A bill making it easier for water-starved California farmers to convert their land to solar has passed the state Legislature, the Los Angeles Times reports. The legislation "gives farmers and local communities in our most water-constrained regions another option for land that can no longer be productively farmed: use it...
Fresno Is Ranked One of America’s Worst Places to Retire. Will We Even Get the Chance?
I always imagined retirement as the point in my life when there would not be a damn thing on my schedule. Retirement to me when I was younger was when alarms, meetings, and deadlines would disappear, leaving me free to wake up on a random Tuesday morning, decide I wanted...
Can Fresno Unified Get Out of Arax Case? Bob Nelson Deposition Will Likely Not Help
After a Monday settlement conference involving Fresno Unified, trustee Keshia Thomas, and former Bullard football coach Don Arax failed, the district said it is not liable in the defamation case between Arax and Thomas. In a statement to GV Wire, a district spokesperson said it took part in the Monday...
Fresno Unified Expanded Free Swim Lessons. Here’s Why Many Went Unfilled
Soledad Macias never learned to swim. Her family couldn’t afford lessons, and even now, as a mother of five, she didn’t feel safe around water. She didn’t want that for her children. “I always see this tragic news when kids drown,” Macias said. “I’m like ‘No, I want my kids...
Road Tax Proponents Pay Fresno Unified Trustee $15 Grand a Month
As the legal battle over whether the half-cent Measure S transportation tax lands on the November ballot or is delayed until 2028 heads toward a conclusion, an important fact has been largely overlooked. Most of the trauma and drama on this road paved with good intentions easily could have been...
Ag Minimum Wage Bill on Newsom’s Desk. How Did Fresno Politicians Vote?
With California legislators approaching minimum wage hikes industry by industry, Sacramento this year turned its eyes to agriculture. Now, Assembly Bill 2646, which raises the minimum wage of non-U.S. residents authorized to work in the state to $19.75, awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature. Bill author Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, told assemblymembers...
Fresno Unified Calls Field Trips ‘Not Core.’ I Call Them Core Memories
I can still picture myself at about 10 years old, wedged into a school-bus seat next to my childhood best friend, Austin, with both of us so excited that we were probably saying absolutely nothing that made sense. We were bouncing around, watching Fresno pass through the windows, and waiting...
A Thank You to Sen. Caballero From CA Small Businesses and Others
California’s small businesses, nonprofits, healthcare providers and community organizations have a champion in state Sen. Anna Caballero. For years, organizations across California have been caught in a growing wave of litigation under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, or CIPA — a 1967 law written long before websites and modern...
Why So Many Countries Around the World Quietly Root for Iran
I have been stunned by the number of officials from a wide variety of countries who, while hardly favoring Iran or feeling much empathy for the Islamic Republic, have privately expressed to me a huge sigh of relief over Tehran’s success in thwarting US-Israeli aggression. Given that many of these officials...
Where the Teacher Is a Hero
Crystal Barnes teaches high school biology in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and in March she had a student who kept falling asleep in class. Barnes could have scolded the girl, sent her to the principal’s office or simply let her fail. Instead, she asked the student why she was always sleepy....
