A.M. Splash: Cal State Closes Door on Spring 2013 Enrollment; PG&E On Why Customers Should Pay For Pipeline Upgrades

California State University will accept no new admissions for the spring semester of 2013 - with a few exceptions - as part of a drastic cost-cutting strategy to reduce enrollment by about 16,000 students next spring, officials said Monday.

PG&E executives said customers should pay almost the entire cost of gas pipeline safety upgrades that could reach $11 billion because the company was required to meet only the barest of safety guidelines before the disastrous 2010 explosion in San Bruno. Industry standards in place since at least the 1950s were not requirements, and therefore the company was never obligated to meet them, executives testified Monday during the first day of hearings before an administrative law judge at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Mayor Ed Lee is expected to announce today whether he will seek the removal of Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who was sentenced Monday to three years' probation and weekly domestic-violence counseling after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment of his wife.

Attorneys for the San Jose Police Officers' Association on Monday elaborated on two lawsuits they filed against the city of San Jose, including one that seeks to force the city back to the bargaining table and another that alleges the city violated the union's contract by trying to change retirement benefits through an election rather than arbitration.

Despite record foreclosure rates, double-digit unemployment and historic rates of poverty among children, it can be easy to gloss over how cuts to social programs affect people in Alameda County. That is why District 3 Supervisor Wilma Chan is holding a budget hearing Wednesday evening: To discuss the precarious state of safety net services imperiled by state and federal funding cuts.

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who has feuded openly for months with state lawmakers and dissident judges over a bid to weaken her administrative power, appealed to the Legislature on Monday to spare the judiciary from further budget cuts.