Valley Headlines

Trump pulls $75M from Gallo

Modesto Bee. Trump cancels $75 million grant to cut fuel use at Gallo Glass plant in Modesto.
Synopsis: A $75 million federal grant to reduce fuel use at Gallo Glass has been revoked by the Trump administration. Gallo Glass makes the bottles for the E.&J. Gallo Winery next door and was one of 33 companies to win energy-efficiency grants that would lower costs and reduce pollution. It would have created a gas-electric hybrid glass furnace, reducing the company’s natural-gas use 70% and allow 30% more recycled glass to be used in bottles. But 24 of those grants have been rescinded because Trump does not believe in global warming. Trump’s authority to rescind grants already in progress is being contested in court. BTW, Gallo Glass is a national leader in recycling glass. 

Gray talks red tape, healthcare

Sunday Morning Matters. Trump on Ukraine, Adam Gray on red tape, trans athletes. 
Synopsis: Rep. Adam Gray talked to reporter Emily Erwin about the new bipartisan “Build America” caucus, whose focus is “getting rid of the red tape that gets in the way of building infrastructure” such as water storage in the Valley. He wants more “results” and less “rhetoric.” Gray said red tape increases the cost of “every aspect of our life” – a crucial issue in California. In a second segment, Gray discussed the proposal to slash Medicaid, which will result in thousands of Valley residents losing access to care. “Even if you don’t care about other people in your community, you should care about your own healthcare,” Gray said. “Drastic cuts to Medicare could result in the closing of hospitals like we saw in Madera.”

NFL star catches a starlet

LA Times. Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen marries ‘Sinners’ star Hailee Steinfeld.
Synopsis: The most eligible bachelor in Firebaugh came off the market Saturday when he married TV star Haillee Steinfeld in Malibu. She’s 28, he’s 29 and they’ve been dating since May 2023. It was a private ceremony, and they shared the news in the traditional way -- via Instagram. The league’s MVP last year, Allen is one of the highest-paid QBs in the NFL, having signed a $330 million deal with the Bills. People magazine reports that his mom and hers are “thrilled” with the pairing.
MAD Note: The last time we heard about Allen he was buying new uniforms and helmets for all the football teams in his hometown.

Sacramento abandoned? Maybe

SF Chronicle. Could this major CA city see mass ‘abandonment’? Risk model predicts just that. 
Synopsis: Sacramento is in danger of being abandoned in the next 30 years. That’s the conclusion from First Street, a “prominent climate-risk prediction firm” whose model says Sac could lose 28% of its population by 2055 due to increasingly bad air, higher insurance costs, demographic shifts and catastrophe. Fresno will be worse, losing “almost half its population” over the same timeframe. What makes Sac so vulnerable? The risk of catastrophic flooding. For proof, it harkens back to the floods of 1862, which put Modesto and Sacramento under 12 feet of water. Zillow and Redfin both use First Street. Before rushing to sell your home, you should know that other experts say the Valley is actually where CA is growing, not shrinking, and that low-lying coastal regions are far more likely to suffer damage from floods.

Jenny’s Place is now a home

Modesto Bee. Modesto celebrates opening of housing project aimed at combating homelessness.
Synopsis: Jenny’s Place – named for former councilmember Jenny Kenoyer – opened its 54 apartments on Ninth Street this weekend. One woman moved out of a friend’s truck into a studio; her two kids will stay with family members. She has vowed not to mess up her “last chance,” and has enrolled at MJC. The city put in $5.7 million and the state’s HomeKey program paid $16M. Last year, the Stanislaus PIT count found 2,052 homeless people – 1,622 in Modesto.  

No ‘sanctuary’ in Fresno, Tulare

GV Wire. How in the world did Fresno end up on Trump’s Sanctuary Cities list?
Synopsis: Bill McEwen writes that Mayor Jerry Dyer, a registered Republican, is a bit put out that the Dept of Homeland Security has put Fresno on a list of “sanctuary cities” refusing to cooperate with ICE and Border Patrol. He has no idea how his city got up on such a list, which the Trump administration is using to target sanctions. “Fresno is not, by any definition, a sanctuary city,” said Dyer. Apparently, other cities have also been mistakenly listed, and their leaders are equally perturbed.

Fresno Bee. Fresno isn’t a sanctuary city; why is it on Trump’s list?
Synopsis: Mayor Dyer is “looking into” how Fresno got on a Homeland Security list of sanctuary cities. Madera, Huron and Stockton are also on the list but that’s more understandable. Madera named itself a “welcoming city” to avoid using the word “sanctuary.” But Huntington Beach, which declared itself a “non-sanctuary city,” is also on the city while Santa Ana, which declared itself a sanctuary city two years ago, is not. Councilmember Miguel Arias called the existence of such a list “politics at its worst.”

KSEE / CBS47. Boudreaux says Tulare County will ‘never’ be sanctuary jurisdiction; HS says it is.
Synopsis: Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux is very upset that his county has been listed as a “sanctuary Jurisdiction” by the Dept of Homeland Security. And he wants the county off that list. He figures it’s the fault of Democrats, who passed Senate Bill 54 forbidding local law enforcement from handing over undocumented immigrants to federal authorities absent any other crime.

Multi-generation THS grads

Turlock Journal. Four generations of Bulldogs celebrate newest graduates.
Synopsis: Joe Cortez writes about the Turlock High commencement celebration that included five members of a single family. Marjorie (Schendel) Smith graduated in 1945, her daughter Vicki Corgiat came along in 1973, granddaughter Julie Freeby in 1998 and now great-grandson Oliver in 2025. Marjorie mentioned that her own mother, Valesca Ferguson, graduated from THS in 1917. Another multi-gen family belongs to Troy Stumpf, who was joined by his mom Mikayla, grandmother Rachel Ayres and great-grandmom Michelle Silva – Bulldogs all.

Stanford snaps up AHS grad

ABC30. 17-year-old Atwater High valedictorian accepted into Stanford, earns $220K scholarship.
Synopsis: 2025 Atwater high valedictorian Cash Lee Jones applied for early acceptance to Stanford and found out this week that he made it. Cash started taking courses at Merced College as a seventh grader and worked in a few at UC Merced, too. He has a 4.6 GPA and takes part in several Atwater High clubs – his favorite being theater. His dad is Portuguese, his mom Hmong. He wants to be an actor or a lawyer.

LBUSD boss going to Fresno

GV Wire. Central Unified chooses their next superintendent.
Synopsis: Dr. Mark Marshall will become the next superintendent of Central Unified School District. He will move to Fresno from Los Banos, where he has been since 2017. Under his leadership, LBUSD passed Measure X to build a new school and modernize others. He attended Auburn, UCLA and Stanford.

Transport costs worry growers

Ag Net West. CA agriculture faces freight and cost pressures, warns WGA president.
Synopsis: Dave Puglia of Western Growers says the rising cost of freighting goods to market will make it hard to make a profit. And it’s not just foreign competitors. He says growers in the South and Mountain West are raising heartier varieties of vegetables and fruit that thrive in non-Mediterranean conditions. As affordability has become a crisis, regions like the San Joaquin Valley, long known as an ag powerhouse, are particularly vulnerable. “If we want to maintain our position, we need to get serious.”

Court denies killer’s plea

Modesto Bee. Scott Peterson’s latest appeal largely denied, but legal options remain.
Synopsis: The CA Court of Appeals denied 18 of the 19 motions contained in convicted murderer Scott Peterson’s request for a new trial. The court granted a “writ of habeus corpus,” though it’s not clear from the story what this will mean. He isn’t going free. The entire appeal was based on the fact one juror did not disclose that she had been a victim of domestic abuse. The LA Innocence Project tried to create doubt around Peterson’s guilt using. So far, it hasn’t worked. The Peterson family is holding out a “slim” hope that Peterson could be released with time served.

Trans panic attack in Clovis

SF Chronicle. Why Trump’s panic over one trans kid among 1,500 CIF athletes is fake news.
Synopsis: Columnist Scott Ostler writes, “When Trump goes on a crusade, all truth, reason and perspective saunter out for a smoke break.” This time the crusade was about a CA trans girl who competed (well) in the state track championships last weekend. Ostler adds, “fears of any wholesale invasion and destruction of female sports by trans athletes seems to be not a thing that is happening or ever going to happen.”

Fresno Bee. Protester pepper-sprayed at CIF track finals in Clovis.
Synopsis: One of 10 people protesting the presence of a transgender athlete in the CIF State Track & Field Championships in Clovis pepper sprayed someone who stopped his truck to confront him. It occurred outside the stadium. The man who stopped his truck was sprayed then arrested for obstructing an officer. The man who used the spray continued his protest.

SF Chronicle. Despite pro-Trump past, trans state champ’s mom gives daughter support.
Synopsis: Nereyda Hernandez, mother of jumper AB Hernandez, says she voted for Trump but sort of regrets it. She is proud of her daughter, who transitioned from male to female and beat all the girls in the triple and high jumps last weekend. “Just talking to AB, you start analyzing things in a different way,” said Nereyda. The track meet brought out a couple of dozen protesters and a message trailing behind an airplane. The competitors didn’t seem to notice.

Kids from ‘nowhere’ fall in final

Merced Sun Star. Livingston High volleyball’s historic run falls short in state championship.
Synopsis: Livingston’s Wolves lost to Mater Dei Catholic 3-1 in the CIF State Division IV title game at Fresno City College on Saturday despite the presence of hundreds of purple-clad fans. “For us to come from a small town in the middle of nowhere, to play for a state championship is crazy,” said Navjot Sekhon, who had 11 kills. “Nobody thought we’d be here. I expect us to come back even stronger next year.”