Victor Patton

About 3,000 Southern Sudanese refugees currently reside in San Diego County, according to the Alliance for African Assistance (AFAA), a local refugee resettlement program. Several of them spoke with CityBeat about their lives in Sudan and why they were forced to leave.

A case so senseless, heinous and disturbing that it rivals a Greek tragedy.

That’s how Judge Brian McCabe on Friday described the tragic story of Ana Lila DeCeja, 26, who was murdered by a Planada couple who also kidnapped her 2-month-old baby.

McCabe on Friday handed down maximum sentences to DeCeja’s killers, Maria Teresa Ceja Robles, 34, and Jose Augustine Velarde, 38.

Did Merced County's former education chief break state law by knowing that high school students were exposed to cancer-causing asbestos?

The Merced Police Department's Internal Affairs Division is investigating a complaint alleging that an officer twice used a Taser against an unarmed, wheelchair-bound man with no legs.

West, a Sacramento native who became the country’s leading black intellectual, returns to town with a message

Hip-hop music helped make Café New Orleans’ Hot and Spicy one of the hottest Old Sacramento nightclubs in 2000, drawing a young crowd made up of mostly African-Americans and Hispanics. Yet the club’s success has triggered a backlash from its neighbors and police.

Although the area’s unemployment has decreased since the recession, recent data from the Greater Sacramento Economic Council suggests the region’s unemployment levels for 16- to 24-year-olds are among the nation’s worst.

Eleven years after Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced having HIV, more African Americans are contracting the disease at staggering epidemic rates.

Stunning new developments have emerged in the case of a UC Merced police officer who fired on a car after she was struck by the vehicle near Lake Yosemite.

Three men were arrested on suspicion of illegal gun possession and other charges Tuesday after deputies with the Merced County Sheriff's Department STAR Team and state parole agents served a search warrant at an Atwater residence.
Meanwhile, one of the men who was arrested claims law enforcement officers used excessive force during the incident -- an accusation the sheriff's department emphatically denies.

Sacramento’s tech sector is still in its early stages of development, but startup founders, investors and others say the city may be poised to create a technology economy where people of color and women play active leadership roles.

Several unanswered questions remain about Saturday's officer-involved shooting in North Merced, where one man was killed and two injuries were reported.

Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc.’s plan to remove 1,100 jobs from the Sacramento region by the end of 2019 is in motion — but a lot may happen between now and then that could determine how much damage to the local economy is left behind.

Once thought by many in the black community as a phenomenon that only affected white people, during the past 30 years, the gap between the suicide rate among white people and the suicide rate among black people has narrowed significantly.

The issue raises serious questions about the public's right to know about how the citizens' board makes its decisions versus the rights of cops to maintain confidentiality when it comes to their job performance.