SACRAMENTO — A bill approved Tuesday by the California Senate to end bail and replace it with a risk-assessment system is headed to Gov. Jerry Brown, who has indicated he supports it. Senators approved the bill 26-12. It would make California the first state to completely end bail for suspects...
Mollie Tibbetts Found Dead. Father & Step-Mom Live in Fresno.
The daughter of a Fresno couple, whose disappearance five weeks ago in Iowa attracted national attention, has been found dead. And police say the suspect, in custody, confessed to the crime. A man from Mexico living in the U.S. illegally has confessed to kidnapping college student Mollie Tibbetts while she...
Fresno County Crops Eclipse $7 Billion in 2017
It's amazing what a wet year can mean to the Valley's farming economy. The rains of 2017, coming after five years of drought, enabled Fresno County growers, ranchers, and dairymen to eclipse $7 billion in agricultural production last year. It was a record total for the county. Fresno County's total...
Surf's up in California, Where It's Now the Official Sport
LOS ANGELES — "Let's go surfing now, everybody's learning how," the Beach Boys have been telling us in song since 1962. And if you haven't started listening by now — and you live in California — perhaps it's time you did. On Monday surfing became the official sport of California....
Tax Vote Should've Been 50/50 For Parks & Police: Ashjian
It has been said, "Two men look through the same jail cell walls, one sees mud and one sees stars." Certainly, this is the way that I see the Fresno parks sales tax initiative. First, I think some background is in order. At the ultimate fallout of the Great Recession, Fresno's...
Interior Secretary Wants Plan in 15 Days to Boost Water Deliveries
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke issued a memo Friday outlining his expectations that federal officials quickly come up with a plan to increase irrigation deliveries to farmers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. "The time for action is now," Zinke wrote in an Aug. 17 memo that called for action...
Fresno Pastor, a Cambodian Refugee, Pardoned for 1990s Gang Killing
California Gov. Jerry Brown has pardoned three former prisoners facing the threat of deportation to Cambodia, including a Fresno man, Vanna In, who became a youth pastor after serving six years in the 1990s for murdering a rival gang member. "I feel like these things don't happen to guys like...
Feds Pledge to Thin Forests, Work with States to Fight Wildfires
WASHINGTON — As wildfires choke California and other Western states, the Trump administration pledged Thursday to work more closely with state and local officials, including to those in California, to prevent wildfires from starting. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the Forest Service and other agencies will step up efforts to...
California Lawmakers Consider Proposal to Eliminate Bail
SACRAMENTO — California would be the first state to completely end bail for defendants awaiting trial under a proposal unveiled Thursday that would create a new system to instead jail people based on their risk level. The plan calls for most suspects arrested for nonviolent misdemeanors to be released within...
See Record-Breaking Fire Tornado That Killed CA Firefighter
SAN FRANCISCO — In the history of California wildfires, there has never been anything like it: A churning tornado filled with fire, the size of three football fields. An official report describes in chilling detail the intensity of the rare fire phenomenon and how quickly it took the life of...