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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $290,000 payout to settle a lawsuit by the guitarist of rock band Journey that claimed the city unfairly jacked up fees to use a city landmark for his lavish wedding.

The full board voted unanimously to approve the settlement with Neal Schon.

Schon married “Real Housewives of D.C.” star Michaele Salahi in December 2013 at the Palace of Fine Arts with a reception at an adjacent building that once housed the Exploratorium science museum.

Schon said he agreed to pay the city $58,000 for the use, but was surprised to learn days before the wedding that he would have to pay $240,000 for the opulent event to go on. He reluctantly paid, likening the price hike to “extortion.”

The couple sued in federal court in February, claiming that the city unfairly jacked up the fee after learning the couple planned to broadcast the event on pay-per-view.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera initially defended the higher charge as appropriate for a commercial event.

Journey is a band nearly synonymous with San Francisco in some circles. Its song “Don’t Stop Believing” is the unofficial theme song of the San Francisco Giants.

Before starring in the 2010 season of “Housewives,” Salahi made headlines when she and her then-husband crashed a state dinner at the White House in 2009.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Frustrated in past attempts to organize its first foreign automaker in the South, the United Auto Workers union is taking a new approach at Volkswagen’s plant in Tennessee.

Instead of seeking another vote to represent the entire blue collar workforce at the German automaker’s lone U.S. factory in Chattanooga, the UAW is bidding to organize just a 165-member unit of skilled-trades workers. A two-day vote by that smaller group of workers who repair and maintain machinery at the plant opens Thursday.

“It’s just part of an overall strategy to get us to the bargaining table with the company,” Gary Casteel, the UAW’s secretary-treasurer, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “Because all things are possible in bargaining.”

“Do we look at groups that get us in the door to have collective bargaining rights? Absolutely,” he said.

The UAW has been thwarted for years in its efforts to represent workers at foreign automakers such as Nissan in Tennessee and Mississippi; Mercedes-Benz in Alabama and BMW in South Carolina.

Volkswagen’s labor-friendly corporate culture has made the German automaker the UAW’s top target, but the union lost a vote at the plant in early 2014.

The factory opened to great fanfare in 2011, but sales of the midsized Passat had already begun to slide before revelations about Volkswagen’s diesel emissions cheating scandal emerged. The plant is scheduled to begin the additional production of a new SUV next year.

Now, Casteel said, the UAW is seeking out cooperation with counterparts in Germany to try to present a unified front in efforts to improve the union’s prospects with manufacturers beyond the Detroit-area automakers of General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler.

“I’ll just be brutally honest about it — we have been doing the same organizing tactics for a long time,” Casteel said. “We said we were going to change up the convention, and we’re doing that.”

Volkswagen wants to create a German-style works council at the plant to represent both hourly and salaried employees, but can’t do so under U.S. law without the participation of an independent union.

While the union and Volkswagen agreed on the framework of a 2014 election to unionize the plant and create a works council, the campaign turned acrimonious when anti-labor Republicans and outside groups became involved.

That election ended with a narrow defeat for the union, and subsequent negotiations with the German automaker have failed to significantly change the status of union supporters at the plant.

“Employees have grown increasingly impatient and have decided to exercise their rights under the law,” Casteel said.

The new vote on establishing a micro bargaining unit for the skilled-trades workers is taking place despite opposition from Volkswagen.

The company told workers Tuesday it is appealing the National Labor Relations Board decision to let the smaller group seek to unionize. The legal challenge won’t stop this week’s vote from taking place.

The board’s regional director last month rejected Volkswagen’s arguments that only the entire hourly workforce of 1,400 employees should be allowed to vote on union representation, not just the “micro unit” of skilled-trades workers.

“The decision to appeal is based on Volkswagen Chattanooga’s consistent position that the Chattanooga workforce is one integrated team and our One Team concept is a critical component of our success,” Volkswagen said in its announcement.

The UAW has criticized Volkswagen for hiring a law firm that touts its expertise in “strategies for lawful union avoidance,” and charges that the aggressive stance against the union is at odds with the German automaker’s stated mission of co-determination between workers and management.

“We’re disappointed that Volkswagen continues to argue against employees’ rights that clearly are protected under federal law,” Casteel said. “We’re calling on Volkswagen to drop this appeal and instead refocus on the core values that made it a successful brand, including environmental sustainability and employee representation.”

Volkswagen has questioned the timing of the UAW’s latest push, given the automaker’s struggles to cope with the emissions scandal.

The UAW responds that the Chattanooga plant is alone among Volkswagen’s plants around the world without formal labor representation.  “That needs to change if the plant is going to play a meaningful role in Volkswagen’s comeback story,” Casteel said.

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HELENA, Mont. (AP) — U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs officers escorted two children off an American Indian reservation in Montana where their grandmother brought them amid a custody dispute, bringing the federal government into a clash between state and tribal courts.

One officer detained Patsy Fercho on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation on Nov. 21 while another drove the boys to the reservation border and turned them over to their father, serving a warrant issued by a court in Minnesota, where the father lives, attorney Roberta Cross Guns said Tuesday.

Fercho had picked up the boys in Minnesota in late September and took refuge on the reservation, believing she was out of reach of state court orders and protected by a tribal court order that gave her custody.

“This is one of those areas where the BIA acts independently,” said Maylinn Smith, associate professor and co-director of the Indian Law Clinic at the University of Montana. The bureau is “supposed to be operating on behalf of the tribe, but they aren’t under their jurisdiction. This is a perpetual problem with BIA involvement in tribal affairs.”

Bureau officers, who are federal employees, are required to recognize state court orders but not all tribal court orders, Smith said. An Indian Affairs spokeswoman did not return a phone call or email Tuesday seeking comment.

There is a process in which the tribe could complain to the bureau’s local office that the officers’ actions were not consistent with their obligations to the tribe, Smith said, but there’s no statute that says an Indian Affairs officer can’t execute a state court order on the reservation.

A Montana judge had ordered the boys’ father to have temporary custody in late 2014 because their mother was unable to care for them. The mother, Fercho’s adopted daughter and a tribal member, was battling addiction and legal problems.

Fercho asked the boys’ tribe to intervene while also seeking custody through Minnesota courts. The Northern Cheyenne tribe ordered emergency guardianship and physical custody of the children to Fercho this fall after finding they were in danger of bodily injury.

The boys’ father has not been charged with any abuse. His attorney, Rich Batterman, has declined to comment, saying it was a confidential child custody case.

A Minnesota judge found Fercho and her husband in contempt of court Nov. 20 for failing to follow a court order to return the children to their father and issued warrants for their arrest. That’s when the Bureau of Indian Affairs got involved.

“It disturbs me that it was so coordinated,” said Cross Guns, Fercho’s attorney. The bureau “didn’t consult with the tribe, but they did coordinate with a non-Indian guy to a great extent.”

A federal court might end up deciding who has jurisdiction, taking into account the Northern Cheyenne tribal code, Smith said.

Tribal President Llevando Fisher did not return a phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Cross Guns said she’s working to see if the tribe will take a stronger position in the case and is asking the Minnesota court to quash the arrest warrants because the boys have been returned to their father.

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When it comes to attracting young programmers to come work for a 123-year-old company, reverse psychology seems to work.

So GE is finding with its unusual ‘What’s the Matter with Owen?” commercial series, featuring a young programming fending off the disappointment from his family and friends that he took at job as a programmer at GE.

The TV commercials have been turning heads among the target recruits, college grads, says Tony Denhart, University Relations Leader at GE Corporate and Andy Goldberg, GE’s Chief Creative Officer.

“Finding relevancy with millennials is critically important because they will represent more than half of the US workforce by 2025,” says Denhart.

“GE has always done on-site college recruiting. It isn’t that our recruiting measures weren’t working — they were. But we saw an opportunity to up our game,” Goldberg says.

“We are seeing an increase of applications and interest in our leadership programs at multiple colleges. We are also seeing more interest from students, faculty and administrators to learn more about GE technologies,” says Denhart.

All told, after airing the commercials, visits to GE’s online recruitment site 66% month over month, they told Business Insider. 

Here’s the one where the young programmer’s friends are far more impressed with the guy that got a job at the latest fun app maker.

SEE ALSO: 50 enterprise startups to bet your career on in 2016

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CLEVELAND (AP) — Josh McCown is done being battered around this season.

Unfortunately for the Browns, they’re still going to take some lumps.

McCown broke his collarbone in Monday night’s last-second loss to Baltimore, an injury that will cost him the final five games this season and re-open more quarterback chaos in Cleveland.

With the Browns in a short week before facing Cincinnati, coach Mike Pettine still hasn’t decided if he’ll re-insert Johnny Manziel, recently benched for off-field antics, into the starting lineup or stick with Austin Davis, who replaced an injured McCown in the fourth quarter.

“I have a series of meetings scheduled,” Pettine said on a conference call Tuesday. “We’re going to discuss it more and determine our best course of action moving forward. We’re going to take everything into consideration and then make a decision for this week that is best for the team.”

The 36-year-old McCown, who sustained a concussion on the Browns’ opening drive this season and missed two games with badly injured ribs, kept playing against the Ravens despite taking a hard hit in the second half.

However, he took himself out after throwing an incompletion in the fourth quarter, leaving the field in excruciating pain.

Pettine said McCown will not need surgery, the lone positive to another bad turn of events for a team that has lost six straight and may not have hit rock bottom.

“Worst possible scenario for Josh,” Pettine said. “It was not displaced, so he does not need to have surgery but it will take more than the rest of the season to get it healed up. That’s very unfortunate. Josh means a lot to this team, whether it’s in the locker room, practice field, game day, just the positive energy that he exuded, the leadership.

“I cannot say enough positive things about Josh McCown and what he’s done for this football team and what he means to this football team.”

McCown was signed to a three-year deal to stabilize Cleveland’s wobbly quarterback situation. He did the best he could while also serving as a mentor to Manziel, who was recently given the starting job and then had it taken from him for off-field behavior.

Pettine said he will meet with his coaching staff later Tuesday to decide his next move at quarterback. Davis came in with Cleveland trailing by seven and threw a game-tying touchdown pass in the final minutes. He had the Browns (2-9) in position to kick a game-winning field goal only to have it blocked and returned 64 yards for a touchdown on the game’s final play.

Davis’ inexperience also hurt the Browns down the stretch. He failed to get out of bounds on a run, forcing the team to call a timeout, and Davis had trouble with the communication device in his helmet, leading to confusion and wasting precious seconds.

Pettine said he will consult with others, but made it clear that the decision on who will start at quarterback on Sunday against the Bengals will be his alone.

Manziel, who has gone 1-2 as a starter this season, was active for Monday night’s game as Cleveland’s No. 3 quarterback. He had been selected as the starter for the last six games before a video surfaced of him partying during the team’s bye week. Manziel had promised his coaches that he would not be a distraction and then became one anyway.

Pettine demoted him to third string, saying the 22-year-old had violated the team’s trust.

Now, it’s possible the Browns will place their faith in him once again.

NOTES: Pettine said CB Justin Gilbert is in the NFL’s concussion protocol after sustaining a head injury while returning a kickoff against the Ravens. … Pettine described the loss as one of the toughest in his coaching career. “You’re poised for thrill of victory and then you’re tasting agony of defeat all within a span of 10 to 15 seconds. I can’t think of too many game-ending scenarios that would make you feel worse at the end than that.” … Despite some incriminating photos, Pettine said the coach’s game tape does not show the Ravens lined offside on the blocked field goal.

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AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is warning U.S. citizens against traveling to Mali and is authorizing the voluntary departure of eligible family members and non-emergency personnel from the U.S. Embassy in the African nation’s capital.

The department is also urging Americans already in Mali to “review their personal safety and security plans” to decide if they should leave.

The advisory issued Tuesday advises U.S. citizens to remain vigilant and “avoid public gatherings and locations frequented by foreigners.”

Last month, heavily armed Islamic extremists attacked a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako. Twenty people, including one American, were killed.

The State Department says the U.S. Embassy in Mali will provide only emergency consular services “for the foreseeable future.”

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his partner Priscilla Chan announced the birth of their baby, Max, with a letter detailing their plans for a new charity initiative.

As part of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the couple will fund disease research, they wrote in the note.

“Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities,” they wrote.

Zuckerberg and Chan pledged to give 99% of their Facebook shares, worth about $45 billion, to the initiative, with likely a few billion of that going toward developing cures for diseases.

“Once we recognize that your generation and your children’s generation may not have to suffer from disease, we collectively have a responsibility to tilt our investments a bit more towards the future to make this reality. Your mother and I want to do our part.”

Zuckerberg and Chan were pragmatic about advancing disease treatments and cures. 

“Curing disease will take time. Over short periods of five or ten years, it may not seem like we’re making much of a difference. But over the long term, seeds planted now will grow, and one day, you or your children will see what we can only imagine: a world without suffering from disease.”

With $45 billion to give away, and with health research getting some part of that, the world likely be a healthier place for baby Max.

ICYMI: Mark Zuckerberg is officially a dad!

NEXT: Mark Zuckerberg says he’s giving 99% of his Facebook shares — $45 billion — to charity

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NOW WATCH: Should we kill off one of the most dangerous creatures in the world?

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A hot new tool to edit the human genetic code has a big wow factor: the promise of long-sought cures for intractable diseases. But depending on how it’s used, that same tool could alter human heredity.

The debate has brought hundreds of scientists and ethicists from 20 countries to a highly unusual, three-day meeting in Washington on the ethics of human gene editing.

“We could be on the cusp of a new era in human history,” Nobel laureate David Baltimore of the California Institute of Technology said Tuesday in opening the international summit to examine what he called “deep and disturbing questions.”

“The overriding question is when, if ever, would we want to use gene editing to change human inheritance?” he said.

That question gained urgency after Chinese researchers made the first attempt at altering genes in human embryos, a laboratory experiment that didn’t work well but did raise the prospect of one day modifying genes in a way that goes far beyond helping one sick person — it also could pass those alterations on to future generations.

“That really does raise the issue of, how do we use this technology in a responsible fashion,” said molecular biologist Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped pioneer the most-used gene-editing tool. Her calls for debate on its implications and boundaries led to this week’s gathering, a step that could eventually lead to research recommendations.

At issue are tools to precisely edit genes inside living cells, finding specific sections of DNA to slice and repair or replace much like a biological version of cut-and-paste software. There are a few methods but one with the wonky name CRISPR-Cas9 is so fast, cheap and simple for biologists to use that research is booming.

The potential is huge: Scientists are engineering animals with humanlike disorders to unravel the gene defects that fuel them. They’re developing treatments for muscular dystrophy, sickle cell disease, cancer and HIV. They’re trying to grow transplantable human organs inside pigs. They’re even hatching mutant mosquitoes designed to be incapable of spreading malaria, and exploring ways to wipe out invasive species.

One hurdle is safety. While the CRISPR tool is pretty precise, it sometimes cuts the wrong section of DNA. Tuesday, CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard reported Tuesday tweaking the tool’s molecular scissors to significantly lower chances of off-target editing errors — an improvement that could have implications both for developing therapies and for germline research.

“The reality is, it will be years until this is turned into some kind of a therapy,” Doudna cautioned reporters.

Yet many scientists said it’s not too early to consider the biggest ethical quandary, that performing what’s called germline editing, manipulating reproductive cells — sperm, eggs or embryos — could spread gene changes to future generations.

In the U.S., germline editing for clinical use — meaning for pregnancy — “is a line that should not be crossed at this time,” John Holdren of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said Tuesday.

Last spring’s experiment in China highlighted that ethics aside, embryo editing wasn’t anywhere near ready for real-world use, because those off-target edits risked fixing one problem only to create another.

But there’s controversy over whether and how to continue laboratory experiments to see if it eventually could work. And just as fraudulent stem cell clinics already lure desperate patients, there’s worry about misuse of gene-editing techniques before they’re proven.

Around the world, laws and guidelines vary widely about what germline, or hereditary, research is allowed. Some ban any research; some allow only lab research but not pregnancies; some have no policies. In the U.S., the National Institutes of Health won’t fund germline research but private funding is allowed.

What one country attempts “will have consequences in others,” the White House’s Holdren noted.

It’s not just about editing embryos. At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Kyle Orwig is exploring treatments for male infertility that could alter sperm-producing cells that don’t do their job.

Critics note there are other ways to halt transmission of inherited disease. Already, couples undergo in vitro fertilization and have the resulting embryos tested for the family’s problem gene before deciding which to have implanted, noted Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society advocacy group.

Allowing gene editing for medical reasons would open the door to designer babies with cosmetic changes, too, she added.

“It would alter future human societies, perhaps profoundly so,” Darnovsky said Tuesday.

Pre-testing of embryos doesn’t solve the problem for all families with devastating rare diseases, said Dr. George Daley of Boston Children’s Hospital, recounting families that have dozens of embryos created through IVF to come up with one or two usable ones.

“Is it more ethical to edit embryos, or to screen a lot of embryos and throw them away? I don’t know the answer,” Doudna said.

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Online:

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Airbnb has revealed some details about how much “typical” hosts make in New York City, the company’s second largest market next to Paris, France.

The typical room, apartment, or home rented in New York City’s five boroughs made a median of $5,110 in the last 12 months, the company said, and was rented for fewer than four nights per month. 

“We are making this data available to help policymakers craft smart rules for home sharing,” Airbnb said in a blog post on Tuesday. 

It’s the first time Airbnb has shared broad, anonymized data about how its hosts rent in a big city. And it’s a clear move to position Airbnb as a friendly, supplemental source of income rather than an illegal threat to traditional landlords.

Airbnb defeated legislation last month that would have severely limited its ability to operate in San Francisco. The legislation was called Proposition F and it would have restricted Airbnb hosts from booking more than 75 days of short-term rentals (such as an Airbnb-facilitated stay) per year.

After winning the legal battle in San Francisco, Airbnb made a commitment “to work with cities around the world on responsible rules for home sharing.”

The data shared by Airbnb on Tuesday can also been seen as a response to New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, who published a report last October claiming that 72% of Airbnb rentals in New York City were illegal.

Some other data Airbnb shared in its blog post:

• “78% of Airbnb hosts in New York earn low, moderate, or middle incomes.”
• “72% of Airbnb hosts in New York use the money they earn sharing their space to stay in their homes.”
• “36% of Airbnb hosts in New York City have unsteady incomes. Many are freelancers, part-time workers, or students.”
• “11% of hosts said they used Airbnb to support themselves while launching a new business.” 
• “95% of our entire home hosts share only one listing.”

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Although the real NFL season is just entering its playoff race, for fantasy football players, the playoffs are right around the corner.

With most leagues closing in on the playoffs, some fantasy owners may be on the outside looking in, cursing themselves for drafting players who became busts while slogging through forgettable 2015 seasons. While it’s tough to let go of players you drafted with high hopes, some of these guys have either never turned the corner or turned the corner too late.

Here’s our list of the top 25 fantasy football busts this season (in no particular order).

Eddie Lacy — RB, Green Bay Packers

Preseason Rank: No. 3

Key Stats: 513 rushing yards, three touchdowns, four fumbles

One thing to know: After a painfully slow start, Lacy appears healthy and has picked up his play. But as a top-five pick for many people, Lacy’s resurgence has likely come too late. He hit a low point in Week 10 when he was demoted to second on the Packers’ depth chart.

C.J. Anderson — RB, Denver Broncos

Preseason Rank: No. 9

Key Stats: 496 rushing yards, three touchdowns

One thing to know: Much like Lacy, Anderson has been heating up in recent weeks, but far too late for many fantasy owners. He only has three games with over 50 rushing yards this season, two of which have come in the last two weeks.

Andrew Luck — QB, Indianapolis Colts

Preseason Rank: No. 20

Key Stats: 1,881 passing yards, 15 touchdowns, 12 interceptions

One thing to know: Injuries have obviously played a huge part in Luck’s struggles, but after being projected as this year’s top quarterback, Luck was a letdown even when healthy. He only has two games without an interception this year.

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