Senator calls on Pentagon to pause its contract with Oceanside credit union

Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Thursday, May 8th.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling on the Pentagon to pause its contract with a local credit union.

More on why next. But first... the headlines….

Qualcomm is ending its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

An internal email from CEO Cristiano Amon last week announced the change.

In the email, Amon explained the move is meant to comply with new regulatory requirements from the Trump administration.

He wrote that the company’s principles and values remain the same and that employees will be treated fairly.

Long seen as a way to prevent racial discrimination, the administration says DEI programs are themselves discriminatory.

The city of San Diego is losing millions of dollars a year undercharging private trash haulers.

That’s according to a new city audit.

One reason is the city hasn’t increased the fees it charges to haulers to match inflation.

The audit also says the city is behind on recycling goals established by its Climate Action Plan.

As of last year, the recycling rate was 68 percent.

The auditor recommends the city increase its hauler fees and create incentives for those haulers to boost recycling.

A new UC San Diego study found the virus that causes COVID-19 originated and spread similarly to SARS in 2002.

Researchers found precursors of the virus originated in horseshoe bats in western China and Laos five to seven years before the first COVID-19 cases in humans? in Wuhan.

Researchers have long agreed SARS started in bats, then spread to other animals that spread it to humans.

UC San Diego’s researchers say they’ve shown COVID-19 started and spread the same way.

The findings dispute the theory that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab.

From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.

Stay with me for more of the local news you need.

U.S. SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN IS CALLING ON THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TO PAUSE A CONTRACT WITH AN OCEANSIDE-BASED CREDIT UNION. INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER SCOTT RODD SAYS THE CREDIT UNION COLLECTS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN OVERDRAFT FEES EVERY YEAR FROM MARINES.

Frontwave Credit Union has an exclusive agreement with the Marine Corps. Tens of thousands of Marine recruits come through San Diego for boot camp every year. The Marine Corps funnels many of them into Frontwave to set up checking accounts and process their paychecks. A KPBS investigation last year revealed Frontwave relies on overdraft fees from these young Marines as a key source of revenue. Members of Congress launched an investigation into the company’s practices following our reporting. Senator Warren is leading the effort. Here’s what the Democratic lawmaker told KPBS last year. WARREN-1 “We were concerned that young Marine recruits are just plain being cheated.” Frontwave’s contract with the Marine Corps is now up for renewal. Warren sent a letter to the DoD this week…calling for a freeze on the contract until better financial protections can be put in place for Marine recruits. The DoD declined to comment. Frontwave did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Scott Rodd, KPBS News

FACULTY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO ARE ON STRIKE AGAIN TODAY [Wed and Thurs]. EDUCATION REPORTER KATIE ANASTAS SAYS THEY’RE CALLING ON THE UNIVERSITY TO BARGAIN OVER CUTTING COURSES.

Adjunct faculty in USD’s College of Arts and Sciences voted to unionize last summer. They’ve been negotiating a contract since September. Along with salary increases and benefits, the union is calling for compensation if courses are cancelled shortly before the semester starts.  Sociology professor Jessica White says it could give faculty like her more stability. She teaches four classes at USD and three at a community college. It's not easy. But as a single person supporting myself in San Diego in a system that doesn't give me guaranteed work, I essentially am afraid to say no to anything that's offered to me. University spokesperson Elena Gomez says the union’s demands would equal a significant increase to undergraduate tuition. Katie Anastas, KPBS News.

PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTS A BABY BOOM! AND HE’S MULLING OVER WAYS TO INDUCE WOMEN TO PROCREATE, INCLUDING PROMISES OF CASH UPON DELIVERY. I SPOKE WITH REPORTER AMITA SHARMA WHO SAYS MANY BELIEVE THE TIMES ARE FAR FROM IDEAL FOR WOMEN TO GIVE BIRTH….

Q. Why does President Trump want women to have children? Put simply, the United States doesn’t have enough kids. Birth rates are low. They are around 1.6 per woman, which is really below replacement levels. You need 2.1 just to break even. And what’s obvious is children are vital because they are our future taxpayers… our society depends on them to pay for public education, the social safety net, roads and bridges. You get the idea. So to boost birth rates, the Trump Administration is considering offering some incentives. They include setting aside 30 percent of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have kids. funding reproductive education AND giving $5,000 to a woman after she delivers. I spoke with a woman by the name of Parrish Glass. She’s a mother of two young children. She says those ideas are insulting.  It's a joke. I mean it's silly. $5000 to anybody that's already had a child knows that that is chump change when it comes to getting the supplies that you need, You know, bassinet, crib, diapers, And then once the child gets here, you have all of these expenses like childcare.” Q. How much does childcare cost in San Diego County? It really depends on the age of the child. The cost ranges from $1,200 a month to even above $4,000. And you know there’s other pressure on potential parents. They have to start their careers. They have to pay off huge student loans. They have to  meet someone to start a family with and buy a home for a stratospheric price, at least in California…which usually requires two incomes. Courtney Baltiskyy of the Children's First Collective – which pushes for better access to affordable child care, says Trump needs a full pro-family agenda to boost birth rates. 1:51: As an advocate for children and with working families, you know, I don't see comprehensive public funding for childcare. 2:02: I don't see enough public funding for our education systems, and I don't see a commitment to paid family leave.” Q. Are finances the only reason women are having fewer children? A.No. A survey by the Pew Research Center last year found just over half of women have zero desire to have kids. Some don’t like them.  Many are worried though about climate change. They’re worried about the state of the world. And UC Davis Law Professor Mary Ziegler, who specializes in the politics of reproduction, says in states where abortion is illegal or restricted, it’s dangerous for a woman to be pregnant. “Because there's ambiguity in the meaning of abortion that complicates not just access to abortion for people who are seeking it, but access to miscarriage management and stillbirth management for people with pregnancy complications.” Pro-natalists-the people who want women to have more babies -  overlap with pro-choice opponents  in really curious ways. Ziegler says GOP-led Idaho, Missouri and Kansas, have actually argued in court papers that internet savvy teenage girls’ ability to obtain abortion medication online is harming the states because it’s reducing their birth rates. “Which is a really weird thing to say because one of the kind of points of bipartisan consensus for a long time, even among people who are generally pro-natalist, was that teenagers shouldn't be having babies.” And one more point…you know…among some on the right, there is explicit talk of trying to get more native-born Americans to have kids so as not to be replaced by immigrants’ children. And at a natalist conference in Texas in March, there were eugenics proponents who want a society “with more suitable races or blood” over “less suitable races.”

PLANS FOR A 150 BED DETOX FACILITY ARE SPARKING DEBATE IN SAN MARCOS… BECAUSE OF ITS PROPOSED SITE. SOME RESIDENTS WANT THE CITY TO FIND ANOTHER PLACE FOR IT. BUT NORTH COUNTY REPORTER TANIA THORNE SAYS A STATE INITIATIVE MAY BE IN THE WAY.

The proposed site is near Palomar College, San Marcos Middle School, and the Montessori School of San Marcos.  Steven Messinger is one of the owners of the Montessori school. “Probably the top concern of ours is the safety of the students. What some of the students are going to see and witness as they come and go. What's with the this being such a facility adjacent? It's sharing a parking lot, sharing entrances to the preschool.”  The Montessori School is on the property of United Methodist Church… which is where the detox center would be built.  The church partnered with Interfaith Community Services, They would build and operate the center… if they get grant funding through California’s Proposition 1, which voters passed last year to fund behavioral health treatment facilities. Greg Anglea is the CEO of Interfaith. “If we're fortunate to receive funding, then we'll enter into, deeper community engagement, cycle. and, construction won't begin until next year. The site at the earliest it would open would actually be 2028.” Some residents want the city to find a different site… but city leaders say Prop 1 does not allow local control. But all of this depends on whether Interfaith gets the grant… that’s -expected to be announced later this month or in June. Tania Thorne KPBS News

IT’S SURPRISING TO SOME, BUT LA JOLLA IS NOT ITS OWN CITY. VOICE OF SAN DIEGO CEO SCOTT LEWIS HAS AN UPDATE ON AN EFFORT TO CHANGE THAT.

The fight for La Jolla’s independence is officially on. And just like many historic revolutions, it’s starting with the exchange of stern letters…but these ones even have footnotes. This all has to do with a government agency with a long name:the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission or LAFCO. And it recently issued a surprising decision. It decided the group that wants to make La Jolla its own city collected enough signatures to start the process. The registrar of voters had determined too many signatures were invalid but LAFCO said they were fine. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria called LAFCO’s move outrageous and threatened to sue.  He says some of the submissions were illegible and just plain incorrect.  But LAFCO says the signatures  were only missing things like a ZIP code or a person’s name was different from the voter roll by something simple like “Chris” versus “Christopher” Game on.  If the city can’t stop things, LAFCO will begin the long process of negotiating how much money La Jolla would have to pay San Diego to leave. Along with thousands of other big and little decisions.  Then, finally, LAFCO would vote on approving the deal. If they approve it, La Jollans would vote on whether to leave. If they vote yes, then all of San Diego will vote.  It will take 100 years but we’ll follow it every step of the way. I’m Scott Lewis, from the Voice of San Diego and that’s why it matters.

IN ONE SAN DIEGO NEIGHBORHOOD… A SET OF “SECRET STAIRS” WERE A PLACE OF ART, HISTORY, AND GATHERING…UNTIL LAST YEAR’S FLOODS LEFT THEM IN DISREPAIR. REPORTER KATERINA PORTELA SAYS NEIGHBORS ORGANIZED A CLEAN-UP. YET THE FLOOD’S IMPACTS REMAIN.

In a pocket of Southeast San Diego lies a quiet neighborhood called Valencia Park. Nestled within is something that many miss– The Secret Stairs. According to neighbors’ oral history, it began decades ago as a dirt trail. But in varying local legends, it became a symbol of young love. In the story, a man walked along the trail every day after work, picking poppies to bring to his wife.Eventually, stairs were built … and they became well-used by the community, known as the Valencia Park Secret Stairs. I used to walk these stairs to go to Morris High School. Rather than going around this way, I would take here and sometimes shoot up this way. Barry Pollard is a longtime resident and head of the Urban Collaborative Project … a community nonprofit that launched a beautification project for the stairs in 2022. We came one time and just looked and said, This would not look like this if we were in La Jolla. Pollard gathered a team of local artists and community members who painted a mural featuring the legendary poppies. He said it was a powerful way to bring the community together.. They came out, they pitched in. So it was really a good community building effort. Griffin Taylor moved to Valencia Park in 2023. He soon discovered the stairs and made them a treasured feature of his daily walks. But then came the devastating flood that hit the area in January 2024. Neighbors say a river of rain ran through their backyards as street drains clogged up. The force of the water caused fences to collapse and a mudslide onto the stairway. I drove to work the next day, and it was like, destruction. It wasn't just like, Oh, it rained, and there was a little flooding. It was like the fences were falling over. There was debris everywhere. As the neighborhood slowly recovered from the flood, Taylor and others grew increasingly disheartened with the lack of effort on the city’s part to repair the stairs. And so that made me frustrated to think, here I am, in this neighborhood that's historically Black and that has been unattended to, and this community's needs are not being addressed. Community members complained to San Diego City Councilman Henry Foster, who represents Valencia Park. Foster said the ultimate responsibility for the stairs maintenance lies with Mayor Todd Gloria. Gloria spokeswoman Rachel Laing told KPBS that a city community engagement specialist reviewed the complaints. They determined that because the debris came from property along the stairs, it was actually the property owners who were responsible for the cleanup. Residents and others dispute this. They say the city’s failure to keep drains from clogging caused the flood. In late April, Pollard and other local leaders rallied neighbors to use Earth Day as an opportunity to clear debris. A representative from Foster’s office who helped with the cleanup told property owners to reach out to FEMA for further help. Tina Zeidan is one of the property owners. Her fence collapsed onto the stairs during the flood. She reached out to FEMA but her claim was denied. “So then I went to the city and it was like, "Hey, the only reason this happened was because the storm drain was clogged,” and that was April of last year. And now it's a year later and I just heard back saying that they denied the claim with no explanation. She looked into repairing it on her own and was met with staggering costs. The quotes I got were upwards of $150,000 and I was like, well, obviously, we can't just afford that. So, I need help to do that. Especially cause it wasn't our fault, right? Residents and advocates say the stairs are a cautionary tale that speaks to the lack of city maintenance in the area. I feel like it makes our neighborhood look worse than it is. Like, why can't it be maintained and used in a way for public access for everybody to be able to use it, and walk their dogs the way that we used to be able to do, and for exercise or whatever people might want to do? And, you know, we're the parts of the city that actually probably need the most support rather than being overlooked. Thanks to the community’s hard work, the secret stairs are back … for now. Without support from the city, the stairs will continue to depend on the kindness of neighbors. For KPBS, I'm Katerina Portela.

Some of California’s best state parks are right here in San Diego County.

That’s according to a new poll from the California State Parks Foundation.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park was named the best in the state for wildflowers.

And if you want to go on a picnic, the poll says there’s no better park than Torrey Pines State Beach.

Other San Diego state parks earning honorable mentions include Palomar Mountain and Cardiff State Beach.

That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. For your next listen, check out the KPBS Midday Edition podcast. They’ll be talking about the G-I Film Fest and more. . I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.