Cover Story
Coming Home
On March 25, a California condor landed on the North Coast. Unlike his predecessors, the bird known as No. 746 didn’t travel on thermals, using his massive, nearly 10-foot wingspan to soar across the landscape. Instead, the 7-year-old adult male came by plane from an Idaho breeding facility to mentor a new generation of condors…
Deal is Close on Recycling California’s Plastic Trash
Deal or no deal? Most likely, deal. The California environmentalists who back a November ballot measure to reduce single-use plastics appear headed to withdrawing it just ahead of the Thursday deadline, following fierce negotiations with lawmakers and others on a bill that aims to achieve many of the same goals and that is supported by…
Climate-friendly Cement? California Takes on a High-Carbon Industry
Dust swirls in the air at a cement factory on the outskirts of Redding as mud-caked tires travel along a wide conveyor belt. The tires are carried up 90 feet into a smoldering-hot incinerator, where they’re used as fuel for firing a kiln. The massive, 2,700-degree kiln at the Martin Marietta, Inc. plant churns more…
Photos: Oyster Fest 2022
It wasn’t quite hot enough to cook an oyster, but the sun shone bright over the rebooted and relocated Arcata Bay Oyster Festival in the Creamery District on Saturday, June 25. The all-day event with vendors, food stalls and live music performances followed a kick-off event the night before and required a $15 ticket for…
Hundreds Rally for Reproductive Rights in Eureka, Arcata
Hundreds protested at the Humboldt County Courthouse and the Arcata Plaza in the hours and days following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Until Friday, the 1973 landmark ruling that instilled a constitutional right to abortion, a decision now left to individual states, had been widely considered settled legal precedent. While…
NCJ Preview: Condor Comeback, Grand Jury Report and Wild Morels
This week we’re looking at how the Yurok Tribe’s efforts to bring the California condor back to the skies above Humboldt is a cultural, ecological victory with a long road ahead. Mushroom enthusiasts will be happy to hear about this week’s recipe for stuffed and steamed morels, for a foraged dim sum dish. We’ll touch…
Arroyo Headed to Fourth District Seat; Runoff in the Clerk-Recorder, Registrar of Voters Race
The Humboldt County Elections Office released its third post-election update today, with Natalie Arroyo continuing to strengthen her lead in the Fourth District race to succeed Supervisor Virginia Bass. In the latest tally, Arroyo nudged up to 53.9 percent of the vote, followed by Mike Newman at 32.39 percent and Kim Bergel at 13.65 percent,…
Local Protests Planned in Wake of Roe Ruling, Area Representatives Weigh in
Two local rallies are planned in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that instilled the legal right to abortion, which remains protected in California. A community protest will take place at 5 p.m. today at the Humboldt County Courthouse and another is scheduled for…
After Roe: What Happens to Abortion in California?
UPDATE: Two local rallies are planned in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that instilled the legal right to abortion. The first takes place at 5 p.m. today at the Humboldt County Courthouse and the second on Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 1…
Supreme Court Ruling Puts Target on California Concealed Carry Law
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of its most significant gun law rulings in more than a decade, tossing out New York state’s tight restrictions on who can carry a concealed gun in public. Gun rights activists are celebrating the 6-3 decision, while advocates for stricter gun laws decry it. Both agree that California’s…
RE: RE: Unhinged
Editor: Re: Alan Sandborn’s appeal for civility (Mailbox, June 16), commenting on Jennifer Fumiko Cahill’s expletive-laden commentary (“It Might Be Time to Get Totally Motherfucking Unhinged,” June 2), most times, I’d agree with him. Sometimes though — and the Uvalde shooting is one time — civility just doesn’t cut it. Barry Evans, Eureka Editor: In…
The Grand Jury Weighs In
Just a couple weeks after creating a swirl of controversy by releasing a sharply critical report of incumbent Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez just days before the June 7 election, the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury quietly dropped three reports in the span of about an hour on June 17. The reports focus on the topics…
Stuffed Wild Morels
Spring is here and seasonal mushrooms are popping up everywhere, including morels, some of my favorites. I first tried these tasty mushrooms not too long ago. Once I found out how pricey they could be, l knew why I had never heard of them before. I had to look up what they’re called in Chinese:…
Midsummer Puzzles
It’s that time of the solstice when days start to get shorter and Journal readers get to sharpen their brains with Ye Olde Puzzle Edition. Check back in next week’s issue for the answers. Let’s start with an easy one: The mistake Pedal to the metal A car goes 30 mph for 1 mile. How…
‘Gunman Kills 10 at Buffalo Supermarket in Racist Attack’
On May 14, cycling to Santa Cruz, I stopped at the park in Felton, tilted my face up to drink, at the edge of the grass. A car door shut, a tall, broad-shouldered man in a blue shirt, his skin polished bronze, black hair in a braid down his back, held a bulldog wearing a…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries actor Marilu Henner has an unusual condition: hyperthymesia. She can remember in detail voluminous amounts of past events. For instance, she vividly recalls being at the Superdome in New Orleans on September 15, 1978, where she and her actor friends watched a boxing match between Leon Spinks and Muhammad Ali.…
Bivalve Bedlam
One of my favorite sounds is the soft rustle of a breeze through the leaves of a tree. I’m talking about broad leaves here, like a maple tree, not the evergreens that tend to populate our forests, and whose branches creak and groan in the wind like the ghosts of old washerwomen attending to the…
Art Outside-in on the Bluff
It was raining lightly and a little windy when I arrived with a friend at Outer Roominations for the third and final day of this year’s site-specific installation and performance festival on the Bluff in Loleta. The weather didn’t detract from the playful and enthusiastic atmosphere of the event, for which more than 30 local…
Trinidad Arts Night
Venues through town will feature a variety of art and music; activities include a skate park, games and face painting. At the end of the evening, Westhaven Center for the Arts presents a blues event from 8 to 10 p.m. with Jenni and David and the Sweet Soul Band. Dance floor and refreshments available (sliding…
What’s to Blame for Mass Shootings?
The recent mass shootings have been deeply painful for all of us, and by “all of us” I mean gun manufacturers, lobbyists and our staunch allies in government. Even without the burden of a human soul, it’s exhausting fielding questions about whether the endless stream of tragedies in America is somehow linked to the flood…
Exploring the Lanphere Dunes
I would never have guessed that back in the 1930s, the entire Cal Poly Humboldt faculty (then Humboldt State College) could fit into one house for dinner. This was one of many bits of trivia I learned on a Friends of the Dune guided tour of Lanphere Dunes earlier this spring. Thirteen of us assembled…
Windy Conditions Slow Pacific Halibut Bite
Halibut continues to be the focal point out of both Eureka and Trinidad after another week of sizzling action. Eureka charter and sport boats fishing a few miles on each side of the entrance in 250 to 300 feet of water reported quick limits. The Trinidad boats have done equally as good straight out of…
Better Than the Real Thing
Not for nothing, I haven’t been to the theater in a while. It seemed like springtime had us on a roll, both in terms of plague abatement and promising new movie releases. But the complex network of circumstance — viral, political, artistic and financial — that lately serves to harsh the collective mellow has now…
