A.M. Splash: Prop. 8 Leader Appointed SF Archbishop; Up to $2.3 Billion Hidden in Calif. State Accounts; Calif. Gun Purchases Soar

The new Archbishop of San Francisco is a Bay Area resident who is chair of the national subcommittee to protect and promote traditional marriage. Salvatore J. Cordileone, 56, was appointed to be the Metropolitan Archbishop of San Francisco by Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican announced early Friday. He will oversee the dioceses of Honolulu, Las Vegas, Oakland, Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Jose, Santa Rosa and Stockton.

A week after uncovering a hidden-funds scandal at the state parks department, finance officials are now trying to piece together why the balance sheets for similar "special funds" are off by $2.3 billion -- money that appeared to be right under their noses amid California's financial meltdown. An analysis by this newspaper of California's little-known 500-plus special funds -- like the ones that included $54 million in parks money shielded from the Department of Finance -- shows tens of millions of dollars in discrepancies in numerous accounts.

Californians just can't get enough guns and are on a pace to set a new annual record for the number purchased legally.Experts with the state Department of Justice predict residents will buy 725,000 rifles, pistols and shotguns in 2012, nearly twice the number they purchased five years ago, when 370,628 were acquired.

City leaders won't rush to replace Oakland's unreliable public safety radio system that failed police officers again Monday night while protesters marched through city streets shortly after a visit from President Obama. City Administrator Deanna Santana acknowledged persistent radio problems during a Thursday news conference, but cautioned that the city wasn't ready yet to scrap the $18 million system installed just one year ago in favor of a regional system scheduled to come online in September. "If we don't study before we transition our system, we're likely to make the same mistakes we have made," she said.

Two families that lost a total of five loved ones in the San Bruno pipeline explosion have settled their lawsuits with PG&E for an undisclosed sum, attorneys said. During a hearing Thursday in San Mateo County Superior Court, Judge Steven Dylina congratulated the attorneys for reaching an agreement on the Bullis and Greig cases and pushed for more negotiated deals.

The state’s prescription drug monitoring program, which was dealt a major blow amid state budget cuts, is still operating but may run out of money by the end of this year, according to the attorney general’s office. The program, called CURES, is used by law enforcement to track the prescribing of doctors suspected of dispensing too many addictive narcotic pain medications. Doctors also query the database to determine whether patients are “doctor shopping,” or seeking potent drugs from multiple sources to feed an addiction.

First Boston. Then Chicago. The next city to tell Chick-fil-A to keep out? San Francisco. Edwin M. Lee, mayor of the progressive city, tweeted Thursday night... "Closest #ChickFilA to San Francisco is 40 miles away & I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer." Until Thursday, San Francisco had stayed mum on the debate, which began when Chick-fil-A's president, Dan Cathy, went on the record as saying his Atlanta-based chicken chain operated on biblical values and opposed same-sex marriage.

If you've ever paid a bill or a traffic ticket after it was due, you are familiar with late payment fees. It turns out the state of California is familiar with them, too. The state paid more than $34.3 million in penalties for overdue bills from July 2004 through June 2011, according to new figures from California's Department of General Services, the state's business manager.

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced a gift Friday of $2.5 million to the campaign to defend Washington's same-sex marriage law. Washington United for Marriage says it has raised more than $5 million for Referendum 74 on the November ballot. Last month Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates each donated $100,000 to the campaign supporting the law.

A UC Berkeley astrophysicist has received a big boost as he reaches for the cosmos. Physics professor Eliot Quataert will get up to $1 million from the Simons Foundation to study anything he wants. The no-strings grant, similar to the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" awards, will allow Quataert, a 39-year-old Oakland resident, to explore his specialty, space mysteries such as black holes and gas clouds.

Chevron reported lower profits on Friday, amid falling oil prices and reduced energy production, but the results were cushioned by improved earnings from refinery operations. Chevron earned $7.21 billion during its second quarter that ended on June 30. Those profits were 6.8 percent below the year-ago earnings of $7.73 billion.