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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...

FRESNO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the closures of certain businesses across 19 counties in California Wednesday, in response to the growing daily number of novel coronavirus cases (COVID-19) in recent weeks. Those counties included Fresno, Kern, Kings, Merced and Tulare in the Central Valley. The closures included restaurants, wineries and tasting rooms, movie theaters, family entertainment centers, zoos and museums, cardrooms, and bars. Gov. Newsom's winery and tasting room in Napa Valley remained open as of the July 1, 2020 order.

Jaime Caudillo and Steven Rincon smiled and laughed Monday as a judge sentenced them to serve life sentences in connection with the 2015 shooting of a Merced police officer. Merced Police Officer Ryan Rasmussen read an impact statement, nearly four years and five months after he was shot by the 35-year-old Caudillo during a traffic stop in Merced.

The California college student who stabbed four people last month in a campus spree that ended when he was killed by campus police was described by his roommate as "an extreme Muslim" and carried a manifesto and a photocopy of an ISIS flag -- more than enough to convince John Price he was a terrorist. Yet, more than a month after the Nov. 4 attack at University of California Merced, local and federal authorities continue to insist that Faisal Mohammad, 18, carried out the vicious attack because he'd been banished from a study group. Price, whose son Byron Price, a...

Faculty at the University of California-Merced reportedly held a “teach-in” Monday night to help students better understand the motives of 18-year-old Faisal Mohammad, who earlier this month wounded four people with a hunting knife before being killed by campus police. The conservative college news website The College Fixreported that the teach-in was “conspicuously” devoid of discussions of radical Islam, and instead “delved into topics such as how society’s notions of masculinity pressure men.” Mohammad, a freshman studying computer science at UC Merced, was found to have a printout image of the Islamic State flag alongside a handwritten manifesto with detailed...

A handwritten manifesto carried by a California college student whose stabbing spree Wednesday left four wounded bore names of his targets, a vow "to cut someone's head off" and as many as five reminders to "praise Allah," law enforcement authorities told FoxNews.com, while insisting that neither terrorism nor religion appear to be motives in the attack. In the two-page document found in Faisal Mohammad's pocket by the county coroner, the 18-year-old freshman wrote a numeric list outlining his plans of who he wanted to kill, and how, including beheading and shooting his victims, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke told FoxNews.com...

According to Merced County Sheriff, the document detailed a list of targets and his intentions. The sheriff said the college freshman planned to tie students to their desks and draw police into the classroom where he planned on stabbing a police officer, taking his gun and then using it to shoot students in a dorm. According to the manifesto, Faisal was upset over getting kicked out of a study group and mad at a student. The sheriff also said he praised Allah in his writings.

The UC Merced student who wounded four people in a stabbing spree at the campus has been identified as Faisal Mohammad, a freshman student from Santa Clara. Merced Couty Sheriff Vern Warnke confirmed the identity of the 18-year-old student to the Sun-Star early Thursday.

The student at UC Merced has been identified as Faisal Mohommed

Five students were injured in a stabbing rampage on the Merced campus of the University of California that ended when the suspect was shot dead by campus police, local media reported on Wednesday. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The stabbing took place on Wednesday morning inside the Classroom and Office Building (COB) on the Merced campus, the local WPVI news station reported. University of California Merced issued a warning on Wednesday morning warning students to avoid the campus as there had been at least one stabbing in the COB, the report said. All the stabbing victims remain conscious, the report added. Three...

MERCED (CBS13): Classes have been canceled for the day at UC Merced due to a stabbing on campus. According to tweets from the school, a stabbing was reported at the Classrooms and Office Building on campus just after 8 a.m. Wednesday. Police say the suspect was shot and killed.

MERCED — A suspect stabbed five people on a university campus in central California before police shot and killed him, authorities said Wednesday. Two of the victims attacked at the University of California, Merced, were taken by helicopter to hospitals for treatment, spokeswoman Lorena Anderson said. The three other victims were treated locally, she said. Student Alex Lopez was heading to his class, when he realized something was wrong on campus. “I was listening to a podcast, and there was a break in talking, and I just hear a gunshot,” he said. He said police and first responders flooded the...

A suspect stabbed five people on a university campus in central California Wednesday morning before police shot and killed him, authorities said Wednesday. Two of the victims attacked at the University of California, Merced, were taken by helicopter to hospitals for treatment, spokeswoman Lorena Anderson said. The three other victims were treated locally, she said. Student Alex Lopez was heading to his class, when he realized something was wrong on campus. "I was listening to a podcast, and there was a break in talking, and I just hear a gunshot," he said.

In the summer of 2002, shortly before I was elected to Congress, I sat through an eye-opening meeting with representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council and several local environmental activist groups. Hoping to convince me to support various water restrictions, they argued that San Joaquin Valley farmers should stop growing alfalfa and cotton in order to save water — though they allowed that the planting of high-value crops such as almonds could continue. Then, as our discussion turned to the groups' overall vision for the San Joaquin Valley, they told me something astonishing:

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California on Thursday pulled the plug on secret, high-stakes negotiations over a water bill for her drought-plagued state, saying she and fellow lawmakers will try again next year. Feinstein’s unexpected move ends, for now, what had become an increasingly contentious fight over ambitious drought-fighting legislation whose details few people have seen. “You’ve got to work with people to get something done,” Feinstein said in an interview. “I’m going to put together a first-day bill for the next Congress, and it can go through the regular order.” Right up until Thursday, Feinstein and Republicans...

In Merced, Calif., it is perfectly legal for a police officer to take a critically wounded animal to the police shooting range in order to "humanely destroy" it, reported Wednesday's Merced Sun-Star. Thanks to a decades old penal code, it is legal for officers to transport wounded animals for "humane" disposal at their shooting range. Many animal lovers who are just learning about this practice are shocked that a police officer would transport a wounded animal to their shooting range, rather than to a veterinary clinic, for humane euthanasia or treatment. According to Merced Police Chief Norm Andrade, the practice...

The town is using Google Earth to check on backyard pools. ( Some pools don't have proper permits) And of course that means hefty fines for the owners of the 'illegal pools.'

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION AT http://www.KarlRoveatUCM.comUC-Merced student government leaders are denying the conservative viewpoint on campus. Conservative activist, Mike Fincher, and his club at UC-Merced were working hard to raise funds from their school to host Karl Rove next fall. They submitted the budget to the associated students to pay for Rove's fee. However, the students government president, Juan Carmen, removed their budget request. No other group had their funding removed from the proposed budget. This Tyrant-in-Training Carmen claims this is because he didn't like the fact that Karl Rove's honorarium would take up some of the budget. I wonder...

Help the College Republicans at UC Merced bring Karl Rove to speak on campus. The school has spent well over a million dollars bringing prominent liberals (Michelle Obama, Jimmy Carter, Presidential Candidate for Socialist Party, etc.) to campus, but has failed to invite any conservatives. Our club has submitted a budget proposal requesting funds to get Mr. Rove to speak at UC Merced, however, the proposal has NOT been included in the preliminary budget. Please show your support for the initiative and take a couple minutes to sign the petition. We need as many signatures as possible, so feel free...

An Inconvenient Tax will be shown on April 15th (aka tax day) at UC Merced. It will be held the Bobcat Lair - which is on the very first floor of the library. The event will begin at 6pm and free refreshments will be served. If you plan on attending, RSVP via e-mail at collegerepublicans@ucmerced.edu with "An Inconvenient Tax" as the subject. Hope to see you all there. Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v95xpdcKUjYHere is they synopsis of the movie: Albert Einstein once wrote, "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” The product of 95 years...