EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

February 7, 2018 (San Diego's East County) -- East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include:

LOCAL

• First transfer of nuclear waste made at San Onofre (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Sheriff candidate met with women accusing deputy of groping, got written up (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Black women unite in quest for political office (San Diego Union Tribune)
• Skyrocketing water bills in San Diego prompt internal city investigation (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Tijuana's resurgence of homicides subject of USD policy brief (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• San Diego gets new FBI leader (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Nuclear fusion's clean energy dream meets budget reality — and San Diego's General Atomics sweats it out (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• A San Diego girl sold 312 Girl Scout cookie boxes outside a marijuana shop. Is that allowed? (San Diego Union-Tribune)

STATE

• Insurance claims from California wildfires near $12 billion (New York Times)
• A Kingdom from Dust  (California Sunday Magazine)
• Former California utilities commissioner lobbied for Lyft, didn't disclose it (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• 'We Swipe Left' On Tinder's 'Discriminatory' Pricing, Court Says (NPR)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

LOCAL

First transfer of nuclear waste made at San Onofre (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Workers at the now-shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) have completed the first transfer of a canister filled with nuclear waste to a newly constructed storage facility within the site’s premises.

Sheriff candidate met with women accusing deputy of groping, got written up (San Diego Union-Tribune)

…This is not the first time Myers has claimed that his campaign for sheriff has harmed his work at the department. In November, Myers said he had been stripped of his usual duties and banished to a “broom closet” deep inside the sheriff’s Department’s Kearny Mesa headquarters as a result of his run for county sheriff. Gore denied Myers had been retaliated against.

Black women unite in quest for political office (San Diego Union Tribune)

At a breakfast in Southeast San Diego on Saturday, trailblazing California Assemblywoman Shirley Weber said black women need to run for political office so “we can be in a position to tell our story.”

Skyrocketing water bills in San Diego prompt internal city investigation (San Diego Union-Tribune)

It sounds like something out of a Kafka novel. You get an inexplicable bill from a government agency for thousands of dollars and no manner of protest or pleading will reverse it. Instead, you’re told by the bureaucracy to pony up the money or face losing access to an essential resource — water. That’s the situation being described by residents across the city of San Diego who say the Public Utilities Department is charging them for water they didn’t use.

Tijuana's resurgence of homicides subject of USD policy brief (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The expansion into Tijuana of a new drug trafficking group, the Cartel Nueva Generacion Jalisco, is a key factor in explaining the city’s record number of homicides in 2017…. Tijuana had more homicides than any other city in Mexico last year.

San Diego gets new FBI leader (San Diego Union-Tribune)

John Brown comes from Los Angeles, where he has been serving as the special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence and Cyber Division of the FBI office there.

Nuclear fusion's clean energy dream meets budget reality — and San Diego's General Atomics sweats it out (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The project is called ITER, pronounced “EAT-er,” short for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. General Atomics is building an incredibly powerful magnet called the Central Solenoid that will be inserted into the middle of the ITER device. “It’s probably the world’s largest and most complex science experiment ever undertaken,” said John Smith, the program manager at General Atomics overseeing the solenoid’s development.

A San Diego girl sold 312 Girl Scout cookie boxes outside a marijuana shop. Is that allowed? (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Selling Girl Scout cookies outside a pot shop raises eyebrows and questions as more states like California legalize recreational marijuana.

STATE

Insurance claims from California wildfires near $12 billion (New York Times)

Insurance claims from last fall's deadly California wildfires have reached $11.8 billion, making it the most expensive series of wildfires in state history, an official said Wednesday. The staggering number exceeds the total insurance claims from the top 10 previously most costly wildfires in California.

A Kingdom from Dust  (California Sunday Magazine)

...the biggest irrigated farmer in the world — the one whose mad plantings of almonds and pistachios have triggered California’s nut rush — keeps on growing, no matter drought or flood. 

Former California utilities commissioner lobbied for Lyft, didn't disclose it (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Former gubernatorial aide and state utility regulator Susan Kennedy admitted she violated state law by failing to register as a lobbyist. Kennedy was being paid $15,000 a month by Lyft and $25,000 a month by the San Gabriel Valley Water Co. to lobby the California Public Utilities Commission….

'We Swipe Left' On Tinder's 'Discriminatory' Pricing, Court Says (NPR)

A California appeals court said Tinder had to stop charging more for people age 30 and over to use its Tinder Plus premium service, saying it was discriminatory.