Category: Health

By Michael Chen / 10News / May 14, 2026

A 16-year-old San Diego teen is on the island of Saipan distributing supplies — many of them donated by ABC 10News viewers — a month after a super typhoon devastated islands near Guam.

Devi Balachandra, a junior at High Tech High International, spoke via Zoom from central Saipan, part of the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Super Typhoon Sinlaku made landfall a month ago, destroying and damaging thousands of homes across the islands. Balachandra, who was born in Saipan, was first interviewed in late April as she helped launch an online fundraiser and donation drive.

OB’s Robb Field plus a number of beach restrooms could close due to the latest proposed budget by Mayor Gloria. The budget process is not over as City Council members must submit their own final budget proposals by Wednesday, May 20, and the council is scheduled to adopt a budget on Tuesday, June 9. It must be adopted by Tuesday, June 30.

Yet, it’s unmistakable.

The Robb Field Recreation Center in Ocean Beach remains a target for potential closure,” reports the Point Loma -OB Monthly (a U-T publication).

“Gloria’s initial proposal last month included a scenario in which 16 rec centers around the city, including Robb Field’s, could be shuttered. Under the new plan, nine recreation centers would fully close, and the Robb Field center remains on the list.”

In addition, Voice of San Diego reports:

At least 33 public restrooms in downtown, Balboa Park and Mission Bay would close under the current plan, according to an Independent Budget Analyst report. These areas, which are heavily trafficked by tourists and locals alike, currently house 66 public restrooms – which means the number would be cut by half. This does not account for additional reductions to restroom access that would result from proposed cuts to libraries and recreation centers.

By David Hogan / East County Magazine / May 13, 2026

Conservation groups have sent a letter to officials at the Cleveland National Forest opposing the proposed Laguna Mountains Forest Restoration Project.

The groups condemn the Forest Service’s so-called “restoration” plan to log trees, bulldoze and burn natural chaparral shrublands, and spray herbicide across more than 13,000 acres of scenic mountains near San Diego.

This project is pure Orwellian doublespeak.

It’s not forest “restoration” if you use bulldozers, masticators, chainsaws, herbicides, and fire to beat the environment into conditions that never existed in the first place. National Forest land belongs to everyone and shouldn’t be sacrificed to private companies that stand to massively profit from destroying delicate mountain environments.

By City News Service – KPBS / May 13, 2026

Trial began Tuesday, May 12, in the lawsuit brought by a collection of homeowners who are challenging San Diego’s trash collection fee.

The homeowners sued the city following the passage of Measure B, which ended free trash pickup services for single-family homes. The plaintiffs allege the fees violate Proposition 218, a state ballot measure that holds utility fees cannot exceed the costs of providing those services.

Former San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre, one of the attorneys representing the homeowners, said in his opening statements on Tuesday afternoon that while voters approved a monthly fee of between $23 and $29, the San Diego City Council approved imposing a nearly $44 monthly fee.

Aguirre also said the city used an incorrect estimate for the number of customers that would be paying the fee, resulting in higher monthly costs than expected for homeowners.

by Scott Hopkins / Times of San Diego /  May 11, 2026

Imagine this: It’s a hot August day in 2029 at Ocean Beach. The 72-degree water is filled with swimmers. Lifeguards perched inside the Santa Monica St. tower spot a distant swimmer, waving their arms in a frantic call for help.

A lifeguard rushes out of the tower to assist the swimmer, grabbing a float tank and fins before running to the water.

Before the lifeguard has a chance to put their fins on, a drone rises above the tower and propels straight for the drowning swimmer. Once overhead, the drone releases a flotation device, which the panicked swimmer immediately grabs onto. Meanwhile, the lifeguard dispatched is still swimming out through the breakers to the rescue.

Soon, this type of rescue could become a reality, that is, if three Point Loma High senior engineering students have their way.

High school students Noa McKinney, Elyjah Rodrigues, and Peter DeSalvo are now hard at work developing a working drone model as part of their senior project, under the tutelage of teacher J. Michael Tritchler.

By JP Theberge

The Harmony Grove Village South saga has a new chapter, and this one is playing out in Sacramento, behind closed doors.

A Colorado billionaire is using the California state legislature to get what he’s been unable to get in court.

SB 1256, authored by San Diego-based Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R), would kill a pending wildfire safety lawsuit against the Harmony Grove Village South (HGVS) project near Escondido, and the bill’s sole listed supporter is RCS Harmony Partners, the entity owned by Marcel Arsenault, the Colorado-based developer behind the project.

Editordude: Below is an unsolicited rebuttal to Kate Callen’s post on “Framing the news about bicycling” from Paul LeBlanc, a resident of PB.

By Paul LeBlanc

I read with interest Kate Callen’s recent opinion piece on bicycling and media coverage, entitled, “Framing the News About Bicycling? Let’s Try ‘Safety First,” but I respectfully disagree with its central premise.

The author contends that, rather than “lecturing reporters on how to do our jobs,” attention should be directed toward instructing cyclists to safeguard their own lives. That framing invites a more fundamental question: are journalists not themselves subject to critique? Thoughtful scrutiny of language and framing is not an affront to journalism; it is one of its necessary companions. Reporting, particularly on matters of public safety, carries an obligation to be precise, neutral, and grounded in evidence. To question how incidents are described is not to lecture, but to engage.

By Kate Callen

Shortly before 12 noon on May 4, I nearly killed a bicyclist.

After I made a full stop at the 30th & Upas four-way stop sign, I stepped on the accelerator to start moving through the intersection. Within seconds, a speeding cyclist ran the stop sign meant for him and flew past the front of my car.

If I hadn’t slammed on the brakes, I would have crashed into him, and it’s doubtful he would have survived. News stories would have accurately reported that I hit him. Biking activists would have vilified me as a murderer.

This awful scenario happens all too frequently in neighborhoods across San Diego because too many cyclists think stop signs and stoplights are a nuisance.

They will literally bet their lives that they can frighten motorists into giving them the right-of-way that the law doesn’t grant them. If they lose the bet, motorists who obeyed the law can still face criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits.

Bicycling activists often talk about “bike safety.” For them, the term seems to mean that drivers should always be deferential to the needs of cyclists.

Evan M. Anderson, 25, was the driver who pulled into a vacant parking spot in Ocean Beach, and in the process caused the death of Tracy Condon, 59, who was sitting on the curb at Santa Monica Avenue near Sunset Cliffs Boulevard around 5 p.m. that November 4th. Condon at the time was experiencing homelessness.

Anderson immediately left his 2002 Toyota Tundra truck at the scene and fled on foot. Police arrested him when he later returned to the scene to get his truck.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Marian Gaston, during the April 20 sentencing of Anderson, sentenced him to 270 days in a work furlough project for the hit and run. She also placed the defendant on two years’ probation and ordered him to pay a fine of around $1,000.

Anderson had earlier pleaded guilty to felony hit and run and possession of laughing gas.

By Dave Myers / Times of San Diego / April 23, 2026

For more than a decade, warnings about deaths inside San Diego County jails have come from every direction. Families have spoken out. Journalists have documented patterns that should have triggered reform. Disability Rights California raised concerns. The California State Auditor identified systemic failures. I have written about it for years.

What was missing, we were told, was definitive proof.

That proof now exists. Independent statisticians, commissioned by the county’s own oversight body, have completed the most rigorous outside study ever conducted on in-custody deaths in San Diego County. Their findings do not introduce a new story. They confirm, with data and analysis, what has already been seen and too often dismissed.

The study examined 179 deaths over more than 12 years. More than half occurred at a single facility: San Diego Central Jail.

From PBS / April 23, 2026

President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government.

The order signed by Todd Blanche does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under federal law. But it does change the way it’s regulated, shifting licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. It also gives licensed medical marijuana operators a major tax break and eases some barriers to researching cannabis.

The Trump administration also said it was jump-starting the process for reclassifying marijuana more broadly, setting a hearing to begin in late June.

SB-958 Was Offered by Calif. Senator Weber Pierson to Allow CEQA Exemptions for Midway Rising

By Katheryn Rhodes 

SB-958. California Environmental Quality Act:

“This bill would, for purposes of CEQA, prohibit the environmental impacts that are associated with increased building height alone from being considered significant impacts on the environment, if a project meets specified conditions, as provided. Because a lead agency would be required to determine if a project meets the specified conditions, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program…”

“SECTION 1. Section 21081.5 is added to the Public Resources Code, to read: 21081.5.

a) For purposes of this division, the environmental impacts of a project that are associated with increased building height alone, including, but not limited to, air circulation, noise and light refraction or reflection, the potential to attract wildlife, or geotechnical or hydrological effects, shall not be considered significant impacts on the environment if the project meets all of the following conditions: