San Diego City Council votes to pass resolution supporting hotel workers
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Wednesday, September 18th.
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The San Diego City Council votes to pass a resolution supporting hotel workers on strike.
More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
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The number of home sales in the county dropped last month.
According to the California Association of Realtors, also known as CAR, there was a 4-point-7-percent decline in sales compared to July.
Although the number of houses selling dropped, the median price of sold homes only slightly changed from July to August.
The median price of a single-family home last month was just over one-million-dollars.
CAR’s senior vice president and chief economist said one of the reasons home sales are down is because buyers are waiting for the Federal Reserve to cut rates.
But, home sales in the county are more than 3-percent higher compared to August last year.
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A 13-million-dollar investment on a construction facility at Rancho Buena Vista High School is paying off.
Students are building tiny homes for homeless veterans and learning skills they’ll take with them after graduation.
Eric Espinoza is a senior.
“This is gonna be my favorite project so far. We're starting to build a tiny home with plumbing and electrical and everything, which is pretty cool for someone my age to start doing.”
The course also helps students get OSHA certified and apply for apprenticeship programs.
School administrators say this gives students trade school options and life long experience.
The tiny homes will be donated through the Warrior Village project this week.
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Rain is still projected in this week’s weather forecast.
The National Weather Service says there’s a slight chance of rain starting tonight (Wednesday) and into tomorrow morning (Thursday) in all parts of the county, except the desert areas.
Today (Wednesday) in the inland and coastal areas, temperatures will be in the low 70s, in the mountains, temps will be in the high 60s, and in the desert, it’s expected to be in the low 90s.
We can expect similar temps for the rest of the work week, before they start to rise over the weekend.
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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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Striking hotel workers in San Diego got some support yesterday (Tuesday) from the San Diego City Council, when it passed a resolution calling on the Hilton Bayfront to go back to the bargaining table.
Reporter John Carroll has more from the picket line on the San Diego Bayfront.
Workers at the hilton bayfront have been on strike since labor day weekend. they’re represented by unite here local 30… and the union says the last time they were at the negotiating table with hilton was last week. at that point, the offer was a five dollar-50 cent raise over four years. that would put the lowest paid workers at $29.50 in 2028 unite here president brigette browning says that’s just not sufficient to be able to live in san diego. she called on hilton to make a business decision. we have cost you more in lost business than the contract would cost. i mean, at some point you have to just put your ego aside and do right by the workers.” we reached out to hilton, but did not get a response by our deadline. jc, kpbs news.
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A senior enlisted Marine at the San Diego Recruit Depot is in the brig and facing charges.
Military reporter Andrew Dyer has the latest.
Until last week Sgt. Maj. Gerardo Trevino was the highest-ranking enlisted marine at the 3rd recruit training battalion at MCRD San Diego. He was arrested Sept. 11 by the naval criminal investigative service. A depot spokesperson tells KPBS Trevino was removed from his role the next day due to quote “loss in trust and confidence.” That's boilerplate military jargon used when leaders are removed for any number of reasons, often for some sort of misconduct. Neither the Marines nor NCIS is saying why Trevino was arrested with both citing the ongoing investigation. NCIS says Trevino remains in the brig in pre-trial confinement. In the military court system, it’s up to a person’s commander whether they remain behind bars before trial. In that system, Trevino won’t be charged until a preliminary hearing can be convened. Thousands of marine recruits go through boot camp in San Diego every year. Andrew Dyer, KPBS news.
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With America's bitter divide on full display this election season, social media platforms are often blamed for fanning polarization by failing to reign in hate speech and misinformation.
KPBS’S Amita Sharma reports on new research showing Instagram does little to stem harassment of women politicians.
She joins me now.
Q. Tell me about the research. The Center for Countering Digital Hate studied more than half a million Instagram posts related to 10 well-known women politicians. Five Democrats. Five Republicans. The Democratic side included Vice President Kamala Harris and congressional representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi. The Republican side included Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Senator Marsha Blackburn. From those half a million comments, researchers extracted 1,000 of the most toxic posts. One person posted in reference to Vice President Harris: “We don’t want blacks around us no matter who they are.” Another person targeting Senator Marsha Blackburn wrote “Hope someone leaves you for dead in a ditch.” – Here’s Imran Ahmed, who started the Center for Countering Digital Hate, describing the other types of posts he found aimed at these women. Imran Ahmed/CEO & FOUNDER OF THE CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE “Using extreme language the C word repeatedly using racist language, calling people the n word, slurring people for in all sorts of ways, but also the constant drumbeat. So we found that a lot of these posts were from rep repeat offenders who are consistently going back again and again and again to these women and abusing them so that every time they post, no matter what it's on, it might be talking about how they have a new childcare policy. It might be talking about how they want to improve healthcare locally.” 2. Amita, who is posting these comments? There was a time when law enforcement would tell us that trolls were loner guys in their peejays. sitting in their parents’ basements posting. But Ahmed says when it comes to online harassment of women politicians, that’s simply not the case. He says it’s coming from people across the political spectrum. It’s being posted with impunity and it’s because online abuse against women has been normalized.3. What was done with the research findings? Researchers took those 1,000 text messages about the women politicians that they had ferreted out as being toxic and in violation of Instagram’s OWN rules on content and submitted them to Instagram. Here’s Ahmed describing what happened next. 93 PERCENT OF THE TIME, THEY TOOK NO ACTION. Having handed them on a silver platter, They took no action to sexist abuse like make rape, legal racist abuse like we don't want blacks and threatening comments like death to her and her supporters. And I should say Maya I reached out to Meta, which owns Instagram for an interview, and here’s what the company’s Head of Women’s Safety Cindy Southworth said about the Center for Countering Digital Hate report. “We provide tools so that anyone can control who can comment on their posts, automatically filter out offensive comments, phrases or emojis, and automatically hide comments from people who don't follow them. We work with hundreds of safety partners around the world to continually improve our policies, tools, detection and enforcement, and we will review the CCDH report and take action on any content that violates our policies.” - Cindy Southworth, Head of Women’s Safety, Meta. Ahmed emphasized this isn’t a case where new rules are needed vis a vis these kinds of posts. He says platforms just need to enforce their current rules on the books. 4. Amita, you’ve reported on threats to local women both on social media and in person at local meetings. What’s behind the threats? Intimidation. A year ago I spoke with UCSD political scientist Barbara Walter about the purpose of the intimidation. She described it this way. Barbara Walter/UCSD Political Scientist: “It's a form of verbal terrorism designed to basically beat your target into submission.” 5. How do local women holding office deal with the threats? The ones I’ve interviewed locally last year, such as Chula Vista Elementary School Board member Kate Bishop…..have accepted that it’s part of the job of being a woman and holding office. But it cuts. Kate Bishop/Chula Vista Elementary School Board Trustee: “I'm a human being. So first, for a second, it hits me hard and I say, God, that's scary. When it's like really graphic or sexual, I'll usually talk to my husband and then I realize that the person making the threat doesn't have the words to express their emotions healthily.” Amita, thank you. Thank you.
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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. Join us again tomorrow for the day’s top stories. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great Wednesday.
