San Diego is home to Sports Illustrated's 2024 SportsKid of the year.

Why it matters: Arden Pala, a 15-year-old sophomore at Francis Parker School, turned the spark of an idea four years ago into a nonprofit that provides free sports clinics to low-income schools.

How it happened: Pala was volunteering to read to kids at Perkins Elementary when the principal mentioned the Barrio Logan school no longer had a full-time athletics coach.

• Driving back to Rancho Bernardo, he told his mom his idea, and a few weeks later he started offering a weekly after-school basketball clinic for interested students.
• "At the end of year, kids started asking if I was coming back next year," Pala said. "They loved the sports clinic we hosted, and the kids I coached had become a close-knit group of friends."

The big picture: That clinic has grown into Sports4Kids, a nonprofit that has raised over $300,000 to introduce kids to sports.

• Quickly, Pala recognized the size of the void: He contacted 12 other schools with a majority of low-income students, and none of them had after-school athletics either.
• "That's when I realized this could be something," Pala said. "But we had no money and no nonprofit setup."
• He got started with a $1,000 microgrant from Youth Service America, which he used to jump start the program, hiring an adult coach to run practices with him.

What's next: He's now focusing on increasing his budget enough to hire one more coach, enough to offer clinics in eight schools.

• Sports4Kids is also launching a "gear up initiative," collecting sports equipment and donating it to schools and YMCAs.
• Pala is looking for a successor at the nonprofit for when he goes to college in two years.

Fun facts

San Diego is expected to be one of the most competitive real estate markets in the country this year, according to a new report.

Why it matters: Regions that make Zillow's annual "hottest market" ranking are usually those that are "starved for housing inventory," with competition pushing up prices.

Driving the news: San Diego came in as the 19th hottest market for 2025, up 10 spots from a year earlier.

• Zillow projects Riverside, which often operates as a release valve for San Diego's affordability crisis, as the 22nd hottest market.

How it works: Zillow's index reflects forecasted home value appreciation, how long homes sit on the market and expected changes in the share of owner-occupied homes.

• It also reflects whether home building has kept up with growth, by comparing new jobs to new housing permits over the last two years.

The intrigue: While making the "hottest market" list sounds like a compliment, a competitive housing market isn't good news for affordability.

• Decades of sluggish homebuilding has put San Diego in a severe housing shortage, but there were small signs last year that prices were declining and affordability was increasing.

How it works

🏄🏼‍♂️ Mike Hynson, the rebellious local surf legend who starred in "The Endless Summer," has died in Encinitas at age 82. (SURF Magazine)

😷 Local jails with "filthy" and "deplorable" conditions don't meet minimum environmental health and safety standards, according to an expert hired by attorneys suing the county and Sheriff's Office. The report was made public as part of a class-action lawsuit to force reforms. (Union-Tribune)

🛣️ SANDAG, the region's powerful transportation planning agency, elected Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner as its new chair Friday. (KPBS)

The years-long effort to restore the beloved SALT tax deduction is gaining traction, as Republicans push to get "one big beautiful" tax bill passed.

Why it matters: This would be an expensive deficit-expanding tax cut for folks in blue states that are relatively well-to-do.

• Giving them a break while cutting benefits to lower-income Americans, also under discussion, could be politically difficult to explain.

By the numbers: Only about 4 million people would be able to take advantage of the state and local tax deduction, or SALT, if it were doubled for married couples as is under consideration, per an analysis from the Tax Policy Center.

• 94% of the benefits of doubling the deduction would flow to households earning more than $200,000 a year, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
• It could cost $4.1 trillion over the next decade.

Zoom in: In San Diego County, 20% of households make above $200,000, per 2023 census data.

• About 30% of married-couple families meet that income threshold.

Meanwhile, many Americans could see higher paychecks and lower income taxes with new tax brackets, standard deductions and 401k contribution limits now in effect.

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Go see some live music this week. It'll make you feel better. We promise.

Here are five great shows on tap this week:

🪕 Railroad Earth brings sharp songwriting and improvisational bluegrass to Belly Up on Wednesday.

• 🎶 "Long Way to Go"

🎸 Futurebirds, an Athens-based southern rock band that's a little country and a little jammy, hit Belly Up on Thursday.

• 🎶 "Easy Company," feat. Waxahatchee

🎙️ Lee Fields and Monophonics, playing Observatory on Friday, are exactly as soulful as you'd expect of a man dubbed "little Jame Brown."

• 🎶 "You Can Count on Me"

🥁 Alex Kautz Quartet concludes the fall jazz concert series at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library on Thursday.

• 🎶 "Interiores"

🎛️ Auz Fontaine is joined by standout San Diego rapper Ric Scales as part the local duo's Monday-night residency at Soda Bar.

• 🎶 "Yew Gaht Me," by Ric Scales, 18scales and Chuck M00n

More upcoming shows