A.M. Splash: Restaurant Defies Foie Gras Ban; FTC Mulls Record Fine Against Google; Port of Oakland Gets $15 Million to Expand Rail Yard

Presidio restaurant says it can serve foie grasA Bay Area restaurant is adding foie gras to its menu despite a new California law banning the sale of the delicacy. But the owner of the restaurant says the state can't stop him. Presidio Social Club is in San Francisco's Presidio, a national park under federal jurisdiction. That, according to the restaurant's management, makes it exempt from the state legislation that went into effect July 1 forbidding the sale of any product made from a force-fed bird.

Google and the Federal Trade Commission are closing in on a deal that would force the Mountain View search giant to pay a record $22.5 million fine for bypassing the default privacy settings of Apple's Safari browser for Google users, according to a report. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the two sides were close to the deal, which would be the largest fine the FTC has ever levied on a single company.

Three days after his high-speed rail triumph, Gov. Jerry Brown was in Oakland on Monday with a top Obama administration official to celebrate Washington's help in pressing ahead with a major freight project. Joined by Mayor Jean Quan and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Brown heralded a $15 million federal grant to help the Port of Oakland expand its rail yard.

InnVision and Shelter Network, two of the main homeless nonprofits that offer housing and services in the Peninsula and South Bay, have combined in one of the biggest mergers of homeless-aid organizations in California. The merger of the newly dubbed InnVision Shelter Network went into effect July 1.

Caltrans has awarded $48.5 million through its Safe Routes to Schools program to help fund construction of sidewalks, bike paths and other improvements near campuses throughout the state. Bay Area awards include more than $2.2 million for seven projects in Alameda County, $1.3 million for upgrades along three Contra Costa County school routes, $809,900 for two improvement projects in Santa Clara County and $450,000 to fund road and crosswalk upgrades in Palo Alto.

A former city employee let his San Francisco renters live with raw sewage spills, flooding, extensive mold and mildew, buckled floors, rodent infestations, crumbling walls and ceilings, and dry-rotted stairs for more than a decade... Monday the city announced Bayview Property Managers agreed to pay an $800,000 civil fine - the largest on record for building code violations.

Only halfway through the biting season, rattlesnakes may be closing in on a record. Bites were up 48 percent in the spring. From April through June, 184 rattler bites were reported to the state Poison Control System. During that same period last year, there were 124... A wet 2011 winter created good conditions for snake survival; this year's drier-than-average winter may have pushed them to travel farther for food and water.

The largest development deal under Mayor Ed Lee's tenure, a $2.5 billion agreement that would see two new, seismically safe hospitals built in San Francisco, is in peril. Lee insists that the deal must guarantee that St. Luke's Hospital in the Mission District, which serves lower-income residents, remain open for 20 years after it is rebuilt. But on Monday, California Pacific Medical Center refused to budge.

After establishing itself as an environmental leader among consumer electronics companies, Apple's (AAPL) abrupt withdrawal from a prominent "green" product registry has set off a furor in the blogosphere and could modestly cut into the company's computer sales.

Amid one of the best fishing seasons in almost a decade, commercial salmon fisherman on the North Coast are tying up their boats and will stay in port for the next few days in an attempt to drive up prices.