SF Giants pursuing $1.6 B development planned for AT&T parking lot, nearby dock

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The San Francisco Giants unveiled a $1.6 billion plan Wednesday to convert the parking lot at AT&T Park and an adjacent pier into homes, offices, shops and restaurants. The "Mission Rock" project calls for up to 1,000 rental units, 125,000 square feet of retail space and as much as 1.7 million square feet of office space on the ...

Bay Area briefs

new vinyl seats OAKLAND (AP) - The Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency has installed new, easy-to-clean vinyl seats on four train cars. The seats made their debut on Tuesday. The agency expects to have them in 100 cars by the end of the month. BART agreed last year to spend $1.9 million to change the seats on 100 cars ...

Yahoo sweeps out 2,000 employees in purge

Power shortages loom on south state with idled nuke plant at San Onofre

Nursing director thinks she was target of shooter at Oakland school

White residue on spoon in Houston's room

State news briefs

Animal fat-to-biofuel plant proposed

Lawsuit challenges suction dredges for gold mining destroys Indian cultural resources

Trump says transgender hopeful can enter pageant

Chevron facing more taxes on Richmond refinery after trying to get them lowered

RICHMOND (AP) - Chevron Corp. owes additional taxes on its refinery in Richmond because Contra Costa County undervalued the facility by hundreds of millions of dollars, a county assessment appeals board has ruled. The Assessment Appeals Board made the decision Monday while rejecting Chevron's contention that it actually owed less in tax bills from 2007 through 2009. Chevron claimed the county had ...

Cap-and-trade fees become key source for high speed rail plan

Oakland attack suspect upset about expulsion, teasing over English skills

Feds seize 16 upscale cars bound for Asia

Federal agents raid Oakland marijuana university; protestors openly smoke pot

Onion workers sue farm over wages, housing

RIVERSIDE (AP) - Two onion workers have filed a federal lawsuit against a farm alleging they were underpaid and forced to live in squalid conditions on the edge of the fields. Megan Beaman, an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, said Monday the workers reported living in cars and makeshift camps on the edges of onion fields and working for less than ...

New Calif. law limits worker comp for professional athletes

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Professional athletes who spend most of their careers with teams in other states will be prohibited from filing workers' compensation claims in California, under a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

LA seeks census of buildings vulnerable in earthquake

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Los Angeles officials hope to follow San Francisco's lead in upgrading so-called "soft-story" buildings, those with bottom floors that are susceptible to collapse during an earthquake. Legislation, however, could be years away. Officials were expected to provide details about a proposed census of LA's soft-story structures at Tuesday's Buildings at Risk conference. Also this week, LA officials are meeting with San Francisco's earthquake team to get advice on how to proceed ...

News from around california

PG&E offers employers that are big power users lower rates

Spanking with wooden spoon not child abuse

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - A state appeals court on Tuesday tossed out child abuse findings against a frustrated Northern California mother who spanked her 12-year-old daughter hard enough with a wooden spoon to cause bruising. The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose reversed the child abuse determination made by the Santa Clara County Department of Social Services. Social workers waned to report Vernica Gonzalez to the state Department of Justice's child abuse ...

Southern Cal a fires fade as weather turns

CAMP PENDLETON (AP) - A nearly 4-square-mile wildfire on the Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton was reduced to smoldering Monday as hot, dry Santa Ana winds faded and a cooling trend began as a storm approached. About 230 residents return to housing near Lake O'Neil on Sunday evening, base officials said in a statement. Some 30 patients removed from a base hospital were returned. Forty-one percent of the burn area was surrounded and full containment was ...

PUC has leeway to restructure utility rates

Brown vetoes non-citizens on juries

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have allowed non-citizens who are legal residents to serve as jurors in California. "Jury service, like voting, is quintessentially a prerogative and responsibility of citizenship," Brown said in an announcement Monday accompanying his veto of AB1401. "This bill would permit lawful permanent residents who are not citizens to serve on a jury. I don't think that's right." The bill by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, ...

Carter: Middle class today resembles poor from past years

OAKLAND (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter says the income gap in the United States has increased to the point where members of the middle class resemble the Americans who lived in poverty when he occupied the White House.

News from around california

Elk Grove wants to expand boundaries

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Leaders in Elk Grove are pushing a plan to expand the city's boundaries by 8,000 acres, but opponents are raising concerns about traffic and environmental damage. The city, already one of the nation's fastest-growing, wants more room to add employers and maintain open space within city limits. The Sacramento County Local Agency Formation Commission, which consists of four elected officials and one member of the public, is expected to decide on the ...

State aims to crack down on tax evasion

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Not everyone is conscientious about paying their tax bill, and the scofflaws cost California an estimated $9 billion a year in uncollected revenue. Lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown want to change that dynamic by creating a task force charged with bringing the state's underground economy into the open and collecting the corporate, personal, and sales and use taxes owed the state. The Democratic governor on Monday announced the signing of legislation is ...

SACRAMENTO (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday issued a public health alert for raw

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday issued a public health alert for raw chicken packaged at three Foster Farms facilities in California after 278 people fell ill.

Bitten surfer says shark came from nowhere

EUREKA (AP) - It was a perfect day for surfing. Except for the shark. Jay Scrivner, a 45-year-old college English teacher, was waiting for waves off the Northern California coast near his hometown of Eureka on Sunday morning after surfing for about two hours when a great white he estimated at about 8-to-9 feet long bit his thigh and board. "Sometimes you have a feeling that the water is weird," Scrivner told The Associated Press ...

Students find way to play games on iPads

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Education officials in the nation's second-largest school district are working to reboot a $1 billion plan to put an iPad in the hands of each of their 650,000 students after an embarrassing glitch emerged when the first round of tablets went out.