A.M. Splash: US Alleges EBay-Intuit Recruiting Pact; 4 In Bay Area Are New Rhodes Scholars; Boat Wreck Raises America's Cup Questions

EBay Inc. said it will fight a Department of Justice lawsuit that alleges that the Internet retailer and financial software provider Intuit Inc. had signed an illegal agreement restricting the companies' ability to actively recruit employees from one another. According to the DOJ complaint, the agreement began no later than 2006 and lasted at least until 2009. The DOJ said the agreement for over a year also barred at least eBay from hiring any Intuit employees at all. EBay and Intuit directly compete for employees, including specialized computer engineers and scientists covered by the agreements at issue in the case, the department noted.

Four young scholars with Bay Area ties are among the 32 Americans winning elite Rhodes Scholarships to enroll in graduate studies at Oxford University beginning next year. They include a senior and a graduate student from Stanford, a UC Berkeley science student and a senior from Yale University who hails from Larkspur in Marin County. The students were selected from among 1,700 applicants.

When Larry Ellison's new 72-foot America's Cup boat capsized on a practice run and was sucked through the Golden Gate in a crippled mess, the second-guessing and doubts among the sailing community began: Has Ellison's plan to turn the world's most famous yacht race into a high-tech white-knuckle NASCAR of the sea gone too far for speed?

Who in their right mind would choose to spend Sunday morning running 10.2 miles, crawling under cargo nets and parked Subarus, hurling themselves "Dukes of Hazzard"-style over taxicabs before scaling up and over a yellow bus and climbing an 8-foot wall to the finish? Some 2,000 people who were at the starting line at Pier 39 at 7 a.m. Sunday for Men's Health "Urbanathlon," which is part road race, part obstacle course and attracts the pain-impervious weekend warriors, the types who see bloody shins and arms (from commando crawls on the pavement) as Monday morning medals.

Bishop Patrick McGrath apologized during a family Mass on Sunday for "a failure at the diocese level" that gave permission to a convicted child molester to volunteer at the Saint Frances Cabrini parish festival last month. "I take full responsibility," McGrath told the congregation from the podium moments before the service began at Cabrini, located on Camden Avenue in San Jose. "I pledge to you I will do everything in my power to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Disputes over tribal membership have flared up again within the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, prompting an indefinite postponement of the election for its board of directors, which runs River Rock Casino near Geyserville. The November election was called off after the legitimacy of two candidates for office, both lifelong members of the tribe, was questioned. At stake is control of Sonoma County's only operating Indian casino, along with payments and benefits that are lost by members disenrolled from the tribe.

It's not easy living in an iconic piece of San Francisco film history. Just ask Hanna Suleiman and his wife, Sandy, who, after 23 years, have had their fill of being a tourist attraction and are putting up a wall in front of the Lombard Street house where Jimmy Stewart's character lived in Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller, "Vertigo." To hear the Suleimans tell it, they've put up with tourists ringing their door bell, strangers picnicking on their fence and others tossing garbage into their yard.

Jesus Ruiz Diego, 26, knows no other life than the one he's had since growing up in San Jose, yet he faces imminent deportation from the United States because he's an illegal immigrant. His family and supporters plan to rally Monday at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in San Francisco as part of a last effort to keep him from being sent to Mexico... He's among the 1.7 million young people who came to the United States illegally as children and who could qualify for a "deferred action" plan that would protect them from deportation for two years. But he doesn't meet one of the requirements of the rule, which says applicants must have been in the U.S. continuously since June 15, 2007.

Just as retailers launch their most elaborate Black Friday campaign to lure shoppers with early openings and blockbuster deals, there are signs some Bay Area shoppers will be avoiding the shop-till-you-drop tradition. Many credit the store promotions that began in early November and the proliferation of online discounts. "Why get up at 5 a.m. if you don't have to?" said Cathy Endriss, who was shopping with her daughter Carly Perez at a Walmart in Martinez on Friday. They plan to shop online from home, where they can sleep in and stay in their pajamas.

When San Francisco officials approved the installation of separated bikeways along Fell and Oak Streets, local bike enthusiasts rejoiced. Regular cyclists have long complained that the highly-trafficked stretch of the two parallel streets, which connects the popular Wiggle bicycle route to Golden Gate Park, are unsafe. But now their celebrated plan might be threatened. Earlier this month, a group of neighborhood residents appealed the city's approval of the bikeway, arguing it violates both the Americans with Disabilities Act and the California Environmental Quality Act.