Coronavirus has recalibrated life and in coming weeks we will be bringing you more stories on the crisis and the context that created it.

. A wave of closures followed California Gov. Gavin Newsom's last week for cancellation of all non-essential gatherings of 250 people or more because of the coronavirus threat. Credit: AP Photo/Eric Risberg


** How the coronavirus landed in California
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This week, we teamed up with two public radio stations in California – KQED in San Francisco and Capital Public Radio in Sacramento – to bring you an in-depth look at how the new coronavirus landed in the state and the missteps that helped it spread.

One key takeaway: Even as the epidemic in China expanded at an alarming pace, it wasn’t until the end of January that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared a public health emergency. By that time, travelers had been arriving in California from China for weeks.

By Feb. 26, a Sacramento hospital announced it was treating a woman who had become sick with the virus, despite no history of having traveled to a known affected area. It was the first case of so-called community transmission in the country.

Dr. Matt Willis, who’s in charge of public health in Marin County, said this is precisely what it looks like when an epidemic spreads.

“It is first brought in from identifiable sources on the outside,” he said. “And then once it establishes a foothold, it starts becoming exchanged between people within the community.”

At present, COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, is indeed spreading rapidly across the U.S., straining health care, school and government systems. More than 4,000 people have tested positive and more than 70 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University ([link removed]) . It has recalibrated life across the U.S., and in the coming weeks, we will be bringing you more stories on the crisis and the context that created it.

Hear the episode. ([link removed])

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The 2020 census is the first decennial count expected to be conducted largely online. The system is slated to launch March 12. Credit: U.S. Census Bureau


** We’re suing the Census Bureau
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Over the past several months, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has been trying to learn more about the 2020 census.

Part of that work has involved asking the U.S. Census Bureau detailed questions about its workings and budget. But more often than not, bureau officials have refused to answer our questions – or just ignored them.

So, we turned to something of a last resort: submitting several Freedom of Information Act requests to the bureau in an attempt to better understand problems that potentially could lead to a miscount of America’s population. Despite its legal obligation to respond to our requests, the bureau has failed to answer all but one, which it has responded to only partially, with heavily redacted documents.

So now we’re suing.

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** Veterans Affairs bans University of Phoenix from new GI Bill enrollments
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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced last week that it intends to forbid ([link removed]) the University of Phoenix and three other institutions of higher education from enrolling new students using the GI Bill, citing a decades-old law ([link removed]) that bans veterans’ benefits from being paid to any school that “utilizes advertising, sales, or enrollment practices of any type which are erroneous, deceptive, or misleading.”

The move follows a record $191 million settlement ([link removed]) between the for-profit college and the Federal Trade Commission in December. Under the terms of that agreement, the University of Phoenix and its corporate parent, Apollo Education Group, agreed to pay $50 million in cash and cancel $141 million in student debt to settle federal charges alleging it marketed false job opportunities to students, including veterans and active members of the military. The University of Phoenix did not admit to any wrongdoing.

“It’s about time,” said James Adams, a two-tour Iraq War veteran who told Reveal that he enrolled at the University of Phoenix after what he describes as a “pressure campaign.”

“They kept calling and calling,” he said, “until I finally broke down and said I’d go to the school.”

Read the full story. ([link removed])
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