Many components of the federal budget affect life and lives on the Hill. These range from Social Security, and educational grants, to the Department of Agriculture’s San Jacinto District Ranger Station. One of the biggest and most important is funding for wildfire prevention and response. The Forest Service as well as Cal Fire and the…...

Dan Fedrick picks up a Newton’s cradle from the counter at Remember When Toys and gives a quick lesson on the three principles that guide it: inertia, equal and opposite reaction, and conservation of momentum. It’s the kind of object that feels perfectly at home in a store like this — simple, tactile, a little…...

This year, as the Idyllwild Arts Academy celebrates 80 years of arts education in Idyllwild, the Native American Arts program has offered a special season of lectures, an extension of the annual Kabotie Lectures into a four-month series. The culmination of the series will be on Thursday April 16, when members of the Cahuilla Band…...

Last week, President Donald Trump took further action to establish federal control of state processes to vote-by-mail by issuing an Executive Order ordering oversight of citizenship verification of voters. The order involves multiple federal agencies to police vote-by-mail procedures and associated activities though the U.S. Within two days, several lawsuits opposing this action were filed…...

Last week, Brooke Rollins. Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, announced that the headquarters for the Department’s Forest Service will be moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, from Washington, D.C. The entire reorganization effort is expected to be completed over the next 15 months. “Having recently visited Salt Lake City, I am impressed by…...

Riverside County Chief Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen requested the Board of Supervisors authorize the County to seek financial assistance from the state to offset the financial issues associated with the enactment and implementation of the federal legislation HR1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which was passed and signed in July 2025. Besides sending a…...

Last week, the Riverside County Civil Grand Jury issued a report, “Uncapped Influence: Campaign Contributions and Public Trust in Riverside County.” The Grand Jury investigated the influence of large campaign contributions to the county’s elected officials, particularly focusing on the County’s Ordinance 963 (Campaign contribution limits for elective county offices) and its exception clause.  The…...

In March we mentioned that warm weather and little snow mean locals could expect an early inflow of Pacific Crest Trail Hikers, and described the process that the Pacific Crest Trail Association has put in place for getting permits for the entire trail. Jon King, founder of the San Jacinto Trail Report (sanjacjon.com), emailed us…...

Residents of Forest Drive, the last cull-de-sac off Fern Valley Road before the Humber Park Trailhead, have been in communication with the County seeking a remedy for their parking situation on snow days. Residents have shared with the Town Crier an email thread discussing the process and the options the county is considering, and some…...