The city of San Bruno agreed Monday to accept $70 million from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. as a settlement for the suffering caused by the September 2010 explosion of a natural gas pipeline in a residential neighborhood. As part of the deal, a $50 million cap will be placed on a separate PG&E fund that is paying for rebuilding streets and utilities, replanting a burned canyon and other direct costs from the blast, which killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes. The cap had been $70 million.

Just a few hours after federal and Bay Area transit leaders raised champagne glasses Monday to celebrate clearing the final financial hurdle to extend BART to East San Jose, attention turned to downtown San Jose. That is the next planned extension -- but the far more expensive segment. Tunneling underneath San Jose and building an aboveground link to Santa Clara will cost around $4 billion, and only half of that money is guaranteed.

Five people have been charged in connection with an Occupy protest at UC Berkeley in November that attracted national attention after a YouTube video showed police jabbing their batons at screaming students. The Alameda County district attorney's office charged four students and a professor last week with misdemeanor resisting arrest and other crimes, Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for the office, said Monday.

While Ross Mirkarimi's attorneys were publicly battling to keep jurors from seeing a key piece of evidence against him, they had privately begun discussions with the San Francisco sheriff last week about considering a plea agreement, multiple sources told The Bay Citizen.

The foreclosure backlash is spreading to Oakland, where two council members are trying to pressure Wells Fargo to keep people in their homes. A proposal that goes before the council's Finance and Management Committee on Tuesday would rescind the city administrator's authority to unilaterally extend Oakland's banking contracting with Wells Fargo past this year, giving council members an opportunity to seek new provisions regarding foreclosures, loan modifications and the maintenance of foreclosed property.

The first in a series of storm systems is expected to pound the Bay Area today with rain and gusty winds, kicking off what forecasters are saying may be the wettest week of the rainfall season. The National Weather Service is expecting rainfall throughout the Bay Area, warning the downpour could be heavy at times. Showers are expected throughout the week and some areas of the Bay Area could receive as much as 5 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service.

After Marin officials questioned what they said were inflated figures, regional planners have cut the county's projected job growth by more than 40 percent in the latest draft of 30-year Bay Area growth plan. And three communities — Novato, Corte Madera and Larkspur — saw dramatic cuts to their housing figures after raising similar objections earlier this year.

California would become the first state to create a "Ban List" prohibiting violent fans from attending professional sports events anywhere in the state under newly proposed legislation. The list would operate much like a restraining order: Anyone listed who went anyway would be guilty of a misdemeanor.