January 2025 Articles

January 8, 2025 (San Diego’s East County) -- East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego's inland regions, published in other media.  This week's round-up stories include:

LOCAL

• Man sentenced 35 years to life for sex offenses with teen at El Cajon motel (10 News)
• Scripps Health Now Out-of-Network for Anthem Blue Cross Policyholders (Times of San Diego)
• Judge rules Humane Society should not send domesticated cats back outside (KPBS)
• La Mesa man saves passenger of burning car crash in his front yard (10 News)
• Nathan Fletcher’s Accuser Drops Sexual Assault Claim — for Now (Voice of San Diego)
• Spring Valley man faces federal charges over El Cajon bank robbery (10 News)
• Parents sue Grossmont hospital alleging negligence in death of 4-year-old son (San Diego Union-Tribune)

STATE

• Hundreds of new laws in California take effect this year. Here's what to know for 2025. (CBS 8)
• Minimum car insurance coverage requirements are going up in California (KPBS)
• 2 dead and more than 1,000 homes, businesses, other buildings destroyed in fires (Los Angeles Times)
• California 2025: The Next Wave of New Employer Compliance Obligations Is About to Hit (National Law Review)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

By Miriam Raftery

January 8, 2025 (La Mesa) – Dozens of public speakers at yesterday’s Grossmont Healthcare District meeting urged the board to move its 9 a.m. meetings to evenings in order to accommodate people with full-time jobs. The proposal was made by newly elected director Nadia Farjood, a working mother who says her new full-time job at the District Attorney’s office prevents her from attending daytime meetings.

The district represents about 520,000 residents. Around 271 people signed a petition in support of Farjood’s proposal, and around 40 showed up in support at yesterday’s meeting. But despite testimony from union representatives, healthcare workers, district residents and local elected officials, Farjood’s proposal failed, with no other director in support.

Some speakers voiced concern not only for Farjood, but for the potential chilling effect on would-be candidates who may be persuaded from running for office if they have full-time day jobs.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo, left:  Gaza bombing by Israel, WAFA for news agency APA, creative commons via WIkiPalestine

January 15, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – President Joe Biden today announced, “After many months of intensive diplomacy by the United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire and hostage deal.”

The deal is slated to halt fighting in Gaza, surge humanitarian aide to Palestinian civilians, and return hostages taken by Hamas during its October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Photo:  County Supervisor Jim Desmond delivering his State of North County speech in June. (File photo courtesy of Desmond’s office)

January 16, 2025 (San Diego) - San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond announced that he will run for Congress.

January 16, 2025 (Washington D.C.) — During 2024, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) intercepted a total of 6,678 firearms at airport security checkpoints, preventing them from getting into the secure areas of the airport and onboard aircraft. Approximately 94% of these firearms were loaded. This total is a minor decrease from the  6,737 firearms stopped in 2023. Throughout 2024, TSA managed its “Prepare, Pack, Declare” public awareness campaign to explain the steps for safely traveling with a firearm.

By Miriam Raftery

January 21, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Hours after being sworn into office in the Capitol Rotunda, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order protecting all of the nearly 1,600 people accused or convicted of crimes stemming from the Capitol attack four years earlier.  On January 6, 2021, the violent mob assaulted and injured 140 police officers, forcing terrified lawmakers to flee or hide while the mob tried to halt the peaceful transfer of power.

Trump’s order issued a blanket pardon for nearly all of the insurrectionists, erasing their felony records and freeing all who were serving prison sentences, even those convicted of attacking police officers or armed with weapons including firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive “Trump” billboard, “Trump” flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device.

 In addition, he commuted sentences for 14 members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, including the groups’ leaders,  Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio, who were serving 18- and 22- year sentences for their roles in organizing the attacks. Both men are now free.

Trump also directed his Attorney General to drop all remaining charges against individuals accused of crimes related to the January 6 Capitol attack, but whose cases had not yet gone to trial.

East County News Service

January 21, 2025 (San Diego) – New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rother, an investigative journalist and former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, will release an updated edition of her true-crime book, Body Parts, on February 25.  The book takes a deep psychological look at serial killer Wayne Adam Ford, a trucker who confessed to killing four prostitutes picked up along California roads.

The new edition contains information on the identity of Ford’s first victim, who has finally been identified by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s through forensic genetic genealogy 25 years after her body was found by a boater.

"This order is about administering political loyalty tests to everyday employees in the federal workforce," said the president of the National Treasury Employees Union

By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

Photo:  Trump official portrait, 2025

January 21, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) - A union representing workers across dozens of federal agencies sued the Trump administration late Monday over an executive order stripping many career civil servants of protections designed to insulate them from political pressure.

By Miriam Raftery

Image: Wong Kim Ark, whose landmark 1898 lawsuit led to a Supreme Court ruling affirming citizenship for all children born in the U.S., regardless of parents' immigration status. Born in the U.S.,Kim had been denied reentry after traveling abroad. Photo via 1904 immigration document.

January 21, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Multiple lawsuits have been filed seeking to block an executive order yesterday issued by President Donald Trump which aims to end birthright citizenship. Trump’s order seeks to end citizenship from being issued to children born in the U.S. if the parents are not in the U.S. legally In addition, his order would prohibit citizenship from children born to a mother who is in the U.S. on a temporary and legal basis, such as student, work, or tourist visas, unless the father is a citizen or lawful permanent resident. The order would take effect in 30 days, on Feb. 19, and apply to children born on or after that date.

The order is in direct contradiction to the U.S. Constitution’s 14^th amendment, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Trump’s order contends that children of undocumented immigrants as well as children born to mothers here on a temporary basis are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S..

By Miriam Raftery

January 21, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Among the dozens of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump yesterday after his inauguration is a notice to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).  Under a 1948 law, withdrawal requires one-year notification and Congressional approval, Associated Press (AP) reports. 

If completed, withdrawal by the U.S., a founding partner of WHO, would drop one-fifth of WHO’s funding and prevent the U.S. and the American medical community from accessing vital health resources and data.

Trump previously tried to withdraw from  WHO in 2019, but President Biden rejoined the organization after his election before the waiting period ended. In July 2020, amid the pandemic, a joint statement by the American Medical Association and three other medical organizations representing pediatricians, family physicians and other doctors strongly opposed Trump’s withdrawal order, calling it “dangerous.”