Category: Health

A fight between two men in Ocean Beach escalated Wednesday, July 16, into a stabbing that left one of them injured.

The fracas in the area of Cable Street and Santa Monica Avenue broke out at about 6 p.m. Wednesday, according to the San Diego Police Department.

Paramedics took the victim to a hospital for treatment of a laceration to his abdomen, SDPD Officer Joe Perales said. The severity of the wound was not immediately clear.

By City News Service – 10News /July 15, 2025

A public records lawsuit was filed Monday seeking documents from the city of San Diego related to the recent $250 million proposal to transform the blighted 101 Ash St. building into affordable housing units.

The city’s Land Use and Housing Committee recently voted unanimously to recommend approving a deal to enter into a 60-year lease to convert the long- vacant property into nearly 250 residential units for families earning between 30% and 80% of the area’s median income.

Copies of the ground lease and disposition and development agreement — which were not available at the time of the committee’s vote — are being sought in a new lawsuit filed on behalf of city resident John Gordon, who previously sued the city over its lease-to-own agreement for the 101 Ash St. property.

“City officials are attempting to approve the 101 Ash Street (disposition and development agreement) and ground lease and related documents while concealing their essential terms from public scrutiny,” the complaint filed in San Diego Superior Court reads.

By Lorena Gonzalez / San Diego Union-Tribune Op-Ed / July 13, 2025

Abundance.

Of course!

But abundance for whom?

The labor movement has always been supportive of dreaming big, building large projects, increasing housing supply and completing massive infrastructure projects.

That’s what union workers do — skillfully build things, advocate within our communities for government-driven investments and large infrastructure projects, and support campaigns for those investments. And, I would argue, our unions know better than anyone what happens when government-funded infrastructure projects and jobs get held up with unnecessary delays, duplicative permitting processes and red tape.

We see it with the waning interest in California high-speed rail as the delays and permitting impediments make it a punching bag for right-wing politicians. We saw it with our own members, as massive public investments by President Biden simply took too long for the effect to trickle down and be felt in terms of the good union jobs that were guaranteed.

Our main criticism with “the Abundance agenda” isn’t about what it does — in terms of reducing regulations to speed up development to increase supply — but what it fails to do. Streamlining development must be tied to labor and environmental standards so that there is a clear public benefit and not just a giveaway to developers.

By Karen Pearlman / East County Magazine / July 9, 2025

…”I have never seen such a destructive project with such negative impacts on the people who live in a community.” — former Supervisor Dianne Jacob, a Jamul resident

The Cottonwood Sand Mine is a wash, at least for now.

After nearly six hours of testimony, presentations and discussion, the San Diego County Planning Commission on Wednesday voted to disapprove a permit for the planned private sand mining operation in Rancho San Diego.

The six-member Planning Commission deadlocked to approve the project, and its tie vote constituted a no-go for mining about 215 acres of the 280-acre golf course site.

“We had a big win today, and it was a little too close for comfort, but 3-3 is a denial,” said Barry Jantz, part of the Stop Cottonwood Sand Mine Group.

A judge last week delayed the preliminary hearing to Aug. 25 for a woman charged with stabbing two men in Ocean Beach after yelling, “That’s not how you treat a lady!”

Jana Nichole Halaska, 29, appeared before San Diego Superior Court Judge Dwayne Moring on June 25 and delayed the hearing at her attorney’s request. Halaska has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder of Gabriel Milan and assault with a deadly weapon on Christopher Abrahamsen, both of whom were seriously injured on April 13.

The assault took place at 1:06 a.m. at Bacon Street and Newport Avenue. Both men were strangers to Halaska, but Milan had a brief argument with one woman and kicked her, according to a court document.

By Michael Chen / KGTV 10News / Jul 01, 2025

The family of a 20-year-old Point Loma Nazarene University student is reporting hopeful news after he was critically injured in a freak accident at a beach in Hawaii. Dakota Briley, son of legendary 1990s Pipeline surfer Shawn Briley, is now breathing on his own, though the long-term impact of his head and spinal injuries remains unknown.

“There has been an outpouring of love,” said Erin Lau, Briley’s sister.

Lau described the moment she received news of the accident: “I’ve never prayed and begged so much he would be okay.”

The accident occurred on June 14, while Briley was home for summer break from Point Loma Nazarene University. He was preparing to give a surf lesson on Oahu’s North Shore when disaster struck.

By Joni Halpern

We must have been only five and six years old, my sister Rosie and I, when we were enlisted into providing care for our mom, who was only 35 years old and suffering from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

That was back in 1954, when there was no such thing as Medicaid, In-Home Supportive Services, or affordable health care. There were no food stamps, no child care, nothing to help a father working six days a week to make a living that would give his kids a chance and pay for the care his wife needed.

We were a family of six siblings ranging in age from babyhood to 10 years old.  Our baby sister had already been sent to live with relatives, because my mom could not hold her after she was born.

My dad was a carpenter who worked at the California School for the Deaf, just across the street from where we rented a small house.  He had a group health insurance plan, but it required co-payments; some treatments and medications were not covered at all.  He took us to the doctor as little as possible, relying on old Italian home remedies my immigrant grandmother had taught him.  If we got well, the remedies were said to have worked.  If not, things got worse, and finally, Dad would be forced to take us to the doctor.  But most of the time, we waited it out, missing school, with no one to watch over us except the lady next door, who would peek in the living room window and ask my older sister (who missed school to care for us) if we were okay.

By Arturo Castañares – Publisher / La Prensa / June 26, 2025

A New York judge last month ordered an appointed remediation manager to oversee the notorious jail on Rikers Island in New York after 40 inmates have died since 2022, yet more inmates have died in San Diego County jails without any substantial reform taking place.

46 inmates have died in San Diego County jails since 2022, including 19 in 2022, 13 in 2023, 8 last year, and 6 so far this year.

Those are more deaths per year than Rikers, a jail known as one of the worst -if not the worst- in the country, with stabbings, slashing, fights, assaults on staff, and high numbers of inmate deaths.

In comparison, Rikers has had 40 deaths since 2022, with 19 that year, 9 in 2023, 7 in 2024, and 5 so far this year.

And, before anyone complains about comparing apples to oranges, the jail population of Rikers is larger than the combined population of all seven of San Diego’s County jails, so the percentage of deaths per thousand is even higher for San Diego jails.

“ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL ACT” WILL HURT US ALL, Parts 2 – 4

By Joni Halpern

PART 2: WHOM SHOULD WE GO AFTER?

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) derives the biggest budget cuts from two massive public health programs — Medicaid and Medicare. It also makes changes that will reduce enrollment in health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Today, more than seven million seniors and 10 million people with disabilities rely on Medicaid. Data show that about 15 million more older adults and people with disabilities and chronic conditions are insured through Medicaid though they do not qualify for it based on age or disability. Almost 70 million people are enrolled in Medicare.3 Almost eight million people will lose Medicaid eligibility because of OBBBA’s changes to the program, 3.1 million will lose other health coverage from OBBBA’s changes affecting ACA Marketplaces, almost one million more will lose coverage from OBBBA’s incorporation of Trump’s proposed ACA rule, and about 4.2 million additional people will lose coverage due to OBBBA’s expiration of ACA premium tax credits.4

Three Big Targets For OBBBA Strategists

Medicaid is a jointly funded state and federal program that helps cover healthcare costs for people with limited income who meet other eligibility requirements. (Medi-Cal is California’s version of Medicaid.). Medicaid is the largest public health insurance program for low-income Americans and the primary payer for long-term services and supports. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that OBBBA will cut federal Medicaid spending by almost $800 billion over 10 years and Medicaid enrollment by 10.3 million.

by Hector Trujillo / Times of San Diego / June 24, 2025

Point Loma Nazarene student Dakota Briley is in a coma and fighting for his life after being hit by a car while he was on the side of a road on June 14 in Hawaii.

Dakota Briley, the 20-year-old son of surfing icon Shawn Briley, is a passionate surfer and member of the Point Loma Nazarene surf team.

He was reportedly unloading surfboards on the North Shore of Oahu near Chun’s Beach when the collision occurred. He is now in an intensive care unit in Honolulu.

“He’s still going through multiple surgeries after being brought to the hospital in critical condition,” said his sister Erin Lau. “Dakota has had several surgeries to stabilize his lower body and repair his lungs.”

By Joni Halpern

First of 4 Parts 

PART 1: IF PIGS COULD FLY

The sales pitch for H.R. 1, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and now under consideration by
the Senate, promises, among other things, that health care will be strengthened across the nation if the bill becomes law. That would be true, if pigs could fly.

What is true is that all of us will feel OBBBA’s pain, either directly or indirectly.

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-4 th Dist., Louisiana) want to pass the bill and have it on President Trump’s desk by July 4, 2025. Even if OBBBA does not pass by then, the reconciliation process will end Sept. 30. That’s why it is important for Americans to understand what will happen to our health care under the bill.

OBBBA is expected to kill health insurance coverage for 16 million low-income people, including older adults, caregivers, people with disabilities, children and lawfully present immigrants and families. Of those 16 million, over 90% are U.S. citizens and lawfully present immigrants. 1

OBBBA accomplishes this massive reduction in various ways, but some of the biggest cuts come from restricting Medicare eligibility, rescinding premium assistance
under the Affordable Care Act, and rolling back provisions that make Medicare affordable to low-income enrollees. It makes many other changes designed to reduce
access to these programs, but OBBBA eats away at so many aspects of health care coverage that it is impossible to explain them all in this article.