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It’s the most popular park in Monterey County, but Toro Park, which was under a partial shutdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now closed to all visitors indefinitely due to extensive damage from the River Fire. The park, which measures more than 5,500 acres in size, saw as many as 4,000 acres burned from the fire. Its extensive maze of hiking, biking and equestrian trails have been damaged. Advertisement “A vast majority, 80-90% of the trail network was destroyed, so it's a lot of environmental damage,” said Brian Lopes, operations manager for Monterey county parks. Thursday morning, Lopes led...

They are practicing social distancing and are open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. – 6p.m. See video.

Deputies tracked the stolen horse to Sanborn Road in Salinas A rare arrest for horse theft was made in Monterey County. According to the Monterey County Sheriff's department, they received a report of a stolen horse Friday night. 41-year-old Thomas Alvarez was found with the stolen horse. He was arrested and booked on charges of grand theft. His bail was set at $10,000. The horse was returned to the rightful owner.

A member of the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office said the Salinas store was warned they were in violation of CALIFORNIA BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS CODE 17200 The Monterey County District Attorney's Office is putting another Central Coast business on notice for potentially violating the county's shelter-in-place order. The DA's office warned Hobby Lobby in Salinas that they were in violation of California Business and Professions Code 17200: "As used in this chapter, unfair competition shall mean and include any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising." A representative of the DA's office...

On Wednesday the Monterey County District Attorney's Office filed criminal charges against the owner of the Tuck Box restaurant in Carmel for defying California's stay-at -home-order. Tuck Box owner Jeffrey LeTowt said he has no plans to close his business and on Thursday he was still seating and serving guests. Advertisement "I'm still going to stay open, if you want to send a SWAT team and come and cuff me, come on and do it," said LeTowt. LeTowt closed his doors when Monterey County issued its shelte-in-place-order in March. He estimates he lost about $60,000 in revenue following the order....

In a letter to Salinas' Mayor Joe Gunter and the Salinas City Council, Salinas League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) described a video from council member Tony Villegas as "disturbing and racist". LULAC, which is the largest and oldest Hispanic Organization in the country, described an incident that took place Friday on Facebook in the letter. "Mr. Villegas was videotaped demeaning a group of Latino Salinas residents wherein he made racially charged remarks on Facebook Live: 'I guess it’s taco time,'" said the letter. LULAC asked for the mayor and the city to formally discipline Villegas with a public...

Former President Barack Obama is expected to be in Monterey Wednesday to attend a private AT&T leadership conference on the Monterey Peninsula. Many celebrities and professional golfers are in town this week because of the 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am. Advertisement Details surrounding Obama's Central Coast visit are very hush-hush. Local Monterey police officers said they have not even been briefed on the visit. It's unclear when the 44th President of the United States' plane is scheduled to arrive. High profile dignitaries often land at the Monterey Jet Center. The Monterey County Sheriff's bomb squad worked with Secret Service...

Ben Laboy considers himself a very lucky diver. It was only his 30th dive (not a huge number in the scuba diving community) when a gray whale came so close, Laboy felt he could reach out and touch it. Not only that, but he says he's not much of a photographer and it was his first time using the GoPro camera he used to capture the encounter. "I'm glad the footage turned out so other people would believe us," Laboy, an energy engineer in San Francisco, said. "It's awesome being able to relive it over and over again and be...

SALINAS, Calif. — Monterey County Sheriff Steve Bernal announced Monday that he will no longer allow a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent to have a desk in the Monterey County Jail. A new California law going into effect January 1, 2018, SB54, declares California as a "sanctuary state." Bernal said his decision to remove the ICE agent's desk was a result of complying with SB54, as well as consulting with several stakeholders who advocate for immigrants' rights on the Central Coast. An ICE agent was given a desk at the Monterey County Jail two years ago, shortly after Bernal...

Hikers reported seeing a black bear at Jacks Peak Park in Monterey on Monday. Monterey County's parks department issued a public warning about the bear. Park rangers tried to find the bear, but were unable to locate it Monday afternoon. County spokeswoman Maia Carroll said the warning was issued to park visitors out of an abundance of caution. "Jacks Peak is quite wild. You have to know you're among nature," Carroll said. The park's peak is the highest point on the Monterey Peninsula.

It's something you'll only see in a place like Moss Landing. A recently-recorded video shows a female sea otter hopping across the road in a crosswalk that is clearly marked as "Sea Otter Xing." The sea otter crosswalk and traffic speed bump was built across Moss Landing Road in the winter of 2016 because a beloved otter, Mr. Enchilada, was run over by a car. The sea otter's death was witnessed by harbor workers and saddened locals. But would sea otters would actually know to use their new special crosswalk? Thanks to volunteers and employees with Sea Otter Savvy, the...

The cross that seemed to go up late Friday or early Saturday morning at Del Monte Beach has city of Monterey officials scratching their heads as to who put it there and what to do about it. The cross, which is made out of metal and rests on a concrete base, is on city property located next to the bike path just south of Monterey Tides Hotel. It’s the spot where a redwood cross that was taken down by vandals in 2009, was located.

A Monterey OB-GYN was convicted Monday of stalking her estranged husband and the woman she accused of having an affair with him. Dr. Mary Kay Brewster, 58, of Salinas was convicted after a two-week trial on two felony stalking counts, one felony vandalism count and one misdemeanor trespassing count. According to a news release from the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, Brewster began stalking her husband after they separated when she accused him of infidelity. She harassed him by entering his workplace and destroying property, sending thousands of harassing and profane text messages, calling his cellphone throughout the night and...

Public officials are reminding animal owners to vaccinate their pets in the wake of a confirmed rabies case. A cat in the city of Monterey that became aggressive and later died was confirmed by health authorities to have been infected with rabies, only the second laboratory-confirmed case in at least 30 years. It’s difficult to determine how animals get rabies, and health officials are now focused on the health of the family where the animal lived, Monterey County Health Officer Edward Moreno said. “Our priority when we find an animal that has rabies is to identify humans that may have...

The US energy world was rocked yesterday by a new Energy Information Agency report that significantly cut the projection of recoverable oil from the massive Monterey Shale formation in California. That’s “cut” as in chopped, shredded, and mashed to a bloody pulp. How bad is the damage? Well, just a few years ago in 2011 the projection was for 13.7 billion barrels, and yesterday’s update brought it down to about 600 million. That’s a 96 percent drop for those of you keeping score at home. How’d the Monterey formation go from boom to bust in just three years? Just a...

The great hype surrounding the advent of a shale gas bonanza in California may turn out to be just that: hype. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) - the statistical arm of the Department of Energy - has downgraded its estimate of the total amount of recoverable oil in the Monterey Shale by a whopping 96 percent. Its previous estimate pegged the recoverable resource in California's shale formation at 13.7 billion barrels but it now only thinks that there are 600 million barrels available. The estimate is expected to be made public in June. The sharply downgraded numbers come amid...

Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California's vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national "black gold mine" of petroleum. Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled layers of subterranean rock spread across much of Central California, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. The new estimate, expected to be released publicly next month, is a blow to the nation's oil future and to projections that an oil boom would bring as many...

An Air Force captain discovered he was banned from Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California, due to pending charges against him from a previous encounter with a cop who had tried to arrest him for entering his own home. The charges — resisting arrest and obstructing an officer — have infuriated Captain Nicolas Aquino, a first-generation immigrant whose parents came to the United States from Paraguay as political exiles. Last December, an officer paid a visit to Aquino’s Monterey residence. Apparently, a neighbor had seen a man entering Aquino’s home, and reported a possible burglary to the authorities. The...

SHAFTER, Calif. — A bustling city is sprouting on five acres here, carved out of a vast almond grove. Tanker trucks and heavy equipment come and go, a row of office trailers runs the length of the site and an imposing 150-foot drilling rig illuminated by football-field-like lights rises over the trees. It's all been hustled into service to solve a tantalizing riddle: how to tap into the largest oil shale reservoir in the United States. Across the southern San Joaquin Valley, oil exploration sites have popped up in agricultural fields and on government land, driven by the hope that...

There was an important study released by the Post Carbon Institute last week that gives us an insight into how long our great shale oil bonanza —or more likely, bubble— is going to last. As you might suspect, the thrust of the new report is bad news so we are unlikely to ever read much about it in the mainstream media, which continues to tell us about the bright energy-rich future ahead. By now we should all know about the technological wonder of “fracking” that has raised America’s oil production by over 2 million barrels a day (b/d) in the...