New homeless shelter opens
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Tuesday, September 13th.
A new homeless shelter in the Midway district is officially open. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
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The number of reported covid cases in San Diego County remains low.
And the county remains in the C-D-C’s low risk level for COVID.
MEANWHILE, NEW COVID BOOSTERS THAT TARGET MULTIPLE STRAINS OF THE VIRUS ARE NOW AVAILABLE
THE BOOSTERS TARGET THE ORIGINAL VIRUS ALONG WITH THE OMICRON VARIANTS THAT ARE PREDOMINANT NOW.
You can get the new booster FROM SOME HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS and PHARMACIES AND AT FOUR COUNTY-RUN LOCATIONS.
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The Chula Vista city council is expected to vote tonight on a measure that if passed, would ban the sale of flavored tobacco in the city.
Supporters of the proposal were out in front of city hall yesterday to urge its passage.
They say tobacco companies are targeting children with products made to look and taste like candy.
If passed, Chula Vista will join Solana Beach, Encinitas, San Diego, Imperial Beach and the county of San Diego in banning flavored tobacco.
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Showers and thunderstorms brought flooding across parts of San Diego County over the weekend.
The National Weather Service said the remains of Tropical Storm Kay were spinning about 300 miles southwest of San Diego.
The chance of showers and thunderstorms will continue to decrease today through the end of the week.
Temperatures west of the mountains are expected to gradually cool through the end of the week.
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From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now. Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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Earlier this year, Mayor Todd Gloria cited San Diego’s growing homelessness problem as his administration’s “number one priority.”
Yet, despite the Mayor’s push to target homelessness through law enforcement, a new inewsource report finds that zero convictions have been made by the city attorney’s office.
The disparity highlights a stark disconnect in priorities between the San Diego Police Department - under the direction of Gloria - and the city attorney’s office in addressing homelessness.
inewsource investigative reporter, Cody Dulaney - who co-authored the story, joined KPBS’s Jade Hindmon to talk about the report’s findings.
For months now, Mayor Gloria has touted efforts he’s directed to address homelessness. Can you remind us what these tactics include, and how they’ve ramped up during the pandemic?
Has this police-led, shelter-first approach been effective in getting unhoused San Diegans out of homelessness?
Is that why the City Attorney’s Office has declined to prosecute so many cases?
You write that the lack of prosecutions points to a pretty clear disconnect between City-lead enforcement efforts and the city attorney’s office. What’s behind this disparity?
Have you reached out to any of the agencies involved for any clarity on this situation?
Can you talk a little bit about what this whole process does to the individual unhoused resident? I mean, it seems like they’re being shuffled around without much resolution or help.
That was inewsource investigative reporter, Cody Dulaney, speaking with KPBS Midday Edition host, Jade Hindmon.
As mentioned, one way San Diego is trying to address its homelessness issue is by getting the unhoused into shelters.
To that end a new homeless shelter in the Midway district is now accepting residents..
KPBS Health reporter Matt Hoffman says the shelter is phasing in residents and expects to fill its 150 beds by the end of the month.
It’s the morning of the midway shelter opening and Alpha Project Outreach specialist Robert McKinny is heading out with his partner Elizabeth.. They’ve been talking to unsheltered residents in the area and have a list of who they plan to bring in– It’s opening day so there’s going to be a lot of hustle and bustle The new shelter is for men and women and has onsite mental health services. It’s 150 beds will not all be filled right away. On the shelter’s first day of operation, just 15 residents were allowed in -- and that means a few of McKinny’s clients, like Sandy, have to wait.. McKinny gave her the news himself– Here’s the deal -- it’s kind of bad news and good news as well. They only allowed us to bring 15 people in today but that means tomorrow you’ll be the first one in The shelter is able to accommodate intakes 24 hours a day, pending bed availability. MH KPBS News.
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A place that’s served members of the L-G-B-T-Q-plus community recovering from addiction is closing its doors.
KPBS reporter M.G. Perez tells us why.
Almost every day since 1983, there have been recovery meetings at the Live and Let Live Alano Club. It’s a safe place in the heart of Hillcrest …for 12-step fellowship primarily serving people who are LGBTQ-plus. A continuing drop in membership, donations and other funding over the past few years has forced the board of directors to file bankruptcy and close the club. Hank Clark has been a member since he got sober 16 years ago. “(why are meetings important?) to keep us accountable.”/ “meetings are important for different people for different reasons. I come or the fellowship.” While the bankruptcy is negotiated, the Alano Club is expected to stay open for at least several more weeks...giving time for groups to find other meeting places. MGP KPBS News
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Coming up.... Efforts to save a rhino species that’s nearly extinct. We’ll have that story and more, next, just after the break.
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Local cancer researchers are optimistic about President Joe Biden’s “cancer moonshot” initiative… to cut cancer deaths in half.
KPBS reporter Tania Thorne has the story.
60 years after President John F Kennedy set one challenge for the nation:
“We choose to go to the moon…..” President Joe Biden set a new challenge: Beating cancer is something we can do together…. On Monday, President Biden said the future of the Cancer Moonshot is to cut cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years. Dr. Thomas Buchholz is the medical director of Scripps MD Anderson Cancer Center,. He’s opimistic about that goal. We've now increased our understanding through genomics and new therapeutics, about how to how to activate our own immune system against cancer. We're really at the door of making rapid advances. Buchholz says incremental improvements in cancer death rates have been made in the last couple of years and that has to do with regular doctor visits and early detection. TT KPBS News
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A new rhino calf at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park represents another step in the effort to save a related rhino species that’s nearly extinct.
KPBS Environment reporter Erik Anderson explains.
The baby rhino begins the day leading mom Livia around the closed off rhino habitat on the eastern side of the park. “Yeah, he is a bundle of energy. Which is all typical rhino calf behaviors.” Wildlife care specialist Jonni Capiro is accustomed to watching the young animal zoom around the enclosure, usually with mom lumbering close behind. “He’s really playful and confident. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that mom is so confident. And feeling good about her role as a mom. So, he doesn’t have a care in the world right now.” And of course all that running makes a romp in the mud even better. Capiro says that mud bath cools the animal down, protects it from the sun’s harsh rays and keeps bugs off his hide. The baby weighed more than 100 pounds at birth and is already more than twice that size. And while the calf is cute and attracting attention, researchers are celebrating the birth because it is the first for mom Livia. She now joins two other southern white rhino females at the park, out of a herd of six, that have proven they can give birth and care for offspring. Barbara Durrant is the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s director of reproductive services. She says the six females were brought here in 2015 to teach researchers about rhino reproduction. “We started getting exact details about the reproductive cycle. We knew vaguely what the rhino cycle was like from the animals that were breeding here in our field habitats. But we didn’t know the details”. That’s critical because these six females could one day be surrogate moms to the closely related northern white rhino. That species is on the precipice of extinction, thanks to war and poaching. An aging mom and her daughter are the only northern white rhinos on the planet. Both are too old to breed so the surrogates could be a lifeline to keep the northern whites from going extinct. “That goal for all of us, all of us working on this project, is a self-sustaining herd of northern white rhinos. That we can reintroduce into native habitat. So, we’re backing way up and starting with the fundamentals.” San Diego researchers hope to do that by implanting an embryo of a northern white rhino into one of the proven moms. If the pregnancy is successful, the result would be a northern white calf. But it’s complicated and unprecedented. The Wildlife Alliance’s Carly Young is one of the researchers pioneering the techniques they hope to use. Some steps are as basic as figuring out how to make the petry dish culture that cloned fertilized rhino eggs will grow in. “So we’ve sort of taken protocols that we’ve learned for the horse and other protocols that I’ve learned using the domestic cat, deer, even human, and we’ve taken all of those protocols, this is how we’ve made the maturation media for the rhino. Because no one’s ever done this work before.” Eventually Young will use frozen northern white rhino cells to create sperm and eggs. Each egg will be the shell of a southern white, with northern white cellular material inside. A single northern white sperm will be injected and the resulting embryo will be a northern white rhino.“I have no doubt that we can produce northern white rhino embryos with southern white rhino host oocyte. In the near future, we could do an embryo transfer and figure out our technique to do this and actually be able to produce a northern white rhino calf.” But challenges remain. Barbara Durrant says researchers want proof of concept in the field with southern white rhinos before they tap their limited supply of northern white cells. German researchers have created northern white embryos using eggs harvested from the two living females. But creating the embryo is only half the battle. “There’s never been a successful embryo transfer in any rhino species.” Durrant says there has been steady incremental progress. Two females in San Diego got pregnant from artificial insemination. The team knows more about rhino reproduction. And three females are now candidates to have a southern white rhino embryo implanted. Durrant says the clock is ticking. “The northern white rhino is so close to extinction now that there’s a very real possibility that before we have a northern white rhino calf that both of these females will be gone. And that we’ll be bringing back an extinct species.” Successful or not, the work being done with southern and northern white rhinos in San Diego could still prove invaluable to other species, like the Sumatran Rhino which only has a population of about 60 animals. Erik Anderson KPBS News
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
