Nashville shooting sparks painful memories
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Wednesday, March 29th.
How this week’s shooting in Nashville sparked painful memories for a Riverside County couple.
More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
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Make sure to grab an umbrella on your way out the door, because rainy weather is expected again, today.
The National Weather Service says we’ll see showers by late morning, early afternoon.
It’s also expected to be windy, with gusts up to 25 miles per hour.
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Governor Gavin Newsom signed a first in the nation law that could cap profits for oil companies.
The new law requires oil companies to report additional data about their operations to a new division of the California Energy Commission.
The new division will investigate alleged price gouging by the industry.
The commission could then set a cap on profits and fine companies that exceed that cap.
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Calling all Padres fans!!
Tomorrow, the 20-23 regular season begins.
The Padres will face off against the Colorado Rockies at Petco Park.
The game starts at 1-10 P-M.
If you can’t make it out for the home opener, you can stream the game on M-L-B T-V, watch it on Bally Sports San Diego, or listen to it on 97-point-3 F-M.
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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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This week’s shooting in Nashville sparked painful memories for a Riverside County couple.
Reporter Kitty Alvarado tells us how they’ve been turning their pain into action.
Many are numb after they hear of another mass shooting in America … but that is not the case for Sandy Philips … Your heart breaks again She knows what families in Nashville will now live with because she knows that pain intimately … her daughter Jessica Ghawi, a future sports reporter, was killed in a mass shooting inside a movie theater in Colorado ten years ago … she went to a movie with her best friend and never came home. She and her husband Lonnie started Survivors Empowered. They travel around the country in an RV and immediately go help mass shooting survivors. Their other mission is to hold the gun lobby accountable through legislation … because after losing their daughter, the Southern California couple also lost everything they owned when they tried to sue an ammunition dealer. They wound up having to pay their legal fees. On Sunday they scored a victory… when Colorado lawmakers passed a bill allowing lawsuits like theirs. The bill still has to be signed … but the law will be named after her daughter … We did it Jessi will be remembered Kitty Alvarado KPBS News.
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City of San Diego crews took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to fix as many potholes as they could before the next storm hit.
The city estimates that crews have lost 70 working days because of the recent storms.
It takes a crew about three minutes to patch a pothole.
And on average … a crew can patch between 100 to 200 potholes a day.
But, the city says there’s still a backlog of 13-HUNDRED reported potholes.
Pete Hernandez is the owner of the Winxton Tire Company in the College Area.
He says road repairs are needed.
Between each storm … he’s seen between 12 to 15 customers for pothole-related issues.
“It is a much-needed necessity here. Basically, all the roads need to be reconstructed for the safety of everyone, not just the vehicles.”
According to TRIPLE-A … it costs an average of 600 dollars to fix the damage from a pothole.
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The U-S Navy is struggling to provide child care to its sailors and their families.
More than five-thousand families are on waiting lists for care.
And while that's down significantly from a few years ago, parents say the Navy isn't moving fast enough to build new child care centers and pursue other ways to reduce the backlog.
From Norfolk, Steve Walsh reports for the American Homefront Project.
Alexis Gillis is the 24 year old mother of a 9 month old daughter. Her husband is a boatswain's mate in the Navy. “So we actually met in high school. He was one year ahead of me, and he sat next to me in my algebra class.” He’s stationed in Norfolk - one of the places in the Navy with long waiting lists for child care. Still finishing her own degree, Gillis came up with a work around. “We just decided it would be best if I can either try to find a job where I can take her or if I can figure out something to do from home. But with me not having a bachelor's degree, it's really difficult." Gillis decided to be a nanny for another military couple. That way, she can take her own daughter with her. “It's difficult because being a military family you're constantly moving. You never really get the chance to settle down for a while and get to really know somebody, especially a child care provider.” The Navy provides child care on base in many places … and private child care centers can receive subsidies to help military families pay for care off-base. But the waiting list for care has 5500 names. That's fallen from 9000 in 2020, as the Navy builds child care centers in high demand areas like Norfolk and San Diego. But the number of families who need care is actually much larger. Some people just stop applying, says Kayla Corbitt, who runs the advocacy group Operation Childcare.“So people are just quicker to give up. They know they're not going to access it. So why log in and reaffirm my need for care with I'm not going to get it.” Corbitt’s group helps military families find child care in Norfolk. Though the Navy has increased subsidies for off-base care, Corbett says most younger military couples need two working parents to make ends meet. “There needs to be some kind of support for them in what they do. And that begins at the very base level, which is this access to affordable childcare.” On-base centers can’t hire enough staff. And civilian providers who want to qualify for military subsidies can wait over a year to be approved … and have to become federally licensed. Most providers are state licensed and are near capacity in many communities. They don’t have the incentive to go through the extra paperwork. The Navy has a pilot program to accept some state accreditation, but Corbitt says it would be easier to just give parents extra money to find childcare on their own. “I know it t sounds so simple, but when we think about how many contracts are out there to just administer these subsidies…You do have to wonder how much would be saved if it just became an entitlement.” The lack of reliable, low cost child care can be a factor when sailors with young families decide whether they can afford to stay in the military, says military spouse Heather Campbell. “We see, especially in our younger service members, both enlisted and officer. You know, they get in and they sort of deal with some of these difficulties or they start building families and they say, you know what, This actually isn't a good fit. I'm going to choose my family over military service.” The wife of an Air Force officer with three children, Campbell is about to relocate from Alaska to Virginia. She’s also become an advocate for military families suffering from food insecurity. Her husband is a major and her kids are in school, which takes some of the pressure off. But that wasn't how it was when they were first assigned to Alaska. “I couldn't take a job, which therefore meant we didn't have a second income, which therefore meant our budget was extremely tight. They're all sort of like a domino effect.” And the problem finding child care has only grown worse since then. In Norfolk, I'm Steve Walsh.
TAG: That story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans.
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Coming up.... S-D-S-U has a new center for research into artificial intelligence. We’ll have that story and more, just after the break.
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The San Diego State men’s basketball team heads to Houston today to face Florida Atlantic University in Final Four this Saturday.
Senior Guard Darrion Trammell wants to win a national championship for San Diego.
“You can just feel it when we’re around each other, we’re not satisfied and it’s all about bringing one back to San Diego, especially for the first time ever. We just know how much bigger this thing can get. So, we’re just excited about that.”
The team is also excited about all the support they’re getting on social media… not just from fans, but also from the Padres… the San Diego Zoo… and even Vice President Kamala (COMMA-la) Harris.
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In other S-D-S-U news, the university has founded a center for research into artificial intelligence.
Sci-tech reporter Thomas Fudge tells us what S-D-S-U sees on the horizon for A-I (letter i) technology.
Professor Aaron Elkins is the director of the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence.Elkins has been working with AI systems at SDSU for several years. He says 8-10 years ago they were more likely to call the field, big data. We were working in this field of research that was multi-disciplinary. Statistics. Machine learning. Engineering. Coming together but we didn’t have a good name for it. AI has become the brand of it now. Elkins and his colleagues have developed AI systems for the Navy and Homeland security. He says SDSU’s brand of artificial intelligence relies on cameras and sensors that can create a data set based on the environment it’s in. It’s kind of the opposite of an AI system like Chat GPT, which uses data that’s passively collected on the Internet Soq.
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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 Wednesday.
