Local Briefs

The event will be "town hall" style with no set agenda, Galligan said. City staff will be on hand to help Galligan share ideas and discuss community issues in the city.

"I look forward to it," Galligan said.

The event will take place 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 18 in the City Council chambers at City Hall, 501 Primrose Road.

Gang violence snuffed out

A suspected gang fight never took place at Sequoia High School Wednesday one day after a crowd of nearly 70 kids from both Redwood City and out of the area fought at Sequoia Station.

On Tuesday, police responded to a report of a large gang fight at the Sequoia Station shopping center. It was mainly kids from out of the area - including Woodside High and Menlo-Atherton, said Redwood City police Capt. Scott Warner.

One juvenile was arrested for assault, Warner said. The next day, there were rumors at both Menlo-Atherton and Sequoia high schools that a large gang may break out at Sequoia after school, Warner said.

Redwood City police sent out an alert to neighboring police forces Wednesday morning to be ready to help them respond to the fight.

The large police presence may have stemmed any violence.

"Nothing happened. There were a lot more of us," Warner said.

Two power outages

Two power outages hit Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers on the Peninsula last night, said PG&E spokesman David Eisenhauer.

The first outage in Atherton occurred around 5:10 p.m. after a vehicle crashed into a pole on northbound El Camino Real near Watkins Avenue, Atherton police reported.

The second outage occurred in South San Francisco, where 6,336 customers lost power around 5:10 p.m. after a small tree fell into some lines in the 100 block of Canterbury Street. Eisenhauer said that outage was restored at 7 p.m.

Councilman's son charged with rape

The son of Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente has been charged with raping a 15-year-old girl.

Ignacio Rafael De La Fuente Jr., 32, of Redwood City, appeared in Alameda Superior Court on Tuesday. He is held without bail on a charge of forcible rape, including an accusation of kidnapping the teen on April 16.

"We're here to support our son. We love our son. We hope that everything comes out all right at the end," De La Fuente Sr. said outside court. The elder De La Fuente is a candidate for Oakland mayor who has worked against prostitution and sexual assaults in his district.

Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith ordered De La Fuente Jr. to return Friday for a bail hearing. Smith also imposed a gag order barring attorneys and police from discussing the case.

Police say they have physical evidence linking De La Fuente Jr. to the teenage victim.

Millions donated to bring back fish

Boosting efforts to bring salmon and steelhead trout back to the Bay Area, a wildlife foundation has donated nearly $2.2 million to help restore fish habitats.

Eleven grants, to be matched by state and local agencies, will go toward improving salmon habitat in San Francisco Bay tributaries, particularly for the central coast steelhead trout. The steelhead is listed as a threatened species.

Among the donation, two $500,000 awards will be used to remove obstacles in the lower end of the 700-square-mile Alameda Creek watershed, into which healthy steelhead trout have repeatedly been seen trying to migrate.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit created by Congress in 1984, awarded the grants in coordination with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the state Department of Fish and Game and Caltrans.

"It's a first step in a whole series of fish passage projects in the lower creek that are really the key to steelhead restoration on Alameda Creek," said Jeff Miller, director of the Alameda Creek Alliance.

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NOVATO, Calif. (AP) - Researchers hoping to track the "disease markers" behind breast cancer are starting a new program where they profile women and collect blood samples in an effort to fight the disease.

The blood samples will be Marin County's first venture into "biomonitoring" - a process that tracks biological disease markers in the body.

"What we're getting down to is, 'What's really going on with women in Marin County?"' said Kathy Koblick, a breast cancer program coordinator working with the Federal Centers for Disease Control.

Marin's rate for invasive breast cancer was an average of 176.6 cases per 100,000 women per year during 1997-2001, according to the latest data available. That is 15 percent higher than the rest of the state and 20 percent higher than the national average.

The county is expecting additional federal grants this summer for ongoing studies on counties with higher-than-normal rates of breast cancer.