Morning Splash: Ed Lee on Verge for SF Mayor; SF Sweetened Cup Deal, Cable Out as Raiders Coach

City Administrator Ed Lee appears to have enough votes to be picked as San Francisco's interim mayor, but the Board of Supervisors didn't make a decision late Tuesday after a raucous debate and delayed consideration to Friday afternoon.

California's highest court, which has issued three rulings on same-sex marriage in less than seven years, was handed another crucial question Tuesday - whether sponsors of a voter-approved measure banning gay and lesbian weddings have the right to defend it in court.

Larry Ellison had more to celebrate on the evening of Dec. 31 than the coming new year. The deal his yacht racing team signed that afternoon to bring the America’s Cup race to San Francisco in 2013 was much sweeter than the one it floated just weeks before. In negotiations with The City that occurred after the billionaire’s team made good on a threat to begin simultaneous negotiations with Rhode Island, Oracle Racing secured several potentially lucrative concessions.

The University of California is under no legal obligation to raise the pensions of its highest-paid executives, and it's too expensive to do so, UC President Mark Yudof and regents Chairman Russ Gould said Tuesday, speaking out for the first time since dozens of top employees signed a letter threatening to sue over the issue.

With the pressure already on, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan spent her first full day in office dropping in at the early morning police briefing, firing the budget director and assistant city administrator, and announcing her own hand-picked staff. Quan, facing a multimillion-dollar budget deficit in the coming year, promised in her inauguration speech to propose a new budget by March, which her office says will require some cooperation with the police union and a diligent, reliable core staff.

Gunmen opened fire on a group of men standing at an East Oakland intersection Tuesday night, leaving five of them wounded -- including one critically -- as well as injuring a man watching television inside his home, which was in the line of fire, police said. The shooting happened about 9:38 p.m. near the intersection of 89th Avenue and D Street. Although investigators today said they still were trying to establish a motive, they did acknowledge that the neighborhood is known for drug dealing.

Video of police shooting a man who was sitting in a wheelchair was released Tuesday night after Chief George Gascón answered questions about the second officer-involved shooting in as many weeks. The video showed at least seven officers — some in uniform and others in plain clothes — surrounding the man and attempting to subdue him with a beanbag gun. Minutes earlier, the man had stabbed a police officer in the shoulder after cops were called to a mental health services center. Once surrounded, the video shows the man maneuvering away from the cops. The man then throws the knife and police open fire, shooting him in the groin. Both the man and the officer are expected to survive.

Roughly four months after a deadly natural gas pipeline explosion, San Bruno officials and residents will begin tonight the process of figuring out what to do with approximately $380,000 in donations that poured in after the disaster. While no final decisions are to be made at the meeting, survivors of the Sept. 9 blast that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes will have a chance to put forth their ideas for the money. Those ideas will then be part of the report that is scheduled to go on Tuesday to the full City Council, which will have the final say on how the donations are spent, Councilwoman Irene O'Connell said.

Gov. Jerry Brown met for more than an hour Tuesday with county leaders on his first full day on the job, a signal of the central role they will play in his plans to shift powers and responsibilities from state to local governments. Barely 10 hours after ending a long day of inaugural events, Brown pivoted back to the nitty-gritty work that had consumed him during the transition: preparing for next week's budget rollout, a plan that will offer $28.1 billion in deficit-cutting measures, including a reordering of how government services are delivered.

Last-minute protests by foes of a plastic bag ban prompted Marin officials to delay adoption of a measure outlawing plastic bags at grocery store checkout counters pending more study. The bag plan will be back before the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 25, after a review of legal arguments posed by a group called the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition.

A moratorium on the installation of SmartMeters was imposed on Marin's unincorporated areas by county supervisors Tuesday, but Pacific Gas and Electric Co. says it will continue to install them anyway. The move came on a 4-0 vote as supervisors bowed to a persistent crowd of meter foes even though officials conceded that the state Public Utilities Commission, not the county, has authority over the devices.

The Raiders cut ties with coach Tom Cable on Tuesday, announcing in a news release that they won't pick up the two-year option on his contract. Cable was two days removed from completing his second full season as the Raiders coach and guiding them to an 8-8 record, their best in eight seasons.

Breaking a decade of global dominance, Microsoft's Internet Explorer in December lost its spot as the browser with the majority of page views in the United States and surrendered its long-held place to Mozilla's Firefox as Europe's most popular browser, according to data released Tuesday by the web analytics firm StatCounter..." The market share of the Firefox versus the Internet Explorer versus the Chrome browser is a monument of a battle that is going on now, but it isn't the only battle that matters on the Internet today," Kovacs said.

Among the items San Francisco gallery and store Park Life stocked for holiday gifts was that most innocent of objects — a bookend in the shape of a balloon dog, made by a company based in Toronto. But right before Christmas, Park Life co-owner Jamie Alexander received an unusual Christmas present. Lawyers for artist Jeff Koons sent a letter asking Park Life to stop selling and advertising the balloon dog bookends, return them to some mutually agreed upon address, tell Koons how many have been sold and disclose the maker of said bookends — a fact, Alexander said, that could easily be found via Google.