Yosemite Falls

On April 11, The Bee ran pro and con commentaries on the Merced River Plan, which is the blueprint for Yosemite Valley. We also provided links to learn about and comment on the plan.

Thus far, the National Park Service has received 25,000 comments on the controversial plan, which calls for a limit of 19,900 visitor on busy days and would remove the popular winter ice rink at Curry Village.

The comment period, which was supposed to end Thursday, has been extended to April 30. The Bee’s Mark Grossi has more.

You can learn more about the Merced River Plan here. You can comment on the plan to the National Park Service here.

The state of California goes after people who owe taxes, but what happens when the state is the deadbeat? CalWatchdog has the story.

Our Letter of the Day is from Rep. Tom McClintock, whose sprawling district includes a swath of the Sierra in the central San Joaquin Valley. He is critical of our March 16 editorial urging Congress to maintain phone service for the poor.

A race official assists Bill Iffrig, 78, of Lake Stevens, Wash., as Iffrig lies on the ground after the first explosion.

Charles Pierce of the Grantland website provides a Bostonian’s view of the Boston Marathon bombings. Fantastic narrative journalism.

I’ve been posting to Twitter many of the big financial contributions to the state Senate campaigns of Democrat Leticia Perez and Republican Andy Vidak. If you want to follow the money, go to Twitter and follow @electiontrack

Associated Press is reporting that the two bombs that ripped through the crowds at the Boston Marathon were made out of pressure cookers and packed with shards of metal, nails and ball bearings. fresnobee.com

Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that his administration will prepare to release as many as 10,000 state prisoners if the state is unable to get out from under a court order demanding it reduce California’s prison population.  capitolalert

Our Letter of the Day is from Ron Wells of Coarsegold. He would like to see drug tests for welfare recipients.

Tiny  Samoa Air has announced it will charge passengers by their weight for tickets. Is this the wave of the future? Time has the story.

GOP strategist/consultant Mike Murphy says in the Detroit Free Press that Michigan can be used as a testing ground for a reformulated Republican Party.

Labor and environmentalists have put CEQA reform efforts on life support, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Our Letter of the Day is from Reggie Lewis, chairman of the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians, in response to this Bee editorial.

NRA leader Wayne LaPierre has used Americans’ opposition to gun registry to effectively blunt calls for stricter gun controls.

What is stopping stricter gun control laws in the wake of so many mass shootings despite apparent support by a supermajority of Americans?

Slate’s Dave Weigel says its fear of a national gun registry — a fear that the National Rife Association uses to its advantage in intimidating elected officials into not supporting more aggressive gun control. Here’s the story.

Congratulations to Jerry Tarkanian, a Fresno State graduate, former Bulldogs basketball coach and the man who coached UNLV to a national championship. CBS Sports is reporting that Tark has been elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Here’s a little more on the story.

At least two California state lawmakers secretly traveled with Sacramento’s “best connected” lobbyist to Cuba during the legislature’s spring break, an exclusive CalWatchdog.com investigation reveals. One of them was  State Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Livingston; the other was Assembly Member Katcho Achadjian, R-San Luis Obispo.

Roger Ebert’s 10 best reviews and 10 best zingers courtesy of The Daily Beast.

Our Letter of the Day is “In defense of Bush” from Jim Harmon of Friant.

Have a great weekend. I will be back with more “Links” on Monday.

What would it take to make you a regular visitor to downtown Fresno? We’ll share your thoughts in Community Conversation on Monday, April 15.

We’re asking Bee readers their thoughts on what would bring them to downtown Fresno regularly.

Letters must include name, address (snail or email) and daytime phone number for verification.

There is a 150-word limit. The deadline for submission is Thursday, April 11. The mailing addresses: letters@Fresnobee.com or The Fresno Bee, P.O. Box 12504, Fresno, CA 93778-2504.

This Community Conversation takes place Monday, April 15 in The Bee.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, center, completes signing legislation at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., Thursday. that includes new restrictions on weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines, a response to last year’s deadly school shooting in Newtown.

Connecticut adopts some of the nation’s toughest gun-control laws with bipartisan support. Here’s the Time report.

Following up on the commentary in The Bee on Wednesday by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, West Wing Reports says that President Obama raised $3.25 million for Democratic candidates at last night’s fund-raiser in San Francisco. We’ll have something to say about Obama’s latest ATM venture in California on Friday’s editorial page.

In Friday’s print edition of The Bee, we will run a column on North Korea by Paul Brandus, one of the top independent journalists covering the the White House. But you can read the column right now by clicking here.

The California Constitution apparently is toothless when it comes to the law requiring Assembly and Senate candidates to live in their districts for one year to be eligible to run for office. The Bee’s John Ellis has the story.

Our Letter of the Day is from Mark Hays Pearson of Fresno, who writes on Ayn Rand. Read it here.

Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway, R-Tulare, spent spring break on an overseas junket bankrolled by special interests.

How did your California lawmakers spend spring break?  Some served their constituents or their country. Others, including Assembly Member Henry T. Perea, D-Fresno, and Assembly Member Connie Conway, R-Tulare went on overseas junkets bankrolled by special interests. CalWatchdog has the story.

When outrage goes viral: The video and tweets that led Rutgers to fire its mens basketball coach.  Check it out at Time.

Boxer Jose Ramirez of Avenal, a 2012 Olympian, made quick work of his second professional opponent. You can see the entire fight here.

A San Luis Obispo doctor says he was fired because he put patients’ health care before corporate profits. The Tribune has the story.

Our Letter of the Day comes from Alex Rubalcava of Fresno. He says that the model for success on the Fulton Mall is Los Angeles’ famed Olvera Street. Read the letter here.

CalWatchdog says that California’s high-speed rail and delta tunnel projects could be scenes in the classic Jack Nicholson movie “Chinatown.”

Californians want relief from high gas prices, not higher gas taxes, says  Assembly Member Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, in an op-ed for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Oakdale Irrigation District board will consider a one-year water sale to drought-stressed parts of the Valley, including drought-impacted western Fresno County. The Merced Sun-Star has the story.

Take a peek into a political opposition research boot camp, courtesy of NPR.

Guess what happens when homeowners make their mortgage payments? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reap big profits totaling tens of billions of dollars. (Politico)

New York Times columnist and Paul Krugman is a liberal who loves taking on conservatives and their economic policies. In “Lessons from a Comeback,” he serves up his analysis of California’s economy and political tilt to the left.

The California Teachers Association is now backing a bill the it successfully opposed last year. The legislation would streamline and speed up the process by which school districts can discipline or fire teachers accused of misconduct. Associated Press has the details on Assembly Bill AB375 by Assembly member Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo.

Major League Baseball began the 2013 season last night, and Opening Day continues today. Here’s some baseball trivia with a local twist: Who has been the starting pitcher in the most Opening Day games?

Answer:  Tom Seaver, a Fresno native, made 16 Opening Day starts in his Hall of Fame career — 11 with the New York Mets, three with the Cincinnati Reds and two with the Chicago White Sox. Seaver posted a 7-2 record as an Opening Day starter. Jack Morris, with an 8-6 record in 14 Opening Day starts, has the most wins. (Source: ESPN)

Attention San Francisco Giants fans: Juan Marichal won six Opening Day starts.

Our Letter of the Day is from Radley Reep of Clovis. He says that Fresno County leaders are ignoring their own General Plan/

Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, believes that first-year Assembly Members are committed to moving California forward — even if it requires crossing party lines.

Assembly Member Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, has a new spin on the adage that in the West, whiskey is for sipping and water is for fighting. Speaking at the Fresno Chamber of Commerce’s “Eggs and Issues” breakfast Friday morning, Patterson said that “water is like trying to broker peace in the Middle East.”

The freshman Assembly member and former Fresno mayor stayed true to his conservative, free-enterprise roots during his talk, but also offered hope that he and other members — Democrats and Republicans — of the body’s large first-year class could forge alliances born of “dispassionate, fact-based analysis” of what California must do to quicken and expand its economic recovery.

Because of voter-approved term-limits modifications,  many of the freshmen in the Assembly are likely to end up serving 12 years. Such familiarity could breed either partisan contempt or friendships that cross party lines.

For California’s sake, let’s hope that Patterson’s enthusiasm for bipartisanship is felt throughout the Assembly and Senate. Clearly, Republicans will have to be strategic about which bills they support. As Patterson said, ‘The Democrats own the joint.”

Lawmakers, lobbyists and developers are trying to come up with Redevelopment 2.0 to replace the model disbanded by Gov. Jerry Brown. But the conservative website CalWatchdog says the new version contains the same flaw as the original: focusing on blight instead of unemployment.

The Los Angeles Times offers this report on salmon restoration in the San Joaquin River. According to reporter Bettina Boxall, “104 fall-run chinook (were) trapped over a period of weeks late last year and hauled in tank trucks down California 99 — around dry riverbed not yet restored — for release in the upper river at Camp Pashayan on the outskirts of Fresno.”

Our Letter of the Day is from Berl Jay Hubbell of Fresno, who says that Gov. Brown’s proposed Delta tunnel project is a scam.