Morning Splash: Brown Signs Part of Dream Act, Vetoes Adult Day Health Care; Debt Showdown; Stow Case; Burning Man Sold Out

Undocumented immigrants who attend California universities and colleges will have greater access to privately funded scholarships after Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed into law a portion of what is known as the Dream Act. A more controversial portion of the act, to allow undocumented students to receive publicly funded financial aid, is still pending in the Legislature.

Time is running out for the tens of thousands of frail, elderly and disabled Californians who currently depend on centers around the state for medical care and other support, after Gov. Jerry Brown refused to support a smaller incarnation of the decades-old program. Brown vetoed a bill Monday that would have offered an alternative to Adult Day Health Care, which was eliminated under the budget signed last month. Now, funding for the approximately 300 existing centers that offer 37,000 adults medical care, physical therapy, exercise, counseling, socialization and other support will be cut off on Dec. 1.

The Democratic-led Senate and Republican-led House on Monday barreled toward a showdown on competing plans to cut spending and raise the debt limit as a resolution to the intensifying crisis remained farther from sight just one week before a possible federal default. With President Obama trying to employ the power of the presidency to force an agreement, House and Senate leaders said votes could occur as early as Wednesday on competing proposals to slash spending in exchange for increasing federal borrowing authority that the Treasury Department says will be exhausted Aug. 2, raising the prospect that federal bills will go unpaid.

Even though San Jose has just laid off police and other employees and cut services, voters appear unlikely to pony up an additional sales tax this fall to bring any of that back or to prevent crippling budget deficits for now, a survey reveals. The poll results on five potential tax increases released by the city on Monday show that only one -- a quarter cent sales tax -- seems to be viable. Yet with only 57 percent of voters supporting it, that's not enough for San Jose officials such as Mayor Chuck Reed to endorse putting any tax measure on November's ballot.

The state Supreme Court made it easier Monday for California taxpayers to seek refunds from cities and counties, ruling that a claim of an illegal local tax can be pursued as a class action on behalf of everyone who was overcharged. The unanimous decision in a Los Angeles case overturned lower-court rulings requiring local taxpayers to file individual refund claims.

One of the two men accused of beating a Giants fan nearly to death outside Dodger Stadium told witnesses not to talk to police about what they knew, and both he and his co-defendant have criminal records and had access to guns, prosecutors said Monday in urging a judge to keep them behind bars. Attorneys for the two countered that their arrests marked the second time Los Angeles police had bungled the case and smeared innocent men.

The mother of a man who died in a confrontation with San Francisco police said Monday that he was a musician who had been heading to a meeting with his record producer when he clashed with officers, and she is skeptical of official accounts that her son shot himself to death after opening fire.

Construction of Oakland International Airport's new air traffic control tower was halted Monday because Congress missed its Friday-night deadline to reauthorize routine funding for the Federal Aviation Administration. The Oakland tower, for which ground was broken in October, is among dozens of stalled projects across the nation worth $493 million.

The BART police officer who shot and killed Charles Hill is James A. Crowell, who has been on the force for 18 months, according to police recordings and a person familiar with the investigation into the shooting. Myron Lee, a six-year veteran, was the other BART police officer on the scene when Crowell shot Hill after a 25-second confrontation on the Civic Center platform, according to those same sources. Both officers are back at work after taking three days of administrative leave, BART spokesman Linton Johnson.

...Monday's 25-minute ceremony was a first for the franchise. President Dwight Eisenhower did not do this when the Giants last won, in 1954. In front of about 200 Giants investors and their families, team officials, select Giants employees and a who's who of political leaders with ties to Northern California, Obama had some fun with the champs, only appropriate for a group that has parodied itself.

Tickets for Burning Man sold out this weekend for the first time in the counterculture festival’s 25-year history and now burners are scrambling to find a way into the festival as scalpers capitalize on the dwindling supply. The San Francisco-based organizers, Black Rock City LLC, made the official announcement on Monday but would not say how many tickets have so far been sold. The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the Nevada desert where the festival is held every year around Labor Day, prohibits excessive growth and the organization decided to stop ticket sales in an effort to keep the population under control, according to Andie Grace, a spokeswoman for the event.

State legislation passed last month to block public school districts from reducing their teaching staffs in the coming school year hasn't resulted in a rush among local districts to rehire all the instructors laid off in May. Most Sacramento-area school officials say they aren't sure whether the law requires a rehiring blitz. And many state officials seem unclear as well.

At any one time last year, an average of 73 percent of inmates sitting in San Mateo County's overcrowded jails were waiting for their cases to be heard or resolved, according to a federal research report. That's considerably more than a nationwide average of 61 percent, notes the report by the Washington, D.C.-based Pretrial Justice Institute, a research group founded in 1976 by the federal Department of Justice. The report recommends that San Mateo County investigate whether it could release more inmates awaiting their day in court.

In the wake of a state Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on plastic grocery bags in Manhattan Beach, advocates say they are encouraged about the prospects of similar legislation in Marin and beyond...But opponents have also declared victory, saying the court decision could actually bolster their efforts to keep plastic bags legal. With a lawsuit still pending against a Marin County ordinance approved in January, it is not clear how quickly local jurisdictions will move to ban throwaway bags.

Netflix Inc., the mail-order and online film-rental service, tumbled after its third-quarter sales and profit forecast missed analysts’ estimates and the company said a price increase was crimping new-user signups. Netflix fell as much as 9.9 percent in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, the biggest drop in a year, and was down $25.22, or 9 percent, to $256.31 at 9:39 a.m. New York time.