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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — University of California medical center workers began a two-day strike up and down the state that could involve thousands of employees and forced postponement of some surgeries in San Francisco.

A union representing some 13,000 pharmacists, nursing assistants and other workers struck at 4 a.m. Tuesday at medical facilities in areas including San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.

Striking workers want more staff and believe levels are chronically low. UC officials contend the issue is the union’s refusal to accept a less-lucrative pension plan.

The hospitals postponed nonessential surgeries and hired temporary workers. Gomez said the strikers had a task force set up to ensure care for critically ill patients.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

CHARLESTON, S.C. (CBS/AP) — A California winery is recovering four cases of Cabernet Sauvignon that have aged on the floor of Charleston Harbor for the past three months.

Mira Winery of St. Helena, Calif., placed the bottles of wine in yellow steel mesh cages and then submerged them offshore in an undisclosed location back in February.

On Tuesday, the divers head out to recover the wine so the winery can judge the effects of ocean aging. Winemakers have long known wine recovered from sunken ships has a unique taste and the ocean is thought to have something to do with that.

There have been similar experiments with ocean aging of wine both in Europe and on the West Coast.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

SANTA ROSA (CBS SF) — Three armed, masked men robbed the Redwood Credit Union in Santa Rosa Monday morning, a police sergeant said.

The suspects entered the credit union at 2763 4th St. around 10:15 a.m. and ordered customers and bank employees to get on the ground, Santa Rosa police Sgt. David Linscomb said.

The suspects took cash from teller windows and left the area in a silver colored van that was waiting nearby. The van was reported stolen in Vallejo and was found abandoned in a nearby neighborhood, Linscomb said.

Witnesses reporting seeing two vehicles, which they believed to be driven by the suspects, flee from the neighborhood, Linscomb said.

No one was injured in the robbery, police said.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (KPIX 5) — A coach for the San Jose Sabercats arena football team is facing battery charges resulting from an altercation after a game in Florida over the weekend.

Police said the fight, involving Sabercats defensive coordinator Cedric Walker and Jacksonville Sharks assistant general manager Tim Johnson, occurred after San Jose won Saturday’s game by a score of 57-36.

According to police reports, Sabercats team officials confronted Jacksonville cheerleaders for being on the field during game play. The confrontation in a hallway near the locker rooms drew a crowd, and at some point, Walker entered.

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Witnesses told KPIX 5 that Walker said to Johnson, “Boy, don’t get in my face.”

Johnson reportedly replied, “Boy, you better get your guys back in the locker room.”

Witnesses said Walker, who is 6 feet tall and 245 pounds, became violently upset and jumped over people to shove Johnson against the wall and later punch him in the face. Johnson, 68, hit the back of his head against the wall, blacked out and suffered a concussion.

According to the police report, Walker told investigators Johnson started it. “He did in fact get into an argument with Mr. Johnson and that he called him ‘a boy.’ He warned Mr. Johnson not to call him ‘a boy,’ when Mr. Johnson called him ‘a boy’ again. He became enraged and chased Mr. Johnson down the hallway. As he caught him he admitted to striking him once,” the report stated.

Walker has been charged with battery of a person 65 or older, which is a felony. He was released from the Duval County, Florida jail late Sunday, on the condition he shows up at his next court appearance.

A statement from the San Jose Sabercats called the incident “unfortunate” and that the altercation resulted from “a verbal confrontation involving alleged racial epithets” directed towards Sabercats coaches from a Sharks front office official. The statement went on to say the team would have no further comment as police investigate.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – Known as the “Chinese Ginger Rogers,” Dorothy Toy was one of the most famous dancers in the Bay Area. But a deep, dark secret revealed by a jealous rival sabotaged her dreams.

Now 95 and living in Oakland, Toy just recently hung up her dancing shoes. She was one half of a famous dancing act that got its start in the 1930s and 40s. Dorothy Toy and Paul Wing were one of the top all-Asian dancing acts of the time.

Toy still has the moves. The pair met at an early age, forming a trio dancing act with her younger sister. They landed small dancing gigs in Los Angeles until Hollywood called.

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They were a vaudeville act and got their break when Chinese restaurants and nightclubs were putting on all-Asian reviews for white audiences. At the time, it was known as the “Chop Suey Circuit.”

But Toy and Wing became movie pioneers, appearing in films like “Deviled Ham” and “Happiness Ahead.”

“There were no Asians in show business. Yes, it was hard, but Paul and I did alright. We traveled all over and they liked us. They liked Paul,” Toy told KPIX 5.

The dancing duo made it to Chicago, on Broadway, even to the London Palladium. But the Pearl Harbor bombing broke up the team. Wing was drafted by the Army. Toy kept dancing and kept a secret. Until it was revealed by another dancer jealous of Toy’s fame.

Dorothy’s real name was Takahashi. She was Japanese and not Chinese, and changed her name so it would fit the marquees. The name change kept her from being sent to internment camps with her family. But when the truth was revealed, it cost Toy a movie contract.

Toy and Wing were reunited after the war, returning to Broadway and eventually back to the Bay Area.

After retiring, Toy taught dance in her home studio up until six months ago. She cherishes the memories of her years in the limelight.

“I had a lot of those moments. Because you hit a certain town, see people, good to you. When you take your bows at the end, it hits me…money doesn’t count. You get that pleasure inside your heart,” said Toy.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS / AP) – Ryan Vogelsong felt the best he had in months, then it all ended on one painful swing.

The right-hander broke his throwing hand chasing an inside fastball after pitching himself toward his first win in seven starts, and the San Francisco Giants returned from a terrible road trip to beat the Washington Nationals 8-0 on Monday night.

Vogelsong was injured while fouling a ball off his hand in the fifth inning. He grimaced in pain while grabbing the hand — knowing immediately it was serious. He was quickly examined near the batter’s box and left the game.

Vogelsong broke two bones along the right pinkie and dislocated a knuckle the area that the medical staff couldn’t get popped back into place. He was scheduled for surgery Tuesday morning at Stanford and said he likely would have pins inserted to stabilize the hand and help speed the healing process.

“We’re not talking about Tommy John or anything here,” Vogelsong said, his eyes misty. “Basically as fast as we can get it to heal so I can start throwing again.”

Nationals manager Davey Johnson announced after the game that reliever Ryan Mattheus broke his pitching hand punching a locker in frustration Sunday. The right-hander allowed five runs in one inning of Washington’s 13-4 loss to the San Diego Padres, but didn’t tell the team about the injury until just before Monday’s game.

“Last night after the game he came in and was in the locker room and banged his glove against his locker with his hand in it,” Johnson said. “His hand didn’t swell up but when he went out to throw today his hand swelled up and he couldn’t throw the ball.”

Vogelsong (2-4) snapped a six-start winless stretch with just his second victory of 2013 and first since April 11 against the Cubs at Wrigley Field and seemed back on track.

He walked off to warm ovation as Nick Noonan pinch hit. Vogelsong allowed three hits in five scoreless innings and lowered his ERA from 8.06 to 7.19.

“It’s really a shame because tonight was the Vogey that we know, the way he threw all of last year, good stuff,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “It’s a tough one. I feel bad for him. I know he felt really good tonight. You’ve got to deal with these things. He’ll be back, hopefully, in a couple months.”

Brandon Belt hit a solo home run, matched his career best with four hits and scored three runs as San Francisco pounded a season-high 17 hits. Angel Pagan hit an RBI double and two-run single for San Francisco, also making a great leaping catch against the center-field wall.

Andres Torres had three hits and drove in a run and Marco Scutaro added an RBI single among his two hits.

Vogelsong got the defensive gem from Pagan when the center fielder slammed into the wall on Adam LaRoche’s deep fly in the second.

The 2011 All-Star ended a six-start winless stretch in which he had lost his last two outings and gone 0-3. He was tagged for eight runs — three earned — and six hits in two innings for his shortest outing of the year last Wednesday at Toronto.

“It was awesome,” Belt said. “The special thing about this team is everybody roots for everybody. We were as happy for him as can be, and it’s tough to see him go down like this. But we know he’ll be back, and strong and ready to go.”

Javier Lopez took over for Vogelsong in the top of the sixth and received a little bit more warm up time. Three more relievers finished for the Giants’ sixth shutout. San Francisco snapped a three-game skid after a 1-5 road trip through Toronto and Colorado.

The Giants have until next Tuesday before they need a fifth starter.

Bryce Harper went 0 for 4 in his return to the Nationals’ lineup after last season’s NL Rookie of the Year missed two games with a bruised left knee. He was hurt in a hard collision with the outfield wall a week earlier at Dodger Stadium that also caused him to need 11 stitches on his chin.

Left-hander Zach Duke (0-1) lasted just 3 1-3 innings in a spot start for Ross Detwiler, who is sidelined with back spasms. Duke allowed four runs and seven hits in his first start of the year.

Washington was shut out for the sixth time.

Vogelsong retired the first eight Nationals hitters in order.

The right-hander lasted only 2 2-3 innings in his first career start against Washington last year, allowing eight runs on nine hits with two walks.

“That’s the best I’ve felt in a long time, from a mental aspect, physical aspect, everything felt good,” he said. “It was nice to be able to get out there and have everything I’ve been working on for the last couple weeks kind of fall into place. From that standpoint it’s a good place to start when I come back.”

Scutaro extended his hitting streak to 18 games with a third-inning single. The second baseman fielded Roger Bernadina’s grounder in the fifth but dropped the ball in exchange from glove to hand, for the Giants’ 15th error in their last eight games.

Notes: Nationals OF Jayson Werth, on the 15-day disabled list with a strained right hamstring, is expected to need at least two more weeks to heal after a second MRI showed he “has some problems in there,” Johnson said. “He’s going to rest a bit.” … A moment of silence was held for the Oklahoma tornado victims before the national anthem. … RHP Matt Cain (3-2) starts for the Giants in Tuesday night’s middle game against righty Stephen Strasburg (2-5). … San Francisco’s Buster Posey has hit safely in 11 of his last 12. … Belt’s homer was the Giants’ 21st at home. Last season through their first 23 games at AT&T Park, they had hit just six HRs.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

EAST PALO ALTO (CBS SF) — Following the recent violence in East Palo Alto, culminating in Sunday’s killing of a teenager, police Chief Ronald Davis is calling a “crime emergency” for the department, which will take effect on Tuesday.

Declaring a “crime emergency” allows the department to cancel days off and make assignment changes as needed. It will more than double the number of patrol officers in the field during critical time periods, Capt. Carl Estelle said Monday.

He said Davis had talked briefly about declaring a crime emergency a couple of weeks ago but that Sunday’s homicide was the final straw.

“Davis considered it but late last night, he felt that it’s time to call the crime emergency,” Estelle said. “It’s really the culmination of the last couple of weeks.”

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Sunday’s killing of 15-year-old Jose Quinonez was the city’s fifth homicide and one of more than 50 firearm assaults since January, police said.

Eight of those assaults have happened in the past two weeks, according to police.

As part of this, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office will deploy a multi-agency tactical team to focus its efforts on the Nortenos gang, the gang allegedly responsible for the recent violence spike.

The countywide Gang Task Force will also continue its summer programs in East Palo Alto and throughout the county, Estelle said.

The teams should increase the amount of intelligence law enforcement has on the gangs, Estelle said.

The “crime emergency” will last 30 days and after about two weeks, police will evaluate the success to determine whether to extend or end the action, Estelle said.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

ARLINGTON, Texas (CBS / AP) – Bartolo Colon celebrated his 40th birthday a few days early with something he’s enjoyed quite a few times over the years: a win over the Texas Rangers.

Seth Smith homered and scored three times, Colon pitched seven strong innings for his first victory in nearly a month and the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers 9-2 on Monday night.

Colon, who turns 40 on Friday, gave up two runs on six hits and struck out three. It was the first win for Colon (4-2) since April 23 at Boston, and he joined Bert Blyleven, Dennis Leonard and Jack Morris as the pitchers with the most wins over the Rangers at 19.

“I like to pitch here,” Colon, who has 175 wins in 16 seasons, said through a translator. “I don’t know why.”

Coco Crisp got three hits, and had the first of three straight Oakland doubles in a four-run fifth inning that broke a 1-1 tie. He scored when Yoenis Cespedes hit a line drive just over Adrian Beltre’s head with the third baseman playing in, and Cespedes came home on Brandon Moss’ line drive to the wall in right.

Josh Lindblom (0-1) lost in his 2013 debut and first major league start.

Lindblom was replaced by left-hander Joseph Ortiz after striking out Josh Donaldson in the fourth. Smith hit an RBI single and went to second when left fielder David Murphy dropped the ball trying to make a throw home. The error allowed Smith to score on a single by Chris Young for a 5-1 Oakland lead.

“The first four innings I was able to make pitches and work myself out of jams,” Lindblom said. “That fifth inning, I couldn’t make the pitch.”

Smith’s opposite-field homer to left for a 1-0 lead in the second was the 13th straight solo homer for the A’s, tying a franchise record set in 2007. Jed Lowrie had three hits, including one of five doubles for Oakland.

The two outs Smith made were with the bases loaded as the A’s stranded a season-high 15. Texas pitchers walked a season-high eight, although two were intentional.

Even Colon had problems with walks—by his standards. He matched his season total by walking Geovany Soto twice.

“Those don’t happen too often,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said.

Top Texas prospect Jurickson Profar made his first appearance in the majors this year at second base and was immediately put to the test by Crisp, who had infield hits his first two times up despite Profar’s best efforts. The 20-year-old went far to his left to grab the first one and fielded the next almost behind the bag at second, but Crisp beat the throw both times.

Profar drove in both Texas runs without a hit, scoring Soto with a grounder in the third and Mitch Moreland with a sacrifice fly in the fifth.

“The first one, we needed a groundball, he got the groundball,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “He handled his at-bats well tonight. We scored two runs, he got both of them.”

With Ian Kinsler on the disabled list because of bruised ribs, Profar is back with the Rangers after homering in his first big league at-bat as a 19-year-old last year.

“I’m feeling more comfortable in the box and on the field,” said Profar, who hit .424 during an eight-game hitting streak that included the first multihomer game of his career before getting called up from Triple-A Round Rock. “It starts from there.”

Colon was helped by three double plays in the first four innings, including a pair started by Moss at first base when he snagged hard grounders from Lance Berkman and Moreland, stepped on the bag and got the runners trying to go to second. He came out after throwing 95 pitches.

“I mean, he’s 40 and we’d like to try to get him through a season,” Melvin said. “So anything over 100 for me is starting to get a little uncomfortable for me. To give us seven, just short of 100, is terrific.”

Lindblom, who came to Texas as a reliever in the offseason trade that sent franchise hits leader Michael Young to Philadelphia, gave up seven hits and four runs in 4 2-3 innings filling in for Alexi Ogando, who’s on the disabled list with right biceps tendinitis.

The 25-year-old had 101 relief appearances over two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Phillies but struggled in the Texas bullpen during spring training. The Rangers decided to try him as a starter at Round Rock, where he was 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA.

“Fastball command was a little off today,” Lindblom said. “I wasn’t able to command my heater in and out, which has kind of been my staple all year.”

NOTES: Rangers C A.J. Pierzynski (strained oblique) was the designated hitter in the final game of a two-game rehabilitation stint at Double-A Frisco on Monday. He went 1 for 3 with a single and is expected back in the Texas lineup Tuesday, when he’s eligible to come off the disabled list. … Athletics RHP Chris Resop cleared waivers and was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento. Oakland designated him for assignment Friday.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SUNNYVALE (CBS/AP) – After falling woefully out of fashion, Yahoo wants to be cool again while catering to the capitalistic demands of its shareholders. That goal led CEO Marissa Mayer to make a $1.1 billion bet on online blogging forum Tumblr in a risky acquisition that revolves around the vision and instincts of a 26-year-old entrepreneur who dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of bringing more beauty and creativity to the Internet.

The deal announced Monday is Mayer’s boldest move since she left Google 10 months ago to lead Yahoo’s latest comeback attempt. It marks Yahoo’s most expensive acquisition since it bought online search engine Overture a decade ago for $1.3 billion.

While hailing Tumblr as a fount of creativity that attracts 300 million visitors each month, Mayer told analysts Monday that she is “making a sincere promise to not screw it up.” Yahoo said its founder, David Karp, will remain in charge and will keep Tumblr’s headquarters in New York to retain the same “irreverence, wit and commitment to empower creators.”

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Tumblr’s audience, which boasts a large concentration of teens and people in their early 20s, is already fretting that the service is going to become more stodgy and commercial under the ownership of an 18-year-old company that seems ancient by Internet standards. Advertising largely has been a missing ingredient so far as Tumblr, like many online services in their early stages, focused on building a loyal audience before turning its attention to making money. By purchasing Tumblr, Yahoo will have more opportunities to sell ads.

“I can’t help but be concerned that Yahoo will `Yahooize’ Tumblr and make it as irrelevant as the mother ship,” said Jennifer Grant, 36, who has a Tumblr blog.

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Founded in 2007, Tumblr emerged as a trendy online hangout by providing a blogging service that makes it easy to share posts, photos, video and other content in an enthralling mosaic of interlocking information. Tumblr forums are devoted to such diverse topics as art, architecture, food, politics, pets and fashion.

Although there are several competing services for people to blog, Tumblr makes it easy to create, discover and share content. Tumblr users rely on a dashboard to pinpoint the kinds of blogs that they want to track. Tools help users pass along posts that interest them.

The service says it has amassed more than 50 billion posts from 108 million blogs, with some 75 million new posts every day. More than half of Tumblr’s users connect through its mobile app and engage in an average of seven visits per day.

Mayer is betting that Tumblr will provide Yahoo with a captivating hook to reel in more traffic and advertisers on smartphones and tablet computers. That rapidly growing market is expected to become even more important during the next decade as people increasingly consume digital content on mobile devices instead of laptop and desktop machines.

Tumblr could also help Yahoo recapture some of its cachet with teens and adults in their early 20s, a demographic that has become tougher for Yahoo to reach in recent years as it fell behind the technological curve and struggled to develop compelling services.

While Facebook has turned into a mainstream social network where even grandparents now connect family and friends, Tumblr has become one of the places where the cool kids hang out.

But Yahoo will have to manage Tumblr’s next stage carefully to avoid driving away the Web surfers and mobile device users that had made Tumblr such an enticing takeover target.

Micah Gray, 22, a Tumblr user who lives in Denver, likened Yahoo to an old, rich uncle who shows up to a high school or college party and hops into the hot tub to the disgust of almost everyone else there. But “the owner of the house you’re partying at sold the rights of the hot tub to him and he can use it whenever he wants and bring his other old, rich friends,” Gray said.

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On the other hand, investors will want to see results from the $1.1 billion price tag. Yahoo is paying mostly cash for Tumblr, dipping into what remains of a $7.6 billion windfall reaped last year from selling about half of its stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba. Taking over Tumblr will devour about one-fifth of the $5.4 billion in cash that Yahoo had at the end of March.

Mayer is confident she can balance the needs of Tumblr’s users and Yahoo’s investors.

The deal overshadowed Yahoo’s previously scheduled announcement on changes to its Flickr photo-sharing service, including a boost in the amount of free storage to 1 terabyte, far more than what rivals offer. Like Tumblr, Yahoo got the photo service by buying a promising startup.

Mayer called Tumblr a “game changer” during a conference call with analysts and was effusive in her praise of Karp during an interview with The Associated Press. She likened him to other great entrepreneurs she knows—a list that includes Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, a duo for which she worked for 13 years.

Karp, who built Tumblr from his tiny childhood bedroom in New York, “will be one the legends of his generation in terms of an entrepreneur who has really changed the way people express themselves,” Mayer predicted.

If Mayer wasn’t running Yahoo, Karp said he probably wouldn’t have agreed to sell Tumblr. Karp and Mayer began to talk late last year, when Tumblr was looking into ways to show ads that fit in well with the rest of its content. Those discussions morphed into Tumblr selling all or part of itself. Other interested suitors are believed to include Google, Microsoft Corp. and Facebook.

Mayer’s enthusiasm, a promise of independence and Yahoo’s rich offer won over Karp.

“Marissa is the real deal,” Karp said in a Monday interview. “Marissa is going to be in the trenches standing next to me while we build this thing.”

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Yahoo isn’t counting on Tumblr producing significant revenue until next year. Tumblr’s 175 employees, including Karp, will join Yahoo.

Mayer and Karp believe Yahoo and Tumblr can complement each other. Tumblr can draw upon Yahoo’s search engine to help users find things that interest them. Meanwhile, Tumblr’s wealth of content could be interwoven into Yahoo’s other services, including those that provide coverage of general news, sports, finance and entertainment.

Tumblr may help define Mayer’s legacy at Yahoo. Since coming to Yahoo, Mayer has concentrated on improving employee morale, redesigning services and bringing in more engineering talent through a series of small acquisitions that have collectively cost less than $50 million.

As popular as Tumblr has become, the service remains unprofitable. That already has analysts questioning whether Yahoo paid too much in Mayer’s zeal to gain control of a hot service.

Mayer’s efforts at Yahoo have been well-received on Wall Street so far, although analysts say most of the 70 percent surge in Yahoo’s stock price under Mayer’s leadership has been driven by the rising value of Yahoo’s remaining 24 percent stake in Alibaba. When Alibaba goes public within the next few years, analysts have estimated that Yahoo could collect another $10 billion to $20 billion by selling the rest of its Alibaba stock.

If this deal pays off the way Mayer envisions, Tumblr could help Yahoo finally get its stock price to $33. That would be a major coup because many investors soured on Yahoo after a previous regime led by co-founder Jerry Yang squandered an opportunity five years ago to sell the Sunnyvale, Calif., company to Microsoft for $33 per share. The stock spent more than four years trading below $20 before the surge in recent months. The shares added 6 cents Monday to close at $26.58.

Tumblr also will fill Yahoo’s gaping void in social media. Yahoo so far has had to connect its services to Facebook and Twitter to give its users a social networking outlet.

Having its own social networking service will give Yahoo more insights into the things that people like—a key to distributing ads to consumers most likely to be interested in specific products. That data, in turn, should help Yahoo sell more ads and accelerate its revenue growth. After three successive years of declines, Yahoo’s revenue rose slightly last year, but lagged far behind the growth at Google and Facebook. Mayer has vowed to bring Yahoo’s revenue growth back to at least the level of the overall Internet ad market.

The deal also has some symbolic significance for Yahoo after spending much of the past decade aimlessly drifting under different management teams while Google overtook it in terms of size and influence. At the same time, newcomers such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter began to command the attention of people who found themselves spending less and less time on Yahoo.

Part of Yahoo’s problems stemmed from missed chances to improve its service and technology.

Yahoo flirted with buying Google and Facebook in their early days, only to have the talks unravel because Yahoo wasn’t prepared to pay asking prices that were far below the current market values of $300 billion for Google and $62 billion for Facebook. Yahoo also considered buying YouTube in 2006, only to be outbid by Google, which snapped up the world’s leading video-sharing service for $1.76 billion—a price that now looks like a bargain.

Karp’s estimated cut from the Tumblr sale will range from $250 million to $300 million. He dropped out of high school to concentrate on computer programming and ended up being home schooled while taking classes in Japanese and working on gambling software. Later, he became a product executive at the parenting website UrbanBaby. After CNet bought the site in 2006, Karp set up his own development service called “Davidville” before deciding to create an outlet for personal expression—an endeavor that hatched Tumblr.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

SUNNYVALE (CBS / AP) — It’s one thing to say tech geniuses don’t need degrees. After all, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg all dropped out of college.

But now we’ve got David Karp, who doesn’t even have a high school diploma. Karp, 26, founded Tumblr, the online blogging forum, and sold it to Yahoo for $1.1 billion.

Which raises the question: When is it OK for a wunderkind to drop out of school?

Some folks in Silicon Valley and elsewhere say a conventional education can’t possibly give kids with outsize talents what they need. Others, like Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford Law School who teaches and advises startup companies, say dropping out to pursue a dream is like “buying a lottery ticket — that’s how good your odds are here. More likely than not, you will become unemployed. For every success, there are 100,000 failures.”

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But what about kids who are so good at computer programming that schools can’t teach them what they need to know? “That’s what internships are for; that’s what extracurricular activities are for,” says Wadhwa, who has founded two companies.

Karp, in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, said he hopes teenagers don’t look at his success as an excuse for leaving school. “That is not a path that I would haphazardly recommend to kids out there,” he said. “I was in a very unique position of knowing exactly what I wanted to do at a time when computer science education certainly wasn’t that good in high school in New York City.”

Karp’s mother gave him the option of home-schooling when he was 14, after he completed his freshman year at the Bronx High School of Science, an elite New York City public school that only admits students who score well on a difficult entrance exam. Karp took Japanese classes and had a math tutor while continuing with an internship at an animation production company, but by age 16, he was working for a website and was on his way to become a tech entrepreneur. He never did get his diploma. Karp’s mother told the AP that she let him leave school because she realized “he needed the time in the day in order to create.”

That resonates with Penny Mills of Hudson, Mass., who let her son Thomas Sohmers, 17, drop out of 11th grade this year. “I could see how much of the work he was doing at school wasn’t relevant to what he wanted to learn,” she said. “He always wanted to learn more than what the schools wanted to teach him. At times it was very frustrating. I was fortunate to find people that were able to teach him more, but he has gone beyond what high school could ever give him.”

Thomas has been working at a research lab at the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology since he was 13, developing projects ranging from augmented reality eyewear to laser communications systems. He just won a Thiel Fellowship, which gives $100,000 to 20 people under the age of 20 each year so they can skip college to focus on research or a dream, whether it’s a high-tech project, a business or a nonprofit. But his mom says she would have let him drop out even if he hadn’t won the award.

“The part that really bothers me is that there are a lot of Thomases out there and their needs are not being met,” said Mills.

Thomas says he’s sad to be leaving his teenage friends behind, but he’s excited about the future. And he has mixed feelings about his years in school. “I’ve had some amazing, great teachers that really have the passion to teach, but most of what is in school now is teaching to a test,” he said. “It’s really sad. You’re not learning the skills for how to solve the problem — you are just learning the answer to this question that is going to be on the test.”

Susan Bartell, a psychologist based in Port Washington, New York who works with adolescents and their families, says she frequently encounters parents who are convinced that their kids are extraordinarily gifted. But she cautions that it’s “the very rare exception when this decision (to drop out) makes sense.” In the case of Karp, she said, “it worked out, but almost always it doesn’t — even if a kid is extremely gifted. School is about much more than just academics and in most cases, even the most gifted kids need the socializing.”

And not all young moguls take Karp’s route. Earlier this year, a 17-year-old from London, Nick D’Aloisio, sold an app he created to Yahoo for $30 million — but he decided to stay in school.

On the other hand, there are examples of successful individuals in many fields who lack a high school diploma, from top performers such as Jay-Z to billionaire businessmen such as Richard Branson.

The tech community may be different from other industries. Degrees are not necessarily seen as a hallmark of achievement and programmers are judged on their ability to type lines of code. You are what you create.

What also sets the field apart is that computer programming is not taught at every high school, and even when it is, the most talented students often either “surpass the curriculum or feel it’s not relevant to them,” said Danielle Strachman, program director for the Thiel Fellowship. “They want to move at their own pace.”

Strachman also emphasized that just because someone has left school, doesn’t mean they’ve stopped learning. The Thiel program provides not just funding, but a community of peers and mentors to help recipients reach their goals. And they can always go back to pursue a degree when the fellowship is over.

It’s a goal that even Karp has his eye on– despite his newfound wealth. “I hope I have an opportunity to go to school at some point,” he said, “and study something completely different.”

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

CONCORD (KCBS) – Contra Costa County’s former top vice cop was sentenced to 14 years in prison Monday for robbing prostitutes and selling stolen drug evidence.

Norman Wielsch, 51, is the former commander of the now-defunct Central Costa County Narcotics Enforcement Team (CNET). He pleaded guilty last year to charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and methamphetamine, theft from a federally funded program, conspiracy to violate civil rights, and robbery.

Federal guidelines for the nature of Wielsch’s crime dictated a sentence of between 14 and 17 years.

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In a statement filed with the court this month, he apologized to the law enforcement community and said the macho culture of the job prevented him from getting the help he needed for post-traumatic stress and depressing stemming from his police work. He appealed to the court for a reduced sentence, citing 24 years of honest hard work.

“Keep in mind that he did accept responsibility, the very first day he was arrested,” added his attorney, Michael Cardoza. “He made a complete confession to the police.”

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Wielsch attorney Raymond Erlach said home confinement would have been more appropriate.

“I was hoping that the court would have sentenced Norman Wielsch to home confinement. It’s going to cost the taxpayers well over $1 million to house him and treat him,” said Erlach.

According to Erlach, Wielsch suffers from a debilitating muscular disease and depression.

Criminal defense attorney Sara Zalkin said she knows of individuals who had contact with Wielsch during his law enforcement days.

“Mr. Wielsch is not the first, I don’t think he’ll be the last,” she said, agreeing with the court’s sentence.

A grand jury indicted Wielsch and private investigator Christopher Butler in 2011 on the drug charges, as well as charges of operating a brothel and conducting phony sting operations to rob prostitutes.

Butler is currently in prison after pleading guilty in the case.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – A delegation that included San Francisco 49ers executives, regional business leaders and community advocates was en route Monday to Boston for a presentation to NFL owners of a bid to land the 2016 Super Bowl.

For Super Bowl L, the 50th edition of the Super Bowl, it’s the Bay Area versus Miami. Each city will get 15 minutes to present to the NFL team owners, after which time they will take a vote.

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“We’re basically going to go in there and give it our best pitch and we think we’re going to be strong, said P.J. Johnston, a spokesman for the Bay Area Super Bowl Bid Committee. “We’ve got the entire Bay Area to show off.”

Presenters will include Daniel Lurie, a San Franciscan who chairs the bid committee, Johnston said.

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The bid will emphasize the “state of the art,” $1.2 billion Santa Clara stadium project, and will highlight the Bay Area as a “beautiful, exciting and vibrant” region that has the infrastructure to handle the influx of about 70,000 people for the game and related events, Johnston said.

“We feel really good about our bid,” he added. “San Francisco is an incredible region. We’re one of the greatest destinations in the world for people who want to travel.”

The NFL team owners will also hear a proposal by the Miami Dolphins to host Super Bowl L in their city. The decision on who will host the game will be made that same day.

The losing bidder will be considered as a potential host for the Super Bowl the following year, in 2017.

The host city is expected to be announced by early Tuesday afternoon.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

LOS ANGELES (CBS / AP) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Los Angeles have made some unusual seizures, including elephant meat, a dead primate and hundreds of handbags made from the skin of snakes, lizards and crocodiles.

The agency said in a press release Monday that the illegal items were seized between May 6 and May 10 at an international mail facility and at Los Angeles International Airport.

The tiny dead macaque primate from Indonesia had been declared as a gift and was addressed to North Port, Fla.

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The elephant meat was from a protected species in Thailand and was bound for Fresno.

The 387 purses were in the baggage of a passenger from Nigeria. They were made from skins of African rock pythons, monitor lizards, dwarf crocodiles, cobras and puff adder snakes.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SACRAMENTO (CBS / AP) — Students at California community colleges could see additional class options for short summer and winter sessions under a bill that passed the state Assembly on Monday, but those courses would come with a higher price tag.

The measure from Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, would allow community colleges to make courses available between the traditional fall and spring semesters. It does not provide additional state funding to pay for the extra classes.

Fees for the classes authorized under AB955 would be charged at nonresident rates. The average cost is $200 per unit, compared with $46 for state-subsidized credits during traditional semesters.

Class offerings at California community colleges have been reduced as a result of state budget cuts, Williams said. Proposals to restore money for higher education would reinstate only part of the $1.5 billion cut from those colleges.

He cited a March report from the Public Policy Institute of California that found 600,000 students have been turned away from state community colleges.

With the additional course offerings, students could take a high-demand class without waiting another semester or year, allowing them to complete their degrees sooner and freeing up spaces for other students during the regular semester, Williams said.

“We must recognize the reality that the existing system is not meeting students’ needs,” he said.

Students who are only a few credits away from graduating and military veterans who need to remain enrolled to maintain their financial aid are among those expected to take advantage of the new courses.

Several community college systems, including those in Los Angeles and San Diego, have opposed the bill, along with the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. The colleges have said setting different fee levels would disenfranchise lower-income students.

Democrats speaking against the bill on Monday said they disagreed with creating an unequal fee structure.

“To say it’s OK to charge some students one tuition level and others another, to me is just not what it means to have a college system that serves all the students in the state of California,” said Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo.

Williams described the measure as “not the perfect solution,” saying he also intends to continue pushing for additional state money for community colleges.

“If you fear a two-tiered system, I’ve got to wake you up: It’s already here,” Williams said. “There’s one tier that can get in and one tier that is locked out.”

The Assembly approved the legislation Monday on a 48-12 vote, over objections from some Democrats and one Republican. It now heads to the Senate for consideration.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

NEW YORK (CBS / AP) – As a teenager, Tumblr CEO David Karp would canvass the streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, offering to build websites for local businesses. After his freshman year of high school, the precocious, computer-savvy kid decided to drop out altogether to devote more time to his passion for technology.

A few years later, Karp built Tumblr — the wildly popular blogging forum — from his tiny childhood bedroom, hunched over his laptop with bags of Tostitos. And on Saturday, the 26-year-old technology wunderkind returned home to inform his mother that, in a game-changing transaction, Yahoo was buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion.

“There were a few tears and lots of hugs, and a lot of excitement,” said his mother, Barbara Ackerman. “This is something that he built — it’s his baby — and it’s emotional.”

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The deal was a transcendent moment for Karp, who created one of the world’s busiest websites. It boasts 75 million daily posts and a user base that’s loyal, young and hip. While Facebook has morphed into a mainstream social network where grandparents talk golf, Tumblr is still that little corner of the Internet where the cool kids hang out.

True to the company’s laid-back, jeans-and-sneakers culture, Karp’s wry sense of humor remained intact on Monday morning, when all employees were summoned to a meeting in Tumblr’s New York headquarters. Cognizant of media reports that Tumblr was on the verge of a sale, everyone waited with bated breath as Karp kicked off the meeting with a tongue-in-cheek announcement: It was time to formulate a new “dog policy.”

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“We have gone above and beyond with our dog policy,” he told them. “There is now one dog for every five people in the office at Tumblr at any given time. So we are needing to figure out a better bathroom situation.”

With just six years of Tumblr’s existence under his belt, Karp told The Associated Press that he still considers himself to be a green executive. But he’s learning that he can no longer play the same role that he did in the early days, when he spent most of his time writing computer code.

“Now the team that I get to work with writes much better than me,” he said.

Today he’s the “chief motivator, the guy jumping around every week to make sure the employees are excited about the product we are building and the direction we are headed in,” Karp said.

“He doesn’t have a pretentious or egocentric bone in his body,” said Steve Nelson, the head of The Calhoun School, a private institution Karp attended until the eighth grade. “He doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

Yahoo said Monday that Karp will remain in control of the service in an effort to retain the same “irreverence, wit and commitment to empower creators.”

Tumblr, which will remain based in New York, has a minuscule 175 employees, compared with Yahoo’s 11,300.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer showered praise on her new employee, saying Karp possesses a rare combination of computer programming prowess and a sense of aesthetics.

“He will be one the legends of his generation in terms of an entrepreneur who has really changed the way people express themselves,” Mayer said.

When he was a little boy, Karp showed an early fascination with electronics and liked to pull toys apart and reassemble them, his mother recalled. By age 14, he liked girls and playing video games like other teenagers, but they never fascinated him as much as the promise of computers.

“It was mostly about figuring out how to make computers do the things that I wanted to see them do,” he said.

Though he was enrolled at The Bronx High School of Science, a prestigious New York City public school, attending the school required him to make the long commute to the city’s northernmost borough every day. And he found himself wanting more freedom to explore the digital world on his own.

So his parents let him drop out. Instead, Karp embarked on a homeschooling regimen with the help of several tutors, learned to speak Japanese and pursued his digital interests with abandon.

“He needed the time in the day in order to create,” said Ackerman, who divorced when her son was a teenager. “And that’s what he is. He’s a creator.”

Just shy of his 18th birthday, Karp boarded a plane to Japan and lived there for several months alone, running technology for the parenting site UrbanBaby. Then he moved back in with his mother, dabbling in various digital startups for several years before alighting on the idea of creating his own blogging platform.

“David would come running through the apartment saying, `Mom! Mom! There’s this and this and this!”‘ Ackerman said. “And I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. Because it was a whole other language.”

Tumblr stands out for a creative layout that enables users to easily share blog posts, photos and video with one another in a mosaic of interlocking information.

Mayer said she knew Karp had to be a good guy even before she met him. She could tell by Tumblr’s elegant look and simple tools for creating content.

“With clothes or art or design, you can always tell if the person who made it is nice,” Mayer said. “When you use Tumblr, you can tell there are a lot of empathetic people who understand what makes a person feel good, what makes a person feel safe in terms of sharing their work.”

But as popular as Tumblr has become, the service remains unprofitable. And the company has had its share of stumbles.

In April, Karp announced in a blog post that Tumblr was laying off its team of journalists and editors assigned to cover the “living, breathing” Tumblr community.

After hundreds of stories and videos, he said, Tumblr’s experiment “has run its course for now, and our editorial team will be closing up shop and moving on.”

The insensitive handling of the news prompted its fair share of Internet jabs at Karp.

The New Yorker magazine, for example, published a humorous piece called “The Collected Messages of David Karp.” It included a would-be Christmas card from the Karp family in 2023, informing David Jr. that there is no Santa Claus.

Advertising has been a missing ingredient because Tumblr, like many online services in their early stages, focused on building a loyal audience before turning its attention to making money. That’s why the Yahoo deal is so pivotal for Karp and his small team of creative thinkers.

For now, though, they’re basking in the glow of joining forces with an Internet behemoth. As for Karp’s mother, she was positively giddy at the prospect of meeting Mayer on Monday night.

“I’ll get to talk her ear off about how wonderful David is,” Ackerman said. “That’s what moms do.”

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SACRAMENTO (CBS/AP) – California Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday he doesn’t know if the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will open over Labor Day weekend because of safety concerns.

It’s the first time the governor acknowledged serious worries about the structural integrity of the $6.4 billion project to build a new eastern span of the bridge.

Brown spoke to reporters Monday before delivering a graduation speech for University of California, Berkeley political science students.

“I drive across that bridge, too,” Brown said.

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He said the administration is reviewing construction documents going back as far as the administration of former Gov. Gray Davis.

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The Federal Highway Administration said last week that it had launched a probe into why seemingly undesirable bolts were used on portions of the new eastern span. Bridge officials have said they have a fix for the cracked bolts that will cost between $5 Million and $10 million.

On Sunday it was revealed that thousands of steel tendons used to strengthen the skyway portion of the bridge were exposed during construction to rainfall and salty bay mist, leading to corrosion concerns.

A significant question, raised by the Sacramento Bee, was not so much the extent of the problem, but whether Caltrans had enough information about the issue so that outside consultants could make an educated guess or even a reasonable assumption about any possible compromises in safety as a result of the corrosion.

The bridge project is already over budget, but Caltrans was banking on a flawless unveiling of the span to compensate. This most recent issue about possible corrosion, coupled with earlier problems with bad bolts, threatens to derail public support and enthusiasm for the costly project.

The new bridge is replacing a span damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It’s already years late and billions of dollars over budget.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

WASHINGTON (CBS / AP) — Apple Inc. employs a group of affiliate companies located outside the United States to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes, a Senate investigation has found.

The world’s most valuable company is holding overseas some $102 billion of its $145 billion in cash, and an Irish subsidiary that earned $22 billion in 2011 paid only $10 million in taxes, according to the report issued Monday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The strategies Apple uses are legal, and many other multinational corporations use similar tax techniques to avoid paying U.S. income taxes on profits they reap overseas. But Apple uses a unique twist, the report found. The company’s tactics raise questions about loopholes in the U.S. tax code, lawmakers say.

The spotlight on Apple’s tax strategy comes at a time of fevered debate in Washington over whether and how to raise revenues to help reduce the federal deficit. Many Democrats complain that the government is missing out on collecting billions because companies are stashing profits abroad and avoiding taxes. Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate of 35 percent and ease the tax burden on money that U.S. companies make abroad. They say the move would encourage companies to invest at home.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company’s chief financial officer and its tax chief are scheduled to testify and explain the company’s tax strategy at a hearing by the subcommittee Tuesday.

They are expected to face tough questions. The subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and other panel members could hold up Apple as an example of a powerful company using its privileged position to avoid taxes while ordinary Americans must pay them. The subcommittee last fall derided executives from other technology giants over similar allegations.

Apple refuted the subcommittee’s assertions in testimony prepared for the hearing and released to the public Monday evening. Apple said it employs tens of thousands of Americans and pays “an extraordinary amount” in U.S. taxes, citing the roughly $6 billion it paid in fiscal 2012.

Apple “complies fully with both the laws and the spirit of the laws,” the testimony says. “And Apple pays all its required taxes, both in this country and abroad.”

“Apple does not use tax gimmicks,” the statement says.

The company has made clear that given current U.S. tax rates, it has no intention of repatriating its overseas profits to the U.S. Apple reiterated in its testimony its support for comprehensive tax reform as a way to support economic growth and boost U.S. companies’ competitiveness.

The subcommittee also has examined the tax strategies of Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and other multinational companies, finding that they too have avoided billions in U.S. taxes by shifting profits offshore and exploiting weak, ambiguous sections of the tax code. Microsoft has used “aggressive” transactions to shift assets to subsidiaries in Puerto Rico, Ireland and Singapore, in part to avoid taxes. HP has used complex offshore loan transactions worth billions while using the money to run its U.S. operations, according to the panel.

The subcommittee’s report estimates that Apple avoided at least $3.5 billion in U.S. federal taxes in 2011 and $9 billion in 2012 by using the strategy. The company, based in Cupertino, Calif., paid $2.5 billion in federal taxes in 2011 and $6 billion in 2012.

Apple uses five companies located in Ireland to carry out its tax strategy, according to the report. The companies are located at the same address in Cork, Ireland, and they share members of their boards of directors. While all five companies were incorporated in Ireland, only two of them also have tax residency in that country. That means the other three aren’t legally required to pay taxes in Ireland because they aren’t managed or controlled in that country, in Apple’s view.

The report says Apple capitalizes on a difference between U.S. and Irish rules regarding tax residency. In Ireland, a company must be managed and controlled in the country to be a tax resident. Under U.S. law, a company is a tax resident of the country in which it was established. Therefore, the Apple companies aren’t tax residents of Ireland nor of the U.S., since they weren’t incorporated in the U.S., in Apple’s view.

The subcommittee said Apple’s strategy of not declaring tax residency in any country could be unique among corporations.

“Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” said Levin. “Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere.”

The subcommittee’s inquiry and hearing are intended to shine a light on “offshore tax-avoidance tactics” by Apple, Levin said at a news conference Monday with Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the panel’s senior Republican. Companies’ use of such loopholes has the effect of raising the taxes of ordinary Americans and increasing the federal deficit, he said.

McCain said that while Apple claims to be the biggest U.S. corporate taxpayer, it is also “among America’s largest tax avoiders.”

He called Apple’s strategy “an egregious and really outrageous scheme that Apple has been able to orchestrate to avoid paying taxes.”

Levin and McCain are proposing legislation to close loopholes in the tax code.

The subcommittee report also noted that Apple has been setting aside billions for tax bills it may never pay. As previously reported by The Associated Press, the overlooked asset that Apple has been building up could boost Apple’s profits by as much as $10.5 billion. However, Apple has been lobbying to change U.S. law so it can erase its tax liabilities in a less conspicuous fashion.

In its second quarter ended March 31, Apple posted its first profit decline in ten years. Net income was $9.5 billion, or $10.09 a share, down 18 percent from $11.6 billion, or $12.30 a share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue increased 11 percent, to $43.6 billion.

Apple said in April that it will distribute $100 billion in cash to its shareholders by the end of 2015. The company is expanding its share buyback program to $60 billion, the largest buyback authorization in history, and is raising its quarterly dividend by 15 percent, to $3.05 a share.

In Monday’s regular trading session, Apple’s stock rose $9.67, or 2.23 percent, to close at $442.93.

President Barack Obama has proposed using the tax code to encourage companies to move jobs back to the U.S. and discourage them from shifting jobs abroad. Many in both parties say they want to overhaul the entire tax code, but there are vast differences in how they would do so.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — With baseball season is in full swing, 800 concession workers could go on strike at AT&T Park sometime in the next few weeks.

Negotiations fell apart last Thursday, just days after members of UNITE HERE Local 2 voted to authorize a walkout. A union representative said fans can expect to see concession workers who sell beer, popcorn and other food at the ballpark to be walking picket lines instead of the bleachers within a few weeks. The workers have not had a contract in three years.

Members of Local 2 authorized a strike on May 13th. Centerplate, which has the food vending contract with the San Francisco Giants, said the union walked out of negotiations.

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• AT&T Concession Workers Threaten Strike, Haven’t Had Contract In 3 Years
• KCBS’ Barbara Taylor Reports

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Local 2 officials said ballpark concession workers left the talks after being kept waiting for two hours. The union said they were also told their job security demands were “obnoxious.”

“One of these home stands, if not this one, then some future one; people are going to come to the park someday and people are going to realize that the food and beverage operations in chaos,” said Mike Casey of the Local 2 union.

Sam Singer, spokesman for Centerplate, hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“There’s no need for any labor action at AT&T Park. The employees are beloved by Centerplate. They’re the highest paid in the industry. It’s time for the union to return and negotiate rather than stomp its feet and walk away,” Singer said.

While Giants fans won’t be asked to boycott games, the union is discouraging patrons at AT&T Park to buy food and other concessions in the event of a walkout, according to Casey.

Casey said the union is ready to talk as soon as Centerplate agrees to meaningful, face-to-face negotiations.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Stone Temple Pilots With Chester Bennington (L) and Dean DeLeo (R) perform on the main stage at BFD 2013. (credit: Steve Jennings/Live 105)

MOUNTAIN VIEW (LIVE 105/KROQ) – The secret act revealed at Live 105′s music festival, BFD 2013 on Sunday turned out to be the revamped ‘Stone Temple Pilots’ featuring Chester Bennington from Linkin Park on vocals. Bennington replaces “terminated” Scott Weiland, the band’s original frontman.

Earlier, STP performed at KROQ’s Weenie Roast, Los Angeles’ equivalent to BFD on Saturday. There, the band was also the secret guest.

PHOTOS: Stone Temple Pilots With Chester Bennington At BFD 2013

If seeing is believing, the audience at both Weenie Roast and BFD 2013, definitely left as believers in the power of music. The unbelievable magic of both nights was doubly-amplified after all the amazing sets earlier when sonic swamis of alt-stadium rock, Stone Temple Pilots, brought Chester Bennington from Linkin Park out as a featured vocalist.

When Stone Temple Pilots appeared on the L.A. stage, the audience’s hands gripped curiously onto their seats and eyes watched the stage with disbelief as Bennington joined the band tonight.

Replacing Weiland’s grunge rock growl with his Bennington’s gracefully gritty tenor, the featured addition of the Linkin Park frontman was delightfully surreal.

When word broke out Saturday night that STP hit the Los Angeles stage, Live 105 made their on-air announcement of who their “secret band” was, all around the same time.

Quirky collaborations aren’t rare in the rock music world, but none are as epic as the one-two punch of these veteran hard-rockers.

Want some more evidence of tonight’s awesomeness? Listen below to Stone Temple Pilots’ brand new track “Out Of Time,” featuring Bennington as guest vocalist.

You can also download the song for free at Radio.com.

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Official Website: http://www.stonetemplepilots.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stpband
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stpband
Instagram: http://instagram.com/STPBand

- Nadia Noir, KROQ/Los Angeles in part with CBS San Francisco

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SACRAMENTO (CBS / AP) — A judge affirmed on Monday that some workers at the five largest University of California medical centers can go on a planned two-day strike starting Tuesday.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge David Brown denied the UC system’s request for a complete injunction against a strike by the union, which represents 13,000 nursing assistants, scanning techs, operating room scrubs, pharmacists and other health care workers.

Brown partially granted the UC request for an injunction ensuring 453 workers remain on the job so public safety isn’t compromised, said UC system spokeswoman Dianne Klein.

“There is reasonable cause to believe that the strike would prevent delivery of an essential public service… and therefore constitute a substantial and imminent threat to public health or safety, if all respiratory therapists in the UC Burn Centers and all pharmacists working in UCSF’s California Poison Control System were permitted to strike,” Brown wrote in his ruling.

Kathryn Lybarger, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the ruling “reassures the public that there will be no imminent health and safety risks associated with this week’s strike.”

“The court has honored our members’ commitment to protect patient safety, and to stand up to UC’s unsafe staffing practices and reckless cost cutting, which are too often putting our patients at risk,” Lybarger said in a statement Monday.

UC hospitals that would be impacted by the strike– scheduled to start at 4 a.m. Tuesday and end at 4 a.m. Thursday — are in San Diego, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, where the UC Davis Medical Center is located.

University officials said they’ve had to cut back on many scheduled procedures, including postponing surgeries for children, pediatric chemotherapy sessions and other “nonessential” services.

“There may be delays,” said Dr. Tom Rosenthal, chief medical officer for UCLA Hospitals. “Things are likely to be way slower than on a normal day. But things will be safe.”

The system estimates the strike will cost it $20 million, primarily due to the cost of bringing in temporary employees and in lost revenue.

The two sides are fighting over pensions and staffing levels. The union says staffing has been reduced to dangerous levels.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)