Morning Wrap: 5/2/11

Bullet train’s possible Peninsula Plan B, Roger McDowell suspended over AT&T Park tirade, Sarah Palin returns to the Central Valley, CoCo Times calls out witness intimidation in Yusuf Bey IV’s murder trial, plus more inside.

• BART has increased security and is on high risk alert following last night’s announcement by President Obama that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has been killed. Bay City News
• The state Supreme Court is set to take up whether to set aside the death sentence for a convicted San Jose murderer handed down two decades ago on grounds that his defense lawyer did little to spare his life. Mercury News
• A pedestrian was struck and killed by an Amtrak train about three miles south of Jack London Square Station early Sunday. Oakland Tribune
• Major League Baseball suspended Atlanta Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell for two weeks for a homophobic tirade directed at fans at AT&T Park during a Giants game a week ago. AP
• Charlie Sheen’s “Torpedo of Truth” show played to 3,000 people Saturday night at Nob Hill’s Masonic Center and Contra Costa Times TV critic Chuck Barney says everyone seemed to have a good time, even the hecklers.
• A truck flipped over, spilling more than 10 tons of human waste Sunday at an Interstate 10 overpass in the Southern California community of Banning. AP
• California’s high speed rail authority will consider an alternative plan to run bullet trains through the Peninsula on two tracks instead of four as a cost-saving measure. Palo Alto Daily News 
• Prosecutors say they will not seek the death penalty against a psychiatric patient accused of murdering a nurse last year at a Napa state mental hospital. AP
• The Contra Costa Times editorializes that all signs point to Yusuf Bey IV’s trying to intimidate witnesses at his murder trial and that the judge, sheriff and bailiffs need to do what it takes to put an end to it.
• Former supervisor Bevan Dufty has picked up $452,000 in city campaign matching funds for the mayor’s race thus far, followed closely by city attorney Dennis Herrera with $422,000. Chronicle 
• Sarah Palin returned to the Central Valley farm belt Sunday for a paid speech to inaugurate an arena at West Hills Community College in Lemoore, lambasting the federal government for restricting water to California farmers. AP
• A small fire that triggered a false alarm shut down National Park Service tours at Alcatraz Sunday afternoon. Examiner
• Contra Costa Times reports that Walnut Creek officials are considering opening the sprawling Shadelands Business Park, which has struggled of late with a 20 percent vacancy rate, to a charter school or perhaps even a hotel development.
• A long-empty three-story building in Richmond has become the Bay Area’s first Tibetan community center, and has been named by the Dalai Lama “The island of Four Perfections.” Contra Costa Times
• More than 2,000 pro-immigration and labor demonstrators rallied for immigrant justice in East San Jose Sunday, brought together by a loose coalition of church, community and labor groups. Mercury News