San Diego mayor pays a visit to Bird Rock Elementary School
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria took up an invitation to speak in one of Bird Rock Elementary School’s second-grade classrooms March 24.
The visit was part of teacher Mary Ann Beaver’s lessons on letter writing and city government. Students wrote a letter to Gloria asking him to come to their classroom, and he obliged.
Gloria discussed government officials’ different roles, his own job and facts about his life.
Judge orders changes in ballot language backing tax on second homes
Parts of the ballot language backing a tax on second homes in San Diego are misleading and must be amended, a judge ruled March 26.
The order stems from a legal challenge filed by former San Diego City Council member Scott Sherman, who argued that the title, description and analysis submitted by the city of San Diego about Measure A for inclusion on the June ballot contain “false and/or misleading statements, all of which should be stricken.”
Superior Court Judge Blaine Bowman agreed with some of those arguments, particularly about the measure’s description and title of the proposed “empty homes tax,” which now is to be called the City of San Diego Non-Primary Homes Tax on the ballot.
The court ordered other changes. Throughout the summary and analysis of the proposed ordinance that will be printed on the ballot, “non-primary” must replace the word “empty.” Second, the judge said the language of the question must be modified in a way that also reflects that update — leaving out “empty” and using “non-primary” instead.
The judge also ordered that the phrase “like housing and infrastructure” be trimmed from a description of where the tax revenue could be used.
The city submitted the changes March 27.
La Jolla researchers develop new resource for gene study
Newly published research from La Jolla-based Sanford Burnham Prebys has created a resource for studying how inherited changes in genes can lead to common diseases, along with demonstrating a new method for quickly and inexpensively predicting the length of repeating sections of DNA called telomeres, enabling larger experiments.
The research team obtained data from the Genotype-Tissue Expression Project, a major National Institutes of Health Common Fund initiative that was launched in 2010, and were able to train their computational model on scans of 5,263 histopathology slides containing tissue samples used to diagnose diseases and study tissue structure. The slides were made from routine biopsy samples of 18 tissue types donated by 919 individuals.
From this information, scientists developed what is being called the TLPath model based on the hypothesis that modifications in the shape and structure of cells and tissues could be used to predict the length of telomeres.
Researchers have determined that the length of telomeres is correlated with chronological age throughout a person’s life. After tracking health outcomes in large populations, telomere length was found to predict patients’ risk of chronic diseases associated with aging.
“This has the potential to transform our ability to … learn more about human aging and ultimately help people preserve better health as they age,” said Sanju Sinha, an assistant professor in the Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys.
Bird Rock council looking to increase community engagement
The Bird Rock Community Council is looking to increase grassroots activism and community engagement this year.
At a meet-and-greet-style event March 17 held instead of the council’s regular meeting, BRCC President Joe Parker said his goal is to “bring this community back to our grassroots [because] Bird Rock has a long history of being activists.”
To do that, he said, meetings need to be more engaging to increase attendance.
“I want us to get together; there is a lot of energy here,” Parker said. He added that meetings will have an entertainment and social aspect, alongside regular discussion items.
“I will call on you to come to our monthly meetings,” he said at the meet-and-greet. “I want everyone to have fun, but we also want you to come to meetings when there are important issues to discuss.”
BRCC next meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, at a location to be determined. Learn more at birdrockcc.org.
U.S. investigates admissions at UC San Diego and two other medical schools
The Trump administration has opened investigations into how race is considered in admissions at three medical schools, including UC San Diego.
The Justice Department said March 25 that it opened the investigations into possible discrimination at the medical schools of Stanford University, Ohio State University and UCSD.
UC San Diego said in a statement that it was reviewing the notice.
“UC San Diego is committed to fair processes in all of our programs and activities, including admissions, consistent with federal and state anti-discrimination laws,” the statement said.
President Donald Trump has been ramping up scrutiny of universities that he views as overrun by liberal influence, using control of federal research funding as leverage. His administration has demanded that some colleges provide undergraduate admissions data to show they are in line with a 2023 Supreme Court decision forbidding affirmative action in college admissions.
— The San Diego Union-Tribune and The Associated Press contributed to this report. ♦