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Millions of veterans will be allowed back on military bases | Andrew Dyer Dec 19, 2019

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Starting New Year’s Day, more than 3 million veterans nationwide, including tens of thousands of local veterans, will be able to shop at exchanges and commissaries on military bases and utilize their recreation facilities. A new law makes veterans who are registered with the Veterans Affairs healthcare system and who have service-connected disabilities eligible to access those facilities on military bases. Purple Heart recipients and former POWs also will have shopping privileges and access. In San Diego, almost 65,000 more veterans and caregivers are affected, the VA says. Until now only active duty military, retirees, Medal of Honor recipients and veterans who were 100 percent disabled could shop on base, which is often less costly than regular shopping because on-base shoppers don’t pay a sales tax.

Counting every San Diegan won't be easy, but someone has to do it | Peter Rowe Dec 18, 2019

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The census-taker was furious. Locals, he told the San Diego Union, “are apathetic, indifferent and in many cases belligerent. And for what? Simply they could not, in their own obtuse minds, fathom what the census was being taken for.” This was in 1890, the 11th national census. The U.S. Constitution mandates that the nation’s inhabitants be counted once each decade, which sounds like a straight-forward task. As the irate census-taker discovered, it’s not and never has been. From 1791, when disputed census figures prompted President Washington’s first veto, to 2019, when the Trump administration urged a citizenship question, the census has courted controversy. While the census steers federal funds to a broad spectrum of public services, debates rage over what this exercise includes — census-takers once asked residents to count their home’s toilets — and what’s ignored. The 2020 census, for instance, will have 20 categories for race or ethnicity, including “white,” “black or African-American,” “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish,” “American Indian or Alaska Native” and 11 Asian groupings. Yet there’s no specific accounting for people of Middle Eastern or North African descent; the form suggests that “white” includes “Lebanese, Epyptian, etc.”

Letters from migrants detail conditions in custody | Gustavo Solis Dec 17, 2019

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Decades from now, when historians try to make sense of how the U.S. government treated detained migrants, they will be able to hear directly from the men and women in federal immigration detention centers. At least that’s the hope of Lisa Lamont, head librarian at San Diego State University who oversees a collection of more than 1,700 letters written by migrants in detention centers. “In 20, 30 or 40 years or even longer down the road, when researchers are researching this time in U.S. history, I think these letter are going to be invaluable,” she said. The population of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody has grown significantly since the beginning of the Trump administration. During fiscal year 2015 there were 28,449 unauthorized immigrants in detention facilities. That number increased to 38,106 and 42,188 in the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years, respectively. Projections show that number is expected to increase to 52,000 by the 2020 fiscal year, according to data from the federal government.

Is the growth of rooftop solar sustainable? | Joshua Emerson Smith Dec 14, 2019

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Is the growth of rooftop solar sustainable? | Joshua Emerson Smith by San Diego Union-Tribune

San Diego's foam ban halted | David Garrick Dec 13, 2019

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San Diego has halted enforcement of its new ban on polystyrene foam products in the wake of a lawsuit filed by the restaurant industry. City officials say they’ve decided to reverse course and conduct a thorough analysis of the ban’s effects on the environment, which the lawsuit contends the city was legally obligated to do before adopting the controversial law.

A deputy pleaded guilty to groping women. He faces more than 3 years in prison | Teri Figueroa Dec 12, 2019

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A former sheriff’s deputy who admitted on-the-job misconduct with 16 women was sentenced Tuesday to three years and eight months in jail, plus 16 months under supervision in the community, for behavior a judge described as “abhorrent.” Richard Timothy Fischer, 33, pleaded guilty in September to seven criminal counts — none of them specifically charged as sex crimes, though sexual misconduct was at the core of several allegations. Under that deal, he faced up to five years in custody. That’s technically what he received because of California’s public safety realignment law, which allows some non-violent offenders to serve part of their sentence locally, in county jail rather than state prison, and part of the term on mandatory supervision. Fischer was taken into custody at the end of the hearing in the Vista courthouse. He must serve 22 months in jail before he is eligible for release.

County voters may radically change how development works in the backcountry | J Harry Jones Dec 11, 2019

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Just a day before the Dec. 11 deadline and more than a year after the original language was agreed to, county Supervisor Jim Desmond next week will ask his colleagues to change the wording of a controversial ballot measure that will be voted on countywide in March 2020 concerning future development in the unincorporated areas. Much like what happened on Nov. 19, when the board voted 3-2 to change the wording of another ballot measure having to do with a development in the North County -- the 2,135-home Newland Sierra project -- Desmond is seeking a change he says will help voters better understand what they are being asked to decide. If approved, the Save Our San Diego Countryside (SOS) measure would require countywide votes every time a General Plan Amendment was being sought to build large housing projects in areas not zoned for such density.

Border Dispatch: African migrants seeking asylum double | Gustavo Solis Dec 10, 2019

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The number of African migrants heading to the U.S. through Mexico has more than doubled this year — from roughly 2,700 in 2018 to 5,800 today, according to data from the federal government. That figure has been steadily rising since 2007 — the year the Mexican government began including migrants from African countries who have contact with immigration officials in their annual migration reports — when the number was 460. And that dramatic increase has been mostly left out of U.S. immigration conversations, activists say.

Televangelist opens his $190 million Bible-themed retreat | Lori Weisberg, Jennifer Van Grove Dec 07, 2019

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Welcome to Legacy International Center, a $190 million Bible-themed resort rooted in a vision that 88-year-old pentecostal preacher Morris Cerullo says was handed down by God. Widely known for his overseas crusades and worldwide ministering for the last 70 years, the longtime televangelist has relocated the headquarters of Morris Cerullo World Evangelism to the retreat. The project was built debt-free, financed with a combination of donations from thousands of Cerullo's followers and proceeds from the sale of ministry assets, including the organization's former offices on Aero Ct.

Ballast Point sold for the second time in four years | Peter Rowe, Jennifer Van Grove Dec 06, 2019

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For the second time in four years, Ballast Point — a San Diego craft beer pioneer that became one of the areas’s largest breweries — has been sold. Kings & Convicts Brewing Co., a tiny Illinois firm, on Tuesday announced an agreement to buy Ballast Point from New York-based Constellations Brands, Inc. Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but includes Ballast Point’s four California brewpubs — at the main brewery in Miramar; Little Italy; Anaheim’s Downtown Disney; and Long Beach — plus one in Chicago.

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