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Coronavirus: Lessons from past epidemics guide US response to crisis -- A month into the 2003 global SARS scare, a plane coming from Tokyo landed at Mineta San Jose International Airport with a dire warning from the pilot: A few passengers had symptoms of the mysterious new respiratory illness. Erin Allday in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/9/20

Public memorial service for helicopter crash victims set for Angel Stadium -- A public memorial service is scheduled Monday at Angel Stadium in Anaheim for three members of the Altobelli family, who were among nine people killed in a Jan. 26 helicopter crash crash in Calabasas that also took the life of former Laker Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. Alex Wigglesworth in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/9/20

State insurance commissioner reports no new donations in wake of scandal -- California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara made good on his pledge last September to stop soliciting or accepting political donations to his 2022 re-election committee, according to his most recent campaign disclosure. The decision to forsake fundraising much of last year left the state’s top insurance regulator with barely $3,000 in cash on hand for his 2022 re-election. Jeff McDonald in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 2/9/20

In the race for California’s 50th Congressional District Trump has become the defining factor -- Republican frontrunners are touting their support for the president and their opponent’s perceived opposition. But will it be enough to win over voters? Charles T. Clark in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 2/9/20

In new poll, Oakland voters choose Coliseum for A’s ballpark. But look at the question -- Given a choice, Oakland voters would pick the current Coliseum site over over Howard Terminal to be the home of a new A’s ballpark, according to a new poll. Phil Matier in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/9/20

Nearly every San Diego County school district may be spending more than it can afford -- All but one of the 42 school districts in San Diego County are expecting to spend more than they take in, either this year or in the next two school years. Most are projecting to do so for all three years. Kristen Taketa in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 2/9/20

Wind gusts at Kirkwood reach 209 mph, setting a new California record -- Wind gusts surpassed 200 miles per hour on a particularly windy Sunday morning near Kirkwood, according to the National Weather Service — setting a new record for California. Sacramento-area NWS forecaster Karleisa Rogacheski confirmed that an observation site in the Sierra Nevada recorded a gust of 209 mph at 7:45 a.m. amid widespread windy conditions in the region. Vincent Moleski in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 2/9/20

San Diego city employees regularly cited for misusing department credit cards -- San Diego city employees used taxpayer-funded credit cards to purchase upgrades on airline tickets. Hundreds purchased items but failed to provide or properly fill out required documentation for what they bought, or they split up transactions to bypass monthly spending limits. Lauryn Schroeder in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 2/9/20

Deciphering the mystery walls of East Bay hills -- Above San Ramon, on Rocky Ridge atop Las Trampas Regional Wilderness, there’s a rock wall where you might envision a hunter from 5,000 years ago hiding with a bow and arrow to ambush a deer. Tom Stienstra in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/9/20

Trump to seek $2B in new border wall cash -- President Donald Trump will ask Congress on Monday for an extra $2 billion for border wall construction, in addition to billions in funding hikes for immigration enforcement, a senior administration official told Politico on Sunday. Caitlin Emma Politico -- 2/9/20

Trump to Propose $4.8 Trillion Budget With Big Safety-Net Cuts -- President Trump is expected to release a $4.8 trillion budget Monday that charts a path for the start of a potential second term, proposing steep cuts to social-safety-net programs and foreign aid and higher outlays for defense and veterans. Kate Davidson and Andrew Restuccia in the Wall Street Journal$ Justin Sink Bloomberg -- 2/9/20

Trump, after surviving impeachment, could face charges if he loses election -- Now that the Senate has voted to clear President Trump of impeachment charges, any judgment of his conduct will be left up to the voters, as fellow Republicans argued it should be. That is, until Trump leaves office, and loses the immunity from criminal prosecution that presidents are granted by Justice Department policy. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/9/20

President Pete Buttigieg: Here’s what it would mean for California -- But representing a new direction doesn’t necessarily mean the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., is charting a more progressive course. In some ways, he’s advocating policies that are more conservative than what is in place now in California. Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/9/20

 

California Policy & Politics This Morning  

Why did the government mandate a coronavirus quarantine? -- At roughly 4 p.m. on Jan. 28, the Riverside County Public Health Department got word that nearly 200 Americans fleeing the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, would land at March Reserve Air Base the next day for a voluntary quarantine. Colleen Shalby in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/9/20

Coronavirus worries don’t dampen SF’s Chinese New Year Parade -- San Francisco’s Chinese New Year’s Parade, complete with lion dancers, dragons and firecrackers, took place without disruptions Saturday, despite worries about the coronavirus, which have canceled similar celebrations around the country. Roland Li in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Casey Tolan in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 2/9/20

2nd child from Riverside County quarantine tests negative for coronavirus -- A second child from the nearly 200 people under quarantine at March Air Reserve Base tested negative for the novel coronavirus and was returned to the base Saturday afternoon, officials said. The child had developed a fever, one of the symptoms of the virus, Wednesday night and had been taken to the nearby Riverside University Health System-Medical Center in Moreno Valley, where the child underwent testing and observation. Jonah Valdez in the San Bernardino Sun$ -- 2/9/20

Santa Clarita couple quarantined on cruise ship in Japan after coronavirus outbreak -- A Santa Clarita couple has had their Southeast Asia cruise extended by 14 days, but not by choice. A passenger on their ship contracted coronavirus, leading to a quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, now docked in Japan. Carl Goldman surprised his wife, Jeri Seratti-Goldman, with a 16-day cruise aboard the ship as a combined birthday and Christmas gift, he said. Nathaniel Percy in the Orange County Register -- 2/9/20

Willie Brown: Beat Trump? Democrats doing their best to wreck their chance -- Joe Biden, the former vice president and perceived front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, came in a distant fourth in the cornfield caucuses. And he wasn’t even the biggest loser in Iowa. That would be the Democratic Party. Willie Brown in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/9/20

Is ‘Mayor Pete’ prepared to be president? California mayors in South Bend-size cities say yes -- The U.S. has never elected a president whose resumé topped out at mayor — let alone mayor of the 305th most populous city in the country. Casey Tolan in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 2/9/20

Walters: Has Newsom settled water wars? -- The beating heart of California’s massive system of capturing, storing and distributing water is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Water flows into the West’s largest estuary from the Sacramento, San Joaquin and several lesser rivers that drain the state’s mountain chains on its northern and eastern edges. Dan Walters Calmatters -- 2/9/20

San Jose has Much to Gain Ensuring the Census 2020 Count is Accurate -- Every decade, the U.S. Census Bureau sets out to count every person living in the United States, asking each household for names, age, sex, race and relationships. As the nation gears up for the 2020 census, California is under particular pressure to make sure everyone gets counted, particularly in immigrant communities. Rachael Myrow KQED -- 2/9/20

Kobe Bryant helicopter crash underscores industry’s long-running safety struggles -- The crash, which is under investigation, has renewed questions about helicopter safety and the refusal of the Federal Aviation Administration and the industry to adopt several recommendations of the National Transportation Safety Board. Ian Duncan and Luz Lazo in the Washington Post$ -- 2/9/20

POTUS 45  

Republican Senators Tried to Stop Trump From Firing Impeachment Witness -- A handful of senators reached out to the White House to warn the president not to dismiss Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who testified in the House hearings. But Mr. Trump went ahead anyway. Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman in the New York Times$ -- 2/9/20

On Trump’s To-Do List: Take Back The Suburbs. Court Black Voters. Expand the Electoral Map. Win. -- Buoyed by his impeachment acquittal and the muddled Democratic primary race, President Trump and his campaign are turning to address his re-election bid’s greatest weaknesses with an aggressive, well-funded but uncertain effort to win back suburban voters turned off by his policies and behavior. Maggie Haberman, Annie Karni and Jonathan Martin in the New York Times$ -- 2/9/20

Beltway 

‘Not just chilling but frightening’: Inside Vindman’s ouster amid fears of further retaliation by Trump -- He had been publicly vilified by President Trump, marched out of his national security office across from the White House, so Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman wanted only to get his mind off politics as he settled in to watch a television show with his grade-school-age daughter Friday evening. Then his wife returned home with some news: Much of the country had just watched as former vice president Joe Biden implored the audience to give a standing ovation in Vindman’s honor at the nationally televised Democratic presidential debate in Manchester, N.H. David Nakamura and Greg Miller in the Washington Post$ -- 2/9/20

 

-- Saturday Updates 

Nearly two weeks into Kobe Bryant crash investigation, foggy weather a leading factor -- The official cause of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash is still likely months away. But the latest report by the National Transportation Safety Board continues to suggest more attention toward cloudy conditions and low visibility as leading factor. Richard Winton in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/8/20

Misinformation about the coronavirus abounds, but correcting it can backfire -- The plot had all the elements of a big-budget thriller: Put an untested gene therapy technology in the hands of unscrupulous scientists. Make them soldiers of a greedy pharmaceutical company. Then give them the protection of a secretive and authoritarian government that will stop at nothing to achieve world domination. Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/8/20

California DMV scrambles to get millions of residents through Real ID process -- Less than eight months before Real IDs will be needed to board domestic flights, at least 9 million Californians still need to line up at the DMV to get the new federally compliant driver’s licenses. Michael Cabanatuan and Anna Bauman in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Patrick McGreevy in the Los Angeles Times$-- 2/8/20

Lorena Gonzalez likes a good fight. She got it with hotly debated AB5 -- The framed letter in Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s office, displayed with pride, was hardly meant as a compliment. “This document constitutes formal notice and warning that you are no longer allowed on property owned by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., or in any area subject to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s control,” warns the statement from 2012. John Myers in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/8/20

Smithfield layoffs in San Jose another strike against Bay Area’s meatpacking industry -- Seven months after closing its meatpacking plant in San Leandro, Smithfield Foods Inc. is closing its San Jose facility and laying off 139 workers, marking its departure from the Bay Area after decades in business. Shwanika Narayan in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/8/20

Ski-jumping over Highway 50? Here’s how Josh Daiek did it -- Type “Josh Daiek” into Google, and the search engine will offer to complete your query with “road gap.” That’s because the 36-year-old professional skier, who lives in South Lake Tahoe, pulled off a stunt that a certain sect of Tahoe skiers has been fantasizing about for decades: ski-jumping clear across Highway 50. Gregory Thomas in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/8/20

Taylor: A homeless couple moved into a $4 million Piedmont home a year ago. It hasn't always been easy -- It’s not every day a homeowner in one of the Bay Area’s most exclusive cities opens up their home to the needy. But that’s what Piedmont resident Terrence McGrath did for Greg Dunston and Marie Mckinzie. Otis R. Taylor Jr. in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/8/20

Pender: California freelancers: What to do if a client tells you to form an LLC -- Rightly or wrongly, some independent contractors in California are being told by clients that if they want to keep getting work, they must form a corporation or LLC, short for limited liability company. Kathleen Pender in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 2/8/20

Coroner employees say body part donation interfered with death investigations -- Despite the Los Angeles County coroner’s insistence that harvesting body parts hasn’t harmed investigations, internal documents show that morgue employees have raised concerns for years about procurements of tissues and organs. Melody Petersen in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 2/8/20

‘Tempted to despair’: Trump’s resilience causes Democrats to sound the alarm -- Anxiety is coursing through the Democratic Party as President Trump emerges from his impeachment proceedings as a potent threat for reelection, with party leaders and activists uncertain about how to beat the incumbent and worried about a nominating race that remains crowded and is growing more acrimonious. Robert Costa and Philip Rucker in the Washington Post$ -- 2/8/20

A Democratic race among mostly white men leaves many women, minorities feeling abandoned -- The Democratic Party's nomination campaign began with the biggest and most diverse field in history. More women and more candidates of color populated the field than ever before. Unless something changes quickly, the contest could devolve into a competition among only white men. Dan Balz in the Washington Post$ -- 2/8/20