A.M. Splash: Reports Say Police Used Prohibited Weapons on Occupy Protesters; New Doyle Drive Opens; How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes

...Use-of-force reports obtained by The Bay Citizen reveal that police officers from Oakland and other Bay Area agencies repeatedly used weapons that were illegal under Oakland’s policy. Mutual aid agencies are not required to adhere to Oakland’s policies on use of force, nor are they required to stop using weapons that the Oakland agency prohibits. According to the reports, Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies used grenades filled with rubber pellets, and Palo Alto police officers used pepper-ball guns to fire indiscriminately into a volatile crowd during protests last October and November, both of which are prohibited. The Oakland police violated its own policy when tango team officers deployed “flash-bang” grenades into the crowds.

After a long weekend of noisy demolition, the new Doyle Drive opened on schedule just before dawn Monday morning.

Commuters who use the Golden Gate Bridge or take ferries from Marin County should brace for possible disruptions of the morning commute Tuesday as part of a daylong schedule of labor-oriented rallies throughout the Bay Area, activists and officials said.

Over objections from employee unions, the San Jose City Council will vote Tuesday to reduce pension benefits offered to future employees, a milestone in a quest to ease a burgeoning retirement bill that comes nearly a year and a half after voters overwhelmingly authorized the move. City labor unions that have offered once-unthinkable concessions on pensions for new hires say the proposed changes go too far.

...Over the last two years, the 71 technology companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index — including Apple, Google, Yahoo and Dell — reported paying worldwide cash taxes at a rate that, on average, was a third less than other S.& P. companies’. (Cash taxes may include payments for multiple years.) Even among tech companies, Apple’s rates are low. And while the company has remade industries, ignited economic growth and delighted customers, it has also devised corporate strategies that take advantage of gaps in the tax code, according to former executives who helped create those strategies.

...The new lanes will be built along a three-mile stretch of Highway 101 between Highway 85 in Mountain View and Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto. Along with merging lanes also being built, the new look will turn this section into one of the widest in the region, with 12 lanes. And all the extra asphalt also offers a glimpse into our commuting future.

The Oakland city attorney has sued two more Occupy Oakland protesters to try to force them to pay for damage after police arrested them on suspicion of spray painting public property during a wave of vandalism at a demonstration in January.

...The case of the Redwood City father who's suing because his son was dropped from a class for cheating has struck a nerve with readers, who have emailed, phoned and posted their discontent online. Jack Berghouse's lawsuit against the Sequoia Union High School District has disturbed people's sense of fairness and decency as well as their belief in the importance of teaching character and ethics in young people who will inherit the nation's leadership.

A lawsuit filed against the Recording Academy over its decision to trim the Grammy Award categories from 109 to 78 has been dismissed. The ruling last week by New York State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Oing granted the Academy's motion to reject a lawsuit by Grammy-nominated jazz musician Bobby Sanabria and three others. Sanabria had been the loudest opponent of the Academy's decision last year to reduce its categories and fold some genres into larger fields.