State-funded programs aimed at reducing recidivism have taken a hit this year, and uncertainty about the budget lingers. And the county is looking for a new contractor to provide a sober living environment to recently released inmates.The Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011 was supposed to reduce overcrowding in state prisons by placing the responsibility for adult offenders who would have gone to state prison onto the counties. That means low-level felons are now sentenced to county jails, often for lengthy terms, and supervised after their release by county probation departments. The state pays for it with realignment money, but the funding is not exactly the same every year, as Izen Locatelli, the county’s chief probation officer, reported to the Board of Supervisors last week.State-funded programs aimed at reducing recidivism have taken a hit this year, and uncertainty about the budget lingers. And the county is looking for a new contractor to provide a sober living environment to recently released inmates.The Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011 was supposed to reduce overcrowding in state prisons by placing the responsibility for adult offenders who would have gone to state prison onto the counties. That means low-level felons are now sentenced to county jails, often for lengthy terms, and supervised after their release by county probation departments. The state pays for it with realignment money, but the funding is not exactly the same every year, as Izen Locatelli, the county’s chief probation officer, reported to the Board of Supervisors last week.

The Ukiah Civic Center on Sunday was packed for the annual haiku festival, which was an international, multi-lingual event this year. It’s National Poetry Month, and for the first time in the festival’s 22-year history, students of the Northern Pomo language contributed haiku in the local indigenous tongue. Poetry in Spanish has been a longtime feature. This time, former Ukiah poet Laureate Jabez Churchill read the winning entries in the original as well as in translation. There is a haiku contest leading up to the festival, which consists mainly of reading the winning poems to local poetry lovers.Entries also came in from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and India, though none of the winners, who were featured in this year’s chapbook, were on hand to receive acknowledgement or read their work.The Ukiah Haiku festival, as much a celebration of a local palindrome as poetry, is uniquely situated for poems in many languages. Armand Brint, the town’s first poet laureate, told the crowd that the local haiku is adapted from the original form, which was created in the 17th century by Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. But the bones of the form remain...

The campus of Cal Poly Humboldt has been shut down since Monday after students occupied a building to protest the war in Gaza. The university is now scheduled to be closed at least through the weekend.Police from multiple law enforcement agencies appeared on Monday night and arrested three students after a confrontation between students and police that ended with at least one student bleeding after being struck with a police baton. A brief video shows another student hitting police with an empty five gallon water jug as police in riot gear attempt to push through the protestors into the building.Yesterday, the Humbldt chapter of the California Faculty Association passed a vote of no confidence in the university president, Tom Jackson, and his chief of Staff, Mark Johnson.Lauren Schmitt, of KMUD news, spoke to student journalists who were concerned that university leadership was trying to prevent them from covering the protests. Students and faculty complain that the university is characterizing the protests as dangerous, and misrepresenting conditions in Siemans Hall, the occupied building.You can check out complete coverage at KMUD news.

The Board of Supervisors this week heard arguments for raising some of the fees in the Environmental Health, County Counsel, and cannabis departments. While there were some new fees and one proposal for a 234% increase, other fees were significantly reduced, some to zero. Seven County Counsel fees went up by 2.1% each.Supervisors asked Environmental Health not to make any more requests for some fee increases that would hit small food producers hard. Some supervisors and members of the public also complained that the basis for the increased fees had not been fully clarified, saying that justifications were not consistent and asking for time studies...

County staff is estimating a budget deficit of $18 million for the next fiscal year, though not all the information was available at the second of three budget workshops before budget hearings in June.Social Services, which served about 40,000 county residents last year, had not submitted its request for funds. The CEO’s office expects it to be about $3 million, though salaries and benefits are down by about a million. Currently, the combined amount of money all the departments are asking for from the General Fund is $94 million.While the estimated $18 million deficit does include the expectation of the roughly $3 million from Social Services, it does not include the Capital Improvement Plan, and it assumes no additional General Fund appropriations.The CEO’s office has recommendations to offset between $2.5 and $4.1 million, including using some of the county retirement reserve and adjusting the CalFire dispatch budget.Supervisor Ted Williams asked if the board could see the actual amounts that departments have spent over the last year. CEO Darcie Antle told him she could provide that information at the budget workshop on May 7, but Izen Locatelli, the chief probation officer, warned of the pitfalls of building a budget based on actuals…

The Fort Bragg City Council agreed Monday night to accept some recommendations about parking that are supposed to make the city more friendly to walking and biking. And the council held off on approving a conceptual design for the renovation of Bainbridge Park until the public works committee approves a gazebo or a pavilion, where visitors can give performances or have events in the open air, but with a roof over their heads.Ben Weber of Walker Consultants, said that parking in downtown Fort Bragg is usually available, even during special events. He recommended ordinance changes that he said would support the city’s general plan by encouraging more walking and biking in the central business district, or downtown area. At the top of his list of recommendations was eliminating the parking requirements, or in-lieu fee for developers, who must create a certain number of parking spaces for every living unit they build. He argued that too much parking encourages people to choose driving over other means of transportation.

Israeli tanks rolled into Rafah Tuesday, taking control of the territory's border crossing with Egypt, even as Israel sent a delegation to Cairo for Hamas truce talks.

Social Security's finances have improved slightly in the last year. But the popular retirement program still faces big challenges including the threat of automatic benefit cuts in less than a decade.

Monday is the Met Gala, known as fashion's grandest event, where celebrities from various realms come together at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate fashion and each other.

The FAA says Boeing informed the agency in April that required inspections to confirm that the wings were properly bonded to the carbon fiber fuselage on certain 787 jets were not completed.

Pulitzer Prizes honor American achievements in journalism, letters and drama, and music. They are widely recognized as the most prestigious awards in their field within the United States.