There were more than 1,500 hate crimes reported in the United States in 2017, according to the FBI, and anti-Semitic crimes like Saturday’s synagogue shooting in Poway made up nearly two-thirds of that total — more than any other religion-based hate crime.

The FBI was charged with tracking such crime statistics in 1990 when Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act, which requires the attorney general to collect data about “crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.”

Two days after a mass shooting at Chabad Poway, the congregation said farewell to the woman who was killed.

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein believes Lori Kaye saved his life.

Features reporter Pam Kragen attended the funeral, and discusses how the community is healing after this act of hate.

The worshippers at Chabad of Poway were nearing the end of Passover, a sacred Jewish celebration steeped in ancient freedom, when a modern terror walked in the door.

A man armed with an assault-type rifle opened fire Saturday, killing one woman and injuring three other people, including an 8-year-old girl, in what authorities described as a hate crime.

The alleged shooter, John T. Earnest of Rancho Penasquitos, 19, was arrested after fleeing the synagogue amid a hail of bullets from a security guard.

Earnest is the apparent author of a long, anti-Semitic “open letter” detailing his “disgust” for Jews and his admiration for the perpetrators of other mass shootings, including the gunman who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue six months ago to the day.

Our full coverage:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2019-04-27/reports-of-several-people-shot-at-poway-synagogue

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/la-me-ln-rabbi-poway-california-synagogue-shooting-20190428-story.html

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/story/2019-04-27/poway-shooting-comes-amid-rise-in-anti-semitic-hate-crimes

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/story/2019-04-27/interfaith-vigil-grapples-with-disheartening-devastating-event-yearns-for-peace

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2019-04-27/who-is-john-earnest-the-suspect-in-the-poway-synagogue-shooting

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/la-me-john-earnest-poway-synagogue-shooting-20190428-story.html

Crowe’s directorial debut, the 1989 romantic comedy starring John Cusack and Ione Skye, gets a gala screening at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York next week

Amid the increasingly pitched battle over who can and cannot rent out homes for short-term stays, a state legislator from Encinitas is wading in with a plan she believes will settle the debate — and in the process help ease California's worsening housing crisis.

Her first test case is San Diego County, where coastal cities from Carlsbad to Coronado already have taken widely varying approaches, from permissive policies with few limitations on how often homes can be used as vacation rentals to outright bans.

On Monday, a committee in Sacramento will weigh in on Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner Horvath's pitch for regulating the burgeoning home sharing industry in the county's coastal communities. She's authored a bill that would effectively outlaw the short-term rental of second homes and investor properties listed on home-sharing sites while also placing sharp limits on how many days out of the year an online platform like Airbnb can make available whole-home rentals when the primary resident is away.

The San Diego City Council approved on Tuesday long-awaited rules for governing the app-rented bike and scooter companies that over the last year have flooded city streets with the motorized vehicles.

Following several hours of heated testimony from community members, the City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that establishes a permitting process for operators, limits speeds in designated areas and requires all devices to scan a valid driver’s license before they can be used.

The new rules go into effect in June, after the council takes its final vote.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2019-04-23/san-diego-approvals-rules-for-dockless-scooters-as-angry-residents-crowd-city-hall

San Diego County is starting to take a more detailed look into how its child welfare system can better serve children in need. For several months, U-T Watchdog reporter Morgan Cook has been questioning the efficacy of the region’s child welfare system, writing stories about abuse and neglect in the foster care and voluntary services program.

The Board of Supervisors’ report raised more concerns, primarily on how more social workers are needed to handle complicated family problems.

San Diego County inmates and their families spend millions of dollars a year on telephone calls and merchandise from jail commissaries. Breakfast gift packs are $14.99. A See’s Candies peanut butter egg goes for $6.99. A 15-minute phone call runs almost $5.

Last year more than $6 million in profit was raised through these phone calls and commissary sales at the county’s seven detention centers. The profits go into a special “inmate welfare” fund created to improve the quality of life behind bars, help rehabilitate inmates and keep them from returning to jail after release.

Records show that millions of those dollars also pay for county staff and jail operations, and millions more is saved in a reserve fund that has grown to almost double the amount raised from inmates each year.

When an audit recommended changes to how the inmate welfare fund is implemented, the sheriff’s office balked at a suggestion meant to increase public input.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-04-21/money-meant-for-inmate-welfare-spent-on-staff-sheriffs-expenses

San Diegans can drive with little fear of getting a speeding ticket on scores of streets throughout the city.

The situation is the result of a little known state law that’s vexing cities across California. It says that in many cases officials must raise speed limits or give up handing out tickets using radar or other electronic devices.

Of the 656 streets that the city is responsible for setting speeds on, 103 had stretches where police are not allowed to enforce the speed limit by radar, according to data obtained by the Union-Tribune through a public records request.

It all comes down to the state’s vehicle code, which requires local governments to update their speed limits every five to 10 years according to what’s called the 85th percentile.

To get that number, traffic engineers clock how fast cars are traveling on a given section of road. The fastest speed at which the bottom 85 percent of vehicles travel — rounded to the nearest multiple of five — constitutes the new state-mandated speed limit.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III explicitly did not exonerate President Trump of allegations that he tried to obstruct the Russia investigation, and found that his 2016 campaign “expected it would benefit” from Russian effort to influence the election.

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller wrote in his report, which the Justice Department released in redacted form on Thursday.

“Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment,” the report said.

Mueller did not conclude that the president committed a crime. Instead, in its 448 pages of legal analysis and supporting evidence, his report detailed “multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations.”