches. For a month, members of the San Francisco Opera have been scratching and clawing like jealous sopranos-all because of microscopic scabies...

The opera isn't over until the fat lady scratches. For a month, members of the San Francisco Opera have been itching and scratching because of microscopic scabies mites, which have...

The Sierra Club, one of the nation's largest environmental groups, faces major cutbacks because of a $6.8 million operating loss over the last four years, club officers told chapter leaders...

On a stifling summer day, Harry Connick Jr.'s hair is uncoiffed, his clothes are slightly disheveled and he's dripping with sweat when he comes into the room. For a moment,...

Anyone who's tried baking a cake or cooking a hunk of beef in a microwave oven is familiar with the usual results: The cake fails to brown or develop any...

Disney's blockbuster film "The Lion King" has aroused a roar of protest from those who say the record-breaking animation feature borrows substantially from a Japanese comic created 40 years ago....