East County News Service

Photo: Creative Commons by S.A.

In landmark decision, court rules that hateful online trolling can constitute interference with the equal enjoyment of public accommodations

August 9, 2019 (Washington D.C.) -- Today the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that white supremacists who used social media to threaten and harass the first African American female student body president of American University were liable for over $700,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees.

“This ruling is historic in that it marks the first time that a court has deemed racist online trolling activity that can interfere with one’s equal access to a public accommodation. The Court’s ruling recognizes the real-world damage done when bigots take to the internet to target and threaten African Americans and other people of color,” said Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “This ruling should send a strong message to other white supremacists that they can and will be held accountable for hateful activity that constitutes unlawful discrimination, no matter whether it occurs online or in the real world.”   

East County News Service

By Shauna Krout

Photo:  Carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer, is turning up in street drugs—and its killing users (Creative Commons)

August 8, 2019 (San Diego) - Overdoses are happening everywhere, all over the country. In our current society, the streets are filled to the brim with laced heroin that’s often mixed with carfentaniland other fentanyl analogs. Dealers are now adding it to street pressed pills, cocaine, meth and marijuana too. 

August 8, 2019 (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

• East County woman loses hundreds in pet scam (10 News)
• Lemon Grove residents working on sales tax measure for city  (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• As San Diego increases use of streetlight cameras, ACLU raises surveillance concerns (Los Angeles Times)
• Navy sailor acquitted in deadly East County love triangle trial (Patch)
• Can new homes on the edge of San Diego stop wildfires? (Desert Sun)
• Video: Female duo raids La Mesa house as owner watches on doorbell cam (10 News)
• San Diego Explained: An Earthquake Could Impact San Diego's Water Supply (Voice of San Diego)  
• 3 hurt, 2 killed in Leucadia cliff collapse: Sheriff (NBC 7)

STATE

• States sue Trump administration over fuel economy penalties (Associated Press)
• Calif.’s new law requiring candidates’ tax returns appears unconstitutional — or does it?  (San Francisco Chronicle)
• What is a ‘California Indian tribe’? How a proposed law unearthed a decades-old wound (Sacramento Bee)

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

August 8, 2019 (San Diego’s East County) -- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen on important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S

• U.S. Employers Added 164,000 Jobs In July; Unemployment Holds At 3.7%  (NPR)
• Here's where jobs are growing — in one chart (CNBC)
• Landmark INF Treaty Between Washington And Moscow Collapses  (NPR)
• FBI document warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat (Yahoo News)
• Mitch McConnell’s obstruction in the spotlight following massacres (CNN)
• 680 undocumented workers arrested in record-setting immigration sweep on the first day of school (CNN)
• Iraqi man dies after Trump administration deportation (Politico)
• ACLU: U.S. has taken nearly 1,000 child migrants from their parents since judge ordered stop to border separations (Washington Post)
• Toni Morrison, first African American female author to win Nobel Prize, is dead at 88 (NBC)

WORLD

• The Arctic's ice sheet is melting at a rapid rate: 11 billion tons in one day (USA Today)
• Putin to Trump: We'll develop new nuclear missiles if you do (Reuters)
• North Korea threatens to take 'new road', launches more missiles (Reuters)
• Saudi Arabian women finally allowed to hold passports and travel independently (CNN) 

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

Source:  City of La Mesa

August 8, 2019 (La Mesa) - Continuing with the National Night Out celebration, the La Mesa Police Department and Heartland Fire and Rescue will be hosting the 8 th Annual Safety Fair on Saturday, August 10th, 2019. The event will run from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. in the La Mesa Police Department parking lot.

New Blackhawk helicopter, tactical command vehicle, evacuation planning map books, Information and Community Resource Centers and Wildlife Resiliency Fairs provide protection to customers

Source: SDG&E

August 8, 2019 (San Diego) – San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) announces new upgrades to improve wildfire preparedness and help ensure the safety of everyone in the region. For more than a decade, the company has been adding new monitoring technology, upgrading existing infrastructure and working with first responders. Today, the company unveiled additional enhancements, including a second aerial firefighting asset, as the latest strategic improvement to help ensure public safety.

East County News Service

Photo: Creative Commons by SA-NC via Bing

August 8, 2019 (San Diego’s East County) – The San Diego Blood Bank is hosting blood drives in Rancho San Diego on August 24,  Santee on August 25, and El Cajon on August 27.   Scroll down for details.

By Suzanne Potter, California News Service

August 7, 2019 (Pasadena) - Thousands of Californians joined protests across the state to take a stand against white supremacy after the mass shooting in El Paso. 

Last weekend, a gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart store in that border city, shortly after posting a racist, anti-Latino essay online. 

By Katie White, County of San Diego Communications Office

Video by Jose Eli Villanueva

August 7, 2019 (San Diego) - The County of San Diego is inviting businesses, nonprofits and government organizations that currently use high-polluting heavy-duty equipment to apply for a share of $28.5 million in grant funding for greener vehicles, machinery and equipment.

East County News Service  

August 7, 2019 (Washington D.C.) – The Acting Chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission today sent a letter to governors of all 50 states urging building code changes to protect consumers from a dangerous feature found in some residential elevators.  The letter follows a warning issued to consumers after several children became trapped in gaps between the elevator car door and room access door; the youngsters were crushed and died.

If you own a residential elevator, dangerous gaps can be eliminated by placing space guards on the back of the room access door or installing an electronic monitoring device that deactivates the elevator when a child is detected in the gap.  The CPSC urges consumers to contact their elevator manufacturer or an elevator installer to obtain these critical safety devices and protect children from this hidden hazard.

By Miriam Raftery

Listen to the full interview, originally aired on KNSJ radio: click the audio link.

Learn more about Ammar Campa-Najjar's town hall at the Alpine Community Center on August 18 from 1-4 p.m. by clicking here.

August 9, 2019 (San Diego’s East County) – “We need an economy and a government that works for working people,” says Ammar Campa-Najjar, who is running for the 50^th Congressional district seat currently held by indicted Congressman Duncan Hunter. So we sat down with Campa-Najjar on our radio show to discuss those plans in detail.

Headlines tout a strong GDP as well as low unemployment. But  those numbers don’t tell the full story,  Campa-Najjar points out. “That’s great if you own stock.  But it’s not great if unemployment is low because one person is working three jobs, barely making a living and living paycheck to paycheck, having to choose whether to buy a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk.”  He says that in talking with people across the district, he’s hearing from people who are having to cut prescription pills in half or who can’t pay for insulin, choosing which bills to skip paying to cover basic survival needs. “These are real issues in the district, especially in rural areas."

Unlike most candidates who have run for this seat through the years, Campa-Najjar says he is uniquely positioned to bring good jobs to East County and elsewhere in the district because “I worked at the Department of Labor to create good-paying jobs, not just in San Diego County, but throughout the country.”

At the Department of Labor, he worked on creating apprenticeship jobs to train workers in high-paying fields, as well as setting up summer youth jobs and opportunities for veterans.  He later worked for the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as communications and marketing director, which included promoting opportunities for small businesses to secure contracts with the federal government and corporations. He’s also worked as an educator teaching at UCSD, USD and SDSU.

He’s also a small business owner and Jamul resident who was born in La Mesa and raised by a working class Catholic mother. His first job was as a janitor at his church, where he became a youth leader before graduating from San Diego State and later working in the White House and at the U.S. Department of Labor.

So what kinds of jobs would he bring to the district, including rural areas, small towns and Native American reservations?