San Diego News Fix

When asked to reflect on the tragedy that forever changed Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein 39 days ago, he thinks back to advice he received from a spiritual leader as a 17-year-old student of the Jewish faith: the way to push away darkness was with light. That advice has never been more significant than now, as Goldstein heals from physical wounds to his hands as a result of the shooting at the Poway synagogue he founded, and as he rises to meet a call to action. “I chose to react in a very specific way,” Goldstein told a packed auditorium at the University of San Diego on Wednesday night. Rather than leave him paralyzed, the trauma that left him without an index finger, killed a congregant and wounded two others has transformed him. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/story/2019-06-05/chabad-poway-hate-forum-usd

Re-enacting a parachute jump he made 75 years ago in the early hours of D-Day, retired Coronado school teacher Tom Rice, 97, invaded Normandy again Wednesday. The tandem jump, strapped to the chest of a younger parachutist, came as world leaders and thousands of spectators gathered in England and France to commemorate the June 6, 1944 assault that was a key turning point in World War II. “It went perfect,” Rice told reporters after landing in a field of flowers near Carentan, not far from where he landed the first time. “I feel great. I’d go up and do it all again.”

San Diego joined the world’s dining elite Monday, when the city’s first Michelin star was awarded to the luxurious Carmel Valley restaurant Addison. At a ceremony for the inaugural Michelin Guide California in Huntington Beach, which was attended by a who’s who of the state’s top chefs and restaurateurs, Addison executive chef and San Diego native William Bradley accepted the illustrious award for the 13-year-old bastion of fine dining at the Fairmont Grand Del Mar. “We’re just so happy and so honored to be part of such a prestigious guide representing San Diego and Addison. It’s just amazing,” Bradley said after the awards were given out. “It was surreal. To be standing on that stage with that backdrop and with all those amazing chefs. It’s a dream.” Among the celebrated chefs in attendance were José Andrés, Michael Cimarusti, Michael Mina, Niki Nakayama, and Ludo Lefebvre. A total of 90 California restaurants were awarded stars at Monday’s reveal event, 69 with one star (for “High quality cooking, worth a s

Local judges are pushing back on what they see as potential due process violations in the implementation of the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols. Read the story: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/story/2019-05-31/san-diego-immigration-court-overwhelmed-by-remain-in-mexico-cases

Exasperated by reports of a flood of illegal border crossings, President Donald Trump summoned his top immigration advisers to demand action. Responding to his mounting concern, including his extreme threats to entirely close the U.S.-Mexico border, they prepared an alternative but still-inflammatory plan to levy escalating tariffs on all Mexican imports to the United States. Thursday night’s surprise announcement of the plan by Trump, threatening to upend ratification chances for his own revised North American free trade pact, demonstrated the lengths to which the risk-taking president is willing to go to crack down on illegal immigration, even in the face of bipartisan criticism, legal challenges and polarized public feelings. He’s setting the tricky politics of immigration and trade — the two issues that defined his candidacy and bedevil his presidency — on a collision course and injecting new tensions into his relations with political allies as he struggles to show results in his campaign for a second ter

Two charter school leaders illegally pocketed more than $50 million of state funds by siphoning the money through a network of 19 online charter schools across California which falsely enrolled thousands of students, prosecutors alleged Wednesday. The schools include three that were authorized to operate by the Dehesa Elementary School District in San Diego County: Valiant Academy of Southern California, California Academy of Sports Science and University Prep. Dehesa’s superintendent also is facing charges and has pleaded not guilty. San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan said that leaders of the charter schools enrolled thousands of students into their schools, often without their knowledge, and collected millions of dollars in state funds. Many students were already enrolled in private schools or in youth athletic groups, and the charter school leaders bought their information to claim them as their students, Stephan said.

It’s been more than nine years since a Fallbrook family of four disappeared, leaving authorities stumped. The discovery of the family’s SUV near the U.S.-Mexico border led many — including law enforcement — to suspect they left the country. Nearly four years would pass before the remains of the McStays — Joseph, 40, Summer, 43, and sons Gianni, 4, and Joey Jr., 3 — were found, their bodies buried in shallow graves outside Victorville, more than 100 miles from their home, in November 2013. A year later, authorities arrested Charles “Chase” Merritt, a business associate of Joseph McStay. Merritt was charged with four counts of murder. He pleaded not guilty. Joseph McStay sold indoor water features and fountains, and often hired Merritt, a welder, to craft them. Prosecutors say Merritt had been dipping into McStay’s business account. Merritt’s attorneys pointed the finger at another McStay associate.

At a forum in Ramona on Saturday, Rep. Duncan Hunter also addressed the pending court martial case against San Diego-based Navy SEAL chief Edward Gallagher and Army Capt. Mathew L. Golsteyn. Both are charged with committing war crimes during their service — Gallagher in Iraq and Golsteyn in Afghanistan. Gallagher is charged with several crimes including killing a teenage Islamic State fighter who was brought to his unit for medical treatment. He’s accused of stabbing the fighter in the neck. Prosecutors also said he texted a photograph of himself next to the dead fighter and wrote he “got him with my hunting knife.” As he recounted the allegation of Gallagher posing next to a dead body for a photograph, Hunter, also a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said “a lot of us have done the exact same thing.” He said he, too, had a photo taken of himself next to a dead combatant, but said he did not text it or post to social media. Hunter called the military justice system “corrupt,” run by lawyers and bur

Forget fish tacos. In these polarized times, perhaps the one thing San Diegans of all stripes can agree on is that this town has ascended to burger heaven. Whether they’re pressed on a flat top, diner-style, grilled at a gourmet restaurant or made to replicate a fast-food classic, San Diego’s burger-sphere is sizzling. No casual joint nor serious eatery worth its ketchup — no mustard! — would dare to not have an expertly crafted burger on its menu.

In one of the biggest physical and social changes in school history, UC San Diego will create its first "front door," a grand entrance meant to appeal as much to the public as students and ease crowding on a campus where enrollment could hit 40,000 this fall. Plans are being drafted for a gateway that will blend art, culture, entertainment, dining, education and research — the same mix that helps funnel people from Westwood Village to UCLA. UCSD will exploit public transit, placing everything from an outdoor theater to an art-filled plaza to a consumer-oriented design building next to the Blue Line trolley station that's being built on campus, near Geisel Library. The school also will add a massive student center nearby, and. in a bit of whimsy, it is proposing to hang 20 play swings on cables attached to the bottom of the depot. "Anybody who comes to San Diego should have this campus as a destination in addition to Balboa Park or the Gaslamp district," said UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla.

Six San Diego State University executives have announced that they are leaving for other schools, jobs or retiring, including a dean who says she grew tired of the turnover and leadership issues the school has experienced over the past two years. All of the changes have occurred in the past six months, and mark a high degree of turnover during Adela de la Torre’s first year as president. The departures include two deans, an acting associate dean, the director of the School of Accountancy, the university’s chief fundraiser, and SDSU’s enrollment director. It is not clear whether de la Torre asked one or more people to leave, or whether the executives sought change.

A federal Judge has ruled that Qualcomm violated antitrust laws by using its top position in smartphone chips to extract excessive patent license fees for its cellular inventions, striking a major blow to the San Diego company’s business model. After four months of deliberations, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh found against Qualcomm in an antitrust lawsuit brought two years ago by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/technology/story/2019-05-22/federal-judge-rules-qualcomm-violated-antitrust-laws

Reporter Jennfier Van Grove gives an update on the planned redevelopment of Horton Plaza; and Rob Nikolewski explains why slipping automotive sales could be the first indicator of an economic recession.

In a small laboratory in Sorrento Valley, scientists at BlueNalu are growing fish parts — just the muscle and fat — from cells. The tissue will one day be stacked into familiar shapes like freshly caught Mahi-mahi fillets, red snapper or flaked tuna using something akin to a 3D printer. Instead of printing plastic, the scientists are using ink made of cells. The startup’s experimental food is a far cry from the plant-based meat products that keep popping up in headlines and are designed to look like something they’re not. BlueNalu’s “alternative seafood” will be made of real fish cells — they’re just grown outside the fish’s body. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/technology/story/2019-05-18/would-you-eat-lab-created-fish-this-san-diego-startup-is-carving-new-path-in-alt-meat-industry

Inside the San Diego Museum of Man, the dead wait in a locked, climate-controlled room. Known as The Willows, this chamber contains 16,000 bone fragments, skeletons and mummies, the remains of at least 5,000 human beings. For more than a century, these relics were excavated from caves, burial grounds , battlefields and construction sites in Egypt, Peru, Vietnam, India and throughout San Diego County. Inside the museum, they were studied by scientists and gawked at by visitors. Or so they were in the past. Today, The Willows is off-limits to casual observers and researchers alike. Instead, the dead wait while the museum tries to deliver them to their final resting place, home with their ancestors.

The real estate developers who wish to permanently change the purpose of San Diego’s once-celebrated Horton Plaza mall are just days away from getting what they need to move forward — so long as city leaders sign off on their plan. Monday, City Council members will be asked to decide whether the center’s new owner, Stockdale Capital Partners, can remake the 900,000 square-foot mall into a mixed-use office campus meant for elite tech firms. Their buy in is needed because of an existing land-use restriction that dates to 1981. The contract stipulates that the site must maintain a minimum of 600,000 square feet of retail shops through August 2036. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/growth-development/story/2019-05-15/will-city-ok-horton-plazas-275m-makeover-as-a-tech-campus

San Diego restored its ability Tuesday to prohibit homeless people from living in cars on city streets with a new law that local police say they plan to use only as a last resort. Supporters of the law say a crackdown is necessary because San Diego’s beach communities have been flooded with homeless people living in cars since a federal judge ruled a previous version of the law was too vague last summer. Citations can’t be written under the new law unless people living in cars refuse to move to one of several “safe” parking lots in the city, and police say they will issue warnings for first offenses and carefully evaluate each situation before writing a ticket. Critics say the new law will unnecessarily criminalize homelessness, punish people already struggling to turn their lives around and further deepen the local cycle of poverty. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/san-diego/story/2019-05-14/san-diego-approves-law-prohibiting-homeless-from-sleeping-in-vehicles

In the weeks since the shooting at a Poway Synagogue, leaders have tried to grapple with the task of combating hate. For two former skinheads, leaving the mindset of hate was a choice they were able to make. Tim Zaal and TM Garret are speaking about how they have learned to stop hating other people. Men like these serve as a sign of hope, and that there is life after hate. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2019-05-11/cure-for-hate-former-skinheads

Gary Robbins discusses the possibility of a 100MPH commuter rail and congestion pricing with the San Diego Union-Tribune's transportation reporter, Joshua Emerson Smith. New details of a controversial plan to prioritize rail over widening freeways are starting to emerge — from laying hundreds of miles of high-speed commuter rail to charging drivers to use many of the most congested freeways. Officials with the San Diego Association of Governments told the Union-Tribune last week that the agency plans to run trains along highway corridors that travel as fast as 100 miles an hour. The most current plan calls for no further expansion of the trolley system, which only goes about 35 miles an hour on average. At the same time, SANDAG plans to roll out so-called congestion pricing on those stretches of freeway, which would charge drivers a fluctuating toll based on traffic conditions. Experts say this ambitious, multi-billion-dollar proposal could be the first of its kind in the country. This story: http://bit.ly/30

There's one idea in the battle over immigration policy that has near-universal support among the key players: finding a way to give permanent legal status to young people here temporarily under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Democratic and Republican leaders have said they want to find a solution. So has President Donald Trump, even though his actions have made the future uncertain for people in the DACA clearance. With such common ground, a DACA fix would seem comparatively simple amid fights over Trump's border wall, the asylum process and visa policy.