Valley Headlines

Gray, Duarte’s final debate: Shocking

Sacramento Bee. John Duarte, Adam Gray clash on who’s more moderate in debate for key election.
Synopsis: The debate was streamed from the Fox40 studio in Sacramento was also broadcast on CBS47 in Fresno; it was moderated well by Niki Lorenzo and Brian Dorman of CBS47. Duarte tried to evade the fact he does not live in the district, supports an extremist presidential candidate whose view on immigration he hopes he can somehow moderate, and he does not support a woman’s right to determine her own healthcare – preferring to leave that up to the states. Other than that, he enjoyed dressing up as a criminal being electrocuted. Shocking.

KCRA (Sacramento). Q&A Challenger Adam Gray in home stretch of battle for CA’s 13^th district.
Synopsis: Ashley Zavala came back to Merced to talk about water, abortion, immigration and the Do-Nothing Congress that includes John Duarte. An interview with Duarte will be Friday night.

Fox40. ‘Folks want to see change in this issue’: Gray, Duarte discuss reproduction rights.
Synopsis: One of the most important questions of the Halloween debate between Adam Gray and John Duarte was around reproductive rights and a woman’s right to choose. While Gray steadfastly said it is a woman’s right to determine her own medical needs, Duarte said he was fine leaving it up to the states. When the moderator tried to press Gray on timing issues, he stared her down and repeated – it’s a woman’s decision. Pretty clear.

Voting picks up steam

Fresno Bee. Thousands of mail-in ballots delivered in Fresno County ahead of Nov. 5 election.
Synopsis: Through Thursday, 129,630 folks have voted by mail, approaching the volume of mail-in ballots cast in March with a week to go. Of those, 51,000 were put in drop-boxes. The pace is picking up, with returns growing by about 8,000 votes per day since Oct. 26. In March, 140,000 votes were cast by mail or drop-off.

Westside Connect. Campaign season overload: Signs vanish, mailboxes overflow, etc.
Synopsis: Zachary Ramos writes about Adam Gray, John Duarte, Jess Self, and more. In Gustine, the sign in John Sanchez’s yard disappeared and it felt as if “someone’s trying to take away my voice.” Darlene Peters of Newman is fed up with mailers. Kristen Lee of Santa Nella has quit looking at her phone because of so many ads: “It’s non-stop. I’m just trying to relax, but every few minutes either a Congress ad or an Assembly ad.”

GV Wire. MAGA hats OK at polls, but electioneering is strictly prohibited.
Synopsis: David Taub reports on the registrar’s decision to allow the ugly red hats at polling places. But not T-shirts with political messages. Fashion discrimination? Guess everything depends on your definition of “strictly.” Oh, and the DA says intimidation is a crime.

‘Hub farm’ showing off tech

Western Farm Press. Hub farms to put new tech to the test.
Synopsis: Reservoir Farms, with operations in Salinas and Merced, is bringing robotics to the fields where specialty crops are grown. CEO Danny Bernstein is working with UC Merced, Hartnell College and Western Growers on an incubator project tending agave plants. You can see the results for yourself at the Dec. 4-5 Farm Progress Summit at the Hyatt Regency in Monterey. Among those involved will be the Merced and Monterey farm bureaus, Monterey Bay DART (Drone Automation & Robotics Tech) and HawkTower Capital.
MAD Take: Cool stuff happening right here.

Cows in 15^th state sickened

Successful Farming. Bird flu found in eight dairy herds in Utah, 15^th state.
Synopsis: Welcome to the club, Utah. The Utah Dept of Ag & Food says the disease arrived in cows from Texas. The state now mandates testing, quarantines and restrictions on travel. There have also been outbreaks in Utah henhouses, including one last week that required the destruction of 1.85 million egg-laying hens north of Salt Lake City.

Merced Sun Star. As wild birds begin migration through Central CA, poultry farmers on ‘high alert.’ 
Synopsis: In the past month, nearly 850,000 chickens, turkeys and ducks have been culled from commercial flocks in the Valley.  Bill Mattos of the CA Poultry Federation is worried that migrating ducks and geese could carry more virus to commercial flocks, resulting in “depopulation.” Oh, and it is “slowly spreading to other species – including humans.”

The big rat is a real threat

Sacramento Bee. A giant rodent threatens the Sacramento-SJ Delta; it’s time for Whac-A-Mole. 
Synopsis: Tom Philp writes about invasive nutria, which arrived first in Merced County in 2017 and now have spread into the Delta, where it is being blamed for undermining levees in San Joaquin County. So far, more than 500 have been found in Suisun Marsh. They eat 5 pounds of vegetation a day and destroy 20 pounds more. They burrow into levees and infect fish and other wildlife with disease. Oh, and they have creepy orange teeth. Folks might make fun of Josh Harder for carrying around a stuffed nutria in Congress, but it’s a serious issue.

Money makes world go ’round

LA Times. Here are the 100 Californians giving the most in the race for the White House.
Synopsis: Some big names on this list – Kate Capshaw, Steve Spielberg, Anne Earhart, Sean Parker and Seth McFarlane for Kamala. Trump has Barb Grimm-Marshall of Grimmway Farms, Doug Leone, Marc Andreessen and Deb Magowan (a part-owner of the Giants).  But Kamala has the biggest donors.

350-mile journey to safety

Sacramento Bee. After 350-mile walk, Sikh marchers call on governor to protect them from threats.
Synopsis: About a dozen marchers started the journey from Bakersfield to Sacramento. When they arrive at Tower Bridge today, there should be 500 strong. Driven by reports from US and Canadian intelligence agencies, they’re worried about assassins from India attacking their leaders – which has already happened with a murder in British Columbia. Among the marchers is Dr. Jasmeet Bains, an Assembly member. She helped author a letter signed by members of 26 Gurdwara temples. They want surveillance and harassment addressed. The march passed through Fresno, Madera, Merced, Ceres and Modesto.

Yet another threat to Delta

Cal Matters. ’Immediate threat’: Mussel invades CA’s Delta, first time in North America.
Synopsis: The Golden Mussel, a native of China and southeast Asia, has been found in the Delta. Like other bivalve crustaceans, infestations could ruin infrastructure and severely disrupt movement of California water. It was found at Rough and Ready Island at the Port of Stockton on Oct. 17 and now has been found at O’Neill Forebay near San Luis Reservoir in Merced County. That’s seriously problematic. Unless eradicated quickly, there will be no getting rid of this new invader says UC Davis expert Peter Moyle. He says the best hope is that there might already be non-native, invasive mussel predators living in the Delta – which has some 60 non-native species disrupting its ecology. One of Moyle’s former students, Brett Baker of the Central Delta Water Agency, says we’ve seen other invaders before, and catastrophe has been avoided; he’s not worried.  
MAD Take: CA has been holding off the Quagga and Zebra mussels for years, with some success. They act similarly to the Golden Mussel, which might mean they won’t move aside for the new arrival.

Ragamuffin closing doors

Modesto Bee. Another longtime retailer in Modesto’s McHenry Village is closing: ‘An era has to end.’
Synopsis: Ragamuffin has been doing business for 42 years selling kids clothing, stuffed animals and more. Kathie McBroom said she has made the “extremely difficult decision” to close the store as she retires. The store survived a fire back in the 1990s but couldn’t survive the internet as most people shop online. Kathie took over for founders Maggie Zeff and Susan Conway when they retired.

In praise of monolithic voting

Fresno Bee. Latino voters in CA are moving toward Republicans; why it’s a good thing.
Synopsis: Juan Esparza Loera, the editorial page editor, writes about the need for any ethnic group – including Latinos – to reject a monolithic approach to politics. By having a diversity of opinion, they cannot be ignored or taken for granted by any one party (looking at you, Democrats).
MAD Take: The flip side is that those who don’t vote together risk losing the power of their vote. Instead of your specific needs being addressed, you must hope your needs align with those of others. There’s comfort in being part of a broader coalition, and no one wants to be considered part of a “monolithic group” with no individuality. But when a monolith falls on you, it can hurt. That’s the sort of thing you learn as the member of a union. Or have you forgotten, my Newspaper Guild brother?