California economy braces for hit from COVID-19 panic. 'We don't know how to control it'
Sac Bee's DALE KASLER: "Is it 2008 all over again?
From empty cargo containers to shuttered school districts to canceled business conferences, the coronavirus outbreak is starting to eat away at the economy, in California and across the country — and could bring serious problems to the Sacramento area.
The stock market’s stunning drop of 2,013 points Monday intensified fears of a global recession, with one leading California economist predicting the slowdown could be worse than the financial crisis of 2008. The Dow Jones average has fallen 19 percent in less than a month."
READ MORE related to COVID-19 Pandemic: Sacramento County says region will see testing capacity for coronavirus expand this week -- Sac Bee's CATHIE ANDERSON/VINCENT MOLESKI; Issues with COVID-19 could cost SF the PGA championship -- The Chronicle's SCOTT OSTLER; Exposure no longer means automatic 2-week isolation, Sacramento County says -- Sac Bee's CATHIE ANDERSON; California mega-church stops visiting hospital to 'faith heal' the sick, citing coronavirus -- Sacramento Bee's RYAN SABALOW; SFSU, CCSF latest to suspend in-person classes -- The Chronicle's ANNA BAUMAN/ROLAND LI/ALEXEI KOSEFF/AIDIN VAZIRI/JOHN KING; Virus may have been circu lating in California since early February -- The Chronicle's ERIN ALLDAY; COVID-19 spreading through Ca lifornia communities, with many more cases expected -- LA Times's ANITA CHABRIA/COLLEEN SHALBY/MAURA DOLAN/JOHN MYERS/RONG GONG LIN II; Coachella festival may be rescheduled due to virus threat -- LA Times's AUGUST BROWN; Will the outbreak sink the cruise industry? -- LA Times's HUGO MARTIN; San Diego County announces first case of COVID-19 -- Union-Tribune's PAUL SISSON; LA announces possible first case of community spread COVID-19 -- Daily Breeze's DAVID ROSENFELD
CA stem cell agency lauds multibillion-dollar '47' deal
DAVID JENSEN in Capitol Weekly: "A small firm in Menlo Park is probably the only company in the nation that is named after the number of a particular human protein. It is a small number too, only 47. But it has large implications for California’s financially strapped state stem cell agency.
Forty Seven, Inc., was gobbled up last week for $4.9 billion by its neighbor, Gilead Sciences, Inc., in Foster City. The figure represents a 1,600 percent increase in Forty Seven’s stock price since last October.
“To say this is incredible would be an understatement!” said Maria Millan, president and CEO of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the stem cell agency is formally known. She had good reason for her enthusiasm."
As recession fears mount, eyes turn to the American consumer
LA Times's DON LEE: "As the White House, Congress and the Federal Reserve struggle to stem the growing financial and economic crisis, the likelihood of success may ultimately come down to one factor: the American consumer.
What’s largely behind the mounting recession fears and wild gyrations of financial markets is the fact that what drives the U.S. economy is not new investment by corporations, not tax cuts or big new federal spending programs, but millions of ordinary Americans buying new cars, cruising the malls and upgrading to bigger TV sets."
Democrat 's housing crisis plan aims for 'lighter' reforms
Sac Bee's HANNAH WILEY: "California cities would be encouraged to develop more duplexes and fourplexes under a new bill announced Monday by a housing advocate who has been prodding local governments to build more homes.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, developed the proposal after the Legislature in January rejected a bill he carried that would have forced cities to plan for denser housing around transit- and jobs-rich areas.
Wiener characterized his latest plan as a “much lighter touch” that would instead allow local governments to pass ordinances that streamline construction of smaller, multi-unit projects in areas traditionally reserved for single-family or low-density housing."
A crowded Democratic field opened a window for Republicans to grab this Assembly seat
Sac Bee's HANNAH WILEY: "California Democrats are poised to maintain a supermajority in the state Capitol come November, but in a Southern California district, they set themselves up to lose a seat.
The ballot included five Democrats — one dropped out before the race — and two Republicans to represent Assembly District 38.
Assemblywoman Christy Smith of Santa Clarita flipped the seat blue in 2018, but the crowded 2020 field split liberal support and left the purple district with two GOP candidates as of Sunday evening."
BART ridership falls 8% amid COVID-19 fears
The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "Riders accustomed to the crowds and chaos of the Bay Area’s biggest rail system experienced something almost unheard of Monday morning: half-filled parking lots and trains with empty seats.
“It’s usually packed, but definitely not today,” Emeryville resident Adam Poblacion said. He boards the 8 a.m. San Francisco-bound train from MacArthur Station, where passengers normally fill the aisles and press against the doors. Monday, Poblacion found a seat during rush hour.
Transit is a barometer of life in the inner Bay Area. That’s never been more apparent than now, as fears of a pandemic kick into high gear. Big events have been canceled, workers are staying home and tourism is slumping. BART lost 170,000 passengers, with the count dropping from 2.03 million during the last week of February to 1.86 million through the first week of March — a 8% drop."
UC San Diego accidentally overstated success of its MBA program in Financial Times rankings
Union-Tribune's GARY ROBBINS: "UC San Diego says that it provided erroneous data to the Financial Times about the success of its MBA program while the newspaper was putting together its influential 2020 rankings of the world’s top MBA programs.
But the university caught the error in time to provide correct data to U.S. News & World Report, according to Lisa Ordóñez, dean of UCSD’s Rady School of Management.
Rady initially told the Financial Times that 76 percent of the full-time students who graduated with an MBA in 2019 had accepted a job within three months of earning their degree. An internal review revealed that the correct figure was 63 percent."
LA schools chief expected to get COVID-19 emergency power to shut campuses
LA Times's HOWARD BLUME: "The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday is expected to give Supt. Austin Beutner “emergency powers” to take actions that might otherwise require board approval up to and including shutting down the entire school system in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The action is seen as precaution that would allow Beutner to act quickly as the need arises — but no immediate use of these emergency powers is anticipated in the nation’s second-largest school system.
Under the proposed action, which is scheduled for a vote at a special meeting Tuesday afternoon, the school board would declare a state of emergency. That declaration would give Beutner the authority to relocate students and staff, revise student transportation arrangements and approve alternative educational options. It also provides paid leaves of absence for employees due to quarantine or illness, allows staff to serve as disaster service workers, and provides for necessary alterations, repairs or improvements to district property."
Reinventing a school under threat of teacher layoffs
EdSource's ASHLEY A SMITH: "The reinvention of a California school is now under the threat of teacher layoffs.
For nearly a year, Stege Elementary, a K-6 school in Richmond has been planning and preparing for an overhaul to improve students’ academic outcomes and attendance, and the school’s climate for learning. Much of that change, so far, has been built on recruiting and training experienced and enthusiastic teachers eager to work with the students, many of whom come from low-income families.
But the threat of teacher layoffs in the West Contra Costa Unified School District could threaten the reforms planned for Stege Elementary."
How Pasadena shut down all of its illegal dispensaries -- all of them
SCNG's BRADLEY BERMONT: "After struggling for years, Pasadena officials say they’ve shuttered the city’s last-standing unlicensed cannabis dispensary, marking a capstone on an eight-year push.
Although the endeavor began in 2012, progress was not slow and steady. It was just slow — until August 2018. That’s when the city’s tedious, expensive and ineffective process — often hamstrung by uncoordinated efforts — was transformed into an aggressive and ruthlessly efficient multidepartment force, city officials said.
For those first six years, Pasadena spent more than $1 million to close nine storefronts, Chief Assistant City Prosecutor Michael Dowd said in an interview. It was hardly the proverbial drop in the bucket."
Forecasters say SoCal rainstorm will peak Tuesday
SCNG's ROBERT GUNDRAN/SCNG's ERIC LICAS: "Meteorologists predict that a storm bringing rain across Southern California beginning Monday evening, March 9, will peak on Tuesday before tapering off ahead of the weekend in some areas."
Precipitation was projected to fall overnight in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties, the National Weather Service reported. The heaviest showers should take place on Tuesday. Brief, heavy downpours, small hail and waterspouts may form in some places, and thunderstorms are likely this week."
The storm could bring localized street flooding and slow commutes, the Weather Service said, while residents were reminded that sandbags are available."
Led Zeppelin wins 'Stairway to Heaven' copyright lawsuit appeal
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "A federal appeals court cleared a copyright path Monday for “Stairway to Heaven,” reinstating a jury’s verdict that Led Zeppelin’s 1972 hit did not plagiarize the opening instrumental lines of a 1968 song by the California band Spirit.
Spirit was a popular band in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Led Zeppelin in its early years sometimes performed as Spirit’s opening act. The 1968 Spirit instrumental “Taurus” opens with a rising and falling guitar line somewhat similar to the beginning of “Stairway in Heaven.”
A lawsuit alleged that the writers of “Stairway,” Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, had heard “Taurus” at concerts or on records and copied part of it. After hearing conflicting testimony from musical experts about the similarity of the passages, and excerpts played by a guitarist in court, a federal court jury in Los Angeles found unanimously in 2016 that Led Zeppelin had not violated Taurus’ copyright."
Prosecutor replays stabbing video in the closing arguments of the Nia Wilson murder trial
The Chronicle's MEGAN CASSIDY: "An Alameda County jury on Monday once again viewed the horrific scenes that led to Nia Wilson’s death — her walk across an Oakland BART station platform, a figure from behind driving a knife twice into her neck and the 18-year-old stumbling off the train in her final moments.
Surveillance footage of Wilson’s gruesome killing has been the centerpiece of the case against 29-year-old John Lee Cowell, and prosecutors have repeatedly played the clips — in slow-motion and in real time — throughout the murder trial. But during his closing arguments Monday, prosecutor Butch Ford urged jurors to take another look and focus on the defendant.
“Believe your eyes,” Ford said. “Believe your common sense.”"
LA County leaders: Jails only a 'last resort'
DAILY NEWS' RYAN CARTER: "The numbers in L.A. County are staggering, leaders say:
All this in a massive incarceration system leaders say is a relic of another era, destined only to be more costly and less healthy for the county over the long run.
That’s why a seismic shift in L.A. County’s jail system is coming, if a team of leaders and community advocates see their vision realized."
COVID-19 isn't stopping one thing: presidential candidates' big rallies
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden aren’t heeding calls to cancel rallies and other large events because of coronavirus fears, even when the request comes from a Democrat — Rep. Jackie Speier, who urged them to “lead by example!” to try to limit the virus’ spread.
President Trump isn’t slowing his pace, either, even though he — like Sanders and Biden — is in his 70s, a high-risk group for “getting very sick from this illness,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are 605 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. and 22 deaths, with many of the dead in the same age range as the three finalists in the presidential campaign.
Speier tweeted Monday, “Until we know the extent of the community spread of the coronavirus, I call on ALL candidates for President to stop holding public rallies & large scale events."