Man faces up to 60 years in prison after pleading guilty for celeb hacking

Bay Area briefs

Mavericks big-wave surfing contest unlikely HALF MOON BAY . (AP) - A Mavericks big-wave surfing contest in California isn't likely this year. The window for the competition closes on March 31 and organizers say it doesn't appear the right combination of wind and ocean swell will materialize. Mavericks International contest director Jeff Clark saod that the window won't be ...

State news briefs

SF SHERIFF CHARGED WITH OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Over the past nine weeks, San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi hasn't spoken to his wife and has seen his 3-year-old son only sporadically.

Salinas counselor arrested on sex, porn charges

SALINAS (AP) - Police have arrested a high school counselor whose computer allegedly contained videos of students engaged in sexual activity in his office, authorities said. Gilbert Olivares, a drug and alcohol counselor at Salinas High School, was first arrested last week on suspicion of inappropriately touching a student, the Monterey County Herald reported Wednesday. The 34-year-old man turned himself in Monday ...

California mosque sues city over denial of application to rebuild and expand

Wal-Mart to pay $2.1 million in fines for overcharging California consumers

. SAN DIEGO (AP) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay a $2.1 million penalty for charging California costumers at prices higher than those posted, in violation of a 2008 judgment ordering the retail chain to stop, state Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced Wednesday. The agreement came after an investigation that began in November 2010 found ...

LA council urges curbs on derogatory radio speech

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The City Council called on TV and radio broadcasters Wednesday to keep their hosts from spouting crude slurs, citing Rush Limbaugh's reference to a woman as a "slut" and a KFI show calling Whitney Houston a "crack ho." The council voted 13-2 for a resolution urging Los Angeles stations to do everything in their power to ensure that ...

Wife: 'Kony 2012' director suffers from psychosis

Oakland to pay legal fees in public search by cops

OAKLAND (AP) - Oakland officers' decision to pull two men's pants down on a public street after they were stopped by police has cost the city about a million dollars. The City Council voted 7-1 in closed session on Tuesday to pay the men's lawyers, civil rights attorneys John Burris and Michael Haddad, $832,000 in legal fees, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. ...

Bay Area briefs

PG&E wants to offset fine for pipeline blast

‘California inmates petition UN to monitor prisons

Three online date sites agree to screen for predators

Drake’s Bay could be named as explorer's landing place

PT. REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE (AP) - The U.S. government is poised to settle the long-running historical dispute over where British explorer Sir Francis Drake stopped on the West Coast to repair and restock his ship during his 16th century journey around the world. The National Park Service approved designating Drakes Bay north of San Francisco as a historic landmark based on the ...

Brown calls his tax 'superior,' tackles budget gap

Lawyer: San Francisco sheriff won't resign office

BART may lift rush-hour bike ban

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Authorities have set the wheels in motion to allow bicycles on all commuter trains in the San Francisco Bay area. The San Francisco Chronicle says directors of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District voted Thursday to permit bikes on all trains for a five-month period, beginning in July. Currently, bikes are banned during rush hours. Two smaller previous tests found no problems with allowing bikes during rush hours. <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: ...

Firm: Bay Bridge bolts made to exact specs

OAKLAND (AP) - An executive with an Ohio manufacturer has said steel bolts used on a troubled new span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were made exactly to specifications. Experts have spent the past two months trying to determine why 32 of 96 bolts broke after they were tightened in March. A report released on May 7 by Caltrans suggests the bridge design team ordered a type of steel that under some conditions could ...

Sherman Oaks teen takes supermodel to prom

SANTA MONICA (AP) - A Southern California teen turned heads at his prom when he showed up with a Sports Illustrated model as his date. Nina Agdal agreed to step in as Jake Davidson's date Thursday night after he got turned down for prom by supermodel Kate Upton. The Sherman Oaks teen appeared in a YouTube video that was viewed more than 2.5 million times asking Upton to be his date. After Upton declined because ...

SoCal school's ex-PTA head charged with theft

JURUPA VALLEY (AP) - The former president of a local Southern California PTA has been charged with grand theft for allegedly stealing $20,000 raised from children's candy bar sales. Patricia Gledhill pleaded not guilty earlier this month to two felony counts. Gledhill was PTA president last year for Stone Avenue Elementary School in Jurupa (huh-ROO'-puh) Valley. According to court records, Gledhill told authorities she took fundraising money to pay for food, rent, and the cost ...

State news briefs

SHUTTLE IS MAJOR DRAW AT CALIFORNIA SCIENCE CENTER: LOS ANGELES (AP) - There was always been a special connection between space shuttle Endeavour and California, where it was built.

Damage reported from magnitude-5.7 quake

Court denies 2nd hearing on Medi-Cal rate cut

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Friday denied a second request by California doctors, pharmacists and hospitals seeking to undo the state's 10 percent provider rate cut for treating the poor.

PG&E calls $2.25B fine for deadly blast excessive

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The utility responsible for a deadly pipeline explosion in Northern California said Friday that the record $2.25 billion in fines being sought by state regulators is illegally excessive, but did not offer a specific dollar figure it considers reasonable. In a 103-page filing submitted just before the close of business, Pacific Gas & Electric said that it agrees with the California Public Utilities Commission's finding that a financial penalty is appropriate ...

Plastic ocean debris bill dies in committee

Bill would treat e-cigarettes like other tobacco

State Senate election might be headed to runoff in 16th district

LA sanitation ends plans for dump near Joshua Tree

Bill would prohibit ticket-buying software

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Music and sports fans would have one less obstacle in buying tickets to popular events under a bill advancing through the California Legislature. Legislation by Democratic Assemblyman Richard Pan of Sacramento would prohibit the use of robotic ticket-buying software. Supporters of AB329 say scalpers use the software to bombard online box offices and then resell tickets at higher prices. Lawmakers previously deleted a provision that would have allowed transfers of paperless event ...

Professor assigns students to make ad for his campaign

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A San Francisco State University professor considering a run for Oakland mayor is drawing scrutiny for a class assignment that asked students to create a political campaign ad and gave them the option of developing it for him. Joe Tuman said he would use the ad if it were good, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday. But ethics experts said any such use of the students' work could run afoul ...

Bay Area briefs

SWALLOWS LAWSUIT MAY DELAY PETALUMA BRIDGE WORK : PETALUMA (AP) - A lawsuit accuses state and federal regulators of causing the death of dozens of migratory cliff swallows by placing nets on a Sonoma County bridge during a highway widening project.