State law requires a bar pilot to guide every large vessel — be it a luxury liner, a billionaire’s yacht, aircraft carrier or cargo ship — in, out and around the San Francisco Bay. Most of the ships are docked at the Port of Oakland.

The Giants could place Huff on the seven-day personal leave list. If this is something more serious involving Huff himself, he could go on the 15-day DL.

Arias is a former Texas Rangers infielder who impressed the staff with his right-handed bat, glove and arm during spring training. He fills a definite need. The Giants were caught short of middle infielders in New York on Saturday, necessitating Huff’s first inning at second base, which did not go well.

Arias, 27, was hitting .400 with two homers and 17 RBIs in 18 games for the Grizzlies.

Furthermore, Brandon Crawford and Emmanuel Burriss played every inning of Monday’s doubleheader in New York and all nine in Cincinnati on Tuesday night. One or the other could probably use a rest. Crawford has started all 17 games at shortstop and jammed his left elbow in the eighth inning Tuesday night. Ryan Theriot told us last night he’s still a bit weak from flu.

Check back later in the afternoon for more updates.

Attorneys for Mirkarimi and the city will be in a City Hall hearing room, hashing out what the commission’s agenda calls “the process, parameters and protocol for the hearing.”

It’s not the stuff that Perry Mason or John Grisham novels are made of, but those rules will be desperately important to Mirkarimi’s effort to hold on to his job, said Steven Gruel, the attorney who represented former Supervisor Ed Jew in 2007, the only other time a misconduct hearing has come before to the commission.

“Procedure is everything when it comes to protecting your client’s right to due process,” he said. With the commission’s inexperience with this type of proceeding, “it’s uncharted waters. For a creative lawyer, you have a canvas to paint however you wish.”

The commission never has completed a misconduct hearing, as Jew resigned after the opening session. He was later convicted and sentenced to prison for extorting $80,000 in bribes from small businesses in his district. Because he didn’t live in San Francisco when he was elected to the board, he also was convicted of perjury.

An attorney for Mirkarimi said he will not appeal Friday’s decision.

Mirkarimi, 50, elected the keeper of San Francisco’s jails in November, has been suspended without pay after pleading guilty to false imprisonment in a domestic abuse case stemming from a New Year’s Eve fight with his wife, Venezuelan telenovela star Eliana Lopez. Lopez suffered a bruise on her arm.

Mirkarimi will continue to be without a job, and without a $199,000 salary, while he defends himself before the city’s ethics panel, which will make recommendations about his future to the Board of Supervisors.

Mirkarimi was sentenced last month to three years of probation, 100 hours of public service and 52 weeks of domestic violence classes, and he was ordered to pay $590 in fines and fees.

Mirkarimi was accused of bruising the arm of his wife, Venezuelan actress Eliana Lopez, during a dispute on New Year’s Eve. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor false imprisonment.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday (http://bit.ly/I4LKy1 ), he said he inadvertently bruised Lopez’s arm in an effort to shield his son from her and guide her back into the passenger’s seat of their car to calm a dispute.

He said the couple was arguing after Lopez said she wanted to take their 2-year-old son to Venezuela for an extended stay. The boy “panicked” when Lopez left the car and tried to get him out of his car seat, Mirkarimi said, explaining he reached over to put his hand underneath her arm to bring her back into the seat.

“I thought I was being a father,” he said. “I was trying to remedy the situation.”

Mirkarimi said his guilty plea to false imprisonment stemmed from his turning the car around against the wishes of Lopez, but he insisted he never kept her from leaving their home as District Attorney George Gascon contended.

Mirkarimi said the dispute was finished by the time the couple got home, and Lopez later went grocery shopping.

A neighbor made a videotape of Lopez describing the alleged New Year’s Eve incident and displaying the bruise. The tape was key evidence in the case against Mirkarimi.

The sheriff disputed much of what Lopez said in the video, as described in court documents. He said the couple had never previously had a physical altercation, and that he never told Lopez that he could take the boy away from her because he is a powerful man. Mirkarimi says he actually told Lopez that California has powerful custody laws.

Lopez has supported her husband, denying any abuse took place.

In a statement, Gascon said the evidence against Mirkarimi was overwhelming.

“Ross Mirkarimi physically assaulted his wife and restrained her liberty, leaving a very large bruise on her arm,” Gascon said. “His failure to take responsibility for what really happened is both disturbing and telling.”

Mirkarimi had been charged with domestic violence, child endangerment and dissuading a witness before pleading guilty to false imprisonment.

Mirkarimi also spoke on Wednesday on KQED’s “Forum” program, where he fought back tears and said politics played a role in the case.

“Do I think politics is involved?” he said. “You can’t deny it.”

The interviews come as Mirkarimi faces administrative misconduct charges and is fighting his suspension by Mayor Ed Lee in court. A judge ruled on Thursday that City Attorney Dennis Herrera can continue representing Lee in the matter.

Mirkarimi had argued that Herrera had a conflict of interest because he was advising Lee and two other city entities in the matter.

It comes as Muni is facing multi-million-dollar budget deficits.

Religious leaders have objected that Sunday meters would discourage churchgoers from attending services.

Muni’s board also voted to start a pilot program that would let disadvantaged youths ride Muni for free. The program would run from Aug. 1 to May 31, 2014 and cost about $9.4 million.

San Francisco’s regional transportation partners must still agree to help pay for it before it can go into effect.

But behind the scenes, it’s been the most challenging year in the festival’s history. Two executive directors of the San Francisco Film Society have died – Graham Leggat, who lost a battle to cancer in August at 51; and his replacement, independent film maestro Bingham Ray, who had two strokes and died at 57 while attending the Sundance Film Festival in January. He had been on the job only 10 weeks.

“It sounds like a line, but it’s actually true that for me personally it was a relief that I had something I could throw myself into that could distract me from the incredible turn of events that happened in the past year,” festival director of programming Rachel Rosen said. “We want to honor them, and what they contributed to us is huge, but I think both of them would have agreed we want the festival celebratory, and not mournful. They were two guys who loved movies, and the event nature of festivals. They loved being at film festivals, interacting with filmmakers, interacting with the public. So the best thing we can do is put on a festival they would be proud of.”

The festival opens Thursday at the Castro Theatre with an opulent French film about Marie Antoinette, “Farewell, My Queen,” starring Diane Kruger (“Inglourious Basterds”). Veteran director Benoît Jacquot will attend, and the evening – including the opening-night party at Terra Gallery – is dedicated to Leggat, who served as executive director for six years and was credited with tripling the budget and the number of employees at the San Francisco Film Society; bringing programs such as Cinema by the Bay and Filmmaker360, a grant and support service for independent film projects; and the acquisition of a permanent, year-round theater in Japantown for films and events.

Because Leggat had planned well for his succession and Ray was not hired until November, this year’s festival wasn’t affected much in terms of planning and programming. It’s the long-term vision and fundraising that have to be addressed after the conclusion of the festival May 3. A search committee headed by board members Jen Chaiken and Todd Traina is looking for Ray’s successor, and longtime SFFS board member Melanie Blum is serving as interim executive director.

“The challenge for us is not to get so focused on our responsibilities – what Graham was great at and what Bingham would have been great at – is to step back and take a look at the bigger picture, to see how all the various things interact with each other,” Rosen said. “I know how to do my job, but is there anything I need to be double-checking with my colleagues that would affect them that Graham would have been keeping his eye on? Bingham, even in the 10 weeks he was here, was constantly asking, ‘Why aren’t you doing this, to maximize it?’ ”

One can only imagine what might have been had Ray lived. A tireless independent film producer and distributor, most notably as head of the now-defunct October Films, Ray often found himself in colorful bidding wars with then-Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein in the 1990s – Ray and Weinstein are major characters in Peter Biskind’s chronicle of the indie film explosion of the ’90s, “Down and Dirty Pictures.”

Ray was included in the “in memoriam” tribute at the Academy Awards in February. His tribute at the festival will be a Saturday afternoon Castro screening of his favorite film, “The Third Man.”

Longtime festivalgoers, however, should find the 55th SFIFF anything but a downer. New films by Francis Ford Coppola, Lawrence Kasdan and Richard Linklater, plus several live shows, including one by Peaches Christ, are on the schedule, and the festival ends on a high note with “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey,” the true story of Arnel Pineda, who went from rags (in the Philippines) to riches (lead singer of Journey) because the band, looking for a replacement for Steve Perry, found him on YouTube. Pineda will be at the Kabuki.

“There is a ‘Wizard of Oz’ side to most festivals,” Rosen said, “where you pull the curtain back and there are a lot of people who are scrambling around working really, really hard to make something look seamless on the outside.”

The remaining four, including Cork-born Alan Cahill and Elmer Morrissey, remain missing.

The US Coastguard has suspended its search indefinitely.

“The operation continued for approximately 30 hours covering an area of 5,000 square miles,” said Lieutenant Chris Hanzlik of the US Coast Guard.

“But as time goes on because of drift and undertow and currents in the ocean, the search area becomes larger and larger. At the same time, the probability of survival goes down.”

The yacht was hit by a series of large waves as they rounded the Farallon Islands in the Pacific.

San Francisco Sailing Club director Ed Lynch is deeply saddened by the accident. He said:

“It’s a tragedy of unbelievable proportions. It doesn’t affect just this club, it affects sailors all over the world. It’s going to hit us hard for a long, long time.”

Conoco closed the unit at the 128,000-barrel-a-day plant north of San Francisco after a fire broke out there overnight, Randy Sawyer, Contra Costa County’s chief hazardous materials officer, said in an e-mail. The fire was extinguished “within a few minutes,” said Rich Johnson, a Conoco spokesman at company headquarters in Houston.

California-blend gasoline, or Carbob, in San Francisco (MOGSD85P) Carbob advanced for the second day, jumping 7.5 cents to a 3- cent-a-gallon premium against futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 3:58 p.m. East Coast time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the highest level for the fuel in San Francisco since March 16.

Johnson declined to provide the status of the sulfur unit. “Refinery operations are otherwise routine at this time,” he said in an e-mail.

Los Angeles (MOGLDB85) Carbob also rose for a second day, by 1.25 cents to a discount of 2.25 cents a gallon against futures.

Tesoro Corp. (TSO) (TSO) will perform maintenance at the 97,000-barrel- a-day Wilmington (SHWCCRUD) oil refinery in Southern California that may cause the plant to flare from April 16 through April 18, Tina Barbee, a spokeswoman at company headquarters in San Antonio, said in an e-mailed statement.

Conoco yesterday reported a fault at the sulfuric acid plant in the Wilmington section of its 139,000-barrel-a-day Los Angeles (CPLACRUD) refinery April 11.

“A duct on the sulfuric acid plant malfunctioned due to unknown reasons,” the company said in a filing with the California Emergency Management Agency. “An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the malfunction.”

Johnson declined to comment on the incident.

California-blend, or CARB, diesel in Los Angeles (DIEILCAD) climbed 0.5 cent to a premium of 9 cents a gallon against Nymex heating oil futures. The same fuel in San Francisco (DIEISCAD) rose 0.75 cent to a premium of 9.25 cents.

Conventional, 87-octane gasoline in Portland (MOGHD87P), Oregon, increased 1.5 cents to a 1.5-cent premium to gasoline futures.

Low-sulfur diesel in Portland (DIEISTPD) was unchanged at a 31-cent premium versus heating oil futures.

Until now. The mayor on Friday released a statement in which he expressed “concern” over San Francisco’s “legitimate” medical marijuana users, according to SF Weekly.

“I am concerned about recent federal actions targeting duly permitted Medicinal Cannabis Dispensaries, actions that aim to limit our citizens’ ability to have safe access to the medicine they need,” the statement reads in part. “As long as San Francisco’s dispensaries and patients are operating within the guidelines set by then-Attorney General Jerry Brown in 2008, I agree with our current Attorney General Kamala Harris that raids should not occur. She has said that ‘an overly broad federal enforcement campaign will make it more difficult for legitimate patients to access physician-recommended medicine in California.’ ‘”

Lee’s office was invited to, but did not attend, an April 3 rally on the steps of City Hall that drew representatives from the City Attorney, District Attorney, and a majority of the Board of Supervisors.

Advocates have asked Lee to put pressure on members of San Francisco’s Congressional delegation, and to convince city leaders to join lawsuits seeking to reschedule medical marijuana from the government’s list of top banned substances. He did not address those concerns, but his statement Friday was hailed as a crucial first step forward.

“I’m glad Mayor Lee has taken a stand to support and protect safe access in San Francisco,” said David Goldman, one of the core members of the San Francisco chapter of Americans for Safe Access.