Major funding for KPBS Evening Edition has been made possible in part by Bill Howe, family of companies providing San Diego with plumbing, heating, air restoration and flood services for over 45 years.

Call one 800 Bill Howe or visit Bill Howe dot com and by the Conrad Prebys Foundation.

Darlene Marcos Shiley and by the following and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Food banks are bracing for more hungry families as stricter rules for federal food assistance take effect Monday.

Thanks for joining us, I'm John.

Carroll, in for Maya Trabulsi here in San Diego County, Father Joe's Villages is rationing food.

KPBS reporter Tammy Merga spoke with organizers and families about how they're preparing for these changes.

The one big, beautiful bill signed into law last year includes many changes to the federal SNAP benefits known as Cal Fresh here in California.

In April, some non-citizens became ineligible for benefits.

Cal Fresh benefits can be used to buy food at most grocery stores.

The changes for the migrant population happened last month and we're just now seeing the impact.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

We ran out of food.

Josh Bohannan is with Father Joe's Villages.

He says in mid-May, the organization ran out of food for the first time during a distribution event.

He expects to see more households turn to food banks.

We're rationing now.

It is going to get worse before it gets better.

If the policy continues to stay the same as it.

Is, more changes will take effect Monday.

They will require some adults to work or volunteer for 80 hours a month.

And they'll will affect veterans and homeless people unless they are excused for other reasons.

Roselle Jones says she lost her Cal Fringe benefits in April because she didn't meet the income requirements.

Food distribution events like the One Father Joe's Villages, hosted Friday have.

Become vital.

For her family of five.

We have to learn how to cut corners now and just slack back on, you know, the things that we had.

Now we don't have and just realize that, you know, you just have to get out there and hustle some other kind of way to get money and food.

Father Joe's village's rationed bags filled with fruit, canned goods and drinks in hopes of feeding everyone who stopped by its warehouse.

We're doubling it up today.

I'm going to say we have about hopefully 600 bags to help out.

And I'm hoping that's enough by the end of the two hour event.

The organization says it fed more than a thousand people.

It depleted nearly all of Friday's allotment.

Tammy Merga, KPBS News.

Well, tonight, not too different from last night.

Temperatures down into the low sixties, especially along the coast and even our inland areas still going to be dealing with that marine layer.

The fog, the low clouds, though, we do have some improvement coming on that note and even a temperature warm up to talk about heading into the weekend.

I'll break all of it down.

Coming up.

Faculty at the University of California are calling on the UC system to bring back standardized tests in its admission process.

KPBS education reporter Katie Anastas says it comes as more and more students are taking remedial math courses.

Nearly 1000 faculty members at University of California campuses have signed a letter asking for the change.

More than 200 of them are from UC San Diego.

It calls for the university to reinstate an S.A.T.

or A.C.T.

math requirement for applicants to stem majors.

The U.S.

Board of Regents voted to eliminate the requirement in 2020.

Back then, those who wanted to drop the requirement said students from wealthier families often have an advantage.

Yolanda Copeland morgan was the vice provost for enrollment at UC Los Angeles in 2020.

She spoke to the Board of Regents before its decision.

Students from privileged communities have schools with more resources, like experienced teachers with advanced degrees.

Well-equipped science labs, test test prep courses.

And private tutors.

While students from under-resourced schools.

Share textbooks, use broken backs and burners.

And don't have test prep and can't afford tutoring.

But the faculty letter argues that standardized tests ensure students get admitted to the right school for them within California's public university system.

They write, quote, failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers.

It moves them into the classroom where they become harder to overcome, end quote.

In November, a UC San Diego faculty senate group said more and more students are taking remedial math courses.

They said admissions staff are relying more heavily on high school grades, and COVID may have made those grades less objective.

It would.

Be foolish to believe that high school GPA means the same thing at different.

Schools.

Julian Betts is an economics professor at UC San Diego who signed the letter.

He also spoke to the Board of Regents in 2020.

A good solution to this problem would be what a standardized and objective test.

In a statement, U.S.

academic Senate Chair Ahmed Peloso Glue said faculty plan to work with state and K-12 leaders on college readiness.

Yale University announced this week it would once again require applicants to submit test scores, starting with the next admissions cycle.

Katie Anastas, KPBS News.

If you're in the market for a home right now, listen up.

Mortgage rates are on the rise, which means taking out a loan to buy that dream home could cost you more.

Maribel Gonzalez breaks down the numbers and what's driving them.

Buying or refinancing a home just got more expensive.

The average 30 year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.53% this week, marking the highest level in nine months, according to Freddie Mac.

The rates just went up over the last week pretty, pretty sharply.

And when that happens, there's a whole bunch of houses that people might have been able to afford.

And now that affordability is a lot more challenged.

Before the war in Iran, average mortgage rates briefly dropped below 6% for the first time in more than three years.

If you're talking about a 1% rise in your mortgage going from 5 to 6%, that could mean hundreds of dollars a month.

Still, mortgages are.

Lower than they were this time last year.

The nice thing about our mortgage system is if you get that 30 year mortgage and your rate is six and a half today and then rates drop down to six, you can refinance.

The median existing home sales.

Price reached a high of more than $417,000 in April, according to the.

National Association.

Of Realtors.

For first time homebuyers, we know it's a very difficult housing market, not only saving for a down payment, but then they're encountering a housing market with very limited entry level inventory.

But if you're ready to make the move.

When we look at mortgage interest rates.

It's important to note that that's a national average and your individual finances are really going to be the make or break in that scenario.

So making sure that you're working on your personal credit score, making sure you have money in reserves.

I'm Maribel Gonzalez reporting.

June 2nd is the last day to vote in California's primary elections.

For the latest edition of Why it Matters, Voice of San Diego's Scott Lewis shares his top five picks for races to watch.

Most people across the state will be looking to see which two of the dozens of candidates running for governor made the runoff election.

But for those of you interested in San Diego politics, here are my top five races to watch locally.

Number five, Measure A in the city of San Diego.

It would put an $8,000 tax on empty second homes, with some exceptions.

The realtors have come out hard against it, but supporters say it would either force some owners to put their homes on the market or help the city with its deficit.

A similar tax in San Francisco has been found illegal pending appeal.

Number four, the county supervisor district five race.

The District five supervisor is something like a mayor for many unincorporated areas in the vast northern part of San Diego County.

A Democrat, Kyle Cahill, is running.

But a bitter fight has erupted between Vista Mayor John Franklin and San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones.

They're both Republicans.

Number three, the San Diego City Council District eight race.

It's a tossup between four interesting candidates.

Venus Molina and Gerardo Ramirez both serve as chiefs of staff for different sitting city council members.

Antonio Martinez sits on the San Ysidro School Board and Rafael Perez is a businessman in the area.

They all have resources.

They all have name recognition.

And it's anyone's guess which two of them will advance.

In the South Bay, number two, San Diego City Council District two City Council member Jenn Campbell won the seat in 2018 after an expensive campaign tied the incumbent Republican to Donald Trump.

Now the former Republican mayor of Coronado, Richard Bailey, decided to run for the seat and he left the Republican Party.

But he kept his anti-tax message.

A former deputy city attorney, Nicole Crosby, and a leader with the Downtown Partnership, Josh Coyne, hope to stop him.

Neighborhood activist Mandy Havlik thinks they're all underestimating her.

And number one, who goes on to the runoff election in the 48th Congressional District.

This race will attract money from across the country.

Republican Jim Desmond is almost certain to make the runoff.

But which Democrat will join him?

A major campaign, Huizar City Council member Marni Von WILPERT or Brandon Riker.

If your ballot is postmarked June 2nd, even if it arrives a day or two after June 2nd, it will be counted.

I'm Scott Lewis with Voice of San Diego.

And that's why it matters.

Voice of San Diego is one of our partners for the Public Matters initiative.

You can learn more at KPBS dot org Slash Public Matters.

Shree Parikh of Rancho Cucamonga emerged victorious Thursday in the 98th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Nicole Comstock has reaction from the champ and his biggest cheerleaders.

You are the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.

Sherry Perich, a 14 year old student from De Creek Intermediate School in Rancho Cucamonga, just won the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The win coming in a dramatic lightning round spell off what he spelled 32 words correctly, including many that most adults have never even heard us go.

Words that had me like the.

Most nervous was probably.

Bhubaneshwar early.

This evening because I knew the word.

But you know, when you're on stage, you always kind of doubt yourself.

So I'm glad I just stuck with my God and got it.

We spoke with his parents earlier today who were cheering their son on in his lifelong dream.

They say SRI came in third place in the same spelling bee just two years ago, but he's always wanted to take first place.

His work ethic is unparalleled, as I said before, and feeling super proud and super, super proud for all his hard work, his dream come true.

Day Creek Intermediate congratulated him on Facebook, saying SRI represented the pack today at the National Scripps Spelling Bee.

And one way to go.

Yesterday, we brought you the story of local parents asking San Diego Unified to scale back screen use in the classroom.

Today, a different perspective.

KPBS education reporter Katie and asked us takes us to a high school English classroom where the teacher says technology is making her better at her job.

All right.

You still have your books, right?

We're reading books, books, books.

Jen Roberts teaches ninth and 12th grade English at Point Loma High School.

I'm an English teacher, and I believe very strongly in the power of reading.

So my class period always starts with 10 minutes of silent reading.

Her seniors are learning about the American food system.

They're reading books like Fast Food Nation.

By Eric Schlosser and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

After 10 minutes of reading, they open their laptops and launch an AI tool.

You're going to see my students use a tool today called Brisk Boost, where they have something that they've already read.

And the Brisk Boost is going to ask them some questions about what they read.

Questions meant to keep students thinking.

Point Loma High School Senior Taylor Ashton says it works.

I could go through the text multiple times.

And just like read it and be done with it, but not like fully process.

Any of it.

So this like forces me to process.

It by keeping.

Me interactive with it.

Roberts says the AI she uses doesn't do the work for students.

Instead, she says, it provides feedback more quickly and more frequently than she could on her own.

I could come around and have an individual conversation with every one of my 36 kids to see if they all understand the article.

I could give them a quiz that would be like five static questions and give them the results two days later.

But it's so much better when they can in real time, find out what they do and don't understand.

She touts an AI program called Magic School.

It has a tool that's useful for generating writing topics.

She says it helps students know where to start.

For example, she might ask students to write a narrative.

The goal for the assignment is to have a beginning, middle and end to a story, and for it to include dialog.

Rather than letting a student sit there staring at a blank screen or a blank piece of paper for 45 minutes, I'll give them a tool in a magic school student room that's limited to that one tool.

That's an idea generator.

And I say, you're interested in baseball.

Why don't you write a story about baseball?

Like, I don't know what to write.

Like, well, let's put it in here.

Tell it.

You're interested in baseball, and it spits back three story ideas about baseball.

Alfonso Jacinto is another senior in Robert's class.

He's used air tools to help him create study guides for classes like economics and statistics.

He says it can be tempting to use it for more than that.

Like answering homework questions.

Is very easy to follow.

The temptation is very hard to get out of it.

And I think, just try your best not to fall.

Under a temptation.

And more.

Use it as a tool.

The temptation to cheat is just one concern about air in schools.

Another is privacy.

Last year, researchers at Stanford University found that leading air companies use conversations people have with their chat bots to train their large language models.

Some of them collect data from teens.

Roberts says students safety and privacy are at top of mind when she's picking digital tools to use in class.

Magic School, for example, doesn't sell data to third parties or use it for targeted advertising.

Parents should know what their AI tools their kids are using.

Magic School founder Adeel Khan is a former teacher and principal.

He shares a lot of the concerns that parents have about A.I.. Like kids forming an emotional attachment to a chat bot.

Consumer AI tools are not safe for kids.

Point blank Like if your kid's using an unguarded rail version of Chatty Betty or Gemini at home without supervision and not under the guidance of you as an adult, that is a scary premise.

He says he'd rather have kids learn about generative AI on a safe platform with guidance from a teacher.

Still, many parents worry about AI in schools.

A group of parents is asking San Diego Unified to limit screen time in its classrooms.

Their proposed board resolution would prohibit students from using A.I.

tools.

Back at Point Loma High School, Roberts says she knows there's concern about screen use, but she says phones are a bigger problem than school laptops.

It's more about how you're using the screen, not just the fact that the screen is on if you're using it for an educational purpose.

If the kids are collaborating with it, if they're building a slide deck together with it, that is useful, that is purposeful, that is engaging, that is cognitive processing going on as opposed to I'm sitting on my phone watching YouTube videos or participating in social media.

That is not helpful.

Screen time.

She says it would be a mistake for schools to ignore A.I.

tools designed with student learning and privacy in mind.

Kitty Anastas, KPBS News.

Local author Mhadhushree Ghosh has released her second book.

It explores Punjabi history and food traditions that made their way to the United States.

KPBS arts reporter Audie McCarthy speaks with Ghosh about the stories and history behind the book.

Mhadshuree Ghosh is the author of Safar.

The book follows the four waves of South Asian immigration to the American West.

It also explores how food travels with those communities and with her own journey.

Ghosh came to the U.S.

over 30 years ago.

She says homesickness from New Delhi inspired her to write about food.

But more than that smell.

It's a noise.

And there's this chaos there.

You know, you can't go there and say, oh, help me cross the road.

You cross the road, you know?

So it's a vibe.

It's a vibe, which is why I think this represents this represents home.

Growing up, her father taught her how to knock on fruit, to choose the ripest one.

Her mother made masala, chai and sweets every day at 4 p.m.. Ghosh says many of her stories lead back to those memories.

Always had to do with my childhood.

I've had to do with how I was growing up or, you know, the horrendously awful food that I used to make when I came here for grad school because I didn't know how to cook.

And, you know, then going back home and asking my mother how to how to operate a pressure cooker so I could make some daal.

As she pursued her education in America.

Ghosh says she learned more about the different parts of her culture and the struggles tied to immigration within her community.

And so the book came about because I started asking myself, like, what do these waves mean?

And these waves have to do with the laws that this country changed whenever they wanted to.

It's happening now.

She says she also wants people to think more deeply about where their food comes from and the journey it took to reach the dinner table.

It's easy to laugh at a child when the child says a chicken breast comes from the grocery store.

But you have to ask yourself, why does the child think that is?

Because you don't know where it came from or you never taught this child that.

So that's what I mean by respect.

If you respect the farmer who grew it, respect the earth that sustained it through her writing in conversation with others over the years.

Ghosh created a supper club called Kabaka.

Over dinner, guests talk with changemakers like food activists, chefs and writers.

She says sharing a meal can open people to new perspectives.

How do you talk about food?

Enough for somebody to be interested in a culture that they have absolutely no clue and in fact, they had no interest in before this.

Gauche says food can create conversations around difficult histories.

It can also uplift communities.

A lot of the food that we make is with ingredients that came to us through colonization or it came through people traveling through immigration, migration, and sometimes it came through indenture.

So it's very important for me to tell that story.

But when you talk about food, you also talk about comfort, you talking about longing, and you talk about belonging.

Ghosh says whether readers take away history or recipes from the book, she wants them to connect with her and with the people around them.

I hope people go back and look at suffer and find find my journey to be similar to theirs.

The questions that they've had about their identities similar to to mine.

The official book release event is June 11th at 6 p.m.

at Library Shop in Mission Hills.

Audie McAfee, KPBS News.

We are warming up just in time for the weekend.

Also, fewer of us will be dealing with the low clouds and the fog from the marine layer.

And overall, we have a drier weekend ahead.

We had a little bit of rain, not a lot, but we don't get a lot of rain this time of year.

So I guess we'll take what we can get.

But also for your outdoor plans, you're not going to have to worry about it moving forward here.

Let's talk about what to expect tonight.

Now, you will notice we still have some clouds moving pretty far inland.

It's later into the weekend that we start to see that marine layer really shrink.

Forties is all we get to in that Laguna.

We're at 60 in San Diego, 50 though in Ramona, the time of year, we have a big temperature contrast depending on exactly where you are across the region.

And that goes for tomorrow as well.

So high of 91 in Borrego Springs, we get to 80 and Ramona, 73 for Oceanside, 72 for both San Diego and Chula Vista.

There plenty of sunshine to enjoy.

Let's talk about what to expect over the next couple of days.

Taking it region by region, we'll start off with the coast overall so we don't completely get rid of the clouds at all this week, but still partly sunny.

We'll take it.

Temperatures get to 76 by the time we get to Sunday.

So only a few degrees of a warming trend along the coast.

We get the moderation from the ocean, but still we stay in the seventies through mid-next week.

Not too bad for late May into June.

By Monday we're into June, we get to 83.

Further inland by Sunday, but quickly cool back down and we're bouncing back around between the upper seventies and the low eighties.

Either way, though, are low, staying consistent in the mid to upper 50 years.

Overall, we get to our mountain regions and we're in the sixties until we get to Wednesday.

That's when we get our warm up.

73, mostly sunny and nice.

We'll take it.

Temperatures as far as our lows staying put in the fifties into our different regions.

We've had a break from the triple digits, but they're coming back.

It's a big contrast from 91 Saturday.

We get to 98 by the time we get to Monday and then that big warm up it holds off.

And so Wednesday, when we get back into the triple digits sunny and very warm for KPBS news I'm AccuWeather is an Italian.

In Northern California a retired firefighter with PTSD has started an entirely new business venture.

It's a fire and ice cream truck and he's hoping to use it to help other first responders dealing with the trauma of the job.

Charly La Posta has the story.

After years on the front lines, Doug Satterfield is no longer hopping in a fire truck to fight fires, but instead hopping in his newly built ice cream truck looking to fight for first responders mental health.

I know the struggle.

And first responders, they deserve the best man.

They put it all out there and they don't deserve to lose it.

In the end.

It's something Satterfield, a recently retired Stockton firefighter, knows too well.

He suffered a mental breakdown in 2021 and was later diagnosed with PTSD.

I didn't know I had PTSD.

I had no idea I was living life.

I was still enjoying the job, enjoying the calls, and in our family was was doing what I thought was great.

But there's just an underlying tension, you know, and you just live at such a high level in life in this in this career, you're always in fight.

You're never in flight.

And that's 24 seven.

Satterfield eventually found help with the West Coast post-trauma retreat.

If I was to flash one more time, I was going to lose everything.

After getting his life back on track, he decided to give back, buying this old mail truck he found on Facebook Marketplace.

When he came to me with this, he's like, I'm going to buy an ice cream truck.

And I was like, okay, all right, you're tired, you know?

But, you know, it just kept morphing and kept morphing.

And absolutely, this is his vision, as is his dream.

Now he's working with his family in his fire, an ice cream truck with all tips and part of the proceeds to pay for other first responders and their spouses to go to the same retreat that rescued him.

And he's encouraging his fellow first responders to take care of the battles they face within wanting the process to be more streamlined.

I know this program works, and I'm just hoping that our first responders will find the courage to ask for help and and reclaim their lives in that profession.

Nobody comes out unscathed.

It's the ego.

It's the pride that people just don't want to be vulnerable enough to find that healing.

And so there's a stigma to it.

The public gets the best of you, but your family ends up getting the worst of you.

It's what Doug's wife, Lori, and his three children experienced growing up.

It has been a huge transformation after he's put in so much work and has had changed so much that I look back on those days now and realize how hard it really.

Was really a struggle growing up.

But now, since all the hard work has gone through, it's been incredible.

I've seen the transformation itself.

A transformation that began by asking for help that's now morphed into helping others.

Just asking and praying and believing that something is going to happen.

And then here we are.

A sweet way to uplift first responders, to fight their own personal fires.

I'm done with tragedies, you know, and now I'm I'm looking to just fulfill the smiles.

Moment of ours.

Tonight on the news hour, a race to contain the spread of Ebola in central Africa.

That's coming up at seven after Evening Edition on CBS.

And be sure to join us tonight for KPBS News This Week, where we revisit the most impactful and intriguing original reporting of the week.

This week airs every Friday at 830 here on KPBS.

You can find tonight's stories on our website, KPBS dot org.

Thank you for joining us, everybody.

I'm John Carroll.

Have an excellent evening and a wonderful weekend.

Major funding for KPBS Evening Edition has been made possible in part by Bill Howe Family of companies providing San Diego with plumbing, heating, air, restoration and flood services for over 45 years.

Call one 800 Bill Howe or visit Bill Howe dot com and by the Conrad Prevost Foundation.

Darlene Marcos Shiley and by the following and by viewers like you.

Thank you.