Top of the morning’s news
- Google was fined $500 million for helping online Canadian pharmacies to reach American consumers by letting the drug companies advertise through its AdWords program, one the largest forfeiture penalties ever in the United States, the Department of Justice announced. Politico
- Gale Cook, longtime reporter, city editor and Sacramento bureau chief for the old San Francisco Examiner, died at the age of 92. Marin IJ
- Bleacher Report, the privately-held San Francisco-based supplier of syndicated sports news, got an infusion of $22 million from private equity firms. SF Business Times
- Online media chronicler Jim Romenesko announced his “semi-retirement” although he will continue to be involved with his popular blog at the Poynter Institute. Media Decoder
- Slate editor at large Jack Shafer was among four employees laid off from the online news magazine owned by the Washington Post Company. Adweek
- Several candidates in the race for San Francisco mayor appear to be moving toward an “anybody but Lee” strategy in hopes of denting Mayor Ed Lee’s frontrunner status. The Bay Citizen
- Supervisors Jane Kim and David Chiu will fly by private jet to the Nevada desert next week for a 24 hour stay at the Burning Man festival. The Examiner says Mayor Ed Lee and supervisors John Avalos and Malia Cohen had been courted for the trip but declined.
- A San Francisco election worker was sentenced to time served and was to be released from county jail for stealing ballots from a polling station last November that were later found in the pond at the Palace of Fine Arts. Chronicle
- Activists say they will continue to protest against BART—and add misery to commuters’ lives—until the transit agency disbands its police force. Examiner
- UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau challenged corporate California—and Silicon Valley in particular—to contribute $100 million to the university to help it through unprecedented budget cuts. The Bay Citizen
- State lawmakers are considering what might be done to bring down California’s 12 percent unemployment rate, including streamlining permit procedures and loosening environmental regulations. Chronicle
- A sea lion rescued last week from the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf is recovering from gunshot wounds at Sausalito’s Marine Mammal Center. Santa Cruz Sentinel
- Barry Bonds is scheduled to be back in court Tuesday to ask a federal judge to set aside his felony obstruction conviction in connection with the BALCO steroids scandal. Mercury News
- The economy may be down, but traffic at SFO isn’t, with nearly 20 million travelers flying into San Francisco during the last fiscal year, up 4 percent from a year earlier. Examiner
- Police in the L. A. suburb of Redondo Beach say a 95-year-old man is doing well after being stung more than 400 times by a swarm of bees. AP
