Daily Business Report: Tuesday, January 20
Local rabbi disinvited from speaking at King breakfast over Israel connection
By Donald H. Harrison | Times of San Diego
The rabbi of a local synagogue was disinvited from delivering a closing message at the All People’s Breakfast in Balboa Park Monday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., drawing criticism from San Diego’s Jewish community.
Rabbi Hanan Leberman of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in San Carlos posted on Facebook Saturday that rescinding the invitation was “due to my connection to Israel,” where he studied to be a cantor and then rabbi and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
As a result, no Jewish clergy spoke at the annual event, which is now in its 38th year.
California bill aims to rein in mental health coverage denials that leave kids without care
By Mark Kreidler | Capital & Main
California’s collective need to attend to the mental health of its young people is obvious. In a study last year, 94% of those surveyed ages 14 to 25 reported struggling with mental health challenges in an average month, and one third rated their mental health overall as either fair or poor.
All of those numbers have been on the rise over the past several years, particularly during and immediately after the pandemic.
But kids’ ability to access mental health care is compromised on multiple fronts, including by a lack of providers. The federal defunding of Medicaid and Obamacare will also cost millions of Californians their health coverage.
Opinion: Autonomous vehicles are the future — San Diego must embrace them
By Mark Powell | Times of San Diego
San Diego’s elected leaders have been aggressively removing traffic lanes and parking spaces to make way for bus lanes, trolley expansions, and bike infrastructure. While these policies are often framed as forward-thinking climate action-driven experiments they are rooted in a transportation vision that is already outdated.
The future of mobility is not fixed-route buses or rail lines — it is autonomous vehicles.
History offers a powerful analogy. Decades ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen famously articulated a vision of “a computer on every desk and in every home.” At the time, that idea sounded ambitious, even unrealistic. Today, it seems obvious. Computers are everywhere, embedded not just on desks but in our pockets, cars and appliances.
