A.M. Splash: UC Berkeley Cuts Tuition Price For Middle Class; Study Says SJ Pension Plan Unsound; Report Says Tech Firms Dodging Taxes

...Alarmed that many qualified students from families earning incomes of between $80,000 and $140,000 can't afford to go to the public university, campus officials announced a unique price break Wednesday. UC Berkeley will become the first public campus in the nation to offer a discount to middle-class students who don't otherwise qualify for financial aid, they said.

Even with optimistic investment returns, San Jose has only a 12 percent chance over the next 16 years of having enough cash to cover promised pension benefits to its employees and retirees, according to a report released Wednesday. The report from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a nonpartisan university affiliated think tank, was written by Joe Nation, a Stanford public-policy professor. He estimated San Jose's unfunded pension promises at $3.6 billion.

Rocketship Education, the upstart charter operator that has posted impressive test scores for traditionally struggling students, won approval early Thursday morning to more than triple its charter network by opening 20 new schools in Santa Clara County -- the largest single charter-school approval in the state.

Silicon Valley technology firms that are lobbying Congress to slash taxes on money they bring home from abroad, arguing that doing so would help them create millions of jobs, already send more than half that money back to the United States without paying taxes, according to a Senate investigation released Wednesday.

As outrage and debate continue about the tactics police have used against Occupy protesters, the Oakland Police Department is investigating the captain who approved the use of beanbag projectiles against demonstrators Nov. 3. Capt. Ersie M. Joyner III, 42, said Wednesday that he could be fired or demoted pending the investigation. He was placed in a bureaucratic job in the department's Office of the Inspector General about two weeks ago while the review continues, but he said he expects the investigation will show he did nothing wrong.

Groups that have raised environmental concerns about the America’s Cup said Wednesday that they intend to slow down the development approval process if the Planning Commission will not do so. The commission is scheduled to vote Friday on the event’s environmental impact report. If it certifies that report, members of the Environmental Council coalition vow to appeal the decision to the Board of Supervisors.

One month after the pepper-spraying of student protesters at the University of California, Davis, officials are struggling with how to move forward, even as they prepare for the possibility of new protests and building takeovers when students return next month

Facebook's Timeline feature was made available to the social network's millions of users worldwide Thursday, offering the biggest change to the service's signature profile pages in its history.

The first Marin meeting of the seven Democrats vying to replace retiring Rep. Lynn Woolsey and capture the newly created District 2 congressional seat demonstrated once again that there is no 11th commandment to not speak ill of a fellow Democratic Party member.