TRACIE CONE

Associated Press
Add To Watchlist

Horrific murder no surprise in meth capital of US

When a 23-year-old Fresno woman fatally shot her two toddlers and a cousin, critically wounded her husband then turned the gun on herself last Sunday, investigators immediately suspected methamphetamine abuse in what otherwise was inexplicable carnage. It turned out the mother had videotaped herself smoking meth hours before the shooting.

Continue reading this entry ...

Citrus growers sweating extended California freeze

California citrus growers are sweating a hard freeze that has blanketed the nation's largest fresh-fruit market in the midst of harvest.

Continue reading this entry ...

Record air pollution hammers Calif's ag heartland

This is the time of year when residents who often live with the nation's worst pollution often can draw a breath of fresh air. But this winter has not been kind to people who want to play outside in California's Central Valley.

Continue reading this entry ...

APNewsBreak: Napa growers give up land for salmon

Along one of the San Francisco Bay's most valuable watersheds, healthy salmon runs will soon coexist, at last, with cabernet sauvignon.

Continue reading this entry ...

3rd Yosemite body identified as missing woman

Rangers at Yosemite National Park have identified the third body found in the Merced River as the last person swept over a waterfall in July.

Continue reading this entry ...

Fresno prof works to grow a later, tastier grape

As you contemplate that Thanksgiving wine you relished on Thursday, ponder for a moment a world too hot to grow fine grapes.

Continue reading this entry ...

Calif animal welfare laws evolve, face challenge

When the Humane Society of the United States released a disturbing video of a downer cow at a California slaughterhouse, it spurred an ongoing overhaul of the state's animal welfare laws that reached the U.S. Supreme Court this past week.

Continue reading this entry ...

Yosemite river plan could limit visitor access

On busy days, more than 8,000 cars pass through Yosemite Valley in the nation's third most-visited national park. But, there are only 1,100 parking spaces.

Continue reading this entry ...

AP IMPACT: Foreign insects, diseases got into US

Dozens of foreign insects and plant diseases slipped undetected into the United States in the years after 9/11, when authorities were so focused on preventing another attack that they overlooked a pest explosion that threatened the quality of the nation's food supply.

Continue reading this entry ...

Half Dome survivors wish they had taken heed

Armando Castillo knew he should not attempt the last treacherous stretch up Half Dome with storm clouds looming. But he felt he had come too far not to accomplish his goal.

Continue reading this entry ...

Capitol Christmas tree chosen from Calif. forest

Somewhere in the middle of a California forest stands a perfectly formed 65-foot white fir about to meet a glorious end as the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree.

Continue reading this entry ...

'L-Word' actress says kiss was brief and modest

It was cursing — not kissing — that got a lesbian actress and her girlfriend escorted off a plane as it sat at a Texas airport, Southwest Airlines said Tuesday.

Continue reading this entry ...

Airline: 'L Word' star removed for excessive kiss

The publicist for a lesbian actress and musician who says she was escorted off a flight for "one modest kiss" of her partner says the encounter was not a stunt for her band's upcoming breast cancer awareness tour.

Continue reading this entry ...

Airline: 'L Word' star removed for excessive kiss

The publicist for the lesbian actress and musician who says she was escorted off a Southwest Airlines Flight for kissing her partner says the encounter was not a publicity stunt for her band's upcoming breast cancer awareness tour.

Continue reading this entry ...

Airline: 'L Word' star removed for excessive kiss

A lesbian actress who starred in the Showtime cable show "The L Word" says she was escorted off a Southwest Airlines flight for kissing a woman, while the airline says it was excessive and drew customer complaints.

Continue reading this entry ...

Fresno St. football players tied to welfare fraud

As many as two dozen football players from Fresno State University have been implicated in a welfare fraud investigation involving a county Department of Social Services worker accused of filing for false benefits for them and others.

Continue reading this entry ...

Generous Calif. school superintendent gives more

The school superintendent in California who is forgoing hundreds of thousands of dollars in pay and benefits to help offset budget cuts to his school district has decided to give away even more.

Continue reading this entry ...

California air board asks drivers to use restraint

Air quality officials in one of the nation's most polluted basins are appealing to residents' sense of civic responsibility to try to save the region from an extension of a federal fine for ozone pollution.

Continue reading this entry ...

Slippery thieves net trout catch in hatchery heist

Somewhere in California, someone has a truck load of stolen merchandise that probably is starting to stink.

Continue reading this entry ...

600-foot fall marks 14th Yosemite death this year

A woman slipped to her death Sunday while descending Half Dome in the rain, the latest accident at Yosemite National Park in a year that is breaking records for the deadliest in recent history.

Continue reading this entry ...

Yosemite deaths a reminder of rivers' risks

The deaths of three young tourists who were swept over a 317-foot waterfall this week in Yosemite National Park serve as a reminder of the deadly and alluring beauty of the raging rivers and streams across the West after a record winter snowfall.

Continue reading this entry ...

Calif. mission town residents stewed over chickens

San Juan Capistrano has its reliably returning swallows, but a lesser known California mission town about 400 miles to the north has its own feathered icon: the constantly squawking chicken.

Continue reading this entry ...

Rare bighorn sheep face new pressures from lions

On the easternmost edge of this expanse of glacial granite, far from tourist haunts, a tiny lamb rams his mother's udder then flutters its tail when milk starts to flow.

Continue reading this entry ...

Report: Troubled town turning 100 in July must go

For nearly a century the fortunes of this tiny town were tied to the oil fields that surrounded it and the people who worked them.

Continue reading this entry ...

Calif. wine grape growers suffer a sobering spring

Wild spring weather across California's wine country has been enough to drive a vintner to drink.

Continue reading this entry ...