Free Republic

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- In case you missed it, basketball great Shaquille O'Neal appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday night. When asked about his thoughts on UFOs, he had a special Central Valley shoutout when he says he saw one in the North Valley in 1997. Advertisement "In Madera, California, and right when we passed the fairground, I could swear I saw a flying saucer come down with all the lights and it was spinning and then it took off," he said. "We all looked at each other and it was like, I know it was a UFO. I don't...

A major construction team on the California bullet train project notified the state rail authority this month that it will not complete a 65-mile section of the future route in Kings County until at least April 14, 2025 — nearly two years after the date that the state included in a business plan adopted Thursday. The additional delay could again boost costs and jeopardize the state’s funding plan to complete a partial operating system between Bakersfield and Merced by 2030. The project’s rising price tag has forced the state to repeatedly scale it back and delay indefinitely a goal to...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority will officially break ground next month in Fresno on construction of its statewide bullet-train route. The Jan. 6 groundbreaking ceremony, announced Friday afternoon, comes about a year and a half after the agency awarded its first construction contract, a $1 billion deal to design and build the first 29-mile section from Madera to the south end of Fresno... ~~snip~~ California voters approved Proposition 1A, a $9.9 billion bond measure to help finance a high-speed rail system, in November 2008. But it wasn’t until the fall of 2010, when the Obama administration and the Federal Railroad...

Official Calls For Riverside, 12 Other Counties To Secede From California Link to Article and Poll New state would have no term limits, part-time legislature July 1, 2011 10:24 AM RIVERSIDE (CBS) — Is the state of California about to go “South”? Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone apparently thinks so, after proposing that the county lead a campaign for as many as 13 Southern California counties to secede from the state. Stone said in a statement late Thursday that Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera, Mariposa and Mono counties should form the new...

"1:48 p.m.: An 82-year-old Madera man was arrested today in connection with the abuse of an 11-year-old girl, the Madera County Sheriff's Department said."

"Lopez was discovered dead in her Madera home by police back in December; she weighed only 35 lbs at the time of her death, and was found covered in bed sores, some so deep they exposed muscle and hip bones."

Gov. Schwarzenegger has angered Legislative Democrats, Republicans and the Department of the Interior by negotiating gaming compacts with Indian tribes to run casinos off reservation land. But with rumors in the Capitol that another major compact deal is imminent, Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, chairman of the Senate Governmental Organization Committee, is trying to stop the new compact before it is introduced. The new gaming deal with the North Fork tribe in Madera County has some powerful proponents-including Las Vegas gaming interests. Among them is Station Casinos, a Nevada gaming company that has a deal to manage the North Fork tribe's...

Narcotics officers stumbled upon a record number of illegal immigrants Friday evening while searching the Madera County home of a man arrested in a drug sting, police said.Fresno police say they found 80 undocumented Mexican immigrants at the home of 38-year-old Jose Esparza, an accused methamphetamine dealer who allegedly sold an undercover officer a half-pound of drugs Friday afternoon.The discovery marked what appears to be the largest immigrant smuggling ring uncovered by the Fresno Police Department, said Sgt. Alex Flores, supervisor of the major narcotics unit..Flores says federal agents needed two large buses to take the immigrants to Fresno, where...