Nichole Gomez
El Paso, TX (KVIA-TV) — The community is invited to the annual “Fun Walk” event. This walk will take place on November 15, 2025, at Ascarate Park. This is a Fundraising event with the goal of raising funds for health services. According to the Centro San Vicente health center, Last year the event helped raise over 20k to help the community. https://www.sanvicente.org
Blake Arthur
COACHELLA VALLEY, Calif. (KESQ) — It’s the final week of the regular season for high school football and there are plenty of storylines and rivalries.
La Quinta – 0
@
Palm Desert – 35
F
Rancho Mirage – 21
@
Palm Springs – 33
F
Xavier Prep – 7
@
Shadow Hills – 23
F
Coachella Valley – 37
@
Indio – 7
F
Twentynine Palms – 0
@
Yucca Valley – 49
F
/**/
Despite the majority of our local high school football games on Thursday this week, there are still some games on Friday, Oct. 31 (Halloween).
Here are the scores
Banning – 50
@
Desert Mirage – 22
F
Desert Hot Springs – 30
@
Cathedral City – 22
F
Desert Christian Academy – 48
@
Vasquez – 6
F
Desert Chapel – 48
@
Hamilton – 46
F
With the regular season in the books, some of our high school teams will play in the CIF-SS Playoffs. The playoff schedule will be released on Sunday, November 2nd.
KESQ News Channel 3 is your home for complete coverage of high school football in the Coachella Valley.
Alissa Orozco
VANDENBERG VILLAGE, Calif. (KEYT) – The mother of Melodee Buzzard, the missing nine-year-old, was served with search warrants on Thursday, October 30th at their Vandenberg Village home.
Video circulating online shows Ashlee Buzzard speaking to a person appearing to be law enforcement. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office (SBCSO) confirmed Ashlee was served with follow-up search warrants of the home, along with a storage locker and the rental car that Melodee was last seen in.
The mother has been uncooperative in the investigation to find missing Melodee, who first reported missing on October 14th. Melodee’s last known whereabouts were captured on camera at a local car rental business on October 7th.
The search of their Vandenberg Village home was anticipated to durate for an extended period of time, in the meantime, Ashlee was escorted to “an alternate location that would not interfere with their ability toconduct a thorough search,” according to SBCSO.
The Sheriff’s office clarifies the case remains a missing person investigation, and no arrests have been made at this time.
“We appreciate the FBI’s assistance in today’s searches” said Sheriff’s Lieutenant Chris Gotschall from the Criminal Investigation Division. He added, “ In cases like this, every detail matters and it is invaluable to have additional resources and specialized expertise. Collaboration with our federal partners allows us to ensure we’re using every available tool to help bring resolution to this case.”
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KTVZ
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — The Deschutes Children’s Foundation and MountainStar Family Relief Nursery sounded an alarm in a joint statement Thursday.
They said families across Central Oregon are beginning to feel the effects of increasing barriers to accessing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits — including delays, reductions, and disrupted eligibility.
Both organizations warned that thousands of children and caregivers will experience immediate hardship if benefit instability continues, especially if benefits completely stop on Saturday, November 1.
Here’s the rest of the two organizations’ joint statement:
“Families are already telling us they are being forced to choose between food, rent, medicine, or gas, and SNAP has made the difference between stability and crisis,” said Cassi MacQueen, executive director of DCF. “Nonprofits are stepping up every day, but we cannot replace SNAP. Cuts or delays to this program don’t just hurt budgets, they create trauma for children.”
SNAP is widely considered the most critical anti-hunger program in the nation. In Central Oregon, it’s also deeply intertwined with child welfare, health stability, and economic resilience. When SNAP fails, the entire nonprofit network absorbs the shock.
“We are already seeing families missing meals, skipping essentials, or delaying health care because they simply cannot stretch support far enough,” said Kara Tachikawa, Executive Director of MountainStar. “Families in crisis don’t have a margin. SNAP helps prevent abuse, neglect, and homelessness before they begin — it is a frontline child safety tool, not just a food benefit.”
While nonprofits like DCF and MountainStar are committed to supporting families through crises, it’s important to be clear, nonprofits cannot replace SNAP or fill the gap when essential benefits are reduced, delayed, or denied.
Nonprofits can stabilize, prevent deeper harm, and respond quickly, but federal nutrition programs are the foundation that keep families from falling into hunger, homelessness, or child welfare involvement in the first place.
“This is not about politics. It is about protecting children and stabilizing families before harm occurs,” said MacQueen. “DCF and MountainStar remain fully committed to serving this community, but we must name the truth: SNAP is essential, and Central Oregon cannot afford to let it fail.”
About Deschutes Children’s Foundation
Founded in 1990, Deschutes Children’s Foundation manages and maintains four nonprofit service centers in Bend, Redmond, and La Pine. By providing collaborative spaces and operational support, DCF empowers its 23 nonprofit partners to focus on their core missions, collectively serving over 19,000 vulnerable children and families each year.
For more information, visit deschuteschildrensfoundation.org.
About MountainStar Family Relief Nursery MountainStar has been serving Central Oregon families for 24 years, providing critical support to families with young children at the greatest risk of abuse and neglect. With five locations in La Pine, Bend, Redmond, Madras, and Prineville, MountainStar offers therapeutic classrooms, home visits, parenting education, and essential resources to keep kids safe and help families thrive. For more information see: www.mtstar.org.
Every year, MountainStar provides:
support for over 1,300 young children and family members.
more than 30,000 hours of direct therapeutic support.
over 1,000 home visits to strengthen families.
News-Press NOW
ST. JOSEPH, Mo (News-Press NOW)– Local law enforcement has amped up its resources to decrease the amount of drugs and crime throughout the community, as it continues its battle.
Buchanan County Drug Strike Force Captain Shawn Collie said not every crime is drug-related, but a majority of crimes the Force deals with have a drug nexus.
“That’s one of the bigger things we try to explain to people… Drug abuse is just kind of the beginning of the problem,” Collie said. “When you look at a lot of the crimes we see, drugs are usually the kind of, root of all evil.”
Collie mentioned marijuana can be viewed as a “harmless drug,” but has seen crimes like theft, robberies and home invasions have ties to marijuana or money associated with the drug.
The Strike Force sees more drugs like: Fentanyl, Methamphetamine, Cocaine, Xylazine and Kratom.
“A lot of the stuff we deal with every day on the drug abuse or the distribution, it’s all parts of town,” Collie said. “Whether it’s the poorest of the poor or in the richest of the rich, it affects everybody.”
This stands true with the St. Joseph Police Department.
“The range is very wide, very broad… We want to make sure we have a good presence is in all of our areas,” SJPD Sgt. Richard McGregory said.
Crime statistics from the city’s crime analysis page indicate city-wide crime saw a slight increase in 2024, compared to 2023.
These statistics consist of crimes like murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft.
The report states that in 2023, exactly 3,101 crimes of that variety were committed, while in 2024, around 3,198 crimes were committed.
One resident, uses cameras as a preventative measure to combat theft. Lacy Mcguire is a St. Joseph native and she said she feels ‘left in the dark’ after recent changes to the scanner.
“I felt more safe and aware of what was going on when we had the scanner,” Mcguire said. “I feel that now there is no scanner, I feel left in the dark.”
One way SJPD is working to combat all types of crime is with mobile camera trailers set up around the city.
“We’ve just deployed those to try and make the city safer, try to monitor those kinds of areas where crime is being committed,” Sgt. McGregory said. “If there is something that does arise… we can check the cameras and try to get information and getting an actual investigative start from there.”
Statistics provided by Sgt. McGregory in an email shows 290 drug offenses have occurred in 2025 through September.
When dealing with drug-related crimes, he said their main protocol is safety.
“We want to make sure we that we’re handling any type of drug… properly,” Sgt. McGregory said. “Proper personal protective equipment, gloves, things of that nature, making sure that we’re not exposing ourselves.”
Sgt. McGregory said the age range they usually see ranges from 12 years old to 40 years old. For Collie, the ages range from 15-year-olds to early 20s involved with drugs, but they see late 20s into the early 40s distributing the drugs.
Throughout Buchanan County, the Drug Strike Force made 402 arrests in 2022, while in 2023, it made 323 arrests. This, while more than doubling the amount of school programs.
In 2022, the Strike Force was involved with 11 schools; the following year, the number increased to 28. In a statement report, emailed to News-Press NOW, “The Drug Strike Force participated in 14 school programs with almost 1425 students in overall attendance.”
The emailed report also said in 2024, “Strike Force Investigators made 286 arrests of persons with a variety of 535 charges.”
“People thought that we were coming down too hard on drug addicts, and we kind of refocused just on the dealers and mainly dealing with the dealers,” Collie said. “But now what we’re seeing is a community who wants us to try to address the addicts before they overdose or before they get to do a bigger crime.”
Looking ahead, Collie said they are continuing to look at both east and west coasts to figure out how the trends there will affect Buchanan County, as well as building community connections and trust.
“We’ve really concentrated on education and prevention,” Collie said. “On the other side, we really try to do more with warrants, operation relentless pursuit through the state has went into effect, which for us we’ve always tried to work with warrants, but drug enforcement was primary. What we’re finding is a lot of times if we focus on warrants, we’re going to take the drugs off the streets.”
SJPD said more crime statistics for 2025 are expected to come out at a later point.
City News Service
THOUSAND PALMS, Calif. (KESQ) – An injured hiker who sustained minor injuries was rescued today at the Pushawalla Palms Trailhead in Thousand Palms.
The rescue was reported about 2 p.m. Thursday in the Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge, near Ramon and Thousand Palms Canyon roads, according to the Riverside County Fire Department.
The agency said crews hiked out to the hiker, who was unable to make it back down the trail, and was taken to a local hospital by ground ambulance.
He remained in stable condition, the department stated.
The cause of the injuries was not immediately known.
Joaquin Hight
YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA) – “Eurydice” will premiere at the Yuma campus theater starting Thursday, October 30, and will run to Friday, Saturday at 7:30 p.m., but will premiere at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday.
The play is a retelling of the classic tale of Orpheus (played by Dylan Potratz) as told from the perspective of the female lead of the story, Eurydice (played by Brianna Coronado), and takes place in the 1950s.
Assistant Director Julia Castillo, along with the two leads, Potratz and Coronado, were interviewed before the show. Castillo shared what she is most anticipating for audiences to see.
“I’m most excited to see our technical elements. Our techies have worked overtime to make this come to life. I’m very excited for them to see our special set pieces; we have things coming from the sky, we have the use of water,” Castillo shared.
This is also the first play to be overseen by the new theatre professor, Shadow Zimmerman, following Ann Wilkinson’s retirement.
The cast includes Brianna Coronado, Dylan Potratz, Gabriel Muniz, Matthias Rodriguez, Lauren Hall, Jordan Champlin, and Scarlett Wilson.
The play will include a speech honoring an AWC student and active theatre club member who passed away.
All proceeds from opening night will go directly to the Trevor Project.
Praji Ghosh
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (News-Press NOW) — The St. Joseph School Board is working tighten its purse strings to improve its reserve ratio.
At Monday’s meeting, board members reviewed a new budget reduction plan for the 2025–2026 academic year.
Assistant Superintendent of Business and Operations, Robert Hedgecorth, walked the board through how the district identified areas to reduce spending this year.
He said when the last fiscal year ended, the district’s reserve ratio — the balance between the operating fund and total expenses — came in at just 10.2%, an amount 20% below what board policy requires.
“So the October budget amendment we presented to the Board of Education totaled just over $2.7 million to reduce this year, and thankfully, the board did approve that adjustment,” Hedgecorth said.
He added, most of the reductions were aimed at helping the district balance its budget and rebuild the 20% reserve ratio in the coming years.
Hedgecorth said some of the biggest reductions came from technology and operations — including upgraded security cameras and maintenance projects that were scheduled for updates.
SJSD Budget Reduction PlanDownload
“We identified those items that we could remove from this year’s expenses to create $2.7 million that we presented to the board and these adjustments were also scheduled for improvements on different areas,” Hedgecorth said.
He emphasized, none of the cuts will impact staff or students, adding that protecting classrooms was the top priority throughout the process.
Hedgecorth said the review was collaborative — each department was asked to look at its budget and identify about 10% or more in potential cuts with the least effect on instruction.
“We set a meeting with each group and then went through those items that they discussed and made sure the items they have listed are things are make sense to be reduced without impacting the classrooms,” Hedgecorth said.
Hedgecorth also noted, while the district remains under contract with certain services through the end of this year, those areas could be reconsidered in the next budget cycle.
Hedgecorth said this process has already helped make future fiscal years more financially sound.
Matthew Sanders
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is warning the public against using products containing 7-OH, pronounced “seven-hydroxy.”
The health department issued an advisory Friday saying 7-OH is a natural psychoactive drug that is found in kratom. Kratom and 7-OH are both marketed as ways to promote alertness, relieve pain and anxiety and opioid withdrawal, the advisory says.
The department warns that 7-OH products found in Missouri have higher concentrations than natural kratom and that the substance is more potent than morphine on human opioid receptors. The FDA started steps to restrict 7-OH in July.
Like kratom, 7-OH is not regulated by the state.
Signs of overdose include nausea, vomiting, confusion, agitation, trouble breathing, rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure and seizures.
City News Service
COACHELLA (CNS) – Blue Zones Project Coachella and Coachella officials will celebrate the city’s first approved healthy food truck next month at Veterans’ Memorial Park during their Fiestas Azules event.
The free celebration will be held at 10:00 a.m. on November 15th at 1500-1598 Fourth Street.
Fat Boys Tacos and Catering will provide healthy meals that co-owner Cesar Sanchez said can change a customer’s life for the better when choosing for healthier options. Fat Boys’ Blue Zone approved menu includes tacos with vegetables such as sautéed spinach, mushrooms, cactus, bell peppers, and more. Tostadas are also on the menu, with healthy ingredients including Peruvian beans, avocado, and fresh pico de gallo.
An initiative to provide residents with access to healthy food options led Blue Zones officials to work with city officials and Riverside University Health System to pass ordinances 1218 and 1219.
Ordinance 1218 states that at least 25% of a food truck’s menu must contain healthy ingredients, including seasonal fruits, vegetables, whole grains and rice, and less fried, sugary or ultra-processed foods, per the Blue Zones food guidelines. Ordinance 1219 adds to 1218 by allowing food trucksserving nutritional options to operate at local date farms.
“Fat Boy Tacos is more than just Coachella’s first approved healthy food truck — it’s proof of what happens when we bring policy, leadership and local businesses together for our community,” said Job Huerta, organizations and well-being lead for BZP Coachella.
