WATFORD, England — 

President Trump, who views norms like a teenager does curfews, shattered another tradition Wednesday when he became the first U.S. president to be laughed at by some of America’s closest allies at a NATO summit, a sign of his increasing isolation on the world stage.

Trump, who long has claimed his leadership has brought unprecedented respect to the United States, was not amused. He called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “two-faced,” scrubbed a scheduled news conference and headed for the airport.

The contretemps seemed a fitting finale to a contentious two-day summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the 29-nation military alliance that is struggling with internal rifts, Europe’s shifting political currents and Trump’s open clashes with America’s political and military allies over a host of issues.

During joint appearances over the last three years, world leaders have largely stood silently and patiently while Trump lavished praise on his self-described achievements and bitterly attacked his perceived enemies. On Tuesday, Trump vented to reporters about impeachment, Democrats and other vexations for more than two hours during his supposed private meetings with other leaders.

That night, a hot mic video caught by the Canadian Broadcast Corp. appeared to show three of America’s closest traditional allies — Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — laughing as Trudeau seemed to ridicule Trump over his extended news briefings.

“He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top,” Trudeau can be heard saying.

“Well, he’s two-faced,” Trump responded Wednesday when asked about the comment during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “He’s a nice guy. I find him to be a nice guy. But the truth is, I called him out on the fact that’s he’s not paying 2%, and I guess he’s not very happy about it.”

Trump was referring to his demand that NATO members honor a goal to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024. Canada has not met that standard.

The president apparently appreciated his own wit. After a working lunch with the leaders of nine nations that meet or exceed the 2% goal, another hot-mic moment heard him boast: “That was funny when I said that guy was two-faced.”

He also complained that Democrats leading the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing back in Washington were trying to weaken him on the world stage.

“To do it on a day like this, where we’re in England and some of the most powerful countries in the world [are] having very important NATO meetings. And it just happened to be scheduled on this day. It’s really, honestly, it’s a disgrace,” he told reporters.

Trump has long galvanized his supporters with the dubious claim that other countries laughed at previous presidents, but that they now respect him and the United States as never before.

The president has accepted that allies and adversaries might fear or resent him and his “America first” policies. But he sees ridicule as the highest form of insult, leading him to boycott the annual White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner roast since taking office, and to fume over “Saturday Night Live” parodies.

In September 2018, some members of the United Nations General Assembly laughed aloud when Trump used his address to claim his administration had accomplished more in fewer than two years than almost any administration in U.S. history.

“So true,” said Trump, who appeared surprised by the guffaws. “I didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s OK,” he added, to more laughter and some applause.

The NATO summit ended Wednesday with declarations of cooperation and assurances of mutual defense. But it revealed a visible shift in how America’s allies deal with Trump.

Leaders have gone from flattering Trump, to trying to accommodate him, to tolerating him, to trying to ignore him. They still need him, given America’s power and authority, but more often, they try to keep interactions at an arm’s length.

Johnson, who cast himself as a disruptive Trumpian figure, sought to avoid a public meeting with the president, who is deeply unpopular in Britain. The prime minister’s conservative allies worried Trump’s embrace could damage Johnson ahead of crucial parliamentary elections next week.

The two leaders met one-on-one Tuesday night outside the view of the press. But the meeting was kept off Trump’s schedule and not revealed until Trump tweeted about it Wednesday morning.

That may have contributed to Johnson’s apparent annoyance when Trump kept all the other leaders waiting 15 minutes for a group photo.

“How are we doing?” Johnson asked an aide. “Come on!”

Trump also met privately for 30 minutes Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is facing the wrath of fellow NATO members for buying Russian missile systems and invading a Kurdish-controlled zone in northern Syria.

The White House confirmed the meeting only after Erdogan’s official Twitter account posted photos of it.

Trump insisted his accommodation of Erdogan has helped U.S. interests, even as it has cost the lives and territory of the Kurds, America’s longtime allies against Islamic State militants, and helped Russia bolster its power and influence in the region.

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“Maybe someday they’ll give me credit, but probably not,” Trump said Wednesday.

Beyond Erdogan, many allies appear to have grown fatigued. Macron, once a prime flatterer of Trump, was unwilling to back down or play a willing prop when the two met Tuesday, hours after Trump had publicly attacked him.

“Let’s be serious,” Macron said when Trump appeared to make a joke that France might accept some Islamic State fighters, one of several times the French leader expressed strong public disagreement. Macron used the opportunity to dispute Trump’s claim that the threat from Islamic State had been all but eliminated.

At another point, Macron drew a wide distance from Trump’s transactional view of foreign policy, which puts a priority on which countries are willing to spend money on arms.

“When you speak about NATO, it’s not just about money,” he said, launching into a lecture about the “fundamentals of what NATO should be.”

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SACRAMENTO — 

California’s campaign watchdog agency has suspended a longstanding policy banning its members from contributing to federal candidates after one commissioner donated to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid.

The decision by the Fair Political Practices Commission, which is responsible for policing campaign finance in California, is drawing criticism from some political reform advocates and former state officials who say the policy was put in place to avoid an appearance of bias in favor of political candidates whose campaigns are scrutinized by the state agency.

Dan Schnur, a former FPPC chairman who teaches political communication at USC and UC Berkeley, said the policy is important because “board members are entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing the state’s elections in a fair-minded and even-handed way.”

“Even the perception of bias undermines the credibility of the board’s decisions,” Schnur said. “If you are going to oversee state elections then you should be able to restrain yourself from partisan political involvement during your time of service.”

The panel voted on Sept. 19 to suspend the policy restricting donations and asked the state attorney general for an opinion on the legality and scope of the rules, which some FPPC members say violates their 1st Amendment rights.

“I absolutely believe that both the U.S. and the State constitutions protect my right to make political campaign contributions,” Commissioner Brian Hatch said in an email to The Times. “The issue that the making of campaign contributions is a form of political speech protected by the [U.S.] Constitution has been settled law for nearly five decades.”

Hatch made two campaign contributions totaling $30 to the Sanders campaign in June. He initiated a discussion about the policy in September that led to the panel vote to suspend it.

“Suffice it to say that I have made a small number of very small contributions to Bernie Sanders for President, just as more than four million other people have,” Hatch said.

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Hatch, a former labor lobbyist who was appointed to the panel in 2017 by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, said he knew about the policy when he made the contributions, but believes the commission’s rule is in conflict with a state law that he says bars any action that would impinge on constitutional freedom of speech guarantees.

Robert Stern, former general counsel for the FPPC and a co-author of the state’s Political Reform Act in the 1970s, disagrees with Hatch’s stance, noting that the prohibition on federal campaign contributions has been in place for decades.

“I think it’s wrong for Brian Hatch to make contributions to Bernie Sanders,” Stern said. “The policy was put in place by the FPPC in order to remove any appearance of partisanship or bias on the part of commissioners.”

Stern said the commissioner should request that his contributions be returned. Hatch said he would do so if the attorney general finds the rules on contributions extend to federal campaigns and are not in violation of constitutional protections.

Schnur said Hatch does not have a constitutional right to serve on the commission, and commissioners can always step down if they want to contribute to political candidates.

Hatch, a Long Beach resident, said the panel’s job is to enforce state laws that apply to state campaigns and it has no jurisdiction over federal campaigns that are regulated by the federal government. The panel’s action does not affect the ban on commissioners making contributions to state candidates.

The state manual provided to commissioners has long said that state law “prevents Commissioners from participating in or contributing to any election campaign.”

“Thus,” the manual adds, commissioners “may not make contributions to any campaign involving an election held in this state. This includes campaigns for federal office if the candidate will appear on the ballot in California (e.g., a campaign for President or a California congressional seat).”

FPPC Chairman Richard C. Miadich noted that many federal elected officials also held state office in California and have state campaign committees that are subject to the FPPC’s oversight. He said he did not know Hatch had contributed to the Sanders campaign when the panel voted unanimously to suspend the policy pending the attorney general’s opinion.

“This statute as we have been interpreting it previously does arguably infringe on commissioners’ 1st Amendment rights to contribute to federal candidates,” Miadich told his fellow commissioners during a public hearing in September. “That’s a significant concern.”

Miadich, an attorney and former lobbyist appointed chairman in May by Gov. Gavin Newsom, said Tuesday that he will not make campaign contributions to federal candidates, including while the legal opinion is pending.

“At a minimum, it could create an appearance of bias, and I think it is our duty to be fair and impartial,” Miadich said.

Miadich said that if state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra concludes the policy does not violate the constitutional rights of commissioners, he will propose that the commission make clear that federal contributions are prohibited.

“If it doesn’t breach free speech, I believe that is the right thing to do for the state’s ethics and campaign watchdog agency,” he said.

SALT LAKE CITY — 

On a group text thread among Lakers players earlier this week, someone made reference to a social media slogan Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has adopted.

“Nobody cares, work harder.”

It resonated with the Lakers.

“That’s kind of the motto we talked about after our loss,” Alex Caruso said. “Nobody cares if we lose. If we lose, people get excited, people get up for that. We’ve gotten to that point after such a good start. For us, it’s not worrying about that. We gotta go out there and do our job regardless. Sick, not sick. It’s going to be harder on certain nights.”

On Wednesday night, the Lakers (19-3) ensured they would come out of their latest trip with a winning record. They beat the Utah Jazz 121-96 a night after beating the Denver Nuggets. The trip will finish in Portland on Friday.

“We know who we are,” Danny Green said. “We know our identity. We’re not getting too excited about anything or too low about anything. We know we’ve played some pretty good basketball at times, we’ve played some bad basketball at times. You continue to get better, continue to move forward and take on every challenge every night.”

Anthony Davis scored 26 points, on nine-of-11 shooting, and blocked three shots. He rested for the fourth quarter with the game well in hand. LeBron James also exited early, having scored 20 points with 12 assists. It was the first time since Dec. 8, 2010, that James had won a game in Salt Lake City.

Kyle Kuzma, Rajon Rondo and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope each scored in double figures too.

Coach Frank Vogel cautioned before the game that Utah wasn’t what its record suggested. The Jazz had just come off a trip in which they lost four out of the five games they played, they were missing an injured Mike Conley, but they entered Wednesday’s game 8-1 at home.

Utah took an early lead, but once the Lakers settled into their game plan there was little the Jazz could do to stop them. The Lakers took the lead with 5:50 left in the first quarter and never trailed again.

“We gave it up a little bit tonight then we kind of found it again,” Davis said. “And tried to make sure that we gave them no life and tried to put the game away.”

Kuzma hit last-second shots at the end of the first and second quarters, and the Lakers went into halftime with an 18 point lead.

That was the closest the Jazz got to the Lakers in the third quarter. They never got closer than 17 in the fourth. Around that time, James stood near the Lakers bench in his stocking feet because he’d given his game shoes to a little girl. He cheered for his teammates while sometimes wandering onto the court in his socks.

“Late in the fourth quarter when we were up and I felt like we had a win in hand, I was just thinking to myself, ‘It’s been awhile since I won a game here,’” James said. “So, for us to come in in a hostile environment, one of the toughest places to play in the NBA and get a win, it’s a big game for us.”

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It was a big game for Dwight Howard, too, who made his first three of the season.

“We tried it yesterday, it didn’t work,” Rondo said as he recounted what happened. “The shot clock was low. I looked at the bench I was like, welp. He got a green light to shoot this time, there’s no other option here. Four seconds on the shot clock so I was excited he made it. Winning’s fun.”

There’s not many better finishers in high school basketball than sophomore Amari Bailey of Sierra Canyon. Get him the ball during a fast break, then get out of the way and let his athleticism do the rest.

Bailey finished with 23 points on Wednesday night before 1,550 at CSUN in a 72-54 victory over Santa Clarita Christian. It was the most comfortable he has looked for Sierra Canyon (6-0) this season. He was in total attack mode. His 14 points in the first half were badly needed because BJ Boston didn’t score his first point until there was 37 seconds left in the half. The Trailblazers led at halftime 30-29.

“I was being myself,” Bailey said. “I was being Amari.”

Keeping Boston quiet was never going to happen. Like any good shooter, he knew his touch would return even when he started the game 0-for-9 shooting. He finished with 19 points and contributed 13 points in the third quarter when Sierra Canyon outscored the Cardinals 28-9. Bronny James made a couple of threes to help out.

“I feel me shooting out of a slump is good,” Boston said. “I felt comfortable toward the end.”

One of the most impressive players was junior Ty Harper of Santa Clarita Christian (4-2). He scored 28 points and made four threes in the first half.

In other games, Fairfax advanced to the semifinals of the Maranatha tournament with an 82-73 win over Providence. Keith Dinwiddie finished with 28 points. A’Jahni Levias had 35 points for Providence. Fairfax will play Oak Park on Friday at 8 p.m. Clark Slajchert scored 25 points in the Eagles’ 57-50 win over Maranatha.

In the Westchester tournament, Heritage Christian rallied for a 59-54 win over Bishop Montgomery to earn a semifinal matchup against Etiwanda. Justin Rochelin scored 17 points. Etiwanda defeated Washington Prep 62-40.

Mayfair defeated Los Alamitos 68-63. Joshua Christopher had 25 points and Dior Johnson 16.

Taft defeated Camarillo 76-52. Ramel Lloyd had 23 points and Khalil Haywood 19.

Servite defeated Norco 63-48. Tajavis Miller scored 20 points and Andrew Cook 19.

Rolling Hills Prep is 3-0 after an 81-40 win over Lawndale. Benny Gealer had 21 points and JT Tan and Troy Murphy added 15 points.

Saugus defeated Cleveland 81-41. Adrian McIntyre had 23 points.

In Sacramento, St. Francis defeated Sacramento Kennedy 74-35. Andre Henry finished with 26 points.

Sam Cabral made seven threes in Sun Valley Poly’s 70-29 win over Marshall. Quadre Johnson added 20 points.

Hugo Clarkin had 24 points and 11 rebounds in JSerra’s 66-39 win over La Habra.

Oaks Christian defeated Crespi 50-41. Mike Price had 16 points for Crespi.

Harvard-Westlake defeated Bonita 77-49. Cameron Thrower made six threes and finished with 20 points.

It’s on him.

He’s the quarterback. He’s the player with the $134-million contract.

Jared Goff nodded.

“That’s part of the job, man,” he said. “That’s part of the job.”

Less than a year removed from playing in the Super Bowl, the Rams are in danger of missing the postseason entirely.

The Minnesota Vikings are a game ahead of them for the final wild-card spot. Overtaking them could require the Rams to win their four remaining games, beginning Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.

If Goff’s reputation was damaged by many of the previous 12 games, this final stretch offers a chance for redemption, an opportunity to justify the faith the organization placed in the former No. 1 overall pick by signing him to a nine-figure extension before the season.

With running back Todd Gurley yet to have a 100-yard game and their offensive line in shambles, the Rams desperately need Goff to perform like a franchise quarterback they are paying him to be.

While Goff still has to prove he can play the role, he has demonstrated he can at least act the part.

From the time he was drafted, Goff has always said the right things. What’s changed isn’t so much what he says, but how he says it. There’s a calmness about him that inspires confidence.

“When you’re drafted high like I was, it’s already kind of in your head you are that guy, you are the face of the franchise,” he said. “You have to carry yourself that way. Over the last four years, it’s been a maturation process and I feel like I’m getting to the point where I’m feeling really, really comfortable as that, and have been for a few years, at this point.”

Speaking at his team’s practice facility Wednesday, Goff acknowledged the obvious: He’s been inconsistent.

The NFL’s No. 8 passer last year, his rating of 84.1 this year ranks 25th in the league, right behind Mitch Trubisky of the Chicago Bears. Philip Rivers of the Chargers, whose down season has resulted in speculation that he could be benched, is two places ahead of Goff.

Goff has passed for only 13 touchdowns. He finished with 32 last season and 28 the season before that.

His numbers are down across the board. The exception: He’s already matched his 12 interceptions from last season.

“It’s just always about how you respond,” Goff said. “It’s never going to be perfect. It’s never going to be exactly how you like it. Sometimes, it’s going to be really, really good and you want to always try to be on that side of it as much as possible. But there’s times where it’s not going to go your way and that’s in football, in life, in everything, and it’s always going to be about how you respond. That’s how you’re truly judged.”

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Goff enjoyed his best game of the season last week, albeit against the last-place Arizona Cardinals, who have the league’s worst pass defense. The 424-yard, two-touchdown performance ended a three-game stretch in which he didn’t pass for a single score.

The Rams’ next three games are against playoff-bound teams: at home against the Seahawks (10-2), on the road against the San Francisco 49ers (10-2) and Dallas Cowboys (6-6).

Some of Goff’s problems are byproducts of factors outside of his control. He’s had an average of 2.76 seconds to throw per pass attempt this year, compared with 2.95 in 2018 and 2.93 in 2017, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.

But if the team around Goff isn’t operating as well as it has in the past, how much of it is his responsibility to make up for that?

“I would never say that it’s just on him,” coach Sean McVay said. “I think it’s always on the unit.”

Whatever is happening, Goff said he is the same.

“You try to stay within yourself,” he said. “There’s been obviously shuffling up front, but that’s no excuse, ever. We just have done a good job figuring it out in the last couple weeks, I think. We feel good. I don’t think there’s anything to look back on at this point. I think we’re moving forward and want to go beat Seattle.”

When the Rams played in Seattle in October, in Week 5, Goff moved them from their own seven-yard line to the Seahawks’ 26. Greg Zuerlein missed a 44-yard field-goal attempt with 15 seconds remaining and the Rams lost 30-29.

Reflecting on that defeat, Goff held himself accountable.

“We were able to move the ball there, but left a little bit more meat on that than we wanted to,” he said. “I think we could have got maybe a few more yards there for Greg.”

Standing at the lectern in the Rams media room, Goff looked like a leader. He sounded like a leader.

Sunday, he will have to play like one.

Howdy, I’m your host, Houston Mitchell. Let’s get right to the news.

USC FOOTBALL

After months of rampant speculation surrounding the future of USC’s football program, a new athletic director and new president have opted to stick with the status quo.

The university’s new leadership announced Wednesday that Clay Helton, whose uneven tenure as head coach saw the Trojans reach the Rose Bowl in 2016 and win the Pac-12 Conference title in 2017 before stumbling the last two seasons, will remain USC’s coach for the foreseeable future.

The controversial decision to keep Helton comes on the heels of an 8-4 campaign marred by injury and inconsistency in which the Trojans struggled to find a foothold even while managing for months to stay within striking distance of winning the Pac-12 South Division.

“I am pleased to let you know Coach Helton will continue to be our head coach,” USC athletic director Mike Bohn wrote in a letter to athletic department supporters. “His commitment to our student-athletes and to leading with integrity is vital to restoring our championship program, which is the goal for all of our teams. Heading into 2020, Coach Helton and I will work together to take a hard look at all aspects of the football enterprise and will make the tough decisions necessary to compete at a championship level.”

Read more

Bill Plaschke: USC is keeping Clay Helton. What is Mike Bohn thinking?

Fan reaction: USC fans contacted wrong Mike Bohn to get Clay Helton fired

USC President Carol L. Folt stands behind Mike Bohn’s decision on Clay Helton

LAKERS

On Wednesday night, the Lakers (19-3) ensured they would come out of their latest road trip with a winning record. They beat the Utah Jazz 121-96 a night after beating the Denver Nuggets. The Lakers’ trip will finish in Portland on Friday.

Frank Vogel cautioned before the game that Utah wasn’t what its record suggested. The Jazz had just come off a road trip in which they had lost four out of the five games, but entered Wednesday 8-1 at home.

The Lakers took them seriously enough to blow them out.

Anthony Davis scored 26 points on nine-of-11 shooting and blocked three shots. He rested for most of the fourth quarter with the game well in hand. LeBron James also exited early, having scored 20 points with 12 assists.

Kyle Kuzma, one of the two players most affected by a cold permeating the locker room, hit three-pointers in the final seconds of both the first and second quarters. He finished with 13 points and a team-high four steals.

The game closed with one familiar sight for the Lakers — the home fans leaving while interloping Lakers fans chanted for them.

KINGS

John Carlson scored twice, Ilya Samsonov stopped 22 shots and the Washington Capitals beat the Kings 3-1 on Wednesday night.

Tom Wilson also had a goal as the Capitals have won five in a row for the second time this season. They won six straight Oct. 25-Nov. 9.

Blake Lizotte had a goal and Jonathan Quick made 19 saves for the Kings, who lost for the third time in their last 10 home games.

ANGELS

The Angels and the city of Anaheim agreed Wednesday on a deal under which a company affiliated with Angels owner Arte Moreno would buy Angel Stadium and the surrounding property for $325 million. The city would not contribute to the cost of either renovating the stadium or building a new one, and the Angels would decide whether to upgrade or replace the current stadium.

Under the deal, the Angels are committed to playing in Anaheim through 2050, with options that could keep them there through 2065. The Angels were faced with a Dec. 31 deadline to opt out of their stadium lease or remain bound to it through 2029.

RAMS

Since becoming the Rams coach in 2017, Sean McVay never has shied from accountability. He protectively falls on the sword for every miscue or poor performance by players, saying it was his fault for not putting them in better positions.

But as the play-caller, his limited use of running back Todd Gurley during the first half of the season indisputably was McVay’s error — and his alone — to own.

He all but did so Wednesday when asked what precipitated Gurley’s increased usage of late.

“Me not being an idiot?” McVay said.

As the Rams prepare for Sunday’s game against the NFC West-leading Seattle Seahawks, all indications are that McVay will stick to a plan that worked against the Arizona Cardinals and mostly worked wonders during a run to the playoffs in 2017 and to the Super Bowl last season.

“You don’t want to make the same mistakes that you ended up making earlier on,” McVay said.

YOUR FAVORITE SPORTS MOMENT

What is your all-time favorite local sports moment? Email me at [email protected] and tell me what it is and why, and it could appear in a future Sports newsletter.

This moment comes from Perry Grant of Arcadia:

“May, 1968, the week before finals. Studying too much and had to take a break. Went over to Pauley Pavilion to shoot some hoops. The four side baskets were down so there were six open half courts. Got into a 3-on-3 game. There were three games going on.

“The door on the west end opened up and in walked six more players. All three games immediately stopped, because the best collegiate basketball team in the nation (maybe of all time) had just walked in, plus one. Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Lynn Shackelford, Kenny Heitz, Lucius Allen and Mike Warren and the plus-one. The six quickly chose teams and started playing. I did not know the name of the plus-one. He seemed almost as tall as Alcindor and very athletic. I figured him to be a pro. He was that good and he blocked one of Alcindor‘s sky hooks (I know, I know. Everybody tells me that’s impossible but I know what I saw.)

“I turned to the guy next to me and said, ‘Who the heck is that?’ He said, ‘You really don’t know who that is? That’s Sidney Wicks; he was at Santa Monica College this past year but he’ll be here next year to help us win another title.’

“And he came and did exactly that.”

TODAY’S LOCAL MAJOR SPORTS SCHEDULE

All times Pacific

No games scheduled.

BORN ON THIS DATE

1947: Football player Jim Plunkett

1949: Golfer Lanny Wadkins

1951: Golfer Tom Purtzer

1957: Football player Art Monk

1963: Ski jumper Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards

1964: Swimmer Pablo Morales

1978: Hockey player Olli Jokinen

1985: Basketball player Josh Smith

DIED ON THIS DATE

1951: Baseball player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, 64

2001: Yachtsman Peter Blake, 53

2002: Sports broadcasting executive Roone Arledge, 71

2010: Football player/broadcaster Don Meredith, 71

2016: Football player Rashaan Salaam, 42

AND FINALLY

The top 10 Raiders of all time, No. 8: Jim Plunkett. Watch it here.

That concludes the newsletter for today. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, please email me at [email protected]. If you want to subscribe, click here.

Officers can get up to a $50,000 loan toward a down payment if they’re first-time buyers

SAN DIEGO — 

San Diego’s chronic police officer shortage has prompted the city to start a home-buying incentive that will give officers as much as $50,000 toward a down payment if they buy a house in the city.

The $750,000 program will help the Police Department recruit and retain more officers, while also boosting community policing by encouraging more officers to live in the city instead of other parts of the region, city officials said.

“Maintaining San Diego’s status as one of the safest cities in the country starts with recruiting the best and brightest to protect and serve,” Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at a Wednesday news conference.

“This new home-buyer program gives us another powerful tool to attract top talent and provides the opportunity for more of our officers to live in the neighborhoods they’re working to keep safe,” he said. “It sends a very strong and powerful message, backed up with dollars.”

Police Chief David Nisleit said he expected many officers to embrace the incentive, noting that three preliminary workshops hosted by the department had been well-attended.

“One of the things we constantly hear when people leave is that they can’t afford to own a home here,” Nisleit said Wednesday.

Many San Diego officers live as far away as southwest Riverside County, where homes are cheaper but the commute to work can be longer than 90 minutes. An analysis last year by the police officers labor union found that about 30% of city officers lived within San Diego.

Union President Jack Schaeffer said he also expected officers to embrace the program.

“We believe quality of life will improve for our officers and their commute times will decrease exponentially,” he said.

Since Nisleit took over the department from former Chief Shelley Zimmerman in March 2018, the number of officer vacancies has shrunk from nearly 300 to about 150.

The city’s goal is to have 2,040 officers. Nisleit said there will be just under 1,900 when a new Police Academy starts on Monday with 48 recruits.

Officials credit the reduction in vacancies to several new programs and policies, including signing bonuses and finder’s fees for San Diego officers who successfully recruit new colleagues.

In addition, the city has given pay raises of at least 25% to officers, hired a social media marketing firm to boost recruiting, and revamped the Police Department’s written exam and background checks.

While most other departments have used signing bonuses and finder’s fees for years, San Diego appears to be ahead of the curve on the home-buying program.

Chicago, San Francisco and Stockton offer similar home-buying incentives, but San Diego officials said such programs were relatively rare.

The program is open to officers who have never owned a home, and they must contribute at least 3.5% of the purchase price toward the down payment. They must also have a credit score of at least 680.

The incentive loan must be repaid within five years and the officer must live at the property during the entire course of the loan. The city won’t charge them any interest.

City Council members Chris Cate and Barbara Bry first proposed a home-buying incentive last year. On Wednesday, Cate said he was pleased to see the program finally come together.

“Assisting our San Diego police officers with purchasing a home in the city helps them establish roots in the communities they serve, and provides them with an additional incentive to join and stay with the San Diego Police Department,” he said.

The city is contributing $250,000 to the program. The other $500,000 is coming from Pacific Western Bank and Mechanics Bank.

Faulconer and Cate said they expected the program to become larger in the future.

Garrick writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

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The city will be cited for a violation, and water use may not be restored until this weekend.

POWAY, Calif. — 

A state official said Wednesday he intends to notify the city of Poway that its water storage reservoir is out of compliance, a situation he said directly contributed to last week’s storm water overflow that has left the entire community under a boil-water advisory and temporarily shuttered nearly 200 businesses.

Sean Sterchi, San Diego district engineer for the state’s Water Resources Control Board division of drinking water, said regulations say reservoir overflow connections can’t be directly connected to a sewer or storm drain.

But Poway’s clear-well reservoir, built in the 1960s, is connected to the storm water system and the state will now require the city to prepare a plan to fix what is probably going to be a very expensive problem, he said.

“The city of Poway’s clear well is in fact directly connected to the storm drain, and that was the cause of the back-flow incident which resulted in the boil-water advisory,” Sterchi said. Last week’s heavy rainfall “caused the storm drain to back up into the reservoir.”

“Because we now know this is an issue and that it doesn’t meet the current standards, we will be issuing a citation to the city of Poway to ask them to submit a plan for a long-term solution — to either meet the current water works standards or propose an alternative design that would be equivalent public health protection.”

Poway Public Works Director Eric Heidemann explained that a 48-inch storm water pipe runs beneath the clear well, which holds about 10 million gallons of treated water ready for distribution. He said attached to the pipe is an “overflow weir box” that is adjacent to the reservoir and is there as a safety precaution. Should the clear well become too full, water spills into the box and then into the drain.

But when last week’s rains came, the storm water pipe became engorged and water went up into the weir box where a flap designed only to open if water was being discharged into the pipe became stuck, allowing storm water, and the debris it contained, to enter the well.

The next day some customers noticed the water was discolored. The state was notified, and the boil-water advisory was issued and testing began.

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City officials were caught off guard by Sterchi’s comments and said they had never been notified of any compliance problem, despite yearly inspections.

“Today we learned a representative with the State Water Resources Control Board told the media the city’s clear well is out of compliance because of its proximity to a storm drain,” said a statement released late Wednesday afternoon.

“This comes as a shock to the city because in September 2019 we received a report from SWRCB with no indication that there was any storm drain compliance issue at the clear well. In fact, in the more than 50 years the facility has been in operation and under regular inspection by the state, the city has never been made aware of a compliance issue of this nature,” the statement said.

It continued: “Since the precautionary boil-water advisory was put in place, city staff have been working around the clock in accordance with state guidelines to get the Poway water system back online. As we have previously stated, testing results show that Poway water continues to meet health standards, including three certified test results showing that the water is absent of bacteria.”

Sterchi said he wasn’t sure what past inspections had shown because he wasn’t in his office and didn’t have immediate access to those records. But he said it doesn’t matter.

“It’s really irrelevant,” he said. “It’s an old design that has obviously a sanitary risk to it, and moving forward it’s something we will expect them to address.”

The boil-water advisory has caused the county’s health department to order all restaurants and bars closed in the city of 50,000 people, causing continuing and worsening economic hardships for employees and owners.

Residents are also being told not to drink or cook with tap water without first boiling it. The city has given out hundreds of thousands of bottles of water to residents since the advisory went into effect Saturday night.

Sterchi said water testing is ongoing, and it’s possible the advisory could be lifted as early as Friday, should the tests continue to show no problems, but perhaps not until Saturday or Sunday.

The city has been flushing out pipes all over the community, officials said.

Jones writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

A magnitude 3.8 earthquake was reported at 12:55 a.m. Thursday less than a mile from Ridgecrest, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake occurred 29 miles from California City, 58 miles from Tehachapi, 61 miles from Rosamond and 61 miles from Barstow.

In the last 10 days, there have been five earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.

An average of 234 earthquakes with magnitudes between 3.0 and 4.0 occur per year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three-year data sample.

The earthquake occurred at a depth of 4.9 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS.

Even if you didn’t feel this small earthquake, you never know when the Big One is going to strike. Ready yourself by following our five-step earthquake preparedness guide and building your own emergency kit.

This story was automatically generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.

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Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, Dec. 5, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.

The House Judiciary Committee held its first impeachment hearing over the Ukraine scandal on Wednesday — and much of the internet was talking about Pamela Karlan, a bespectacled 60-year-old Stanford University law professor. Karlan, a leading constitutional scholar and voting rights expert, was one of four legal scholars chosen to discuss the “constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment.” Aside from being a semi-frequent NPR guest, hers was not a name previously widely heard outside legal circles.

[See also: “Democrats outline potential articles of impeachment against Trump” in the Los Angeles Times]

So why was seemingly everyone talking about her?

There are two reasons — one involved a savage rebuking of the House Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, and the other a probably ill-advised mention of the president’s son Barron Trump.

The first came early on in the proceedings, when Karlan excoriated Rep. Doug Collins for insinuating that she was unprepared for the proceedings. “I’m insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor I don’t care about those facts,” she shot back. And that was far from her only bout of verbal sparring with House members during the hearing.

[See also: “Lawmakers are studying ‘what’s impeachable.’ Do you know?” in the Los Angeles Times]

Karlan’s second viral moment came a little later, when the law professor invoked the name of Trump’s teenage son while discussing the limits of presidential power, saying, “while the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.” The comment was either a relatively harmless pun about a topic that shouldn’t have been mentioned, or a morally egregious offense, depending on whom you ask. It drew a Twitter rebuke from Melania Trump, and Karlan apologized for it later in the proceedings.

Who is she?

By the end of Wednesday’s hearing, CNN was calling Karlan “a new hero for liberal law professors across the country” for her sharp testimony in favor of impeachment. But the lefty law professors of the country might quibble with the designation of their admiration as new. Karlan, who has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court, has long been lionized in the left-leaning legal community for her case work, outspoken nature and championing of gay rights, criminal defendants’ rights and voting rights. She also founded the U.S. Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford, which was the first of its kind at any law school.

The New York Times described her as “an Antonin Scalia for the left” back in 2009, when her name was being tossed around as a potential Obama Supreme Court nominee. There was speculation at the time that Karlan, who identifies as bisexual, might become the first openly LGBTQ Supreme Court nominee.

“Would I like to be on the Supreme Court? You bet I would,” she said during a commencement address in 2009. “But not enough to have trimmed my sails for half a lifetime.”

And now, here’s what’s happening across California:

TOP STORIES

A consultant who wanted to ban feeding homeless people has been tapped to lead the agency that coordinates the federal government’s response to homelessness. The shift in leadership at the federal level comes as President Trump has repeatedly vowed to crack down on street encampments in Los Angeles, San Francisco and elsewhere in California. Still, it remains unclear what Robert Marbut’s appointment will mean for California, home to the nation’s largest homeless population. Legally, the Trump administration has limited options to open shelters or use police to clear encampments — although there is some appetite among L.A. County residents to have law enforcement be more involved. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a law Wednesday that will crack down on campaign contributions from real estate developers, despite warnings from critics who said it had been too watered down to curb the power of political spending. Los Angeles Times

Why are symbols of the Cuban revolution plastered on a cluster of apartment buildings in Santa Monica? Meet the 86-year-old landlord who pays tribute to Cuba and her pro-Castro ideals through her rental properties. Los Angeleno

With Sen. Kamala Harris out of the race, where do her celebrity donors go next? The Hollywood primary continues… Los Angeles Times

L.A. will pay $4 million to end a lawsuit from a woman whose car plunged into a sinkhole in Studio City. The gaping hole abruptly opened up under her car near the intersection of Woodbridge Street and Laurel Canyon Boulevard in 2017. Los Angeles Times

These L.A. homes come with a $1-million property tax bill. Yes, you read that right. (And yes, property taxes need to be paid by Tuesday to avoid a penalty.) Here are the 12 L.A. homeowners expected to cough up at least seven figures, and their respective mansions. Los Angeles Times

New USC President Carol L. Folt is standing behind Mike Bohn and the process that led the new athletic director to retain head football coach Clay Helton. USC football fans are less enthusiastic, to say the least. Los Angeles Times

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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

California’s campaign watchdog agency has suspended a long-standing policy banning its members from contributing to federal candidates after one commissioner donated to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid. Los Angeles Times

Pasadena is suing itself to try to remove a cannabis initiative from next year’s ballot. “Yes, this is highly unusual,” said the local paper. Pasadena Star-News

CRIME AND COURTS

Body-camera footage shows a police officer firing repeatedly as a 15-year-old runs into an orchard in a rural part of the Central Valley near Ceres. The officer fatally shot the boy after a high-speed car chase. Modesto Bee

HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Tainted romaine lettuce from California’s Salinas Valley has been linked to 102 illnesses in 23 states, health authorities reported Wednesday. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

The four victims of the Fresno mass shooting will be laid to rest this month with traditional Hmong funerals. Here are some ways to support their families. Fresno Bee

There will be only one video rental store left on the Central Coast after the beloved John’s Video Palace closes its doors in Atascadero later this month. San Luis Obispo Tribune

The Angels and Anaheim have reached a deal for the team to stay in city through 2050. Los Angeles Times

Upgrades will silence San Francisco’s emergency sirens for the next two years. Yes, there are still text alerts, but not everybody gets them. “If you do receive the alerts, it’s really important to check on your neighbors to make sure they got it as well.” San Francisco Chronicle

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: cloudy, 65. San Diego: partly sunny, 67. San Francisco: cloudy, 59. San Jose: cloudy, 62. Sacramento: cloudy, 60. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Today’s California memory comes from Michael Bettendorf:

“Last month, my Berkeley-born daughter, now at UCLA, invited me to see Brian Wilson speak on the UCLA campus. I struggled to explain to her what it was like growing up in Iowa and listening incessantly to Beach Boys records on the tiny record player in my room, images of fantasy-world California flooding my head. When I got admitted to Cal in 1987, of course I came to Berkeley; I found the fantasy real, and I never left. I told her: ‘Brian Wilson is probably the reason I live in California. And, by extension, the reason *you* live in California.’ ”

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes.

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