By Miriam Raftery

March 20, 2026 (San Diego’s East County) – Upcoming events in our inland region include egg hunts, a bunny bash, and a train ride with the Easter Bunny.  Plus you can enjoy a Spring Garden Festival and Butterfly Release at the Water Conservation Garden,a pow-wow at SDSU, Lakeside’s Western Days Parade and Rodeo, a Lilac Festival in Santa Ysabel, El Cajon’s Arbor Day Celebration, Adams Avenue Unplugged, Sweet Pea Days at Summers Past Farms, wolf center tours in Julian, a piano concert at Cuyamaca College, a health fair at Grossmont Center, county libraries’ Spring Break reading series, and a performance by Journey’s former lead singer in Poway.

Scroll down for these fun and festive happenings.

March 20, 2026 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Federal court blocks Kennedy’s vaccine changes, invalidates vaccine advisory panel (The Hill)
• 10 Surprising Things Not Covered by Medicare and Ways You Can Pay for Them (Newsweek)
• Spanish researchers develop low-cost artificial cornea from fish scales  (Reuters)
• Experts Issue Warning on Ebola-Like Virus That Has Already Reached the US (Newsweek)
• UCSD study: Simple blood test may predict dementia decades early  (KPBS)

SCIENCE AND TECH

• The Planet is Heating Faster Than Ever Before, New Research Shows (Time)
• Hundreds of Millions of iPhones Can Be Hacked With a New Tool Found in the Wild (Wired)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

By Karen Pearlman

East County News Service

Photo via Dolores Huerta’s press office

March 19, 2026 (San Diego) – Dolores Huerto, cofounder of the United Farm Workers Union, has issued a statement on her Facebook page on revelations that she and other women were sexually abused by co-leader Cesar Chavez. 

In her statement, she talks about being pressured and later forced to have sex with Chavez,  why she stayed silent and is now speaking out, the two children by Chavez that she's maintained relationships with, and her renewed commitment to support workers' rights and women's rights.

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Cesar Chavez in 1972, public domain image by Cornelius M. Keyes via National Archives and Records Administration                                          

March 18, 2026 (San Diego) – Latino leaders across the state and nation are expressing shock after a bombshell investigation by the New York Times revealed evidence of sexual abuse against women and girls by  César Chávez , famed cofounder of the United Farmworkers Union and a prominent national leader of the Latino rights movement who died in 1993.

By Rob Okun

March 18, 2026 (San Diego) - With the US feeling to many like it’s spiraling out of control—recklessly piloted by a White House in chaos—NO KINGS on March 28, couldn’t be coming at a better time. It’s a line in the sand.

We are living through a systematic betrayal of the American people. The Trump administration promised everyday costs would drop; instead, our economy is being siphoned away while families choose between heat or eat. We were promised peace; instead, we are embroiled in a war no one voted for. We were told immigration enforcement would target the “worst of the worst”; instead, ICE and Border Patrol are seizing working immigrants from their homes. Even five-year-olds aren’t immune. And then, the unthinkable: US citizens murdered by state actors.

This isn’t a drill. This is an “All Hands on Deck” emergency.

Book by Debbie Wastling

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

March 18, 2026 (San Diego) - Irish Secrets and Lies by Southern California author Debbie Wastling is part of The Sutherland Scandals, a historical series about a family that rises from poverty. In Irish Secrets and Lies, the main character, Martha Lowery, is the daughter of a nonworking alcoholic father and mother whose health is broken from having too many children too often.

Photo courtesy County of San Diego

East County News Service

March 17, 2026 (San Diego County) -- As the marine layer thins and temperatures climb across the region, San Diego’s original residents are beginning to stir.

From the coastal sage scrub of Torrey Pines to the rocky canyons of Mission Trails Regional Park, the Southern Pacific rattlesnake is officially back on the move, the County of San Diego warns.

Rattlesnake season in Southern California typically spans from March through October, but experts warn that the peak "shaking" occurs between April and June.

East County News Service

March 16, 2026 (East County) -- An evening of music, storytelling and community will be the draw in La Mesa later this month.

The Ira Aldridge Repertory Players will be presenting “Sanctified in Swing” starting at 7 p.m., Saturday, March 28 at Spacebar Café & Wine Bistro, 7454 University Ave., in La Mesa. Doors open at 6 p.m., organizers say.

The event will include poems written by Calvin Manson as well as jazz, blues and R&B vocal music by Leslie Green and Roosevelt Carter -- all Lemon Grove residents.

Green will light up the stage with a powerful voice flowing through jazz, blues, and R&B, rich with soul, warmth, and the power to lift every heart. She will be joined by Carter, known for his velvet smooth, rich and warm voice.