Morning Splash: Steve Jobs Resigns; BART Directors Say Limit Phone Shutdowns; SJPD Cuts Ties w/ Immigration Agents; Fresh & Easy Bayview

Steve Jobs, who built Apple into the world's most valuable tech company by revolutionizing how people relate to technology, announced Wednesday he resigned as CEO, stunning the tech world while raising questions anew about his health and the future of the company he founded at age 21. Jobs, a cancer survivor who had a liver transplant, was immediately elected chairman of the company's board of directors. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook became CEO and also joined the board, the company said.

BART directors, slammed with criticism over the transit system's decision to shut down underground wireless service to stop a demonstration, agreed Wednesday they should limit use of that tactic to extreme situations in which public safety is endangered. The BART Board of Directors, at a special meeting called to discuss the controversial wireless shutdown, did not vote on a policy, citing state open meeting laws. But all of the directors said they favor a policy - and most believe it should restrict when the transit agency would shut off the antennas that provide cell phone and wireless data service in BART's subways.

Driven by a dramatic drop in gang killings coupled with community fears that law-abiding undocumented residents would be deported, San Jose police on Wednesday ended their brief alliance with federal immigration agents. Police Chief Chris Moore seemed to declare victory in the department's 2-month-old "war on gangs" in saying the department -- still reeling from severe budget cuts and layoffs -- could now afford to sever ties with two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

(D)ozens of local residents [thronged] outside the store at 5800 Third St. while a formal ribbon cutting with city and federal officials went on inside. Then people streamed in to buy seedless grapes at 67 cents a pound, ready-to-bake tomato and mozzarella pizzas for $2.99 and even sushi, while more than a dozen protesters remained outside denouncing what they said was a lack of real affordable housing in the surrounding development.

A state agency will audit a much-criticized real estate deal that led to an attempt to move major regional agencies out of Oakland to San Francisco. The Legislature's Joint Legislative Audit Committee on Wednesday approved state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier's request to look into the Metropolitan Transportation Commission's proposal to move its headquarters at toll-payers' expense.

San Francisco Beautiful and other groups opposed to AT&T's plans to install hundreds of utility boxes on public sidewalks sued the city Wednesday in an attempt to derail or, at the very least, slow down the project. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, comes after last month's 6-5 vote by the Board of Supervisors to let AT&T move forward without first conducting a full-blown environmental review. City planners had determined that the analysis was not warranted.

As San Francisco's first competitive mayoral election to use ranked-choice voting approaches, several leading campaigns are forming unexpected alliances in an effort to both reduce interim San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's lead and boost their own chances. Under the ranked-choice system, in which voters rank their top three choices instead of selecting just one candidate, collaboration can pay off — as in the case of Jean Quan's successful mayoral bid in Oakland last year.

UC Berkeley is asking some of the country's largest foundations to help undocumented immigrants afford college. Buoyed by a new state law that allows public colleges and universities to offer private scholarships to students who came to the United States illegally, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said Wednesday he has spoken to major organizations such as the Carnegie and Ford foundations about helping the university.

For the first time, more than 90 percent of California's black and Latino students passed both the English and math portions of the high school exit exam by May of their senior year, according to new data released Wednesday. The milestone comes five years after California started requiring students to pass the controversial test -- a breeze for most seniors, a burden for many traditionally left behind -- before they can graduate. But the new numbers showed encouraging signs across the board: 94.6 percent of the Class of 2011 passed the exam.

A state tax board is examining more aggressive ways of persuading residents to pay taxes on out-of-state purchases, from sifting through shipping records to requiring tax preparers to ask clients if they bought goods online. The five-member Board of Equalization, which oversees sales and use tax collection, contemplated such ideas this week while discussing unpaid taxes. Long-standing law requires California residents to pay "use tax" on out-of-state purchases.

Jerry Brown to propose new corporate tax package (Sacramento Bee)

Gov. Jerry Brown will ask lawmakers today to tighten a corporate tax formula in exchange for giving manufacturers a sales tax exemption and offering enhanced job tax credits, according to legislative sources. To enact the plan, the Democratic governor must win votes from at least two Republicans in each house, which Brown failed to do in his state budget fight earlier this year. Brown will portray his plan, which would start in 2012, as a job-creation package as California grapples with a 12 percent unemployment rate.

Running out of legal at-bats, home run king Barry Bonds now needs a favorable call from a tough courtroom umpire to erase his felony conviction for obstructing justice. In a hearing set for Thursday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston will consider Bonds' bid to set aside his April conviction for providing evasive testimony to a federal grand jury probing the Balco steroids scandal in December 2003. The hearing may also provide federal prosecutors their first chance to reveal publicly whether they intend to retry Bonds on three perjury counts left unresolved in this spring's trial.