Features

Cancer awareness ads criticism 

SAN RAFAEL — Two new cancer awareness television ads showing people ignoring a dead body on a hiking trail and reaching over a corpse in a grocery store were criticized by Marin County officials. 

The creators said Tuesday they designed the ads to raise awareness about the high incidence of breast and prostate cancer in the county. 

“It’s not about (public officials) not doing their jobs,” said Judi Shils of Ross, director of the Marin Cancer Project, who commissioned the ads for a Nov. 9 canvassing effort. “It’s about the community not doing its job, collectively — all of us need to wake up.” 

The 30-second spots started airing this week. At least one major television station refused to air them, according to Jeff Goodby of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the San Francisco ad agency that created the ads. 

Pacifica woman held for alleged bridge bomb threats 

REDWOOD CITY — A Pacifica woman accused of calling in phony bomb threats to the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco federal building has been held to answer following a preliminary hearing in a San Mateo County courtroom. 

Authorities say Anita Hanson, 44, was “very drunk” when she called 911 late at night Oct. 10 and in the early morning Oct. 11 claiming that bombs had been placed at the two locations. 

In Hanson's hearing Tuesday, defense motions to gain her release and reduce her bail, which is set at $50,000, were both denied. She was held to answer on two counts of falsely reporting a bomb and three counts of making terrorist threats. 

After Hanson allegedly made the bogus 911 calls, several law enforcement agencies responded to both locations to investigate and discovered the threats were unfounded. The California Highway Patrol said  

officers traced the calls to Hanson's cell phone and sent Pacifica police to arrest her. 

Hanson has pleaded innocent to all charges against her. 

She will be arraigned in San Mateo County Superior Court Nov. 14. 

Activists dies from bus accident 

SAN FRANCISCO — A Marin County man died in San Francisco General Hospital Wednesday morning from head injuries he received while standing through the skylight of a double-decker bus passing through a tunnel en route to a peace rally in the city Saturday. 

Hospital spokeswoman Gloria Rodriguez said Tony Hernandez died at 11:43 a.m. in the intensive care unit of the hospital where he was on life support. 

Dianne Canning, of Sebastopol, also was injured when she, like Hernandez, was struck on the head by a building overhang at the end of the Broadway Tunnel in San Francisco. She remains in critical condition in the intensive care unit.  

Hernandez and Canning were among about 25 people riding in a school bus.