A.M. Splash: Doyle Drive to Close 3 Days at End of April; City Attorney Defends Mirkarimi Suspension in Court; Guv, Unions Agree to Extend Contracts

...Parkway officials announced Monday that Doyle Drive will shut down from 8 p.m. Friday, April 27, until 5 a.m. Monday, April 30. While it's closed, an army of construction workers will demolish the seismically fragile eastern section of the bridge, using 40 hydraulic hammers, some of which were used to clear the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Monday rebutted the arguments of suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who is trying to overturn his suspension on official misconduct charges in the wake of his conviction in a domestic violence case last month.

Ross Mirkarimi has joined the ranks of celebrities with the latest addition to his legal team. High-profile Los Angeles attorney Shepard Kopp, who previously represented celebrities Michael Jackson, Mel Gibson and Winona Ryder, has signed on to help defend the suspended sheriff in his bid to overturn his ouster by Mayor Ed Lee.

A San Jose State student in a "hallucinogenic state" had a violent confrontation with university police in a dormitory Monday night that ended with the man's arrest and hospitalization for pepper spray contamination. University police got the call about 9:02 p.m. Monday that a man had been seen wandering around Building B of the SJSU Campus Village Apartments. When confronted on the dormitory's sixth floor by a university police officer, the man in his early 20s was unresponsive to verbal commands and approached the officer in a threatening manner, according to a university spokeswoman.

Gov. Jerry Brown has agreed to extend the labor contracts of four state worker unions, pushing aside a potential obstacle to his quest for a tax increase later this year. The agreements affect roughly 24,000 state employees working under deals that expire July 1, extending their current terms for one more year. The governor's deals with labor are "mind-numbing," given the state's $9.2 billion deficit, said Senate GOP leader Bob Huff.

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson unveiled a much-anticipated reorganization plan Tuesday, in a memo describing his intention to focus the company's efforts in three main divisions, while shifting product development responsibilities into those groups.

When word broke Monday morning that Facebook was buying a tiny San Francisco startup for $1 billion, many asked: "Who are these guys?" Instagram, which makes a wildly popular app to turn mobile-phone photos into mini works of art, has a staff that barely tops a dozen. And at the top of the org chart are a pair of co-founders just a few years removed from their Stanford undergraduate days.