Morning Splash: Hackers Post BART Cops' Info; Oakland Schools' Top Cop Retires After Racial Slurs Complaint; SF Dems Endorse Avalos

Hackers carried out a second cyber-attack against BART on Wednesday, breaching the website of the union that represents the agency's rank-and-file police and releasing a roster of 102 officers and other employees along with their home addresses, e-mail addresses and passwords for the site. The roster was published on a separate website, where the hackers wrote, "Yet another success."

Relatives of slain 3-year-old Carlos Fernando Nava on Wednesday criticized calls to expand a gang injunction to other parts of Oakland and implement a citywide curfew for minors in the wake of the boy's murder. The gunman who killed Carlos was aiming at two men involved in a gang feud, police say. The men arrested in the slaying and the intended victims were all adults. Eduardo Nava said Wednesday afternoon the restrictive measures would not solve the violence that claimed his young cousin's life.

...The (Oakland Police) department's shrinking workforce has upset city politicians, spurred ballot initiatives and prompted lawsuits. Council members and Mayor Jean Quan have been pilloried for letting the number of officers drop. They and others have defended themselves by pointing out that the high pay and benefits of officers are why the city can't afford more. Among experts, there's no consensus on whether increasing a police force reduces crime. Some studies have concluded that hiring officers reduces crime while others have found it has no effect.

The chief of the Oakland schools police department has retired after a formal complaint that he directed racial slurs against an African-American sergeant after a charity golf event last month. Pete Sarna II, 41, submitted a letter to the school district's legal department Wednesday announcing his immediate retirement, said Troy Flint, spokesman for the Oakland Unified School District.

The San Francisco Democratic Party gave Supervisor John Avalos its coveted top endorsement in the mayor's race Wednesday. City Attorney Dennis Herrera was selected as the party's No. 2 choice. No candidate was picked for the third spot.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, under fire from the city of Oakland and East Bay lawmakers, voted Wednesday to rescind its July decision to purchase a building at 390 Main St. in San Francisco and remake it into a regional government headquarters.

Going online to get a college degree has been championed as a cost-effective way to educate the masses and challenged as a cheapening of academia. Now, the online classroom is coming to the vaunted UC system, making it the nation's first top-tier university to offer undergraduate credit for cyberstudies. By dislodging education from its brick-and-mortar moorings, the University of California -- short on money and space -- hopes to ease the path to a diploma for students who are increasingly forced to wait for a vacant seat in a lecture hall. Especially in high-demand "gateway courses," such as chemistry, calculus and composition.

Nearly all University of California employees will be eligible for raises this year after UC leaders on Wednesday lifted a pay freeze that lasted almost four years. In a letter to UC employees, President Mark Yudof said all but the newest and highest-paid employees would be eligible. Union members already were entitled to raises under their contracts, but nonunion workers have not received bumps since October 2007.

A new Caltrain study shows that its trains can share the same track with a high-speed rail line, agency officials said Wednesday, an outcome that would address Peninsula residents' and lawmakers' concerns about the impact of building new tracks through their neighborhoods. Six electric commuter trains and four bullet trains shuttled per hour between the Hayward Park station in San Mateo and the Redwood City station on a blended track in a computer simulation created by LTK Engineering Services. The mock-up assumed such variables as an electrified track, an advanced signaling system and a new set of passing tracks, none of which currently exist. The cost of the signaling system alone is roughly estimated at $250 million.

Supporters of controversial legislation to give state regulators power to approve, deny or modify changes in health insurance rates have returned from their summer recess to find added opposition as they push for its passage before the session wraps up.

The board of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District approved a new funding plan Wednesday that will likely bring it another $33 million from a regional transportation agency. The new rail plan has a price tag of $360 million and includes a two-year delay in service, with a projected start of 2016. But if the funding picture improves for the agency, the start of service could be moved up.

The federal government said Wednesday it is suing a Panda Express restaurant in West San Jose for making its Latino workers clean toilets while Asian employees stood by and enjoyed an easier workload. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a federal court filing that the general manager of the Panda Express in the shopping center at Campbell and Saratoga avenues gave Latino workers fewer hours and more menial jobs...The commission also said the manager more frequently and harshly disciplined Latino employees.

Regulators overseeing natural gas pipelines in California had become complacent in their duties to ensure the safety of pipelines leading up to the explosion in San Bruno last year that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes, the executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission told lawmakers at a hearing Wednesday. Paul Clanon, who has been the commission's executive director since 2007 and worked there since 1984, struck a concessionary tone at the Capitol hearing to examine the commission's oversight of gas lines.

The (Mavericks) big-wave surf season kicks off in November, but the question of who will run the Mavericks surf competition this year is still up in the air. The San Mateo County Harbor Commission was expected to award an event permit on Wednesday night, but the item didn't appear on the agenda because the Harbor District didn't receive an application, according to General Manager Peter Grenell.