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Bay Bridge toll may rise to $3 

OAKLAND – Commuters crossing the Bay Bridge may have to fish a third dollar out of their wallets to raise money to replace the bridge’s eastern span. 

State and local transportation officials can’t agree how much it will cost to build the span. The Legislature will have to arbitrarily pick a price tag to keep from delaying the project yet another year. 

The project’s price tag has grown from $650 million to an estimate of $3 billion. And finding the funding depends on convincing lawmakers that improving the nation’s most-traveled toll bridge should come before their local projects. 

The Federal Highway Administration has signed off on blueprints for the new bridge, but won’t allow the state to start construction until it knows the cost of the project and how it will be funded. 

New foundation has $5 billion 

SAN FRANCISCO – Pacific salmon, Bay area environmental educators and scientists everywhere could soon be on the receiving end of what is expected to become of the country’s 10 largest charitable foundations. 

Intel Corporation Co-Founder Gordon Moore has set aside half his stake in Intel to create the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. 

The foundation soon will be armed with an endowment worth more than $5 billion. Under federal law, that translates into more than a quarter billion dollars of grants the foundation will have to give away each year. 

The foundation plans to fund efforts in four broad areas, including the environment, scientific research, higher education and the Bay area. 

The foundation isn’t yet accepting grant applications. But it’s already given $50,000 to Oakland’s National Brain Tumor Foundation in trade for moore.org, the Internet domain name it wanted that was owned by woman who lost her husband to brain tumors. 

Charities feeling high-tech crash 

SAN JOSE – Bay Area charities were riding high with the stock market last year as unprecedented donations came rolling in. Now, many of the high-tech stocks that fueled those donations now have fallen to record lows. 

But charities are managing to keep programs running thanks to a new crop of donors and the foresight to diversify their investments. 

Community Foundation Silicon Valley actually has seen its assets rise to $589 million, up from $460 million dollars last year. 

Peter Hero, president of the foundation, says millions of dollars from EBay co-founder Jeff Skoll and Infoseek founder Steven Kirsch are examples of continuing generosity despite the slowing market. 

Hero says some of the foundation’s funds have lost as much as 40 percent of their value in the past year. But a diversified portfolio has kept the foundation in the black. 

Roommate fight leads to shooting and stabbing 

VALLEJO – One man was shot and another man stabbed himself after an argument among roommates over a debt. 

Vallejo Police responded to a reported shooting in the 100 block of Maher Court at about 10:18 Friday night. Outside, they found Raj Kumar, 46, of Vallejo, who had been shot in the upper torso and arm. 

A second victim, Kumar’s brother Tarrakky Lal, 43, had also been injured. Lal had jumped off a patio balcony in an attempt to flee after he had been shot at by suspect Satvinder Singh, 38, also of Vallejo. 

After attempts to make contact with Singh, who was still inside the apartment, failed, officials said the SWAT team deployed tear gas into the apartment.