Apartment rents in the Bay Area's three biggest cities continue to rise, with Oakland seeing a huge surge, probably fueled by renters priced out of San Francisco crossing the bay...The average asking rent at buildings with at least 50 units in Oakland hit $1,925 in the third quarter, up 19 percent from the same time last year, RealFacts said. That figure averages rents for units ranging from studios to three bedrooms, but the trend is just as pronounced for each size. One-bedroom apartments, for instance, were asking $1,761, a 20.1 percent increase from a year ago, RealFacts said.

More than a thousand Boy Scout leaders around the nation who served between 1965 and 1985 had allegedly molested boys, with at least two dozen of those attacks happening in the Bay Area, according to a mountain of documents released Thursday by court order in Oregon. In most cases the leaders were tossed out of the organization, but more than a third of the reported molestations were never relayed to law enforcement, according to attorneys who fought to make public the records as well as the Boy Scouts of America.

Drones aren't something most residents worry about on a day-to-day basis. But they may be flying over the skies of Alameda County soon if Sheriff Gregory Ahern gets his way. Ahern is looking at buying a surveillance drone, an unmanned aircraft system, for search and rescue missions, bomb threats, SWAT operations, marijuana grows, fires and natural disasters. But the proposal has already drummed up backlash from privacy advocates worried that drone technology is outpacing safeguards.

The Giants don't need another fiery speech, another raucous dugout huddle or another round of mottos. After an 8-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, the plan is simple: Find a way to score a few more runs or go home for the winter. The lineup sputtered for the second straight game on Thursday at Busch Stadium as the Giants fell behind 3-1 in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series. The Giants have had their backs against the wall before, but the team that couldn't touch Adam Wainwright on Thursday looks much different from the one that scored 16 runs in the final three games against the Cincinnati Reds while streaking to a historic comeback.

...This week, Castro Valley real estate broker Otto Catrina said Stark made a false charge about him. Catrina contacted a lawyer. Catrina said he was shocked when his phone started "ringing off the hook" this week after he was named in an attack mailer from Stark that claimed he was one of the "shady," big-money "developers" who have donated to Swalwell, a Dublin city councilman.

The judge who will decide whether to order a federal takeover of Oakland's police department scolded the city Thursday over Police Chief Howard Jordan's failure to respond to emails from the department's federal monitor. U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson called the city dysfunctional and gave it until next Friday to investigate the integrity of its email system. The order came in response to Jordan telling the monitor Thursday that he had not received emails sent on Oct. 13 and Oct. 17 regarding court concerns over disciplinary recommendations made by the department.

The officer who ticketed San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed for allegedly failing to signal a turn last month called the violation a "pet peeve" in a message to a dispatcher but hadn't cited any other driver for it in at least five months, according to city records. The citation drew widespread attention because it came amid a bitter feud between Reed and the officers' union. The union is suing to block a measure the mayor supported to reduce pension benefits for cops and other city workers whose costs have more than tripled in a decade...The contempt for Reed within the police department is evident in message traffic among officers and police dispatchers following the ticket in which they revel in the mayor's misfortune, refer to him dismissively as "the Chuckster" and cheer the officer who cited him as their "hero."