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PREVIOUSLY in Ishũng:

• NEW BEAR ALERT! Sequoia Park Zoo Has a New Fuzzy Wuzzy for You to Go Gaga For
• Ishūng Likes Lettuce, Citrus and Beef
• THE AGE OF ISHŪNG DAWNS: Sequoia Park Zoo’s New Chonky Black Bear is Ready for Viewing and Reportedly Has the Zoomies
• Sequoia Park Zoo Black Bear Ishūng Has Dropped 100 Pounds and Learned to Love Green Bell Peppers (But She Still Hates Beets)

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From the Sequoia Park Zoo:

Happy 4th Birthday, Ishŭng!

Ishŭng the American black bear has been at Sequoia Park Zoo for a year! For her birthday, we’re celebrating the #QueenOfHumboldt and her many milestones!

We are so proud of the bear skills that Ishŭng has gained this year thanks to her curiosity, personality, and physical bear-apy program.

Her body condition is much better for a bear with her small frame, though she’s still a bit large. She’s now able to climb up onto higher platforms and jump down from platforms, run around, hop, manipulate objects better, successfully forage for food like a bear typically would, and play for much longer periods without getting tired.

This goofy, playful, beautiful bear has had a wonderful year, and we hope you enjoy this compilation of some of her silly highlights.

The races for both state Senate and Assembly District 2 are looking fairly tame. The deadline was earlier this month for candidates to file. Here are the candidates who have submitted declaration of candidacy paperwork for the two seats.

State Senate district 2

Despite an opening for Mike McGuire’s seat this year as he terms out of the state legislature, just a couple of candidates are running for his spot.

The district McGuire represents includes the counties of Del Norte, Trinity, Humboldt, Mendocino, Lake, Marin and most of Sonoma County. McGuire is now running for California’s 1st Congressional District seat after 12 years in Sacramento.

California Senate District 2. Map: CA Senate

Democratic candidate Damon Connolly — current member of the State Assembly for the 12th district, former San Rafael city councilmember, Marin County supervisor and deputy California Attorney General — filed to run in the district after announcing his candidacy in April.

Connolly originally had a couple Democratic challengers for the primary. But Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore dropped his campaign in October after an early announcement. Former Santa Rosa Mayor Natalie Rogers suspended her campaign for the seat in December.

Connolly recently attended a Eureka rally in opposition to the Trump Administration’s offshore oil and gas drilling proposal. He regularly collaborates with North Coast representatives on legislation as a representative of Marin and Sonoma for the 12th District.

Connolly has accumulated a spread of endorsements including McGuire, Chris Rogers, State Attorney General Rob Bonta, four of the five Humboldt County Supervisors, the Arcata City Council, former state representative and Arcata resident Wesley Chesbro and Congressman Jared Huffman, according to Connolly’s website.

As for contenders Tief Gibbs, a Republican co-owner of a vintage car business in Novato, has filed to run in Marin County.

Gibbs ran for Congress in 2024 but fell short in the Republican primary. She is a Marin conservative activist, previously involved in the recall Gov. Gavin Newsom campaign, anti-COVID19 vaccine rallies as well as anti-trans activism.

Her website says she advocates for limited government, individual freedoms, fiscal responsibility, traditional values, pro-life policies, Second Amendment rights and religious freedom.

Aaron Smith has filed for the Senate seat in Sonoma County. Details on this candidate are slim.

State Assembly District 2

Democratic Assemblymember Chris Rogers, currently representing Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, and Trinity Counties, has filed paperwork to run for a second term.

Rogers successfully got a bill passed aiming to keep water in the Scott and Shasta Rivers, plus eight others, and has generally focused on the environment, natural disasters and the cost of living — and penned a tongue-in-cheek bill to establish bigfoot as the state’s official cryptid.

The Democratic incumbent’s sole challenger is Republican Michael Greer.

California Assembly District 2. Map: CA Assembly

Greer previously garnered 34% of the vote in the 2024 election against Rogers as the only Republican to run, following a crowded Democratic primary sparked by then-Assemblymember Jim Wood’s decision to not seek reelection.

Greer, a Del Norte County Unified School District board member, aims to raise educational standards, strengthen law enforcement, address the cost of living, and to tackle the housing and homelessness crisis’s, his website says.

Greer, a retired special educator, has been endorsed by Doug LaMalfa, who represented California’s 1st congressional district before his death. Greer also nabbed endorsements from assemblymembers James Gallagher and Meghan Dahle, according to his website.

The write-in period for these seats runs from April 6 to May 19.

The primary election is scheduled for June 2, 2026.

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The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors today agreed to give themselves a bit more money for annual work-related travel expenses, the first time that allowance has been increased since 2016.

In a 4-1 vote, with Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone dissenting, the board approved a 7.5% increase to each supervisor’s annual travel-expense reimbursement amounts — boosting the per-supervisor total from $10,300 to $11,072.50 — plus an annual $5,000 increase for the supervisors representing the First, Second and Fifth Districts. Those three districts are much larger than District 3 (where the population is concentrated in Arcata) and District 4 (Eureka). 

The approved increases will take effect next fiscal year.

Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell asked for this matter to be brought forward for discussion. At today’s meeting she said her travel expenses tend to go over-budget each year, despite being “very conservative” with her plans, and this year is no exception. 

“I am very active in my district, and it’s a very large district as well,” Bushnell said. She noted that she’s already exceeded her allotted mileage reimbursement for the current fiscal year, which doesn’t end until June 30, and has exceeded that mark every year. The situation has only been made worse by the recent increase in fuel costs, she added.

The last time the county increased supervisors’ travel reimbursement amounts, in 2016, the standard California government rate for mileage expenses was 57 cents per mile, with $89 allotted for a night’s lodging and $51 for meals per day. Those rates have since increased to 72.5 cents per mile, $150 for lodging and $86 for meals, though not for local supervisors. So Humboldt County was overdue for an adjustment, according to Clerk of the Board Tracy D’Amico.

D’Amico said she consulted with her cohorts in other small, rural California counties to come up with a list of options for the board to consider. (See yesterday’s board meeting preview for the full rundown of those options.)

Humboldt County supervisorial district map.

Board Chair Mike Wilson, who represents District 3, acknowledged the extra costs inherent in representing a larger district and proposed the $5,000 increase for districts One, Two and Five. He also suggested an across-the-board increase of at least 5%, plus an annual increase tied to the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI),  to account for inflation.

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo observed that this type of budget increase tends to get “a lot of blowback” from the public, but the work trips in question allow supervisors to attend work trainings and meet with colleagues around the state to discuss policy matters.

“I just have really valued the opportunities to go and meet with folks outside of our community and learn how they’re doing things,” Arroyo said. “I appreciate that the opportunity exists, and I just want to speak to its value as a way of bringing back information to this community to see how we can improve.”

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone said he forgoes the annual California State Association of Counties (CSAC) conference, for which supervisors are given an additional $3,000 travel budget, so that he can instead use that money for his in-district travel expenses. And, noting the county’s current budget woes, he said, “I’m willing to live within the amount that I’m currently allocated.”

He said an additional $15,000 — $5,000 apiece for three supervisors — “doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but every little chunk adds up. So that’s my two cents.”

But the rest of the board was in favor of increases the travel budget. Wilson made a motion to that effect. In an effort to simplify the math, First District Supervisor Rex Bohn suggested replacing the equation “5% plus CPI” with a flat 7.5% increase for the upcoming fiscal year. 

The rest of the board agreed with that proposal — Madrone excepted — and the motion passed 4-1.

UPDATE, 3:45 p.m.:

Fast action against the invading hordes means that Hunan is once again cleared to reopen. Here’s the health inspection report signaling that all is clean and sterile, and a roach gameplan is in place and approved.

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ORIGINAL POST:

Sad news from Henderson Center.

‘Roachy.’

Yesterday afternoon, an inspector from the county’s Division of Environmental Health paid a visit to Hunan restaurant on E Street. The inspector did not like what he or she found. And that is because what he or she found was roaches.

She or he wrote:

Observed multiple life stages of dead roaches underneath storage area in server station, underneath server fridge as well as in storage cubes of to-go items. Due to the presence of a live cockroach on a food contact Surface, this facilities [sic] permit has been suspended until the following mitigation measures can be taken: 

And then he/she goes on to list the usual mitigation measures, which involve a full deep cleaning and a contract with a professional pest control service, at which point the restaurant will be permitted to reopen.

Read the full inspection report here.

UPDATE, 1:40 p.m.: Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Mar. 17, 2026, at approximately 7:34 a.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team, assisted by patrol deputies and Special Services Division personnel assigned to the Sheriff’s Office UAV team, responded to a residence in the 1800 block of Albee St. in Eureka to serve an arrest warrant and to execute a search warrant.

Upon arrival, deputies contacted and arrested 18-year-old Tyler Colegrove on the outstanding arrest warrant. Deputies then searched the residence pursuant to the search warrant and located a loaded firearm.

Colegrove was transported to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility and booked on the following charges:

• PC 29800(a)(1)-Felon in Possession of a Firearm
• PC 29610(a)-Minor in Illegally Possess Concealed Weapon
• PC 29180(a)-Manufacture/Assemble Firearm Without a Serial Number
• PC 32310-Manufacture/Import/ Sell/Give Away/Possess Large Capacity Magazines

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

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ORIGINAL POST:

The Sheriff’s Office was out on Eureka’s Albee Street just south of West Wabash this morning, conducting what a SWAT raid at an apartment building. They’re just wrapping it up.

Lt. Kyle Holt tells the Outpost’s Ryan Burns that the action was the results a “complicated, complex” investigation that involved the service of an arrest warrant and a search warrant at the location, but said he was unable to share much more information with the public at this time.

As of 8 a.m., deputies appear to have taken at least one man into custody and are talking to several other people at the scene.

As seen in the video below, taken by Outpost reader Joe McCovey, deputies were earlier using drones to peek in windows of an apartment building at the location.

We’ll update when we know more.

PREVIOUSLY

• A (Growing) Number of Runners Are Planning to Run 62 Miles Between All Five Murphy’s Next Month

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What drives someone to run 60 miles in a day? To experience a sense of accomplishment, to thrill at doing something very few people can, maybe to revel in the scenery? Sometimes, it’s for a hot bar, snacks, and some company. 

Around 20 people made the trek on Saturday to some or all of the five Murphy’s grocery stores, from Glendale to Arcata to Trinidad, down to Cutten and up to Sunny Brae — almost exactly 60 miles on foot. For a few, the run was their first ultramarathon. For others, it was just the latest entry in a long list. Most ran chunks of the route, starting at one Murphy’s and dropping out one or two later. The majority just did the portion from Arcata to Trinidad. Three people did the whole thing: local ultrarunners Thomas Nolan, Tom Davies, and the event’s organizer, Pete Ciotti. 

No one tried to win the run. They ran and chatted in a pack. Completing the challenge was the point, but waiting for them at every Murphy’s was a spread of snacks and hot food. The seven people who started in Glendale got breakfast, too. 

Murphy’s spokesperson Kelsie Ng told the Outpost that they thought it was “amazing” that someone (let alone about two dozen people) would want to spend their free time running in between their stores. She helped coordinate the event, and set up snack boxes for them at the stores.

“I’m just glad it wasn’t me running it,” she said. “I was just in such admiration, you know? It’s great that we’re doing this for the community. They’re not getting paid. No one’s forcing them to run all of that.”

The last few miles were brutal, Ciotti told the Outpost. 

“I definitely felt pretty broken when we finished, but mostly it was mental more than physical,” he said. “It was just — brain swimming around, being a little calorie deficient and just, kind of, over it, you know. Over the challenge…We could just smell the finish, but we still had to keep going. I was stoked when it was over.”

Ciotti is an experienced ultrarunner, and somewhat of an evangelizer for the sport. He was back hiking with his family the next day. Dealing with a sick baby the last few days has been worse, he said. 

Besides being an excuse to spend an entire day running — 7 a.m. start, 10:15 p.m. finish — the event was also a fundraiser for victims of the Jan. 2 Arcata fire. Murphy’s presented customers with an option to round their totals up to the nearest dollar, which raised about $500, according to Ng. Ciotti, himself a small business owner, took the loss of Northtown Books hard, and wanted to do something about it. 

“I’ve been buying my kids a library there for the last 20 years,” he said. “It was really tough to start the new year with that devastating fire…I hope that it’s going to come back even better than it was, which was pretty awesome. So hopefully the businesses can bounce back, the community can bounce back, and we get something special in its place.”

Ciotti and Ng said they’re planning on doing it again next year. Ciotti’s already working on putting together yet another endurance challenge that involves running from the Eureka Los Bagels to the Arcata location as many times as possible in a single month. The winner gets a Los Bagels gift card.

Running that far would have been a lot less fun without the food, Ciotti said. 

“Thank god for Murphy’s.”

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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As Fresno Resistance co-founder Alfred Aldrete awoke from uneasy dreams one morning last month, he found himself the focus of community gossip and, he believes, a target of the local police department.

Aldrete and a small group of volunteers escorted about 50 high school students on a walkout in protest of immigration enforcement last month in the city of Clovis, population 128,000, where Donald Trump won every precinct in the 2024 presidential election – some with more than 70% of the vote.

During the mile-long walk, a police officer asked Aldrete for his name, date of birth and phone number.

“He really did the old, ‘We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,’ ” Aldrete said. “And they weren’t stopping any of these (counterprotesters) who were driving by, smogging, throwing water or yelling s — . But they did stop me and two of the other adults.”

The next morning, the Clovis Police Department announced it was considering charging as many as six adults with a crime under Section 272 of the California Penal Code, which forbids adults from inducing students into truancy.

Police have not arrested anyone in connection with the protest, and the Fresno County District Attorney hasn’t filed any charges. Still, Aldrete is anticipating being charged because he was stopped and questioned by the police.

A Clovis Police Department vehicle at the police headquarters in Clovis on Feb. 26, 2026. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters

The walkout on Feb. 10 was part of a national protest weeks after federal immigration enforcement agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minnesota. But only a handful of police departments in the country have threatened criminal charges against adults who escorted the students during the protests: Clovis and the Los Angeles Police Department.

The LAPD issued a warning after school walkouts culminated in a protest outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown LA.

“Any adult who collects or picks up a child and transports them to participate in any illegal activities may be responsible for Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor and is subject to arrest and prosecution,” the warning read.

So far, no one has been arrested or prosecuted.

The Clovis Police Department went further than LAPD by publicly stating it’s investigating a few specific people for potential charges, without naming them.

The law enforcement agencies are citing a code that’s most often used to prevent chronic truancy, called inducing the delinquency of a minor. The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office has filed about 20 such charges each year for at least the last five years. Those charges, said spokesperson Taylor Long, are usually related to harboring runaways, providing alcohol to minors or involving minors in other crimes, like theft.

Nationally, students have faced suspensions because of the walkouts, but it’s rare to see adults threatened with charges associated with the walkouts outside of California.

In Pennsylvania, prosecutors are reviewing footage of Quakertown’s police chief putting a 15-year-old girl in what appeared to be a chokehold during a school walkout. In Texas, state Attorney General Ken Paxton said he will investigate teachers in three school districts where students participated in walkouts.

Alfred Aldrete addresses a crowd of protesters in front of a federal immigration office in downtown Fresno on Jan. 30, 2026. The march is part of a nationwide shutdown against federal immigration raids. Photo by Larry Valenzuela for CalMatters

Aldrete runs the Fresno Resistance group with his twin brother. He’s been out of work as a heating, ventilation and air conditioning technician since late last year. The protest movement is, for the time being, his vocation.

The question at the heart of the investigation is about the adults’ involvement. Were the students themselves lured into participating in a walkout, or did they organize on their own? Can students younger than 18 make that decision for themselves? And how does the school board overseeing its districts define the line between students’ right to free expression and the schools’ duty to protect their kids?

Despite repeated requests by CalMatters, no member of the Clovis Unified School District Governing Board responded to questions about the walkout or potential charges.

“I think what was happening is Clovis took the visual context of the walkouts (in Fresno) and were kind of sitting and thinking, what can we do to extinguish this fire before it gets started,” Aldrete said.

“The people of Clovis are having a really hard time swallowing the fact that these students put together and orchestrated this all on their own intelligence and an adult level of understanding of their constitutional rights.”

The town’s police force, and the broader conservative movement, insist that adults present at the walkouts are still responsible for the march and potentially liable for the students missing school.

“I am more and more convinced as I watch more and more of these kinds of walkouts happen that this is not organic,” said Lance Christiansen, a 2022 candidate for state superintendent of public instruction. “This is largely adult agitators pushing these kids to be radical activists.”

The adults who followed student protest

Buchanan High School in Clovis on Feb. 26, 2026. Students staged a walkout earlier that month as part of a nationwide protest against federal immigration raids. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters

As students walked out of Clovis’ Buchanan High School on that sunny February morning, they found two groups of adults waiting for them.

One was from Fresno Resistance; the other a counterprotest led by a conservative livestreamer who was present during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

“Look at this guy,” said the livestreamer, Josh Fulfer, aiming his camera at a protester whose face was covered, according to a two-hour recording he posted to the conservative social media site Rumble. “I wouldn’t want a predator around my children if they were marching.”

The students walked from their high school to a strip mall, where they stood on the sidewalk and held up signs that said “We are not animals” and “You voted for a felon.”

Fresno Resistance volunteers in fluorescent yellow vests walked alongside the marchers. They stayed until the sun went down, said Liliana, 17, a Buchanan High School student who didn’t want her last name used for fear of reprisal.

“There was a lot of people in big, loud trucks that were revving their engines or blowing smoke at us or stuff like that” during the march and protest, she said. “And there was a lot of people that kept flipping us off.

Students from the Clovis Unified School District walk out of class on Feb. 10, 2026, as part of a nationwide protest against federal immigration raids. Screenshot via ABC30 Fresno

“I recognized probably about three of them that were revving the smoke at us, they were seniors from our school.”

The marchers were also joined by the Clovis Police Department’s “Camera on Wheels” car, a decommissioned vehicle equipped with multiple high-resolution cameras that can record and send real-time feeds to the department for up to a week at a time, along with about 500 cameras on a city network that is monitored by the police.

Liliana said she helped organize the walkout when she saw other schools organizing a national walkout, and said she got in contact with Fresno Resistance members just days before the march.

A Clovis Unified School District spokesperson said the students could have used designated protest areas on campus instead of walking off campus.

“We felt like it would make more of an impact (walking off campus) than just staying for a 30-minute lunch and doing a protest,” Liliana said.

Aldrete said it’s disappointing that students participating in their first protest faced immediate backlash from their community. He said he hopes it doesn’t stop them from participating in future protests.

“This is the point of their lives where their eyes are being opened,” Aldrete said. “A lot of them, this is their first time doing something like this.”

What Clovis’ history means to city

The town sign hanging over Clovis Avenue in Old Town Clovis on Feb. 28, 2026. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters

Clovis loves its history, from the log flume that ferried lumber into the local sawmill to Big Hat Days, where people wear big Western hats. Its middle school retained the name “The Chieftains” despite a plan to change it last year after California banned Native American mascots – the school district found last-minute support from the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians to keep the name.

The animating myth of Clovis is about bad people from the big city coming to steal from people. It’s based on a true story, about a day in 1924 when three people from the Bay Area held up the First State Bank and made off with more than $30,000.

So they reenact the crime, year after year, at the city’s Big Dry Creek Museum and they explain what happened in the end, which is that two of the three bank robbers were caught and hanged.

First: Actors take part in a reenactment of an infamous bank robbery during a tour. Last: Historical photos displayed in the Clovis Big Dry Creek Museum in Old Town Clovis on Feb. 28, 2026. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters

But there are the parts of its history Clovis doesn’t openly embrace. It had a reputation as a sundown town, which historically meant that people of color were not welcome after dark, and could face violence if they stayed.

In a 2019 KVPR story about the Green Book directory of safe places for Black people before and after segregation, longtime Fresno County resident Dorythea Williams told the station that she never needed the Green Book to tell her to avoid Clovis. As a Black person, it wasn’t just closed to her after nightfall.

“You could not stop in Clovis in the daytime,” Williams told KVPR.

Some, like Aldrete, see the ICE protests and the police conduct as an extension of that history, noting that some Fresno kids of color are told to obey a simple motto: Don’t cross State Route 168 from Fresno, where the signs are green, into Clovis, where the signs are brown.

He repeated a common saying in the Central Valley concerning Clovis, “When the signs turn brown, turn around.”

A street sign in Old Town Clovis on Feb. 28, 2026. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters

And yet Clovis defies easy stereotypes: On the walls of its museum are photos of high school classes from a century ago. There are Black and Asian students mingled with the majority white population as early as 1933. Its history is one of mostly prosperity.

Its identity is formed in part by its distinction from neighboring Fresno and the other large urban centers of the Central Valley, along with its wealth: The median household income in Clovis was $99,000 in 2024, far higher than the $71,000 median household income in Fresno.

Aldrete said he’s expecting a call any day now to report to the Clovis Police Department and face charges related to his presence at the walkout.

But the potential criminal charges in Clovis have not scared off other student-led and faith-based protest groups from getting in touch with Fresno Resistance. In fact, he said, all the hubbub has drawn more attention their way.

The day after the protest, the Fresno Resistance could not receive emails. Their inbox was full.

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CalMatters visual journalist Larry Valenzuela contributed reporting for this story.