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By Jackie Bryant / San Diego Magazine / Feb.6, 2025

OB People’s Food Co-Op has been San Diego’s go-to for organic, vegetarian, and locally sourced groceries for over 50 years. In this week’s Happy Half Hour, co-hosts Troy Johnson and Jackie Bryant sit down with general manager Sarela Bonilla and marketing director Nina Gordon to talk about why this neighborhood institution still matters. From its humble beginnings in a garage to becoming a cornerstone of Ocean Beach, People’s is more than just a grocery store—it’s a community hub, a sustainability champion, and a beacon for food lovers who give a damn about where their groceries come from.

Breaking down the president’s suggestion — and whether it’s a distraction, a negotiating ploy or something more.

by Aaron Blake / Washington Post / Feb. 5, 2025

President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered the most untethered idea of an increasingly untethered second term.

Trump said at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip,” will “own it” long-term and will redevelop it — even floating turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump’s promise has shocked the Middle East, Trump’s opponents and his domestic allies alike. Pursuing such a course would mean the displacement of 2 million Palestinians from their land — Trump proposed setting up “various domains” for them elsewhere — and injecting Americans into the cauldron of the Middle East.

It would also in all likelihood require a massive mobilization of U.S. troops, despite Trump’s years-long attacks on the concept of foreign nation-building.

The immediate question is, of course, whether he’s actually serious. Here are a few theories.

By Jake Gotta / KGTV10 / Feb 03, 2025

Fires have burned thousands of acres all over San Diego County this year, threatening homes and lives along the way. The Border 2 Fire was the most recent to prompt evacuations, and while Cal Fire managed to get it under control, the issue of homes in fire-risk areas has never been more relevant.

The city of San Diego, following state law, has identified very high fire hazard severity zones within city limits and mapped these zones online. “Hazard is based on physical conditions that create a likelihood that an area will burn over a 30 to 50-year period,” the city’s fact sheet says. These zones cover roughly 70% of the city, and from 2021 to 2023, 6,508, or 32%, of the 20,201 new homes permitted in San Diego were in very high fire hazard areas.

That means more than a little more than two-thirds of the new homes were not in very high fire hazard severity zones, but residents still have concerns.

By Arturo Castañares / La Prensa San Diego / Feb.3, 2025

Democrats and labor unions, which are usually united in campaigns, are facing off against each other in a contentious special election to replace San Diego County Supervisor Nora Vargas, who resigned unexpectedly just weeks after winning a second term.

Three elected Democrats are among the seven candidates who qualified to run in the April 8th Special Election called by the four remaining County Supervisors.

Vargas, 52, who was elected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ District 1 in November 2020, won her re-election in November 2024.

District 1 includes the South Bay areas of San Ysidro, Nestor, Otay Mesa, Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, National City, Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, and areas of San Diego to North Park.

But on December 20th, just two weeks before the date to assume her second term, Vargas announced she would not attend the January 6th meeting to be sworn in.

Within days of her announcement, several potential candidates emerged to run for a seat that has only been open for election without an incumbent once before in more than 50 years.

By Kate Williams / The Point PLNU /  Feb 5, 2025

California’s State Assembly Bill 413, a measure that prohibits cars from stopping, standing or parking within 20 feet of both red and unmarked intersections, went into effect Jan 1.

The Daylighting Parking Law’s goal is to give drivers and pedestrians more visibility around crosswalks.

Alex Irving, a second-year communications major at PLNU, commutes to Marine Physical Training in Mission Bay twice a week. She experienced difficulty turning when cars were parked right along the intersection, blocking the view.

By Josh Meyer / USA TODAY / Tue, February 4, 2025

Democratic lawmakers and government watchdog groups are pledging to fight back against Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal government’s payment system, which they say may be the biggest privacy and security breach in American history.

“If we were watching this happen in Venezuela or Malawi and we saw a billionaire seize the money supply and the checkbook of the government, we would call it a coup,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative economic policy group and a former Senate senior economic policy advisor.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, is an unpaid advisor to President Donald Trump. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been tasked with finding ways to cut spending and regulations.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, said that Musk sent young DOGE computer programmers into the Treasury Department’s headquarters, where they allegedly strong-armed civil service workers to gain full access to the system that cuts checks for all congressionally authorized government payments.

Reports emerged over the weekend that Musk’s DOGE operatives were at Treasury, going through the payment systems and that they had effectively ousted the top civil servant at the Treasury Department, David Lebryk, after he refused to grant access to Musk’s emissaries.

And they ultimately pressured Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “turn the keys over” to them, said Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

SanDiego7 – City News Service / Feb. 3, 2025

The San Diego City Council voted Monday [Feb. 3] to adopt an ordinance intended to prevent developers from converting homes deemed as affordable to market rate or luxury housing units.

The Affordable Housing Preservation Ordinance will expand state laws to preserve deed-restricted affordable housing for very-low, low- and moderate-rate housing by requiring owners to issue a notice when they intend to sell housing fitting those parameters — regardless of any expiration date on such affordability.

By David Helvarg

The U.S. Coast Guard is the only Armed Service not located within the Department of Defense.

That’s why the incoming Trump administration was able to have its acting head of DHS fire Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan on Trump’s second day in office. It was an effective shot across the bow for bringing the Pentagon brass to heel given that even a President can’t fire the heads of the other Armed Services, only have his new Secretary of Defense, former Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth reassign or court-martial them.

Expect a number of reassignments and likely court-martials of Pentagon leadership under Hegseth. He’s already promised to get rid of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown plus, “any General, Admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go.”

President Trump, faced with pushback from both Mexico and Canada, blinked — and folded on his threatened tariffs. At least temporarily. For 30 days.

At the 11th hour, both Mexico and Canada made small concessions and Trump shelved his 25% tariffs on the countries. The 10% tariff on China went into effect today, Feb. 4.

American businesses along the border breathed a sigh of relief — as they – and American consumers — were to be mostly affected by the immediate rise in prices.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum made a small concession and pledged to send 10,000 national guard members to its northern border. Mexico  has long stationed troops at the border so this was not a new thing.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin also made some slight concessions, one of which was to fortify its border with the U.S.