A.M. Splash: Chevron to Move 800 Bay Area Jobs; Dozens of SFO Flights Canceled; Magistrate to Rule on Pot Club; Mayors Want Limits on Ammo

Chevron Corp. will move up to 800 jobs - about a quarter of its current headquarters staff - from the Bay Area to Houston over the next two years but will remain based in San Ramon, the oil company told employees Thursday. The jobs - generally, technical positions dealing with information and advanced energy technologies - are all tied to Chevron's worldwide oil exploration and production business, much of which is based in Houston. The company reported the shift in an e-mail to its employees Thursday.

With a major storm bearing down on the Bay Area on busiest travel day of the season, airline officials canceled about 35 flights in and out of San Francisco International Airport. The cancellations mostly affect commuter short-haul flights up and down the West Coast, according to airport spokesman Doug Yakel. As always, travelers should check with their airlines before heading to the airport to find out about delays or cancellations, he said.

Oakland: Magistrate to rule on pot club (SF Chronicle)

The federal government faced off against the city of Oakland and the nation's largest medical marijuana dispensary Thursday in a case of dueling lawsuits over whether the dispensary can keep operating while its long-term future is being decided. After asking a few questions, federal court Magistrate Maria-Elena James took the matter under submission and is expected to rule soon.

Saying that high-powered, military-style weapons and ammunition have no place in San Francisco, city leaders on Thursday announced a proposal to ban the possession of hollow bullets and require anyone buying more than 500 rounds at a time to notify the Police Department. The announcement by Mayor Ed Lee, Supervisor Malia Cohen and Police Chief Greg Suhr came less than a week after the Connecticut school massacre in which 26 people were killed by a gunman wielding a semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle. San Francisco tried banning semiautomatic weapons altogether in city limits, but was stymied by the courts; Lee said the latest proposal will also probably face legal challenges, but city officials decided "we've got to do something more."

Eleven current and former Bay Area mayors chimed in on the firearm debate this week, signing a letter that calls on President Barack Obama to push reforms to strengthen federal gun trafficking laws and require criminal background checks for every gun sale. The mayors, all part of the national bipartisan coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns, also asked the president to review the federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and draft new legislation to "get high capacity rifles and ammunition magazines off our streets," like the one used by Adam Lanza during last Friday's killing spree at a Connecticut elementary school. Lanza killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary -- 20 of them children -- using, among other guns, a Bushmaster .223 rifle equipped with 30-round magazines reportedly purchased by his mother, whom he shot and killed before going to the school.

The meteorite fragments that crashed down in El Dorado County in April contain some of the best-preserved elements from the dawn of the solar system ever recovered, according to a new study. The Sutter's Mill meteorite, as it has been called, entered Earth's atmosphere at about 8 a.m. on April 22 with the force of a 4-kiloton bomb. The explosion when it broke apart could be heard as far away as Washington state, and it produced a fiery streak seen across large areas of northern Nevada and California.

Viral star PSY has reached a new milestone on YouTube. The South Korean rapper's video for "Gangnam Style" has reached 1 billion views, according to YouTube's own counter. It's the first time any clip has surpassed that mark on the streaming service owned by Google Inc. It shows the enduring popularity of the self-deprecating video that features Park Jae-sang's giddy up-style dance moves. The video has been available on YouTube since July 15, averaging more than 200 million views per month.