Morning Wrap: 7/5/11

Parsing an Ed Lee candidacy, suicide cameras for Caltrain, scrutiny after Civic Center BART shooting, Oakland’s budget gimmickry, plus a prisoner spits and a sheriff’s deputy crashes his patrol car, and more after the jump.


Top of the morning’s news

• The U. S. Coast Guard and Mexican Navy were continuing to search for survivors after a boat carrying 28 American tourists, most of them Bay Area men on an annual fishing trip, capsized in the Gulf of California. Chronicle

Media

• Fox News apologized after its Twitter feed was hacked with bogus tweets that President Obama had been assassinated. The Hill
• The Two Rivers Tribune, the state’s last Native-owned newspaper, was abruptly shut down after “controversial articles” offended the chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribal Council, the Eureka Times-Standard says.   

Politics

• If there turns out to be an Ed Lee candidacy for mayor, the mayoral aspirant likely to take the biggest hit would be Supervisor David Chiu. Chronicle
• Facebook has emerged as a player in Sacramento, lobbying lawmakers on issues ranging from Internet privacy, commuter benefits and use of social media by registered sex offenders. Sac Bee 

Other

• A small plane made an emergency landing on I-280 Sunday night, bumping a Mercedes-Benz on the way down, but nobody was hurt. Chronicle
• Caltrain is moving to install cameras on the front and back of every train to record accidents and suicides. Chronicle
• BART officials say that the man shot and killed by BART police at the Civic Center Station late Sunday used a bottle as a weapon and drew a knife. Chronicle
• The Chronicle’s Chip Johnson explains the financial hocus-pocus involving the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center that enabled Oakland to whip together a balanced budget. 
• A Caltrans plan to chop down redwoods to improve a stretch of Highway 101 through Humboldt County’s Richardson Grove State Park has environmentalists up in arms. AP
• A Richmond police officer transporting a prisoner to the county jail in Martinez Monday morning wrecked his patrol car after the prisoner spat at him. Contra Costa Times
• Dozens of cars were damaged or destroyed after fire spread through the Hertz Rental Car overflow parking lot in South San Francisco. Chronicle
• SFPD says there’s a rise in retail thefts in Union Square by well-organized crime syndicates. Examiner
• Another downtown apartment building boomlet is on the horizon in Walnut Creek. Contra Costa Times
• Scientists tracking the flow of debris from Japan’s tsunami estimate it should start turning up on West Coast shores in 2013. Mercury News