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Clovis Rodeo to debut free city shuttle service from Sierra Vista Mall
The 110th Clovis Rodeo announced, for the first time, a partnership with the City of Clovis for free shuttle rides to and from the rodeo grounds next month.
Operating from the southeast corner of the Sierra Vista Mall, the service will pick up guests from the parking lot behind K1 Speed Kart Racing and drop them off at the corner of Veterans Parkway and 4th Street, allowing rodeo fans to easily park and attend the rodeo at no additional cost.
“We are thrilled to offer this complimentary shuttle service in collaboration with the City of Clovis,” said Clancy Wardle, president of the Clovis Rodeo Association.
The service will operate for the duration of the rodeo April 24-28, with Wednesday through Friday pick-up service from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and return service operating from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. For Saturday and Sunday, pick ups will operate from noon to 3 p.m. and return service from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.
“This initiative not only provides a convenient transportation option for our attendees but also helps reduce traffic congestion around the event area,” Wardle said.
Sponsors return
The Clovis Rodeo Association also announced Monday its sponsors for the 110th edition of the rodeo, expressing thanks for the support of this years’ and past sponsors for the annual event.
This year’s sponsors are Coors/Valleywide Beverage Company, and Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino, both of which have enjoyed a long-term partnership with the Clovis Rodeo.
“We are deeply grateful to all our sponsors for their continued support,” Clancy said. “Their commitment to our event allows us to uphold our mission of preserving and promoting the sport of rodeo while giving back to the community.”
Contributions from sponsors play a vital role in the continued success of the rodeo, keeping ticket prices accessible for the community while providing high quality entertainment and showcasing the best of western lifestyle, according to a news release.
Tickets for the event are available at the Clovis Rodeo website through April. Tickets range from $20 to $35 and include concerts. This year’s concert lineup includes Bryan Martin (April 24), Michael Ray (April 25) and Matt Stell (April 26).
Tickets can also be purchased at the Clovis Rodeo Grounds, with the ticket box office open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. through March 31 and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. beginning April 1.
BLOG: At the agency named for men, women rule
Over its 48-year history, Jeffrey Scott Agency (JSA) has been a lot of different things and served over 500 clients. But today, the agency named after not one, but two men, is led by women.
Headquartered in Downtown Fresno, JSA is the largest full-service marketing firm in Central California and has become known for using creative strategy as a driving force, building the brands of its clients and championing the communities it serves. And unlike the bulk of businesses, which are run and staffed by mostly men, (yes, still) JSA has three floors of talented marketing and creative professionals — a majority of whom are women, working under female leadership.
At the helm of the agency, Jessie Irwin is a managing partner alongside Marcus Young. Irwin has championed flexible schedules and work-from-home Fridays, saying that when you support flexible work schedules, you support families and the balance of sharing household and child rearing duties between both parents. There’s a reason that during the pandemic, in September 2020, four times more women than men dropped out of the workforce (Boston College Center for Work and Family). Women still shoulder the majority of housework and homeschooling, and flexible schedules and more time to work-from-home gives women access to a better work-life balance—which JSA prioritizes.
“JSA is an incubator for female talent,” says Irwin. “A marketing agency is the definition of a fast-paced work environment and that may be a faux pas now, but it’s true. You’ve got dozens of deadlines, new clients walking in the door every day, constantly changing technology. You need a team of strong, tenured leaders and smart, dedicated staff. And we have that. We’ve got women who’ve been at this for 40 years passing the baton to women fresh out of college, and they all support, motivate, and congratulate one another.”
Just in time for national Women’s Month, JSA is celebrating two recent promotions from within — elevating two of its female employees to leadership positions. Melissa Carrillo has been named JSA’s director of accounts and Natalie Ramirez is the agency’s director of brand strategy.
Carrillo has been working as an account manager at JSA for two years, handling nonprofit and education clients like the Central California Food Bank, Beautify Fresno and Fresno Pacific University.
Ramirez has worked at JSA for five years, handling a wide range of clients including Milano Restaurants International (Me-n-Ed’s, Blast & Brew, Piazza Del Pane), Sun-Maid Growers, and the Fresno Chaffee Zoo.
JSA is a place where knowledge — and leadership roles — are passed down through generations. Both Carrillo and Ramirez started at JSA as account managers, shepherded by Cat Figura, who is now chief operating officer, but has managed accounts since 1991. Figura has helped guide dozens of women into leadership positions over the years.
Sarah Pruner Gunlund, JSA’s director of public relations, has been at JSA for 18 years and Lauren Kerber, JSA’s director of content, has been with the agency for 11 years. Angela Corbett has been with JSA for nine years and now oversees creative products as the agency’s associate creative director. The agency’s web department, which is a male-dominated profession, is fearlessly shepherded by JSA’s Director of Web Services Montanna Tilton. Women dominate the inner and outer workings of the agency, even down to its finances with JSA’s Controller Shantel Maiorana, who has been with JSA since 2005.
“There are a lot of good reasons why an employee may choose to invest their time and talents into their workplace,” said Gunlund. “However, companies that choose to equally invest in their employees’ professional and personal lives is when the magic happens. JSA has always stressed how important it is for a work/life balance, whether you’re a mother, a father, a grad student, a grandfather or intern — it’s a place that thrives at doing business well by not just supporting employees’ investment in themselves but encouraging it.”
However far removed it seems, 50 short years ago, most of the generational knowledge passed down between women concerned caretaking and home making — how to sew a patch in your sweater, cook a pot roast and chew with your mouth closed. It might seem like a played-out tune, but the truth is, there’s still a lot of inequality in the workplace. And although JSA isn’t the first to work to change the narrative, for an agency of our size and influence in Central California, our commitment to it is a rare and refreshing thing.
Trader Joe’s upped the price of its bananas for the first time in decades. Here’s why
It may not be too “appeeling,” but the price of some bananas are rising by a few cents.
Trader Joe’s recently upped the price for a single banana to 23 cents, a 4-cent — or 21% — increase from the grocer’s previous going rate for the fruit that had remained unchanged for over 20 years.
“We only change our prices when our costs change, and after holding our price for Bananas at 19¢ each for more than two decades, we’ve now reached a point where this change is necessary,” a spokesperson for the chain based in Monrovia, California, said.
In contrast to other foods more heavily impacted by inflation, bananas have stayed relatively affordable over time — with average global prices never exceeding more than about 80 cents per pound (0.45 kilograms).
Still, banana prices have seen some jumps in recent years. And it’s not just impacting Trader Joe’s shoppers.
In the U.S., the cost of a pound of bananas averaged at about 63 cents last month. That’s only 3 cents more than it was a decade ago, government data shows, but about 6 cents higher than prices reported at the start of 2020, in the months before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.
Around the world, banana prices saw their most notable pandemic-era spikes in 2022 — with the global average price per metric ton increasing by more than $520 over the course of that year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, citing International Monetary Fund numbers. Those prices drifted back down some in 2023, but still remain elevated.
“Bananas are a very popular fruit among consumers, so retailers try to keep prices low,” Neil Saunders, managing director at research firm GlobalData, notes. “However, prices cannot defy gravity forever and (we are) now starting to see retailers like Trader Joe’s make adjustments.”
One of the main reasons behind these increases is the rising cost of farming bananas, Saunders added, noting that fertilizer, pesticide and transportation prices have all gone up due to general inflation.
At the same time, demand for bananas has been growing, he said. That creates an imbalance with supply as exporters face pressures of higher costs, greater prevalence of disease impacting plants and unfavorable weather conditions.
The World Banana Forum, part of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, has pointed to growing effects of global warming, including higher instances of drought and natural disasters, that make banana production “increasingly difficult, uncertain and costly.”
Such concerns go well-beyond bananas. Researchers expect food prices and inflation overall to rise as temperatures climb with climate change.
NCAA President Charlie Baker urges states with legal wagering to ban prop bets on college athletes
In the midst of March Madness, the NCAA is pushing for states with legal wagering on sporting events to ban prop bets on college athletes.
“Sports betting issues are on the rise across the country with prop bets continuing to threaten the integrity of competition and leading to student-athletes getting harassed,” Baker said Wednesday in statement posted on social media. “The NCAA has been working with states to deal with these threats and many are responding by banning college prop bets.”
Prop bets — short for proposition bets — allow gamblers to wager on statistics a player will accumulate during a game rather than the final score.
Baker’s statement came two days after the NBA confirmed it opened an investigation into unusual betting patterns surrounding props involving Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter. The Raptors said Porter would miss his third consecutive game Wednesday for personal reasons.
Some NBA players and coaches have been outspoken recently about prop bets and how gamblers react when numbers fail to hit. Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said his social media is filled with complaints and Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff revealed he received threats from gamblers last season and reported it to the NBA.
Earlier this month, U.S. Integrity, a company used by many professional sports leagues and college conferences to monitor betting activity, flagged a Temple regular-season men’s basketball game for wagering irregularities.
The NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are a huge draw for gamblers. The American Gaming Association estimates $2.7 billion will be bet this year on March Madness through legal sportsbooks.
The NCAA already has made some progress toward eliminating prop bets on college athletes. Gaming regulators in Ohio, Vermont and Maryland have removed prop betting on college athletes online and in sportsbooks. Baker and his staff are reaching out to regulators in other states to encourage similar bans.
The Ohio Casino Control Commission said last month in granting the NCAA’s request that prop bets last year on NCAA athletes with sports gaming operators in the state brought in approximately $104.6 million, which accounted for 1.35% of the total amount wagered. Prop bets on college athletes accounted for about 2.2% of wagers.
Chris Cylke, senior vice president for government relations for the American Gaming Association, said banning legal wagering on college player propositions would drive more bettors to illegal and offshore sportsbooks.
“While it is unclear how this advances our shared goal of reducing athlete harassment, we do know that driving customers to illegal channels will ultimately hinder the ability to monitor for and detect potential suspicious betting behavior,” Cylke said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.
The number of states that now allow some form of sports betting has grown to 38, plus the District of Columbia. Thirty states and the nation’s capital allow online wagering.
Companies that monitor sports betting for irregularities have warned college sports administrators that prop betting on unpaid athletes elevates the potential risk for a scandal because players can more easily influence their own performance than the overall outcome of a game.
The NCAA conducted a survey after last year’s basketball tournaments that found 58% of 18- to 22-year-olds are gambling.
Baker has said the proliferation of legal sports gambling has increased stress on college athletes.
“All that chatter about who’s playing, who’s not playing. Who’s sore, who’s not sore. What’s going on with the team you’re playing? What do you think your chances are? Which is just classic chatter, where — in a world where people are betting — takes on a whole new consequence,” Baker said in January before his address to membership at the NCAA convention.
The NCAA has partnered with a data science company called Signify, which also works with the NBA Players Association and WNBA, to identify online threats made to athletes during championship events that are linked to wagering.
“Basically tracks ugly, nasty stuff that’s being directed at people who are participating in their tournaments and we’d use it the same way,” Baker said in January. “And it can shut it down or basically block it. And in some cases even track back to where it came from.”
In October, the NCAA announced it would be advocating for state legislators to update laws to crack down on harassment of athletes, coaches and game officials and to bolster integrity protections.
In West Virginia, NCAA officials worked with lawmakers to pass a bill that would allow betting regulators to ban people from wagering in the state online or at sportsbooks who have been found to have harassed players, coaches, or officials online or in person. The bill is awaiting a signature from Gov. Jim Justice.
San Diego State men’s basketball coach Brian Dutcher said he is concerned about how all the negative feedback impacts athletes’ mental health.
“People complaining about how they’re playing, missing shots, and they just get beat up constantly,” said Dutcher, whose team is playing in the Sweet 16 in Boston this week.
Illinois guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn said he encourages his teammates to ignore the criticism.
“I never really am on social media but in person someone would be like, ‘I’m going to bet the under on you.’ In that moment you can’t say anything,” Gibbs-Lawhorn said. “So I’m just like, ‘OK, good job.’ Like, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
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AP Sports Writers Tim Reynolds in Miami and Jimmy Golen and Kyle Hightower in Boston contributed to this report.
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
Biden administration will lend $1.5B to restart Michigan nuclear power plant, a first in the US
The federal government will provide a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan, officials announced Wednesday.
Holtec International acquired the 800-megawatt Palisades plant in 2022 with plans to dismantle it. But now the emphasis is on restarting it by late 2025, following support from the state of Michigan and the Biden administration.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said it would be the first nuclear power plant to be reopened in the U.S. It still faces hurdles, including inspections, testing and the blessing of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, known as the NRC.
“Nuclear power is our single largest source of carbon-free electricity, directly supporting 100,000 jobs across the country and hundreds of thousands more indirectly,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor.
The Palisades plant is along Lake Michigan, a two-hour drive from Chicago. A Michigan utility, CMS Energy, owned it from 1971 until the plant was sold to Louisiana-based utility Entergy in 2007. It was shut down in 2022.
Holtec said it has long-term commitments so far from two electric cooperatives to buy power from the plant.
“The repowering of Palisades will restore safe, around-the-clock generation to hundreds of thousands of households, businesses and manufacturers,” said Kris Singh, Holtec president and chief executive.
Critics, however, have emerged. A coalition opposed to restarting what it derisively calls a “zombie reactor” has requested a hearing at the NRC.
Holtec spokesman Patrick O’Brien said it will take four to five months to finalize the financial deal with the government.
“It is a loan we have to pay back,” he said.
Nuclear energy is in the spotlight. Thirty-four countries, including the U.S., last week pledged to use it to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. In California, regulators in December said the Diablo Canyon plant could operate through 2030 instead of 2025 to guard against blackouts as the state shifts toward renewable power sources. Owner Pacific Gas & Electric said federal aid helped it repay a state loan.
“There is more enthusiasm toward nuclear power — in Congress, in the industry and also internationally,” said Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who has inspected nuclear plants around the world.
But restarting a plant, he said, is not easy.
“It puts the onus and burden on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Holtec to double down on efforts to make sure this plant is safe enough and all the safety measures are intact,” Meshkati said of Palisades.
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Follow Ed White on X, formerly Twitter, at https://twitter.com/edwritez
Settlement reached in lawsuit between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ allies
Allies of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney reached a settlement agreement Wednesday in a state court fight over how Walt Disney World is developed in the future following the takeover of the theme park resort’s government by the Florida governor.
In a meeting, the DeSantis-appointed members of the board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District approved the settlement agreement, ending almost two years of litigation that was sparked by DeSantis’ takeover of the district from Disney supporters following the company’s opposition to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law.
The 2022 law bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades and was championed by the Republican governor, who used Disney as a punching bag in speeches until he suspended his presidential campaign this year.
The district provides municipal services such as firefighting, planning and mosquito control, among other things, and was controlled by Disney supporters for most of its five decades.
The agreement came a day after the appointment of a new board member, replacing a DeSantis-appointed board chairman who was a Disney critic. Under the deal, covenants and a development agreement Disney supporters on the board made with the company just before the state takeover would be dropped and the new board agreed to operate under an earlier plan.
Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World Resort, said in a statement Wednesday that the company was pleased a settlement had been reached.
“This agreement opens a new chapter of constructive engagement with the new leadership of the district and serves the interests of all parties by enabling significant continued investment and the creation of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and economic opportunity in the state,” Vahle said.
DeSantis, who was in Orlando on Wednesday, said at a news conference that “we have been vindicated on all those actions.”
“I’m glad that they were able to do that settlement,” DeSantis said. “Those 11th hour covenants and restrictions were never going to be valid. We knew that.”
As punishment for Disney’s opposition to the controversial law, DeSantis took over the governing district through legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and appointed a new board of supervisors. Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees, claiming the company’s free speech rights were violated for speaking out against the legislation. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in January, but Disney appealed.
Before control of the district changed hands from Disney allies to DeSantis appointees early last year, the Disney supporters on its board signed agreements with Disney shifting control over design and construction at Disney World to the company. The new DeSantis appointees claimed the “eleventh-hour deals” neutered their powers and the district sued the company in state court in Orlando to have the contracts voided.
Disney filed counterclaims that included asking the state court to declare the agreements valid and enforceable.
Under the terms of Wednesday’s settlement agreement, Disney lets stand a determination by the board of DeSantis appointees that the comprehensive plan approved by the Disney supporters before the takeover is null and void. Disney also agrees that a development agreement and restrictive covenants passed before the takeover are also not valid, according to the settlement terms.
Instead, a comprehensive plan from 2020 will be used with the new board able to make changes to it, and the agreement suggests Disney and the new board will negotiate a new development agreement in the near future.
Disney also agreed to put on hold the appeal of the federal lawsuit pending the negotiations on the development agreement and other matters, and it will drop its two state lawsuits against the district, one of which was a public records complaint.
“It looks to me like both sides called ‘uncle,’” said Richard Foglesong, a Rollins College professor emeritus who wrote a definitive account of Disney World’s governance in his book, “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.”
“Disney has an interest in ending this and so does the oversight board,” he added. “So, they both win.”
Since the takeover last year, the district has faced an exodus of experienced staffers, with many in exit surveys complaining that the governing body has been politicized since the changeover. Just this month, the district’s administrator, Glen Gilzean, left to become a county elections supervisor at half the $400,000 salary he was earning at the district, and the district’s DeSantis-appointed board chairman, Martin Garcia, departed the following week.
In their place, DeSantis on Tuesday appointed Orlando businessman Craig Mateer to the board and board members on Wednesday approved former DeSantis advisor Stephanie Kopelousos to be the district’s new administrator.
Mateer, a donor to DeSantis campaigns, previously had been appointed by the governor to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority and the Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system. Kopelousos was director of legislative affairs for DeSantis. She also had served as secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation under then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and was a former county manager in northeast Florida.
Garcia was a vocal critic of Disney and his replacement by Mateer, who is well-known in Orlando tourism and business circles, may have made Disney comfortable enough with the board to reach an agreement, Foglesong said.
Board member Charbel Barakat said the board was looking forward to taking a more cooperative approach with the entertainment giant.
“We are eager to work with Disney,” Barakat said after the settlement deal was approved.
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Associated Press writer Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed to this report.
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Follow Mike Schneider on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MikeSchneiderAP.
Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan convicted in sprawling bribery case
Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan was convicted Wednesday of racketeering, bribery, fraud and giving false statements to investigators in a sprawling pay-to-play corruption scandal at City Hall.
The federal jury reached the guilty verdict less than 24 hours after lawyers finished closing arguments, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Sentencing was set for June 10. Chan’s attorney, John Hanusz, told the judge that they will appeal.
“Chan used his leadership position in City Hall to favor corrupt individuals and companies willing to play dirty,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “With today’s verdict, we send a strong message that the public will not stand for corruption and that pay-to-play politics has no place in our community.”
This was Chan’s second trial in the bribery case involving downtown Los Angeles real estate development projects. The first fell apart after his lawyer, Harland Braun, was hospitalized and unable to return to work for months. A judge declared a mistrial last April.
In the latest trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian R. Faerstein told jurors that Chan and former City Councilmember Jose Huizar used the downtown real estate boom of the prior decade to enrich themselves and their allies, the Times reported.
Faerstein described Chan, 67, as a crucial intermediary between Chinese developers looking to build high-rises and Huizar, who headed the powerful committee that shepherded such projects.
In opening arguments March 12, Faerstein said Chan “got bribes for himself, and he got bribes for other public officials.”
Chan is the last defendant charged in the City Hall corruption investigation to go on trial. Huizar, who pleaded guilty to racketeering and tax evasion charges, was sentenced in January to 13 years in prison. More than a half-dozen others have been convicted or pleaded guilty to federal charges, including Huizar’s brother, Salvador Huizar.
“This case was, and always has been, about Jose Huizar,” Hanusz said.
Hanusz agreed that Huizar and the others were corrupt. But he said while Huizar accepted flights to Las Vegas, casino chips and lavish hotel stays, Chan received none of those things.
Chan, while working with developers, was motivated not by greed but by a desire to make Los Angeles more business-friendly, Hanusz said.
Chan was the top executive at the Department of Building and Safety until 2016, when he became the deputy mayor in charge of economic development under Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was not implicated in the scandal. Chan held that job for slightly more than a year, then left city government to become a private-sector consultant, representing real estate developers.
Prosecutors have accused Chan of secretly setting up a consulting firm while working for the city and overseeing government actions for which he was paid by a developer after he left his city employment, the Times said.
Central American and Mexican families mourn the Baltimore bridge collapse missing workers
The construction workers who went missing in the Baltimore bridge collapse came to the Maryland area from Mexico or Central America, including an enterprising Honduran father and husband who started a delivery business before the pandemic forced him to find other work, according to his family.
Police managed to close bridge traffic seconds before a cargo ship slammed into one of the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s supports early Tuesday, causing the span to fall into the frigid Patapsco River. There wasn’t time for a maintenance crew filling potholes on the span to get to safety.
At least eight people fell into the water and two were rescued. The other six are missing and presumed dead, but the search continued Wednesday.
The governments of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras confirmed that their citizens were among the missing.
Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, 38, was the youngest of eight siblings from Azacualpa, a rural mountainous area in northwestern Honduras along the border with Guatemala.
Eighteen years ago, he set out on his own for the U.S. looking for opportunities. He had worked as an industrial technician in Honduras, repairing equipment in the large assembly plants, but the pay was too low to get ahead, one of his brothers, Martín Suazo Sandoval, said Wednesday while standing in the dirt street in front of the family’s small hotel in Honduras.
“He always dreamed of having his own business,” he said.
Another brother, Carlos Suazo Sandoval, said Maynor hoped to retire one day back in Guatamala.
“He was the baby for all of us, the youngest. He was someone who was always happy, was always thinking about the future. He was a visionary,” he told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday from Dundalk, Maryland, near the site of the bridge collapse.
Maynor entered the United States illegally and settled in Maryland. At first, he did any work he could find, including construction and clearing brush. Eventually, he started a package delivery business in the Baltimore-Washington area, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.
Other siblings and relatives followed him north.
“He was the fundamental pillar, the bastion so that other members of the family could also travel there and later get visas and everything,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said. “He was really the driving force so that most of the family could travel.”
Maynor has a wife and two children ages 17 and 5, he said.
The pandemic forced Maynor to find other work, and he joined Brawner Builders, the company that was performing maintenance on the bridge when it collapsed.
Martín Suazo Sandoval said Maynor never talked about being scared of the work, despite the heights he worked at on the bridges. “He always told us that you had to triple your effort to get ahead,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said. “He said it didn’t matter what time or where the job was, you had to be where the work was.”
Things had been going well for him until the collapse. He was moving through the steps to get legal residency and planned to return to Honduras this year to complete the process, his brother said.
Even though Maynor had not been able to return to Honduras, he had financially supported various nongovernmental social organizations in town, as well as the youth soccer league, his brother said. The area depends largely upon agriculture — coffee, cattle, sugarcane — he said.
Maynor’s employer broke the news of his disappearance to his family, leaving them devastated, especially his mother, who still lives in Azacualpa, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.
“These are difficult moments, and the only thing we can do is keep the faith,” he said, noting that his younger brother knew how to swim and could have ended up anywhere. If the worst outcome is confirmed, he said the family would work to return his body to Honduras.
In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said three Mexicans were on the bridge when it fell, including one who was injured but rescued and two who were still missing. He said he wouldn’t share their names for the families’ privacy.
The tragedy illustrated the contributions that migrants make to the U.S. economy, López Obrador said.
“This demonstrates that migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight. And for this reason, they do not deserve to be treated as they are by certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States,” he said.
Guatemala’s Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed that two of its citizens were among the missing. And El Salvador’s foreign minister, Alexandra Hill Tinoco, posted Wednesday on X that one Salvadoran citizen, Miguel Luna, was among the missing workers.
Federal and state investigators have said the crash appears to have been an accident.
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Associated Press reporters Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City, Marcos Aléman in San Salvador, El Salvador, Mark Stevenson in Mexico City and Will Weissert in Dundalk, Maryland, contributed to this report.
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This story was updated to correct Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval’s age. He was 38 years old, not 39.
Valley Children’s on CEO pay criticism: “There is no ‘there’ there”
Valley Children’s Heathcare trustees are pushing back against what they call misinformation regarding the compensation of CEO Todd Suntrapak.
In a letter dated Wednesday addressed to the Fresno City Council, hospital officials said recent media coverage of Suntrapak’s $5.1 million compensation package in 2021 is based on an “ill-informed reading” of IRS forms.
For 2021, Suntrapak was paid two years’ worth of performance bonuses in a single year on advice from accountants and tax counsel, according to the letter.
“This is a one-time accounting adjustment. In fact, the CEO’s annual salary since July of 2020 is $1,711,341, which is in line with other health system CEOs with similar levels of responsibility; the remainder of his compensation largely consists of bonuses based on meeting significant performance goals – again, the norm for health system CEOs,” the letter says.
On reports of a forgivable $5 million loan that Suntrapak used to purchase a home in Carmel, the Trustees said that sort of loan is not an unusual retention tool.
“Should the CEO voluntarily leave the organization within the 10-year period after the loan was advanced, the unamortized balance of the loan is required to be repaid,” according to the letter. “And we are able to provide an appropriate level of compensation for our leaders because of the superb performance of our investment portfolio and our financial stewardship – not from the payments we receive from the Medi-Cal program, which, generally speaking, do not even cover the cost of the care we render to Medi-Cal beneficiaries.”
Trustees insist Suntrapak’s compensation is determined through widely recognized best practices. “With regard to the criticism leveled against the Board of Valley Children’s Healthcare, there is no ‘there’ there.”
Valley Children’s Healthcare Board of Trustees Chair Michael Hanson stated, “Valley Children’s has always been dedicated to transparency and accountability. We want to make sure that our community understands the truth and recognizes our unwavering commitment to exceptional patient care and financial stability to ensure Valley Children’s is here for the next 70 years.”
The trustees added that while other California hospitals are teetering on financial ruin, Valley Children’s “has done everything we can to operate efficiently, invest wisely and work effectively so that we can support the children in our community that depend on us.”
A Valley Children’s spokesperson previously said a key part of Suntrapak’s value is in recruiting personnel.
“Our highest priority as part of our collaboration with Fresno State is to expand the opportunities for nursing education in the Central Valley, which is critical to help address the growing nursing shortage,” said the letter. “In addition to providing many of our nurses with the opportunity to obtain four-year degrees, we are collaborating with the university to increase the number of nursing graduates by 50% over the next five years.”