OAKLAND  (AP) — Police have arrested members of Occupy Oakland who were demonstrating in front of City Hall.
KGO-TV reports that officers in riot gear moved in on the protesters in Frank Ogawa Plaza late Wednesday night and made several arrests.
Occupy Oakland organizers said as many as 12 people were arrested.
The police action came two days after the city revoked a permit for the protesters to set up a teepee in the plaza.
The teepee was supposed to be removed nightly and not be used for cooking or food storage.
But police say the protesters refused to comply despite multiple warnings and encounters.
Family of man killed in
hit-and-run sought
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco officials say they haven't been able to find any relatives of a man killed in a Christmas Eve hit-and-run or figure out where he lived.
The city's medical examiner was able to identify the victim as 59-year-old Eddy Mendez. He was struck and killed under a Highway 101 overpass sometime before 8 a.m. on Dec. 24.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports 23-year-old Juan Martinez of San Francisco told police he had consumed more than a dozen beers before going driving the night before Mendez's body was found.
Martinez is facing felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter charges. He has pleaded not guilty
Medical examiner official Will Ahern says Mendez was 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds with gray hair and a gray beard. He was carrying a blue backpack.
Oakland reports first
 homicide of the year
OAKLAND (AP) — Police say a 19-year-old Oakland man was shot and killed Wednesday night, making him the city's first homicide of the year.
An Oakland police spokesman says when officers responded to a report of gunshots on the 1800 block of East 25th Street around 8:45 p.m. they found Isaac White suffering from several gunshot wounds.
He was taken to a hospital, where he died of his wounds.
A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered by Oakland police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect in the case.
The fatal shooting comes after Oakland recorded 110 homicides last year, marking the first increase in slayings in the city after four years of declining totals.
Santa Cruz County weighs
 curbing plastic bag ban
SANTA CRUZ (AP) — Santa Cruz County is considering scaling back from its ban on take-out plastic bags.
The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports that county officials are weighing whether to exempt restaurants from the bag ban, making it resemble similar laws in other California cities and counties.
The county law passed in September bans take-out plastic bags except for small bags used for produce, meats and frozen foods. It also imposes a 10-cent fee on paper bags for the first year and 25 cents after that. It's scheduled to go into effect in unincorporated areas on March 15.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to consider revising the ordinance sometime this month after the San Francisco-based Save the Plastic Bag Coalition sued the county over the ban.
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