Horrific Head-On Crash Near Fresno Kills 7 Kids, 2 Adults (VIDEO)

This makes me sad, really sad. I mean, I first saw the story at the New York Time and I couldn't understand why. What the hell happend. And the story only got worse. Wrong-way driver swerved into the opposite lane after driving on the shoulder and over-correcting getting back on the road.

Terrible. Horrible. Awful.

At the Fresno Bee, "CHP seeking answers after 7 children, 2 adults die in Fresno County head-on crash and fire":

California Highway Patrol investigators Saturday asked for the public’s help to determine more about what led up to a south Valley tragedy, as seven children were among nine people killed when an SUV and truck crashed head-on and the truck caught fire near Coalinga.

The children, all riding Friday night with one adult along a rural highway in a Ford F-150 truck that the CHP said had enough seat belts for six people, are believed to range in age from 6 to 15.

But the only person identified as of Saturday afternoon was Daniel Luna, 28, of Avenal, who was driving the other vehicle, a Dodge Journey.

Those who reported the crash came on the scene after the collision, prompting the Highway Patrol to solicit calls from anyone who might have seen what happened.

“When the fire was extinguished, tragically it was discovered there were eight occupants — seven of which appeared to be juveniles — inside the Ford,” CHP Capt. Kevin Clays said at a Saturday afternoon news conference in Coalinga. “We are working with the Fresno County Coroner’s Office to identify the occupants.”

What is known, Clays said, is that about 8 p.m., Luna was in a 2013 Dodge Journey traveling south on Highway 33, south of Sutter Avenue, about midway between Coalinga and Avenal. The driver of a 2007 Ford F-150 was northbound on the highway. How fast the vehicles were going remained under investigation.

As the vehicles approached from opposite directions, the Dodge veered onto the dirt shoulder, then back across the road into the opposite lane resulting in a head-on collision with the Ford.

The Ford came to a stop on the shoulder, caught fire and was fully engulfed, Clays said.

The Dodge came to rest in both north and southbound lanes...

 

California Central Valley: Desperation and Defiance Amid Lockdown

At LAT, "‘I’ve seen people die.’ COVID-19 slams Central Valley hospitals, as many resist lockdowns":

FRESNO — The last time Dr. Eyad Almasri had a day off was in November, when he was infected with the novel coronavirus. His symptoms were not life-threatening, but it crushed him, he said, that he couldn’t be with his patients for 10 days.

A pulmonologist with the Fresno campus of UC San Francisco, Almasri works in the intensive care unit at Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno — so packed with COVID-19 patients that the hospital has had to create makeshift isolation wards, including one in a hallway. Exhausted staff, working long hours seven days a week, rarely take off their protective gear because the entire area is the “dirty zone” — a phrase Almasri detests. With so many patients, there is no time for breaks anyway.

The story was similar this week in much of the San Joaquin Valley, where hospitals were crowded with COVID-19 patients. As of noon Saturday, availability of ICU beds in the region was zero. Fresno, a metro area with more than 1 million people, hit that dubious marker two days earlier.

“There is no help on the way,” Almasri said Thursday. “I can’t tell you how scared people are, and I can’t even sit there and hold their hands. There are so many others waiting.”

Across California, medical professionals such as Almasri live a world apart from average citizens, who have no clear window into the conditions of hospital wards. But the San Joaquin Valley is different. Nowhere else in California do intensive care doctors and nurses work in such a fragile system.

It’s an agricultural valley with high rates of poverty and a staggering shortage of doctors. Yet during the pandemic, many local leaders have been openly defiant of public health directives.

The Fresno City Council on Thursday approved an order intended to clamp down on backyard parties, for what it was worth. But the city police chief quickly issued a statement saying his officers would not enforce it. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases continue to soar in the county, in part because of outbreaks at a Foster Farms poultry plant and a state prison.

In Stockton, in the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, some small-business owners are demanding a reprieve from closures, arguing that this third round is arbitrary and unfair. They say there is little sense in having large chains such as Target and Walmart, where workers come into contact with hundreds of customers a day, remain open while shutting down outdoor dining for neighborhood eateries and services such as salons. Closing again, they contend, may mean that they go under permanently — a financial catastrophe for them and their employees.

“The hospitals are not overflowing because of restaurants,” said Johnny Hernandez, co-owner of the Black Rabbit gastropub in Stockton, who joined a protest with other small-business owners Thursday on the steps of Stockton City Hall. Hernandez said he has let go seven of his 10 employees and doesn’t have the funds to make it past this month. For him, the threat of financial ruin is more real than the specter of illness.

“I don’t see Republican; I don’t see Democrat,” said the former union organizer. “I see people hurting.”

The valley is a diverse place, with complex opinions on the pandemic. Farmworkers and other essential Latino workers have been hit hard and are scared that the coming months will be even tougher. But with many lacking legal immigration status and unable to receive state aid, they must work to put food on the table. Many business owners also recognize the seriousness of the pandemic and are taking precautions to protect themselves, their families and employees...

Still more.

 

Sierra Nevada Creek Fire

At the L.A. Times, "Sierra fire’s unstoppable path of destruction devastates town, sends residents fleeing":

As the sun set in the Sierra Nevada Friday, about 50 residents of the mountain hamlet of Big Creek gathered on an overlook at the edge of town. The Creek fire, as it would be called, had just started burning in the canyon below.

It seemed minor, and those assembled looked on hopefully as planes and a helicopter dropped water on it.

“It was a Friday night, something to watch, something to do. We are a bunch of hillbillies,” joked Toby Wait, the superintendent, principal and gym teacher for the town’s 55-student school. “Fire is part of our lives, but this was small.”

It didn’t stay small.

In the hours and days that followed, the Creek fire has exploded into a monster inferno that has consumed nearly 100,000 acres, enlisted nearly 1,000 firefighters, isolated small foothill communities and threatened to burn until mid-October.

California’s fire season got an early start this year with the massive lightning fires in the coastal mountains and wine country. Even without the fall Santa Ana winds, more than 2 million acres have burned so far in 2020, more than in any previously recorded year. Now the Creek fire promises to be one of the worst of the season.

For the mountain communities lying east of Fresno, the assessment as of Monday afternoon looked especially grave.

Fueled by millions of dead trees, the Creek fire has raced through mountain communities like Big Creek and vacation getaways like Huntington and Shaver Lake, confounding firefighters with unpredictable and terrifying behavior. Its smoke plumed nearly 50,000 feet high. There were lightning strikes. Forests seemed to explode.

The drama seemed to peak Saturday night when a CH-47 Chinook and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter rescued some 200 campers trapped by flames at Mammoth Pool.

But among the thousands fighting the fire or evacuating from its path, there have been no reports of deaths.

Damage to property and homes is more difficult to assess. The fire is burning so dangerously and intensely that crews who normally count destroyed houses and buildings have been told to stand down for their own safety...

RTWT.

Coronavirus Ravages California's Central Valley

At LAT, "Coronavirus ravages California’s Central Valley, following a cruel and familiar path":

Coronavirus ravages California's Central Valley, following a cruel and familiar path https://t.co/8VABiNLqOZ

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 28, 2020

SACRAMENTO —  The coronavirus is spreading at alarming rates in California’s Central Valley, following a cruel and increasingly familiar path.

The demographics of those getting sick in the rural hamlets of America’s famed agricultural zone are the same as those who have been hit hard in big cities and suburbs: Essential workers — many of them Latino — who cannot stay home for financial reasons when they fall ill on the job and also have a hard time isolating in housing that can be crowded and multigenerational.

Public health officials and medical experts say the pattern of spread underscores the deep inequities of the coronavirus in California, which has infected Black and Latino communities and poorer regions at much higher rates than more affluent and white ones.

The surge in Central Valley cases has taken a particular toll on farmworkers, in part because they often live in close quarters, share transportation to job sites and have little access to healthcare. Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the rate of positive coronavirus tests in the Central Valley ranges from 10.7% to as high as 17.7%. The state’s average is about 7.8% over the last seven days.

Increased rates of coronavirus transmission have also been seen in dense urban areas such as the Eastside and South and Central Los Angeles and San Francisco’s Mission District, all home to communities with large numbers of Latino residents who perform essential jobs critical in keeping California running, such as in construction, manufacturing, cooking and food preparation.

“These aren’t all people who live on big ranch houses on the farms. These are people who live in ... dense apartments,” said Dr. George Rutherford, a UC San Francisco epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert. “I think it’s probably the same pattern that we see in the Mission District, of an essential workforce, which in this case is agricultural, who is densely housed, who gets exposed on their way to and from the work site or at the work site.”

Latino residents make up 39% of Californians but account for up to 56% of coronavirus cases statewide and 46% of deaths. Latino residents make up an even higher percentage of residents in the Central Valley than they do statewide.

Edward Flores, a sociology professor with the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, who has studied the impact of the pandemic on the Central Valley, said many of these laborers work in conditions that make true social distancing difficult and may be afraid to report safety problems for fear of losing their jobs.

“We hear about these huge outbreaks in meatpacking plants, in agriculture and these low-wage jobs, where people work side by side with other people in these very dense environments,” he said. “Stay-at-home orders do little for the low-wage essential workers that face the greatest risks.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise that places like the Central Valley would be hit hard. Among California’s meatpacking plants, the Central Valley as a region has had poor compliance with health and safety standards even before the pandemic hit, with the region home to nearly half of inspections triggered by complaints, even though it is home to just 13% of the state’s meatpacking plants, according to research by Ana Padilla, executive director of the Community and Labor Center.

Hundreds of workers have been infected at Ruiz Foods, a frozen-food packager in Tulare County, and Central Valley Meat Co. in Kings County.

California counties with a greater share of low-wage and crowded households have been more likely to be hit hard by the pandemic, according to a study by authored by Flores and Padilla.

Epidemiologists also saw the disease spread in the agricultural Imperial Valley east of San Diego, “and it seems to have spread through the Coachella Valley and into the Central Valley,” Rutherford said. The highly contagious virus has continued to spread into the Salinas Valley and Northern California wine country counties of Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Mendocino and Lake, Rutherford said.

Newsom announced Monday he would send “strike teams” to eight counties in the San Joaquin Valley — San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern — while asking the California Legislature to approve $52 million to improve testing, tracing and isolation protocols in those regions.

“This disease continues to grow in the state of California. It continues to spread, but not evenly,” Newsom said Monday while speaking at Diamond Nuts in Stockton. “It is disproportionately impacting certain communities and certain parts of the state.”

While L.A. County is reporting 400 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents over the last two weeks, Kern County — home to Bakersfield — is now seeing a rate of 913 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents; a month ago, that number was 133, according to a Times analysis...

 Still more.

Fresno's Racist Past

Stupid North Fresno cheerleader posts "nigger" Snapchat video. She's reported by a black student, who then receives death threats. The school freaks out and digs up Fresno's racist past. A local board member gets involved with un-PC behavior. And it's a big news story, I guess.

At LAT:

“The white girl whose behavior is at the heart of Fresno’s current racial debate remains on the cheer squad. The black girl who blew the whistle has been pulled out of school by her fearful mother” Blackface video raises ghosts of racist past https://t.co/QK0xlkKTix @marialaganga

— Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) September 1, 2019

Sponsors Bail on Fresno Grizzlies After Class AAA Affiliate Showed Memorial Day Tribute Video

I love this video!

Good on the Grizzlies!

Let's just hope the woke sponsors just chill the fuck out and get with the patriotic program. Don't cave to the censoring Democrat Party left.

At LAT, "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez video spurs more sponsors to drop Fresno Grizzlies."

And USA Today, "Fresno Grizzlies losing major sponsors in aftermath of offensive Ocasio-Cortez video."

Democrats' 'Bullet Train' Has Effed Up People's Lives

Fucking Democrats.

They destroy everything they touch.

At LAT, "In Central Valley towns, California’s bullet train isn’t an idea: ‘It’s people’s lives’":

In Central Valley towns, California’s bullet train isn’t an idea: ‘It’s people’s lives’ https://t.co/SIeEOsP90g pic.twitter.com/Vekgs3jrjB

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 2, 2019

When Annie Williams heard that California’s plan for high-speed rail had been scaled back to 119 miles through the Central Valley, her head jerked back.

“Merced to Bakersfield? The good Lord himself can’t make sense of that,” she said. “After all our tears and making peace?”

The recent debate surrounding California’s transit future has reverberated statewide. But here in the Central Valley, the upheaval — like the bullet train itself — is real. Houses have been boarded up, businesses moved, vineyards torn out, a highway realigned.

Giant concrete structures rise from orchards waiting to hold up tracks that now seem further from existence.

Fairmead, the community where Williams lives, is the likely place that will face the most immediate uncertainties. It is in the “Y,” the planned fork from which some trains were to hurtle south toward Los Angeles or north to Merced, and others were to veer west to the Bay Area.

There is no library or market or gas station here; only three buildings in the town of about 1,500, including the church, aren’t people’s homes. Sheds lean, grass grows through porch slats and rains leave deep puddles on dirt and gravel roads.

Williams, who gives her age as “upwards of 70,” said this is a place where people “work hard to have a place just to lay their heads and have been taking care of each other since nigh the beginning of time.”

An early proposed high-speed rail would have leveled a neighborhood, including Williams’ home. But that was before community organizers Vickie Ortiz and Barbara Nelson rallied their neighbors.

Their nonprofit organization, Friends of Fairmead, held so many meetings to lobby state representatives for a different route that the women started greeting the rail agency’s regional director with familiar hugs. After nearly a decade of negotiating, they felt they were a breath away from a route that would move the school, spare the church, preserve more houses and bring the town a much-needed community center.

Then in mid-January, Gov. Gavin Newsom laid out plans to pull back on high-speed rail in the face of massive cost overruns.

“I think the community center is gone,” the lawyer for Friends of Fairmead said.

Ortiz is angry about all the years she watched people worry and fret about where they would go.

“I don’t want to talk political because I don’t do it very well,” Ortiz said. “But you know, you had a governor that was pushing-pushing-pushing for the high-speed train, and we started getting used to the idea that we can’t stop a train but maybe we can use it to help the community. But then you get another governor and he says: ‘No, I don’t want to do that anymore.’ My mouth was just open with shock.”

Nelson, however, said she felt relief.

Each week, she visits an elderly neighbor in the hospital who asks her the latest about whether the project will take her house.

“I’m going to tell her, ‘Sister Hughes, your house is safe.’ And we’ll find some other way to get our community center.”

Traveling south from Fairmead on California Route 99, there’s a stretch of highway through Fresno that’s smooth and new. Five bridges were torn down and rebuilt in order to move the road about 100 feet to make room for rail. The California Department of Transportation project cost about $290 million.

Along the Kings River, near the little town of Laton, the signs of coming bullet train infrastructure include felled orchards and giant earthen berms. (Local independent truck drivers got weeks of work hauling dirt for the project.)

Next to the Van Eyk family’s walnut grove, where crops once grew, is now a stretch of excavated earth marked by “No Trespassing” signs.

Randy Van Eyk was born and raised on a dairy farm outside of nearby Hanford. His wife, Anne, grew up in rural Northern California. They lived in the city of Visalia for 10 years, saving for a place like this — a big house on a country road where they live with their 7-year old daughter, Maddie, a Labrador retriever named Snickers and a giant cat.

Randy planted walnuts instead of more lucrative almonds, because he was 45 years old when they moved in and almonds need replanting every 20 years. He didn’t want to work that hard at 65. Walnut trees should outlive him.

“We figured this was our last stop unless Maddie put us in a home someday,” Anne said.

The first sign that high-speed rail might change that was a giant white X painted on the road near their mailbox.

They found other Xs at other intersections and drew a diagonal line that went through their frontyard .

Anne cried — and, she said, she never cries.

Her husband told her not to worry, that it would never really happen. But work crews arrived, neighbors moved and cranes dropped off giant pipes. In the end, they were the only residents on their road that didn’t have to sell property to the state.

“We’ll have people over, even from around here, and they’ll look around and say: “That’s from high-speed rail? You mean it’s real?’ People think it’s just some idea, something to fight about on the radio, but it’s people’s lives,” Randy said.

The argument for a high-speed train crossing the state was that it would bridge California’s inequalities.

Central Valley cities and towns have some of the most concentrated poverty in the state. The political vision was that it would connect them to the wealth and opportunities of the coast and bring higher paying jobs. It would cut down on the air pollution that gets trapped in the hot, flat valley.

Randy Van Eyk was opposed to the project because he thought it would bring wealthy tech workers who would displace farms and rural life. He also thought politicians would start the project and never finish, leaving the debris in the Central Valley.

“You see all the destruction?” he said. “People lost their homes and businesses. And for what?”

He said he has flashes of anger, but then looks around and takes a deep breath...

Farms Facing Shrinking Immigrant Labor Pool

First thing I thought when I started reading this piece, is, "No, American workers worked Central Valley fields in the 1930s and '40s, workers escaping the devastation of Dust Bowl America (the Okies).

The piece does mention them, as a sop to history.

I just know that if wages were high enough, Americans would take these jobs. I would have picked cantaloupes in the 1980s if owners were paying me $12.00 an hour. The Times had a piece last year where growers near Sacramento were paying $15.00 and up (with some growers expecting to pay wages from $18.00 to $20.00 an hour).

It's simple economics. There's no shame in working an honest job. The fact that dark-skinned people have done it for so long doesn't mean that hard-working U.S. citizens won't work the fields. Immigrant labor drags down wages. Growers like it that way, giving the shiv to regular citizens.

At LAT, "Born in the U.S.A. and working in the fields — what gives?":

Farm labor from Mexico has been on the decline in California, and farmers are having trouble finding U.S.-born workers to make up the difference https://t.co/B8lcJDmfG3

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) January 5, 2018

Nicholas Andrew Flores swatted at the flies orbiting his sweat-drenched face as he picked alongside a crew of immigrants through a cantaloupe field in California's Central Valley.

The 21-year-old didn't speak Spanish, but he understood the essential words the foreman barked out: Puro amarillo. And rapido, rapido! Quickly, Flores picked only yellow melons and flung them onto a moving platform.

It was hard and repetitive work, and there were days under the searing sun that Flores regretted not going to a four-year college. But he liked that to get the job he just had to "show up." And at $12 an hour, it paid better than slinging fast food.

For Joe Del Bosque of Del Bosque Farms in the San Joaquin Valley, American-born pickers like Flores, though rare, are always welcome.

For generations, rural Mexico has been the primary source of hired farm labor in the U.S. According to a federal survey, nine out of 10 agricultural workers in places like California are foreign-born, and more than half are in the U.S. illegally.

But farm labor from Mexico has been on the decline in California. And under the Trump administration, many in the agricultural industry worry that deportations — and the fear of them — could further cut the supply of workers.

But try as they have to entice workers with better salaries and benefits, companies have found it impossible to attract enough U.S.-born workers to make up for a shortage from south of the border.

Del Bosque said he'll hire anyone who shows up ready to work. But that rarely means someone born in the U.S.

"Americans will say, 'You can't pay me enough to do this kind of work,'" Del Bosque said. "They won't do it. They'll look for something easier."

For some immigrants working the fields, people like Flores are a puzzle — their sweating next to them represents a kind of squandering of an American birthright.

"It's hard to be here under the sun. It's a waste of time and their talents in the fields," said Norma Felix, 58, a Mexican picker for almost three decades. "They don't take advantage of their privilege and benefit of being born here. They could easily work in an office."

Most don't last long, she said.

"There is always one or two who show up every season," Felix said. "They show up for three or four days and turn around and leave."

Agriculture's reliance on immigrant labor, especially in the American West, goes back to the late 1800s, after the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, said J. Edward Taylor, a UC Davis rural economist.

"The domestic farm workforce was simply not big enough to support the growth of labor-intensive fruit and vegetable crops," he said...

Kori Ali Muhammad

By now you've probably seen this horrific story.

It's at the Other McCain, "Fresno Massacre: Three White Men Murdered by Kori Ali Muhammad."

Ali Muhammad said that Islam taught him to hate white people, and he acted on his faith. What's so hard about that? A lot, apparently. Leftist media outlets again tried to turn this into another "random" massacre. But that's not going to work.

See Noah Rothman, at Commentary, "Terror, Race, and Abject Absurdity: Calling Islamist terrorism by its name."

And at the Fresno Bee, "Shooting rampage could result in a rarity – death penalty for suspect."

Shooting rampage could result in a rarity – death penalty for suspect https://t.co/xMSwIwQrPg

— Fresno Bee (@FresnoBee) April 19, 2017

Devin Nunes Still a Hero in California's Central Valley

GOP Rep. Devin Nunes will step down from the House Russia investigation, but he's still a hero in the Central Valley.

At LAT, "Washington may be shaking its head, but Devin Nunes is still a hometown hero":

Devin Nunes takes himself out of Russia investigation, at least temporarily. A look at his two worlds: https://t.co/tJKGYsOFj7

— Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) April 6, 2017

At home, Devin Nunes remains what he has always been, an auspiciously successful man who rose swiftly to unexpected heights, a man high school teachers point to when they tell kids in this often-overlooked place what is possible in this world.

Outside the farming community southeast of Fresno that has sustained him and his family for generations, though, many see the 14-year Republican congressman very differently — as a national symbol of political bungling or worse.

The House investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which he heads, has stalemated. A senator from his party has acidly compared him to Inspector Clouseau, the bumbling French detective from the “Pink Panther” movies. Democratic leaders have accused him of working with the White House to divert attention from the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to derail Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. In much of official Washington, the mention of Nunes’ name prompts dismissive shakes of the head.

The two views of Nunes are impossible to reconcile, not that many in his district are trying to. In a region where troubles often take the form of drought or pestilence, his longtime constituents greet Nunes’ difficulties with a shrug, their faith in him undiminished...

More.

Fresno State’s Red Wave Turns Into Gray Wave as Bulldogs Struggle to Attract Young Fans

That's weird. Young fans weren't in short supply when I attended Fresno State in the late 1980s.

Indeed, the Bulldogs were the only game in town, and very popular.

Maybe not so much these days.

At the Fresno Bee:

The empty seats at Bulldog Stadium and Save Mart Center for Fresno State football and basketball games are a troubling sign, but declining attendance is only part of a larger problem for an athletic department intending to get bigger and better.

The famed Red Wave, which helped build those venues and has served Fresno State athletic interests so well for so long, is going gray. And as is the case for most of the nation’s Division I schools, the athletic department is struggling to entice younger fans to games and build a sustainable base of season-ticket sales that account for a significant portion of its revenue.

Forty-nine percent of Fresno State football season ticket holders are 56 and older, according to a recent athletic department survey, with 9 percent 35 and younger. In basketball, 75 percent of season ticket holders are 56 and older and 4 percent 35 and younger.

“The math is not that complicated,” Athletic Director Jim Bartko said. “If we lose that revenue and it keeps going down, the budgets for all our sports will go down.”

Those numbers represent only those with season tickets who responded to the survey, and are not far out of line with national trends.

But Fresno State’s overall ticket sales have dropped sharply the past five seasons, a disturbing trend for a department that for years counted gate receipts as its second-largest source of revenue behind university support. In 2016-17, it is fourth behind university support, fundraising and a Mountain West Conference/NCAA distribution...

Still more.

Deadly Tour Bus Crash on California's Highway 99 (VIDEO)

This wasn't too far north of Fresno.

At the Los Angeles Times, "'Catastrophic' charter bus crash leaves five dead, L.A. driver seriously injured":

At least five people were killed and numerous people seriously injured early Tuesday when a violent crash tore a charter bus down the middle on Highway 99 in Merced County, the California Highway Patrol said.

The northbound bus struck the support pole for a sign marking the Hammatt Avenue exit near the town of Livingston, CHP Officer Moises Onsurez told The Times. The crash occurred about 3:35 a.m., authorities said.

The pole split the white bus down the middle, tearing through it as it kept moving forward after impact, Onsurez said. Video images from the Merced Sun-Star showed firefighters climbing through windows in the early morning darkness, and a road lined with ambulances.

“This collision is a catastrophic event,” Onsurez said.

About 30 passengers were aboard the vehicle, and some suffered major injuries, Onsurez said. About five injured people were flown to hospitals, officials said. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

Northbound Highway 99 was closed in the area throughout the day.

Authorities have identified the bus driver as 57-year-old Mario David Vasquez from Los Angeles, Onsurez said. Vasquez “sustained major injuries” and was hospitalized Tuesday morning, he said.

The bus originated in Mexico and had stopped in Los Angeles on Monday night, Onsurez said. It made a stop in Livingston and was headed to Pasco, Wash., Onsurez said...

Keep reading.

WATCH: Fresno Police Department Releases Body-Camera Video of Dylan Noble Shooting

At the Fresno Bee, "Fresno police release body camera videos in Dylan Noble shooting."



Also at the Los Angeles Times, "Fresno police release dramatic body-camera footage of fatal shooting of unarmed 19-year-old."

The cops didn't know if the dude was unarmed. He refused to show his hands and was still reaching for his waist belt while on the ground.

Fresno School Bans 9-Year-Old from Wearing 'Make America Great Again' Hat on Campus

Nothing's permitted these days. Nothing.

And note that the Supreme Court ruled last year that students couldn't wear American flag t-shirts to school on Cinco de Mayo, since they might offend Latino students (who then might start a riot). It was a heckler's veto decision, but profoundly unfair either way.

Now there's more along the same lines. Poor kid.

At KFSN 30 News Fresno:

#ICYMI 9-year-old banned from wearing 'Make America Great Again' hat at school in Fresno https://t.co/rVIqMkEvV1 pic.twitter.com/QzNtD9BtHK

— ABC30 Fresno (@ABC30) June 3, 2016

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- One local Trump supporter is being banned from wearing a signature Donald Trump hat to school after it began to draw tense conversations.

Logan Autry left Powers-Ginsburg Elementary School early on Thursday because school leaders said something he was wearing is causing a safety concern on campus-- his red hat.

"The vice principal came up to me and told me to take my hat off because it brings negative attention from other students. And I said no a few times and then the principal told me again and I still said no and refused," said Logan Autry.

For three days straight the third grader wore the hat to class. But each day, more and more classmates began confronting him at recess.

"I still want to keep my hat. It's not the hat that draws attention, it's just my personality that the other children do not like," said Autry.

Autry recently moved to Fresno from the foothills, he loves politics and American history.

"He knows more than I do. He knows more about this election than I know, it's kind of embarrassing. You know, like are you smarter than a third grader kinda thing. But he is just very adamant about his beliefs and his rights. He wants to be a politician that's his goal," said Angela Hoffknecht, Logan's guardian.

He already has the shirt and tie down, and practices speeches about Trump on the playground.

"I've told them his policies on illegal immigration, and our second amendment, and our first amendment and all of our amendments that need to be protected which are not going to be an amendment at all if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders gets elected," said Autry.

Autry got his $20-- now, controversial-- hat when he skipped school to attend a Trump rally last week.

"He doesn't speak like a politician. He speaks like a normal person. He knows what this country needs."

Autry briefly met the presidential hopeful during his local stop and even got his hat autographed...

Body Cam Footage Shows Fatal Police Shooting of Mentally Disabled Man Freddy Centeno (VIDEO)

At KABC News 30 Fresno, "BODY CAM FOOTAGE: FREDDY CENTENO SHOT BY FRESNO POLICE," and "FRESNO POLICE RESPOND TO BODY CAM VIDEO OF FATAL SHOOTING OF FREDDY CENTENO."

And watch, at ABC Nightly News:

Student Charged with Felony Assault After Punching Substitute Teacher at Fresno's Roosevelt High (VIDEO)

It's a black girl.

A freshman apparently.

She's a big kid too, just waling on the substitute, a white man who tries to walk away, but is followed out into the hallway, to be punched some more. The teacher took the student's cellphone away after trying to restore order.

A total nightmare.

I saw this first at the Los Angeles Times, and it's shocking, "Video shows Fresno student punching teacher in cellphone dispute."

And at KSEE News 24 Fresno, "Student arrested for attack on teacher: 15-year-old student at Roosevelt High School faces three criminal charges," and "Roosevelt High School Student Attacks Teacher, Arrested."

That's terrible quality video, unfortunately. (There's a YouTube clip here, "Student punches teacher repeatedly.)

Also at the Fresno Bee, "Roosevelt High student arrested after videos show her punching teacher."

Eileen Javora's Got Your Tuesday Forecast

It's going to be a little cooler, especially later in the week. The Central Valley is still pretty scorching though, man. I used to live in Fresno and it's incredibly hot up there in the summer.

At KCRA News 3 Sacramento:

Massive Tree Limb Falls, Crushes Two Kids Camping at Yosemite

The initial reports said a "tree branch" feel on a tent, killing two campers.

But this is no ordinary branch. It's a massive tree limb obviously weighing hundreds of pounds.

God have mercy.

Watch, at ABC News 30 Fresno, "2 MINORS KILLED IN YOSEMITE AFTER TREE LIMB FALLS ON TENT."

And the story at the Los Angeles Times, "A loud bang, then a scream in Yosemite when branch kills 2 youths":

Authorities in Yosemite National Forest were trying to determine why a large tree limb fell early Friday, killing two children sleeping in their tents.

Park officials released few details about the accident, which occurred about 5 a.m. in the Upper Pines Campground in Yosemite Valley.

But witnesses described a grim scene at the campgrounds when the branch fell.

“I heard this loud bang and then a woman screaming at the top of her lungs,” camper Daniel Moore, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I knew something was not right. I stepped outside to see what was going on and saw a lot of people clustered around their campground. It made me sick to my stomach when I figured out what had happened.”

Authorities described the victims as minors but did not disclose their identities or any other personal information...

Storm Brings Heavy Flooding to Fresno

My wife saw videos of Fresno on her Facebook feed this morning. I'm sorry some folks are getting flooded, but it's good news that the valley's getting soaked.

Storm drenches #Fresno and Valley; lightning, flooding reported http://t.co/ryc3IcX288 pic.twitter.com/HwZ5fYDlFj

— Fresno Bee (@FresnoBee) May 15, 2015

#UPDATE Large thunderstorm hits Fresno and surrounding areas, causes major flooding --> http://t.co/qOfpFeGsZt pic.twitter.com/HHxQBEz9jI

— ABC30 Fresno (@ABC30) May 15, 2015

Community-Policing Helps Inoculate City of Fresno from Radical Left's Anarchy and Violence

A great piece.

And Fresno's mayor is Republican Ashley Swearengin.

At the Washington Post, "In Fresno, a community-policing ethos builds ties between officers and residents."