BERKELEY — The Cal defense continued to defy expectations Saturday until six turnovers by quarterback Ross Bowers and a costly roll of the dice by coach Justin Wilcox flipped the script in a 30-20 loss to No. 5 USC.

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The Bears and Trojans were tied at 13-all with 3 minutes left in the third quarter when Wilcox kept his offense on the field for a fourth-and-4 play from the Cal 42.

The Bears had converted all three of their previous fourth-down tries and were 9 for 10 on the year. This time, Bowers threw incomplete to Melquise Stovall, who was seeing his first action of the season, and USC took over.

Seven minutes and 17 unanswered points later, the Trojans were well on their way to a 14th straight win over Cal in front of 46,747 fans at Memorial Stadium.

Cal (3-1, 0-1 Pac-12) has not beaten the Trojans (4-0, 2-0) since a triple-overtime victory back in 2003. The Bears are now 3-28-1 all-time against USC teams ranked in the top-10 of the AP Top-25.

The Trojans settled for a 46-yard, go-ahead field goal by Casey McGrath after taking over on downs.

But on Cal’s next play, Bowers fumbled under a heavy rush and the Trojans …read more

Source:: The Mercury News

A smell of chili with a tinge of spray paint wafted down Federal Boulevard Saturday morning.

Groups of people in safety vests slowly progressed between West Sixth and Evans avenues and parts of West Alameda Avenue, covering up graffiti tags and picking up trash that lined the street as part of the eighth Brush Off Day hosted by the city of Denver.

Ginger Scholte, who lives in the Mar Lee neighborhood, was among the 165 volunteers along the street. Since 2008, she has been walking up and down Federal Boulevard, reporting tags to the city and cleaning them up herself.

“It makes our neighborhood look shabby,” she said. “It says a small, small community controls our neighborhood.”

Det. George Gray with the Denver Graffiti Unit said the city removed 5.6 million square feet of graffiti in 2007, but it has fallen to closer to 1.6 million annually. Still, it costs $145 to remove a typical tag and the city said it spends $1.4 million annually to clean up graffiti. About 10,100 incidences of graffiti have been reported this year.

Gray described two types of taggers. There are those who do it alone or with crews but for themselves. Then there are crews that can become involved with or morph into gangs, turning to more aggressive crimes like burglary or car theft.

About 65 percent of taggers are 25-35 years old, he said. The unit focuses its efforts on prolific taggers instead of the people who spend two or three hours creating a project on one wall, he said.

“The guys that do 50 places a night, they’re the ones I target because they’re crushing us and they’re causing a lot more damage to our city,” he said.

Police District Four, which includes Federal Boulevard from 6th Avenue to just north of US Highway 285, has more graffiti than …read more

Source:: The Denver Post