Gavin Newsom is fond of making grandiloquent, headline-grabbing gestures couched in moralistic terms. His tendency first surfaced in 2004 when, as the newly elected mayor of San Francisco, he directed officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of a state law passed by California voters just a...
Newsom’s Order Is Reprieve for Fresno’s Worst Mass Killer
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed placing a moratorium on executions in the state Wednesday. Here are some notable inmates out of the 737 people on the nation's largest death row: — Marcus D. Wesson. Now 70 years old, Fresno's worst mass murderer horrified the nation and the world when he...
Valley House Delegation Joins in Omar-less Anti-Hate Vote
The Central Valley congressional delegation all supported a House resolution Thursday (March 7) condemning hate — anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and just about all other forms. That put the likes of House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and TJ Cox (D-Fresno) in step with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota). Approval came strongly on...
Walters: Is San Joaquin Valley California's Poor Stepchild?
Technically, California’s San Joaquin Valley – the drainage plain of the San Joaquin River – begins a few miles south of Sacramento and ends a few miles south of Fresno. However, in political and economic terms, it stretches even further south to the Tehachapi Mountains, south of Bakersfield. The 300-mile-long...
Walters: Has Newsom Become Governor Gaslight?
“Gaslight” was a 1938 British play, set in the 1880s, about a man who manipulates his wife into believing she is going insane to suppress her suspicions about crimes he is committing. Two years later, it became a British movie and in 1944 an American version, starring Charles Boyer and...
'President' Newsom Visits Valley School With Unsafe Water to Sign 1st Bill
Gerard Lyons didn’t quite know what was going on. The 8-year old Riverview Elementary second-grader normally would be heading home on a Wednesday early release schedule. Instead, he sat in a classroom, full of news cameras in the back and important-looking people crowding the door. Gerard and his friend Owen...
AP Fact Check: Newsom Wrong on Illegal Border Crossings
SAN DIEGO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom devoted part of his first State of the State address to attacking President Donald Trump's positions on illegal immigration, declaring, "This border emergency is nothing more than a manufactured crisis and California will not be part of this political theater." His rhetoric in...
Walters: Newsom Downgrades Brown's Pet Projects
When Gavin Newsom was running for governor last year, he adopted “courage for a change” as his slogan. It could be – and was – interpreted two ways: that he wanted to change the direction of California, or that he was disparaging outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown’s reluctance to confront the...
In His Own Words: Gov. Newsom's First State of the State Address
SACRAMENTO — Governor Gavin Newsom delivered his first State of the State address before a joint session of the California Legislature on Tuesday, Feb. 12. Below is the text as prepared for delivery, with headlines and pull-outs added for reading clarity: Mr. Speaker, thank you for being a champion for all...
Newsom: Bullet Train Will Only Go Through Valley
SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday he's abandoning a plan to build a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a project with an estimated cost that has ballooned to $77 billion. "Let's be real," Newsom said in his first State of the State address. "The...