Major funding for Kpbs Evening Edition has been made possible in part by Bill Howe, family of companies providing San Diego with plumbing, heating and air restoration, blood and remodeling services for over 40 years.

Call one 800 Bill Howe or visit Billhowe.com.

And by the Conrad Prebys Foundation.

Darlene Marcos Shiley, and by the following.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.

People around the world rallied on this International Workers Day, including here in San Diego.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm John Carroll in for Maya Trabulsi.

Hundreds of UC San Diego health workers are calling for pay and staffing increases.

Kpbs education reporter Katie Anastas says the university told patients there would be delays as staff went on a one day strike.

Hundreds of UC San Diego health workers marched from the Hillcrest Medical Center to Balboa Park.

For two of their unions.

It's their fourth strike since November.

International Workers Day.

Union leaders say the university froze hiring without giving them notice.

Workers like Christopher Kaiser say it comes at a time when they need more staff.

And I work in a specialized department to assist with bone marrow transplant and their care.

I do the work of six people, and it's really hard to keep up with the demand.

And then unfortunately, sometimes things get missed.

and we have to go back and it could potentially lead to a delay in care.

And patients aren't being seen in a timely manner.

Additional staff would help them see patients faster.

That's according to Lea Bishop.

She's a speech therapist who works with patients who've had strokes and brain injuries.

It's taken patients who've had these things happen months to be able to be seen and to get in, to have care.

And it's really important, particularly during what we call the golden year.

The first year after a stroke or a brain injury to make the best recovery, UC President Michael Drake announced the hiring freeze in March.

He cited proposed funding cuts from both the federal and state governments.

A university spokesperson wrote in an email that they were disappointed by the union's continued choice to strike, and that it cost the university system millions of dollars at a time of economic uncertainty.

The University says it made its best and final offer to one union last night, meeting their demand of $25 an hour and a 5% wage increase.

It's set to meet with the other union next week.

Katie Anastas, Kpbs news.

Well, happy Thursday, everyone.

Weather headlines here as we head into the week.

And I will be tracking partly cloudy skies here and mild conditions here for your Friday.

But after that, as we head into the weekend, it's going to be a cooler and breezier set up here for both your Saturday and Sunday.

After that, I'm tracking a pretty decent warm up here as we head into early to the middle parts of next week of an updated look at that extended forecast coming up.

San Diego is moving to tighten regulations on accessory dwelling units.

Kpbs Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says a package of reforms got its first public hearing today.

San Diego has some of the most permissive rules around ADUs in California.

Supporters say those rules have created more low cost housing options in exclusive neighborhoods, while opponents say they've ruined neighborhood character.

The city's planning commission voted Thursday to recommend a host of reforms, like reverting to the more restrictive state rules on ADUs in the lowest density neighborhoods.

They also recommended a two storey height limit.

All housing does help affordability.

It's a supply and demand issue.

I don't believe that the Adu bonus program, as currently designed, develops thoughtful homes.

And I feel like the intent of this policy has been exploited, and we need to put some guardrails on it.

Kpbs created a map to show which neighborhoods would still be covered by the Adu bonus program under the proposed changes, and which ones would be excluded.

The city also wants to restrict ADUs and wildfire hazard zones by requiring two evacuation routes.

That would make homes on cul de sacs and along canyons off limits.

Critics say the changes didn't go far enough, and in the simplest terms, no more than four ADUs on a single family property.

How much more complicated does it have to get?

No one would be here today if the limit was four on a property.

The reforms are set to go before a city council committee in two weeks, followed by a vote of the full city council in June.

Andrew Bowen, Kpbs news.

A human rights commission is blaming the federal government for the death of Anastacio Hernandez Rojas, and they say the government covered it up.

He was detained in 2010 while attempting to reunite with his family.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights says U.S.

border agents tortured him.

They're calling on the government to reopen the criminal investigation, saying the initial police investigation was biased and incomplete.

Okay.

Claro.

Today, everything is clear.

Today Everyone knows that my husband, Anastacio, was the victim.

Rodney Scott was acting deputy chief of the US Border Patrol in San Diego when Rojas was killed.

He is now President Trump's nominee for commissioner of U.S.

Customs and Border Protection.

The Senate has yet to confirm his nomination.

One of the men arrested during a march immigration raid in El Cajon is now free from federal detention.

Kpbs reporter Gustavo Solis spoke to him about the case and how it has impacted his family.

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested her husband, Blanca Corona's life was thrust into chaos.

In an instant, she was shouldering tremendous financial and emotional burdens.

Now I have to pick up more than I normally picked up shifts, and then we have to take our kids to practice.

And then my other ones have to go to boxing, and it's tiring.

Corona's husband, George Lopez, was one of 15 people arrested during a workplace raid near El Cajon in March for 15 years here in the state.

Lopez came to the U.S.

when he was 13.

Those are my kids and has been the primary breadwinner of his family.

But he does not have legal status.

Corona is a US citizen and so are the couple's four children, but they are still directly impacted by President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign.

Corona is working extra hours to keep the family afloat, and she's also coping with the emotional toll on her children.

My other daughter was live with whether there are a picture of him all night crying.

Another daughter became obsessed with the idea that her father would miss her upcoming birthday.

She was every day of my daughter coming back for my birthday.

Is my dad coming?

And the only thing I want for my birthday is my dad to be home.

But last Saturday, on her eighth birthday, that little girl's wish came true.

On April 18th, an immigration judge released Lopez on bond.

He will fight the pending deportation case from his home in Escondido.

Lopez says that the month he spent at the old time detention center is the longest he's ever been away from his children.

It was nice in my in my family crime scene.

I haven't seen him.

I feel like I've seen him for so long.

Yeah, because where I was, I was been together most of the time, like you guys.

Yeah, we're we're pretty close.

Lopez remains in touch with coworkers who are still inside the detention center.

He says most of the men are terrified of being deported.

The pressure.

There were some people that were crying most of the time.

He also noticed that a lot of them are not violent or dangerous.

Some have been arrested for driving without a license.

In Lopez's case, his only blemish is a DUI conviction, and he completed more than 350 hours of court ordered community service.

You see, like other different people from different cells, and then you start talking to people.

Oh yeah, I'm here for, for, like I said, license or like for a DUI that I had 20, 30 years ago.

And then they have the green card.

His observations stand in stark contrast to the Trump administration's rhetoric that the rounding up murderers, rapists and other dangerous criminals to keep Americans safe.

I would say the true story.

What's going on?

Federal data backs up his point.

The vast majority of people detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center are categorized as non-criminal.

Because Lopez has been in the US most of his life.

He says he wouldn't know how to live in Mexico.

I haven't been to Mexico in so long.

My whole family's here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the guys asked me, do you want to go to Mexico?

What you want to do?

I know I want to if I want to find my kids.

He won an earlier round of that fight by getting out of the detention center.

In the days leading up to the bond hearing.

Friends and family offered help any way they could.

Tessa Cabrera is his immigration lawyer.

We get letters of support to so that we, the the judge in the court, can hear from the community and what how much he means to the community and his family and his children.

They're ready.

I get in front of the ball.

We're going to pass the ball.

Cabrera found a lot of support from parents and coaches of a youth soccer team that Lopez volunteers with.

People like Bernice Lopez, whose daughter plays on the team.

That's a lot of what I wrote in there.

He's always willing to see or help those around him.

My kids love him.

So to me, it was a big thing when I found out.

Open gates, closed.

And head coach Rafael Blanco.

She's awesome with the kids.

The girls love him.

They were upset when they found out what happened.

They were all upset now that when they saw him, they.

We are excited to see him back again in the field.

I just feel for them, coach.

That goes back.

I can relate, but the happiest person to have him back on the field was his daughter Yaretzi.

It was really great.

Everybody was there to see my dad happy.

They enjoyed it.

She says that even her little sister's birthday party felt more like Father's Day.

It felt like it wasn't even my sister's birthday.

Felt like it was my dad.

If you keep practicing with the left, you didn't get better.

Lopez says that coaching helps him deal with the stress of the pending deportation case.

He's happy to be back in the community, surrounded by friends and family.

Take control and then pass.

Gustavo Solis, Kpbs news.

The fall of Saigon on April 30th, 1975 left behind a lasting legacy of trauma.

That trauma is being felt not only by the first generation in the Vietnamese diaspora, but also by their children and grandchildren.

This episode of Kpbs' new web series Fall of Saigon at 50 Stories of Loss, legacy, legacy and identity explores that legacy and why it's challenging for the community to heal because of the war and the refugees coming over.

I think the scars of the trauma are still here.

Some of them are still fighting the war in their mind.

A lot of the memories, experiences and traumas still still follow.

My mom still still haunt her.

For a lot of our veterans.

The war is not done because of that emotional trauma of, since 75 and and especially our veterans, the PTSD for my dad.

He doesn't speak too much about his time that he served, in the war on the South side.

But I can tell that he's been traumatized.

I can tell that there's PTSD.

There's anxiety in there as well, and probably some depression.

They put my dad, in jail.

My mom had to take care of everything when he came home.

He changed quite a bit.

Become a lot quieter.

Didn't share a whole lot.

The PTSD that, a lot of men or older men like my father felt, you know, and they coped with it through drinking.

There was no you couldn't talk about it.

It was like a ghost in the room.

A lot of the memories, experiences and traumas still.

Still follow my mom, still still haunt her.

To be honest, she can't talk about much of it, but when she does, she remembers all the details as as clear as day.

A very enduring and emotional aspect from the war that still follows her today, 50 years later, is actually her.

Her sense of patriotism towards Saigon.

A a love and a longing for her.

For her birthplace, for her birth city.

A form of nostalgia, an attachment to Saigon.

She was born and raised there, and a lot of immigrants.

You know, if you get homesick, you can always travel back to your country.

But for her, she occasionally, very occasionally, she will lament to me that, you know, she misses Vietnam, she misses Saigon.

And it's a country that she actually can never really visit or go home to because it's, it's a country that no longer exists.

I think it's too painful.

And I also think because within the Vietnamese community and in general, API's, Asian-American, Pacific Islander populations, we tend not to air out our dirty laundry.

There's a stigma against pain, trauma, mental health.

So I think my parents fall within that range, too, of not wanting to talk about it because it brings up too much unpleasantries.

And in their mind, nothing's going to be resolved anyway, so why bother talking about it?

When I think of like, you know, intergenerational trauma and I feel like the young generation is trying to open these conversations and have these dialog and like a lot of the elderly generation, is is still very much like, no, it's this is a very fragile subject in my family, one that my grandmother, when she was alive, every time my dad or my uncles get drunk and talk about it, she would just tell them to shut up.

Basically.

The only time I really heard about it is when my dad was drunk and my brother and my mom would talk about it.

Just little bits and pieces to folks in my parents generation.

Some of them are still fighting the war in their mind.

But every time I go back to Vietnam once a year to do medical missions.

You know, a mom or dad would be, telling me, you know, be careful.

Right.

Communist government.

And so that sense of fear, that sense of trepidation, I actually remember I was so fascinated about learning about Vietnam that after my freshman year of college, I actually received a fully funded scholarship to go study abroad in Vietnam for three months.

I bought my plane tickets.

I received my student visa for the entire three months, and it must have been maybe 2 to 3 days before the trip.

My mom just suddenly broke down and, And begged me not to go.

And this is this is me at 18, 19 years old now.

And so for her, 30 to 40 years after the war.

And that's still her reaction to it, because and you have to remember, her last memory of the war was was leaving to escape persecution.

There's this Vietnamese way of like, you should feel it and not talk about it.

And then America was like this talk about you know, therapy.

And it's like faced head on, you know, and so there's that also also that cultural, you know, of dissonance that, that makes it difficult to heal.

So if you're in your 20s and you're wondering why your parents are the way there are your 30s, imagine being out.

This world is in chaos, and you get exiled and you get kicked out of the United States.

And now you've got to go start your life somewhere all over with nothing.

Right.

How would you manage that?

And so having that kind of empathy, sympathy for that first generation, is, is vital to part of the healing.

I think that still the majority of the American population don't know that the Vietnam War was a civil war.

You know, the South Vietnamese voice is so, like, raced even here.

That's why there's a lot of hurt.

And I think that when we think of, the, the healing that has been done in the community, it comes from that erasure.

Alexander Nguyen reporting that story is part of a four part video series called Fall of Saigon at 50 Stories of Loss.

Legacy and Identity.

You can watch the entire series online at kpbs.org or on the kpbs youtube page.

Years after being approved by voters, the City of San Diego raised its hotel tax today.

There are new tax zones across the city for hotels, Airbnbs and short term rentals.

Zone one covers areas in North County and the South Bay.

There's an 11.75% tax in those places.

The wide section in the middle zone is a middle, rather is zone two, which includes La Hoya and Pacific Beach.

It has a 12.75% tax.

Zone three is the smallest and most expensive area at 13.75%.

It covers downtown and Little Italy.

Some in the tourism industry are concerned higher prices could drive away visitors.

But one owner told our media partner KGTV it may actually have the opposite effect.

If we can be the supportive arm to make sure that the roads are paved and no potholes as well as convention center doesn't have a problem, it can be expanded.

That only helps us in the long road.

It's a short term pain for a long term gain.

The city expects the taxes to bring in about $82 million a year.

The money will go towards the convention centers expansion, addressing homelessness and road repairs.

This week, one of the largest tourism conferences in Latin America opened with great fanfare on both sides of the border.

Kpbs video journalist Matthew Boehler takes us there.

A celebration of Mexican culture.

Thousands of tourism pros are in Rosarito Beach this week for the 49th annual tianguis turistico which means tourism market.

The event promotes travel in Mexico.

This is the first time the conference has been to Baja since its debut in Acapulco in 1976, hosted at the new Baja California Center in Rosarito.

The 32 States of Mexico game and promote all the beautiful things each state has to offer.

That's Miguel Aguiniga Rodriguez Baja Secretary of Tourism.

The conference, organized by the Mexican government, brings together more than 3200 exhibitors from 43 countries to trade ideas on growing tourism from Tijuana to the Yucatan.

Sand and surf are still major attractions in much of Mexico.

But the industry has evolved.

Baja California is ready to be an international destination.

We have a great gastronomy.

We produce 70% of the Mexican wine, not just in Baja, but all 32 states of Mexico are leveraging cultural experiences to attract international travelers.

Fernanda Gaxiola Camacho is at the convention representing the central Mexican state of Morelos.

I think the world is changing after after the pandemic, like all the tourism changed a lot and now it's more based on experiences and connecting with communities.

Aguiniga says tourism makes up about 8% of Baja economy.

And Gaxiola says Morelos is about the same.

However, she points out that tourism spills over into other economic sectors as well.

But if you add other categories like entertainment, like music festivals, restaurants, all this kind of stuff and we are getting almost to 18%.

So it is one of the most important categories for for Morelos.

The Mexican secretary of tourism releases tourism key indicator data and January's numbers are just out.

They show positive movement in all categories.

International tourists are up 8.5%.

American residents visiting are up 8.5% as well.

And cruise ship arrivals are up 10.4%, among other indicators.

Gaxiola credits leveraging Mexico's cultural identity, especially its indigenous traditions.

Nowadays, like for all the country, community, community tourism is very, very important because you now you don't travel like to to have an experience now is like a like a feedback between both of you.

Like, like the people come to the community and leave everything.

Aguiniga agrees.

We are the window.

We are where to Mexico.

So that's why we are promoting more traditions and more Mexican.

Vibe.

The way a high quality.

That spirit of cultural exchange.

So Mexico is still open to the world and we welcome everybody to come and enjoy Mexico.

Reporting in Plaza Rosarito.

Matthew Boehler, Kpbs news.

As we head into tonight, we will see mild conditions.

Overnight lows will be a mix of mid to upper 50s and we will see some cloud coverage.

The closer you get to the coast, the more clouds you're going to see here during the overnight hours.

But lows tonight will primarily be in the 50s.

A pretty mild start here for your early Friday morning.

Down to 55 tonight for both Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.

59 here for downtown San Diego.

Future track radar showing that as we head into the overnight hours, it will stay dry, but we will see a little bit more cloud coverage trying to work its way on shore.

That cloud coverage will persist here as we head throughout the morning hours, but right around about midday, we will start to see some of that cloud coverage.

Trying to work its way out of the forecast.

Yes, we will see some showers there off to the east, but overall looks like it's going to stay a dry forecast here as we head throughout your Friday.

But we will see increasing rain even some mountain snow as we head throughout this evening and tonight.

And that's going to shape up for a pretty eventful weekend here across central parts of California.

Now for your Friday outlook for the most part, everything is going to stay dry.

There's that rainfall we are tracking there along the interior, but overall nice weather with highs for your Friday.

A mix of upper 60s to low 70s.

And as you can see almost across the board, lots of sunshine.

And then as we head into Saturday, more rainfall to the north, some mountain snow developing here for some areas.

And then yes, throughout the rest of the weekend, especially on Sunday, a big dip in the jet stream is going to bring some much cooler air across the region it's going.

And take a look at that extended forecast here and across the coastal areas.

We'll see highs in the upper 60s here for your Friday.

But we will start to see a little bit more cloud coverage in the forecast on Saturday.

We'll even see a chance of some showers there on Sunday, but then we'll clear out by the time we head into early parts of next week.

Inland forecast.

We'll see temperatures dipping as we head into the weekend.

They'll bottom out there on Sunday and you want to talk about temperatures really starting to dip a little bit.

Take a look at the mountains.

We'll see temperatures in the 30s with possibly some snow flurries there on Sunday.

And then across the desert we'll see temperatures going from the 90s to the 60s For AAPI Heritage Month, pack Arts Movement and MTS are unveiling a new pronto card and bus wrap by local artist Koy Sun.

Kpbs arts reporter Julia Dixon Evans tells us what inspires this collaboration.

One city bus is about to get a little more artistic.

Artist Koy Sun's illustration shows a family on a bus surrounded by grocery bags of familiar Asian products.

Drawing on the rich diversity of Asian food and culture in San Diego included things like hello, hello, Yakult, you know, to reference my Thai, my Thai culture.

The three ladies rice bag.

Bahn mi, just things like that.

I try my best to have kind of the the big and obvious icon that that are recognizable.

And I started slowly, kind of finding more niche things.

MTS worked with Pack Arts Movement to select an artist to celebrate AAPI heritage.

The first artist that came to mind for me was Koy, because of just how bright and bold and really just like the ability to, like, capture somebody's attention on the street.

Sun's vivid and whimsical sign painting can be found throughout the region, adorning restaurants and bookstores, connecting to the local community motivates and informs his art.

One of the deep appreciations that I have that I wanted to kind of that I wanted to inspire others to kind of consider is how much access we have to Asian ingredients, Asian culture, things like seafood city, HMart, like all these different types of grocery stores, just kind of mean a lot to me.

In addition to the bus, Sun's artwork will also be featured on a collectible pronto card available for purchase through MTS.

Julia Dixon Evans, Kpbs news.

For more arts and culture coverage, check out our new podcast, The Finest.

A new episode is out today, and every Thursday you can listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you so much for joining us, everyone.

I'm John Carroll.

Have a great evening.

Major funding for Kpbs Evening Edition has been made possible in part by Bill Howe, family of companies providing San Diego with plumbing, heating and air restoration, flood and remodeling services for over 40 years.

Call one 800 Bill Howe or visit Bill howe.com.

And by the Conrad Prebys Foundation.

Darlene Marco Shiley.

And by the following.

And by viewers like you.

Thank you.