News Articles
By Donna Beth Weilenman
An auditorium packed Monday morning with Vallejo students of Jesse Bethel High School’s law academy, Advanced Placement government class and senior humanities class heard national and local officials say, “We need you.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, the Democrat who represents Benicia and Vallejo in California’s 5th U.S. House of Representatives district, introduced them to U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who has written the Youth Prison Reduction Through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support and Education (Youth PROMISE) Act.
Rather than throwing the book at them if they commit crimes in their formative years, youth need to be steered into learning, instead, and into a path leading to college rather than prison.
Two congressmen voiced that sentiment Monday during a Town Hall forum held at Jesse Bethel High School. Attended by about 100 teens and other community members, the forum also touched on local violence and crime.
By Peter Jensen
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, has introduced legislation that would wrest control of managing recreation at Lake Berryessa from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and give it to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Thompson introduced the bill Thursday, and in a news release blamed Reclamation’s management for the steep drops in tourism at the lake in recent years.
A stretch of shoreline near Point Arena marked by bluffs, forests and a salmon-filled river will become part of national monument come Tuesday, when President Obama is expected to sign an order protecting the site for generations to come.
More than 2.1 million illegal firearms sales -- including 1 million attempted purchases by convicted felons -- have been stopped in the 20 years since the enactment of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, according to a new report.
But the report released Friday by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence also stresses that millions of weapons are still being sold to buyers who are prohibited from owning them. Roughly 40 percent of gun purchases, including guns sold online and at gun shows by unlicensed sellers, are not subject to the background checks.
As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Thompson is privy to all kinds of sensitive material on matters of national importance. But he can't find out what's happening with the Rancho Feeding Corp. in Petaluma.
None of us can. And we agree with the North Bay congressman that with each passing day it gets more troubling.
More than five weeks have passed since initial actions were taken at the Rancho's Petaluma plant, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has yet to release information about what is happening.
2014 omnibus appropriations bill provision calls for the nation's military to purchase flags made in the country.
North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson criticized federal regulators Wednesday for failing to answer his questions about the growing Rancho Feeding Corporation meat recall.
Thompson joined a chorus of food safety experts and North Bay ranchers who have complained the U.S. Department of Agriculture is releasing few details about the reasons underlying the decision to recall all beef processed at Rancho's Petaluma plant last year.
Soldiers carry them into battle, fly them high over foreign bases, and triumphantly carry them in processions, but those stars and stripes, until now, have often been made in China.
That irony spurred North Bay Congressman Mike Thompson (D) to write legislation requiring flags purchased by the Department of Defense (DoD) be 100 percent "Made in America." That legislation is now law, signed as part of the 2014 omnibus appropriations bill.
Sometimes it just takes an act of Congress to get things done. That's exactly what happened in the North Bay. A Rohnert Park flag factory helped to change the law, as well as the lives of those working there.
You might assume that every flag is made in America. Not quite. And that's at the heart of the story.