In an opinion released late Monday, City Attorney Barbara Parker wrote that dueling recall campaigns both will be allowed to circulate petitions calling for Quan's ouster. However, only the first campaign to collect the required 19,811 signatures will be considered the valid petition.

Mayor Ed Lee vetoed legislation Monday that calls on the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department to transfer management of Sharp Park to the federal government, if an agreement can be reached.

The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, the oldest dispensary of its kind in the state, quietly shut down over the weekend, the victim of a federal crackdown.

In an apparent end-around Santa Clara County's new immigration policy, federal agents swooped into the South Bay last week, arrested 63 undocumented residents recently released from jail and are now seeking to deport them. The action comes two months after the county enacted a sweeping policy to reduce its role in aiding the federal deportation effort, and provoked outrage among community activists.

In a high-stakes patent battle with potentially significant repercussions for the smartphone industry, the International Trade Commission on Monday sided with Apple and ruled that handset-maker HTC was copying some elements of the iPhone.

Pacific Gas & Electric Company will not get in the way of Sonoma County's efforts to form a public power agency, company president Chris Johns pledged. In an interview with The Press Democrat, Johns said the company would not engage in a publicity campaign to undermine the county's study of whether or not to become a public power supplier to local residents and businesses.

Enough is enough. That was the reaction among bookstores when Amazon offered a discount to customers willing to use its Price Check app to browse at a brick-and-mortar store but buy the goods from its website. Jasmine Johnson, whose grandparents founded Marcus Books in San Francisco's Fillmore district more than half a century ago, has started an online petition determined to put a stop to the app and Amazon's tactics.

The managers who operate California's state parks say they have lost faith in their leader, and are urging Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint a replacement.Ruth Coleman, director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, was appointed by former Gov. Gray Davis in 2002. It has been rumored for weeks that Brown is considering a new appointment for the post. Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the governor, declined to say Monday whether a new appointment is in the works.

After years of insisting that its customers would receive SmartMeters whether they wanted the wireless devices or not, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. reversed course on Monday and proposed giving people the choice of keeping their analog meters. The choice would come at a cost, with PG&E customers paying an extra monthly fee to hold on to their old meters. But it marks the utility's biggest concession yet to SmartMeter opponents, many of whom consider wireless devices to be a health threat.

Critics are calling out Chevron for touting its community contributions to Richmond in a national ad while fighting for a multimillion-dollar tax refund. The corporation has been running an ad since November featuring a Richmond student manipulating a robot. In a split screen, a Chevron geologist talks about the corporation's support for science education.