Free Republic

CLOVIS, Calif. (AP) — It has become a never-ending heartache within the hallways of Buchanan High School: news that another former student has died in Iraq or Afghanistan. Eight former students have been killed in the two wars, including a Marine sergeant who will be laid to rest Saturday after dying Dec. 2 of a head wound in Afghanistan. The community in the heart of California's farm country has become all-too-familiar with the rituals of grief that have followed each death — tearful remembrances, flag-draped coffins, candlelight vigils. The school even built a memorial garden where the names of the...

FRESNO (AP) — The trial has been pushed back for a Central California high school wrestler charged with the sexual battery of an opponent during a practice match. Defense lawyer Stephen Quade told the Fresno Bee that his 17-year-old client is now scheduled to go to trial on Jan. 13 in juvenile court. The trial had been set to start Thursday.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that air quality regulators in California's smog-laden San Joaquin Valley have the right to charge home builders a fee to control their pollution emissions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the local air district's rule requiring developers to reduce emissions from new housing projects by building features like bicycle lanes and energy-efficient cooling systems. If they don't do enough to preserve air quality, they must pay fees that have averaged about $500 per house. The valley, stretching 240 miles from Stockton...

Pedro Ramirez, Fresno State's student body president, is an undocumented immigrant serving in the position without pay. Ramirez, 23, attends school on scholarships and pays in-state tuition. California is one of 10 states that permit undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition -- a position that was upheld by the state Supreme Court this week. After his election last June, he told the administration he would serve without pay -- a $9,000 stipend -- because he could not lie on employment papers. On Tuesday, an anonymous tip to the college newspaper forced Ramirez to go public.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Marilyn Roberts, Deputy Administrator for the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), presented Victor Perez with the AMBER Alert Citizen Award at the National AMBER Alert Symposium in Phoenix, AZ. Victor Perez, of Fresno, CA, responded to an AMBER Alert for an 8-year-old girl who was abducted in a truck from her Fresno home. When Perez saw the truck, he drove his own vehicle in front of it, stopping the driver. The perpetrator pushed the child out of his truck and sped away. The California Highway Patrol...

California's Central Valley To Be First Section Of California's High Speed Rail System The first section will be Merced-to-Fresno or Fresno-to-Bakersfield The bill for the first section will be $4.3 Billion (with "B") and will be a dollar for dollar match with state funds. Trains will travel at speeds of 220 miles per hour, meaning you will get from Merced to Fresno or Fresno to Bakersfield really faaaaast! The trip from Merced to Fresno by car takes 59 minutes. With the new high speed rail system you will be able to make the trip in about 15 minutes - once...

FRESNO, Calif. -- Elections officials in Fresno County say hundreds of thousands of voters are getting ballots that incorrectly describe the ballot measure that would suspend the state's greenhouse gas emissions law. The county's 380,000 voters are being issued ballots that characterize Proposition 23 as requiring "major polluters" to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A Sacramento judge threw out that wording earlier this year, and ordered the language to be changed from "major polluters" to "major sources of emissions."

A new SurveyUSA poll shows Democrat Jim Costa trailing Republican Andy Vidak by 10 points, 42% to 52%. Obama won the Fresno-based district with 60% of the vote in 2008, and Cook Political Report has the race rated "Leans Democrat." An interesting fact from Cook (subscription required): "This district is now 67 percent Hispanic, but it also has a serious cultural conservative streak. Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban passed statewide [in 2008], garnered 72 percent of the vote here." The provision to fund abortion coverage in Obamacare is probably hurting Costa in this district--SurveyUSA reports that 56% of likely...

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - An eight-year-old girl was playing with a friend in the driveway of the apartment complex where she lived with her family earlier this week. Molestation suspect 24-year-old Gregorio Gonzalez lured the older girl with the promise of gifts -- and then forced her into an older rust-colored Chevrolet pickup truck with white stripes.The girl's mother and a neighbor pursued the girl and her abductor in a vehicle chase, but quickly lost them.Authorities issued an Amber Alert, which quickly escalated to a statewide bulletin about a small girl last seen wearing a purple "Winnie the...

FRESNO -- Authorities have issued an Amber Alert for an 8-year-old Fresno girl who was apparently abducted from her front yard while playing with a friend. The California Highway Patrol says Elisa Cardenas was taken around 8:30 p.m. Monday... ...She was last seen wearing blue jeans and a light purple Winnie the Pooh sweat shirt. Fresno police say the suspect is described as a male around 6-feet tall and in his 20s with a shaved head. He was wearing a white tank top and blue jean shorts and driving an older model, reddish brown Ford two-door pickup truck. The vehicle...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman on Tuesday told the San Jose Mercury News editorial board that "Fresno looks like Detroit. It's awful." According to the Mercury News website, Whitman was commenting on Fresno's economic state and the effect of recession on the region, and the former eBay CEO's campaign said as much in a statement released this morning. "It was clear in the interview that Meg was talking about the economic duress in Fresno and the awful pain that results from record high unemployment," Whitman spokesman Andrea Jones Rivera said in an e-mail. "Meg knows that Fresno cannot be left...

Six people are dead and four are in critical condition after an early morning crash of a Greyhound bus Thursday on northbound Highway 99 at McKinley Avenue in Fresno. Two of those dead were men and four were women. The four women were bus passengers and one of the men was the bus driver. The crash occurred just after 2 a.m. California Highway Patrol officer Axel Reyes said the collision was triggered when a Chevrolet Trailblazer overturned in the highway's fast lane and was struck by the bus. The bus, carrying 48 people, then hit a Honda CRV. All three...

Big Mac "The Knife" Foster of Fresno, the son of Mississippi sharecroppers, rose to No. 1 heavyweight contender in 1970 when Americans still ruled boxing and Fresno was a hotbed for the sport. The 6-foot-2 Vietnam veteran with a devastating left hook at one point won 24 straight bouts by knockout and punched it out with Muhammad Ali for 15 rounds in a non-title setback in Tokyo in 1972. On Monday, Mr. Foster died from congestive heart failure. He was 68.

Has Sarah Palin's California visit caused a stir in the Golden State? You betcha! The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee will take the stage tonight at a fundraiser at California State University, Stanislaus. The university was dogged with questions over how much former Alaska governor is being paid to speak at the gala. Officials said that because the event is being put on by a nonprofit foundation associated with the university, the speaking contract is not subject to disclosure under the state public records laws. The push to release the payment details (and the push-back from the university) involved Dumpster...

Fresno, Calif. (AP) -- A struggling public university in California's farm country is preparing to receive Sarah Palin amid fanfare, protests and months of legal wrangling over the former Alaska governor's appearance.

NOTE The following text is a quote: 2 Fresno-area residents indicted for producing fraudulent identity documents FRESNO, Calif. - Two Fresno-area residents have been indicted by a federal grand jury for producing and selling counterfeit immigration and identity documents as a result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Maria Ines Rangel-Lemus, 55, of Strathmore, Calif., and Cesar Perez Sanchez, 38, of Earlimart, Calif., are named in a multiple count indictment charging them with conspiracy, possession, transfer, production, and sale of fraudulent United States immigration and Social Security identification documents. The two, who face a maximum sentence...

Law: A federal judge has struck a blow for California's water-deprived Central Valley, ruling that draconian federal water cutbacks violate human rights because — surprise! — people also belong in the ecosystem. Next time a concept like, say "death panels" from the federal government seems far-fetched, consider the ordeal California's Central Valley has endured for the past two years. Based on a judicial ruling, some of the most prized and productive agricultural land in the country was turned into a wasteland after its water was shut off. The ruling was derived from an 800-page "biological opinion" put out by regulators...

A federal judge ruled Tuesday in favor of Central Valley farmers and urban water agencies seeking to loosen restrictions on pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a major source of irrigation and drinking water for much of California. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno said the federal government did not properly develop a management plan that restricted water exports to protect endangered salmon, steelhead and other fish. The judge scheduled a hearing Wednesday to determine how much water can be exported without harming threatened fish that migrate through the delta to the Pacific Ocean. Groups representing San Joaquin Valley...

Mayor Swearengin Declares Fiscal Emergency, Delivers Plan to Deal with Budget Shortfall 05/03/2010Mayor Ashley Swearengin today declared a fiscal emergency for the City of Fresno and released a proposed fiscal year 2011 budget that offers a three-pronged plan to address the City’s Fresno’s $30.6 million revenue shortfall. Mayor Swearengin said the fiscal emergency declaration, which will be presented to City Council Thursday for approval, is necessary to allow the City to use its emergency reserves to help meet the daunting budget challenges by paying for one-time expenses related to budget cuts. The proposed $213.2 million general fund budget takes...

Frustrated with our government, 4,000 people joined together at Chukchansi Park in downtown Fresno to say enough is enough. "The biggest problem by far is the federal government is too powerful in our lives. They're bossing us around, telling us what we can and can't do. This country was never setup to be like that," said Steve Brandau of the Central Valley Tea Party. "I'm just disgusted with what's happening to our country. Overspending, overtaxing, it's becoming a socialist country," said Saundra Hawkins. Republican Steve Poizner, who is running for governor, believes he's on the same page as everyone who...