SAN FRANCISCO -- Both directions of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were temporarily closed twice Sunday, after a suspicious package was found on the bottom deck.

The green suitcase turned out to contain nothing more than old-fashioned Christmas lights, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Mike Wright.

An off-duty Coast Guard officer spotted the small suitcase on the shoulder of the eastbound lanes after leaving work shortly before 9 a.m. and called authorities.

The CHP shut down all lanes for 15 minutes as officers blasted it with a water cannon, Wright said.

A bomb squad was called in later that morning to retrieve the suitcase.

Traffic on the bridge was halted again for about 15 minutes at 11:25 a.m., as officers X-rayed the package and found that it had electrical components, according to the CHP. A robotic device was used to throw the suitcase over the railing and into a dirt ditch below.

A bomb squad officer opened the suitcase and found the lights inside, Wright said. No identification was found with it./AP

Gas prices drop an average of 11 cents

a gallon nationwide

CAMARILLO -- Retail gas prices kept dropping across the country, falling another 11 cents in the past two weeks, according to a survey released Sunday.

The weighted average price for all three grades dropped to $2.16 a gallon on Dec. 2, said Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country.

Self-serve regular averaged $2.13 a gallon nationwide. Midgrade cost $2.24, and the price for premium was $2.33.

Prices have fallen about 88 cents a gallon since September, Lundberg said.

Among stations surveyed, the lowest average price in the country for regular unleaded was $1.89 a gallon in Tulsa, Okla. The highest price was $2.55 in Honolulu./AP

School quakes study has at least 2,000 errors

LOS ANGELES -- A state study designed to identify school buildings vulnerable to earthquakes contains at least 2,000 errors, including listing schools that have been repaired and assigning schools to incorrect or non-existing districts, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The study, which was authorized by the Legislature in 1999 and completed in 2002, was initially kept from parents and only given to school districts by request. After it was made public several weeks ago, The Times reviewed the list and found the errors, the newspaper said.

State officials acknowledged the flaws last week. Matt Bender, spokesman for the office of the state architect, which conducted the survey, said parents and teachers should check with local districts for information about schools.

But officials at some districts, including Los Angeles Unified, said the flaws in the study leave them with no idea what buildings might be at higher risk.

An accurate list would give parents, teachers, and school officials a tool to urge that older, less-safe buildings be retrofitted.

Upgrade money could come from billions of dollars in statewide and local school bond measures approved in recent years. Most of the money has been allocated for building new schools instead of retrofitting old ones./AP

"It's very disappointing," said State Sen. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara), who co-authored the law requiring the state to create the list. "We expect that when we send our children and grandchildren to school that they're going to be in a safe environment, and that's not true today."

After learning of the flaws, Alquist said she planned to introduce another bill that would require the state to develop an accurate accounting of vulnerable buildings that would be available to parents in a user-friendly form.