News Wrap: California seeks to rename César Chavez Day following sexual abuse revelation

We start the day's other headlines in California where lawmakers are trying to rename Caesar

Chavez Day following explosive allegations that the late labor leaders sexually assaulted

women and girls decades ago.

Governor Gavin Newsom is backing a proposal to rename the March 31st holiday as Farm

Workers Day.

It follows Washington State's governor, Bob Ferguson, saying he won't issue a proclamation

honoring Chavez this year.

There are also canceled celebrations in Texas and in Chavez' home state of Arizona.

The fallout comes after the New York Times first reported about his history of sexual

abuse and assault yesterday that includes Dolores Suerta, the civil rights leader and co-founder

of his union who says Chavez raped her back in the 1960s.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is the latest official to warn that small airports

in the U.S. may have to close if the partial government shutdown continues.

It comes, as the TSA says, that about 10 percent of its airport security officers failed

to show up to work yesterday, the agency employs some 50,000 such workers.

And Duffy says things will only get worse if and when those workers miss another paycheck

next week.

Such absences have led to long lines at airports across the country with little warning

for travelers, and that's led to confusion and frustration.

It was $3,045 minutes, so missed our flights, we're stuck, trying to figure out what are

we going to do now, trying to get another flight to our refugees there, but we're not.

I had the plan to come here early and I showed up four hours early and the line looked like

this.

Maybe I didn't have to.

The delays come as a record number of air travelers are expected this spring with an industry

group saying more than 170 million people will take to the skies this March and April.

A small community in Southern California has tied the record for the highest temperature

ever recorded in the U.S. in the month of March, and forecasters say other places could

get even hotter in the coming days.

North Shore, California, which is outside of Palm Springs, reached 108 degrees on Wednesday.

Only Rio Grande City and Texas has gotten that hot this early, and that was more than 70

years ago.

The National Weather Service says Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Palm Springs also tied

or topped their own March temperature records, and they expect this summer like heatwave

to last through early next week.

Two dozen Democratic-led states are suing the Trump administration over its decision to

repeal a scientific finding that had been central to the fight against climate change.

The states, along with about a dozen cities and counties, say the EPA acted illegally

when it rescinded what's called the endangerment finding.

That conclusion formed the legal basis to regulate emissions from cars, power plants, and

other sources.

New York Attorney General Latisha James, who is helping lead the suit, said quote, instead

of helping Americans face our new reality, the Trump administration has chosen denial.

An EPA spokeswoman dismissed the lawsuit, saying its, in her words, clearly motivated by

politics.

An immigration judge denied the asylum claim of the family of Liam Conejo Ramos today.

He's the five-year-old boy photographed in a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack,

as he was detained with his father earlier this year.

A family lawyer said the judge ordered that they be deported to Ecuador.

The boy and his father were held at a Texas detention center after being taken into custody

in a Minneapolis suburb back in January.

A judge ordered them released ten days later.

His case fueled an outcry over the administration's immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

The family's lawyers are appealing the ruling.

In Wall Street today, stocks struggled following the latest spike in oil prices.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost around 200 points on the day.

The Nasdaq fell roughly 60 points.

The S&P 500 continued its downward trend, shedding nearly 20 points.

And once again, the Finns have cracked the code of contentment.

The 2026 World Happiness Report ranked Finland as the happiest country for the ninth year

in a row.

Nordic countries, Iceland and Denmark, rounded out the top three, with Costa Rica in fourth

place that's the highest ranking ever for a Latin American country.

The U.S. landed further down the list in 23rd place, though that's up one spot from last

year.

The findings from the well-being research center at Oxford University were based on a

poll of around 100,000 people across 140 countries who were asked to rate their lives

in a scale of zero to ten.

Well, still to come on the news hour, we speak with Republican Senator Rick Scott about

the war with Iran.

The war creates growing fissures within the MAGA movement.

And we speak with the mother of a U.S. citizen fatally shot by ICE agents in Texas.

This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters

of PBS News.