🦪Good morning! It’s Tuesday, Aug. 5. This is Rob, wishing you a happy National Oyster Day!
☀️One more beautiful day: A high today of 94ish. The real heat starts to settle in later this week.
🏈Heads up: Valley Children’s Hospital on Monday issued a safety alert to school districts and athletic programs across the central San Joaquin Valley following a sharp rise in serious facial injuries among young football players. KMPH
🎧Listen up: Hey Beatles fans, today is the 59th anniversary of the band’s seventh studio album “Revolver,” which might be their best record! (Send hate emails to rob@fresnoland.org)
1. Fresno supervisor wants to block spending on ‘woke bullshit’
Heads up: if you like getting your tacos, sandwiches and rice bowls from a truck.
Tuesday’s Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting will hold a hearing to potentially canonize which holidays county staff can participate and recognize in any official capacity.
Critics say the policy could politicize the use of county staff at community events. Supervisor Garry Bredefeld says his main objection is spending taxpayer dollars on community events that he said he believes cross the line into “advocacy.”
Said Bredefeld: “Services provided by the county are given to people when they’re needed. That has nothing to do with having ideology, political ideology, gender ideology, shoved in people’s faces in the library. And that’s the problem.”
But county library spokesperson Susan Renfro said displays are meant to be reflective of the community.
“We always say our goal is that anybody who walks into our doors can see themselves somewhere in the library through our collection or the services we’re offering.”
2. Fresno Unified changes diversity programs
Months after claiming no changes were planned for Fresno Unified’s diversity programs, The Fresno Bee reports that changes are already underway.
As the Trump Administration continues to pressure schools to end curriculum that the president doesn’t like, Fresno Unified is changing program names, job titles and roles in an apparent effort to avoid wrath from the White House.
In February, Trump’s Department of Education unveiled an “End DEI” portal encouraging community members to report school diversity efforts.
News of anti-diversity changes at Fresno Unified comes just days after the district learned it would receive the roughly $7 million in federal funding the White House had threatened to withhold from schools across the nation that remained committed to diversity and inclusion.
3. Rats hit farmers hard
A growing threat to orchards throughout the central San Joaquin Valley has already caused at least $100 million damages, according to a Farm Bureau estimate reported by KMPH.
Rats, squirrels and gophers, have many farmers scrambling for solutions with no easy fixes in sight.
Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen told KMPH it’s the worst he’s seen in at least a decade.
Said Jacobsen: “It’s not just affecting the crops. They’re doing permanent damage to trees. They’re going after irrigation systems, numerous reports of them going after wiring on tractors and equipment, to a much larger degree than we’ve ever seen, at least in the last 10 years or so.”
