Morning Splash: Kaiser to Give Millions to Oakland Schools; Majority of Troops Support Gays Serving

Faced with a "new fiscal reality" spurred on by dried up revenues and rising costs, city leaders Monday directed their budget axes toward city employee compensation. At a special San Mateo City Council study session, officials discussed for the first time how to balance the budget over the next decade, which is expected to be far bleaker than the previous two, when tax revenues consistently soared. Full article

On Tuesday, 400,000 Californians will likely lose their unemployment benefits, unless Congress surprises most observers and ships an emergency piece of legislation to President Obama. For more than two years, "an unprecedented offering of federal unemployment extension benefits have provided additional financial support to unemployed workers hit hard in this long, harsh recession," according to an explainer on the state Employment Development Department's website.

An agreement headed to the port board of commissioners today would allow an investment entity led by Market Street Capital Partners JLS, LLC, and controlled by Divco West Services to assume 98.5 percent ownership of the Jack London Square development project from Ellis Partners. Divco West is a real estate investment firm with offices in San Francisco and Boston. Full article

A proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration to evict a long-running recycling collection center from Golden Gate Park requires no formal approval from commissioners who oversee city parks, the city attorney’s office found.Full article

The three-judge panel that will hear arguments next week in the legal battle over California's ban on same-sex marriage is an eclectic blend that covers the ideological spectrum of the sprawling 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Full article

State regulators Monday fined seven of California's largest health insurers nearly $5 million for systematically failing to pay doctors and hospitals fairly and on time. Full article

The Pentagon study that argues that gay troops could serve openly without hurting the military's ability to fight is expected to re-ignite debate this month on Capitol Hill over repealing the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Officials familiar with the 10-month study's results have said a clear majority of respondents don't care if gays serve openly, with 70 percent predicting that lifting the ban would have positive, mixed or no results. Full article

(California) will ship another 5,800 inmates to private prisons across state lines, bringing the total to more than 15,000...California has a prison population of about 164,000 people, but its corrections facilities are only equipped to house around 100,000. The state is under court order to reduce the inmate population by 40,000 though state officials are challenging the order, and the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case today. Full article

San Francisco politicians, long enamored of controversial fees on products and services to promote their ideological viewpoints and raise cash for the city, will be significantly hampered by voters' passage of California's Proposition 26. Full article

Google is near a deal to acquire Groupon, the pioneering online discounter, for as much as $6 billion, people with direct knowledge of the matter told DealBook on Monday.A deal, in the $5 billion to $6 billion range, could be struck as soon as this week, these people said, cautioning that the talks could still fall apart. Full article

European regulators announced Tuesday that they had launched a formal antitrust investigation of Google Inc. to determine whether it has abused its search-engine dominance to squelch online rivals.
The inquiry was triggered by complaints from some websites that Google treated their results differently from its own in displaying unpaid and sponsored search results, the European Commission said. Full article

Salon.com has put itself up for sale, saying that merging with or being acquired by another company could be its best bet to survive a bleak advertising environment for Web-based news operations. Full article