SDSU Basketball Player Touched By El Paso Shooting And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Wednesday, August 7th. I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. The El Paso shooting spree hits close to home for an SDSU basketball player. And if you think Romeo and Juliet is all about star crossed lovers, Speaker 2: 00:15 I think again, Shakespeare's actively asking the question, how do the choices that grownups make come home to roost a generation later in the lives of their children? Speaker 1: 00:25 That and more coming up right after the break. Speaker 3: 00:31 Um, Speaker 1: 00:33 thank you for joining us for San Diego News Matters. I'm Deb Welch. This past weekends, mass shooting in Texas touched a member of the San Diego community. KPBS reporter Eric Anderson says, uh, San Diego State University basketball player lost a cousin in the killing spree. Speaker 4: 00:50 SDSU senior Monique Terry was in El Paso. She was running errands with her mom when she got a series of texts telling her about the shooting at a Walmart in the west Texas town. The pair rushed home where they were glued to the television, hoping for news. That news was not good. Her cousin Jordan on Chando and her cousin's husband, Andre, died shielding their two month old son from the hail of bullets. Speaker 5: 01:14 It's, it's, it's tough to talk about, but it's, it's not okay at all. She was only 24 and starting her life with three babies. So it's, life isn't fair, but this is one main thing that's not fair for anybody. Speaker 4: 01:34 The baby survive. Terry says she's trying to understand the senseless deaths and she's consoling Jordan's mother. 22 people died in the El Paso shooting. Eric Anderson KPBS news Speaker 1: 01:47 work to stabilize the coastal bluffs through del Mar is moving forward following a vote by the del Mar City Council. KPBS reporter John Carroll has details on the work to be done. Speaker 2: 01:59 Monday nights, vote by the del Mar City Council allows SANDAG to come on to city property to do drainage improvements, drainage, not sea rise or high tides poses. The biggest threat to the bluffs, the $3 million project will pay for the work along a one and a half mile stretch through del Mar. It's phase four of a bluff stabilization project that began 18 years ago and it's overdue SANDAG director of mobility, Jim Linthicum, the walls to the drainage structures and the drainage outlets have fallen down and they are decades and decades old and so we're going to be repairing those, repairing some of the old retaining walls and sea walls and just keeping what we got out there in good shape. Still to come figuring out a long term stabilization plan for the train tracks that run along the bluffs. John Carroll KPBS News, Speaker 1: 02:49 a new study illustrates how asylum seekers are having an incredibly difficult time finding lawyers as Syracuse University study took a look at the migrant protection protocols program, which forces applicants to await their US asylum judgment in Mexico. KPBS reporter Max Rivlin Adler has details Speaker 6: 03:09 between the beginning of February and the end of June, almost 13,000 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico and told to come back in a few weeks for a hearing in their immigration case. A new study by Syracuse University's transactional records access clearing house, which tracks federal court proceedings, found that only 1.3% of those asylum seekers nationwide return to court with an attorney in San Diego, just 77 people out of 4,289 had legal representation in immigration court in San Diego. Asylum seekers in the migraine protection protocols would plead repeatedly for more time to find lawyers. Many immigration lawyers working in the u s do not have a license or insurance to meet with clients in Mexico. By contrast, 37% of all immigrants who are allowed to remain in the United States during their court proceedings are represented by a lawyer. Studies have shown that greatly increases their chances of avoiding deportation. Max and Adler KPBS news, Speaker 1: 04:11 native American student enrollment at California's community colleges has plummeted in the last two decades. KPC sees Adolfo Guzman. Lopez explains what's behind the drop. The numbers are stark. California community colleges enrolled about 26,000 native Americans in 1997 that number was down to about 10,020 years later. Speaker 7: 04:31 It's pretty shocking to see this giant decline in numbers. Speaker 1: 04:35 That's Robert Presa Class-a, vice president of California Indian nations college in Palm Desert. He says many community colleges use the low numbers to explain why they don't fund native American student clubs or recruitment programs for native high school students. The Community College chancellor's office attributed the enrollment drop to a decade old statistical change that moved to multiethnic native Americans to other categories like Hispanic or multiethnic. American Indian advocates say the method should be changed to keep native students in that category. Sacramento City College Dean Molly Springer says the system has some strong native support programs. Speaker 7: 05:12 Even if enrollment is low, you know that doesn't mean services are low as well. Speaker 1: 05:17 The Community College Chancellor's office as a system can do more. American Indian advocates agree saying public institutions should make amends for US government actions that strip tribes of their land and culture. Adolfo Guzman Lopez for the California report. The navy is dropping war crimes charges against four seals. Set to go on trial later this month. KPBS military reporter Steve Wolf says it comes as navy justice is under intense scrutiny. Speaker 6: 05:45 Navy seals were accused of assaulting prisoners in Afghanistan in 2012 firing a weapon near the prisoner's head, dropping a rock on their chest, then covering up the abuse. Late Tuesday, the navy released a statement Rear Admiral Betty Beauvoir was dropping all charges of detainee abuse against chief David Schwartz and Xavier's Silva as well as special operator Daniel D'Ambrosio and their commander Lieutenant Jason Webb, the head of Navy region southwest says maybe prosecutors told her evidence from 2012 had degraded making a conviction. Unlikely on AB spokesman said that included eye witness testimony last week. The head of the navy dropped all charges against another San Diego based Navy seal in the Gallagher case and ordered an investigation into the operation of the Navy Judge Advocate General's office. Steve Walsh KPBS news Speaker 1: 06:34 this weekend, the old globe theater opens its production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet KPBS ours reporter Beth luck. Amando speaks with director Barry Edelstein who says the bard's play is not just about star crossed lovers, Speaker 8: 06:48 so you're going to be directing Romeo and Juliet this summer for the first time. The hamlet you did recently was the first professional directing that you had done of that. These are two of kind of Shakespeare's standards. What is it that maybe has taken you so long to decide to tackle them? Speaker 2: 07:06 What a good question. Well, a couple of things. I, first of all, I've had an abiding interest in the minor Shakespeare's, I've done a lot of them because I thought, I know the ones that I know, I know a midsummer night's dream. I Know Hamlet, I know King Lear and I want to do the ones that I don't know anything about. And so I kind of gravitated to time and of Athens and the winter's tale and symbol lean and some of the really sort of strange outliers that people haven't even necessarily heard of. But the second reason is that I, I can't really direct one of these plays unless I feel some kind of personal emotional connection to them. Otherwise, it's just a job. When my father passed away a few years ago, may he rest in peace. Hamlet was very much on my mind, uh, as the sort of great statement in Western literature about what happens to his son when his father dies. Speaker 2: 07:55 And the play just rushed into my mind when my father passed away and it kind of told me I need to work on this play Romeo and Juliet. I've been thinking an enormous amount about the thing that the chorus says at the very, very beginning of the play. This guy comes out or person or woman or I don't even know how I'm going to do it yet. This speech happens that says there's these two great households and they're having a feud. And the only thing that's going to end this feud is the deaths of their own children. And that's the first thing that you learn is, oh my God, there's going to be children who die because of this family feud. And it made me think about the whole question of the legacy that we grownups leave for our children in terms of the politics of our world, in terms of the climate of our world, in terms of the culture that we build that gets transmitted to our children. Speaker 2: 08:46 Shakespeare's actively asking the question, how do the choices that grownups make come home to roost a generation later in the lives, their children, and it's been much on my mind as I've watched my own young children grow up and I thought Romeo and Juliet is a great opportunity to for me to think about that and explore that a little bit now with the players like Romeo and Juliet that has been filmed repeatedly gets performed a lot and kind of how do you tackle that? It's a, it's a great question and it's something I've been thinking about a lot. Yes, the plays so familiar. I mean I've seen great productions of Romeo and Juliet that make me think, well what do I have to add? That's perfect. That was perfect version of that plate. Perfect production. Why on earth would I come along and try to add something new. Speaker 2: 09:32 But that's the great thing about the theater is that these enduring works survive and ask for yet another group of artists to come together and grapple with them. And the joy of going to see Romeo and Juliet yet one more time, is to see what this particular group of individuals at this particular moment are going to find in it. Now, as a guy whose job is to think, how am I going to do that balcony scene? The fact that I've seen it 15 times is a challenge because you think, well, I know the way one is supposed to do it. So one trap is to say I must do something original. Because if it's not original, then it's somehow no good. And you know, sometimes the tried and true method is the best thing to do, even though you've seen it 15 times, you've seen it that way because it works. Speaker 2: 10:19 So that's one trap to be avoided. The other trap to be avoided just to copy some other artist's work without particularly delving into it in a personal way. So in a sense it's much more fun to do time in the bathrooms because one has never seen it before and it feels like a new play. But on the other hand, the fun about Romeo and Juliet is just to say, look, there are definitive versions out there. My job is to come in now with this particular group of people who are incredibly talented and just see what it is we think we can find and trust that it will resonate with audiences in its own new way. I'm looking forward to about the summer Shakespeare plays and thanks for talking to me. It's always a pleasure to talk Shakespeare with you, Beth. Thanks. Speaker 1: 10:59 That was Beth lycomato speaking with the Globes artistic director, Barry Edelstein, Romeo and Juliet opens this weekend and runs through September 15th at the Lowell Davies Festival stage. Thanks for listening to San Diego News matters. If you're not already a subscriber, take a minute to become one. 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