By Chris Frost chris@tricountysentry.com   Oxnard-- The City Council got it done just in time and approved its 2020-2021 Capital Improvement Budget and Operating budget on June 30, one day before the new fiscal year started.   The group also approved four full-time equivalent positions for city service effective July 1, 2020, in accordance with the Operating Budget for the Fiscal Year 2020-21, the City of Oxnard Authorizing Classification and Salary Schedules, the classification and Salary Schedule.   The body also established and approved its...

By Kristin M. Hall   NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)—Grammy-winning country group The Dixie Chicks have dropped the word Dixie from their name, now going by The Chicks. The band's social media accounts and website were changed on Thursday to the refer to the new name for the band, which is made up of Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines and Emily Strayer. The band also recognized that the name was already in use by a band in New Zealand. “A sincere and heartfelt thank you goes out to ‘The Chicks' of NZ for their gracious gesture in allowing us to share their...

LOS ANGELES (AP)—“Family Guy” voice actor Mike Henry said Friday he is stepping down from the role of Cleveland Brown on the Fox animated series. Henry wrote on Twitter that he will stop playing the show's main African American character because “persons of color should play characters of color.” The 54-year-old voice actor, who is a white man, has voiced the character since the series' debut in 1999. Henry had also voiced the Latin maid named Consuela on the series. His decision comes after voice actors Jenny Slate and Kristen...

By Kristin M. Hall   NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)—When country singer Rissi Palmer was working on her debut album, she wanted a song like Gretchen Wilson's “Redneck Woman,” a song that would introduce her and tell her story to fans. On her 2007 debut single, “Country Girl,” she celebrated her country roots while explaining that she didn't have to look or talk a certain way to call herself a country girl. “I said that I am not white in the first verse, and the label was like, ‘No, no, no,”' said Palmer, who then...

By Marilynn Marchione   The maker of a drug shown to shorten recovery time for severely ill COVID-19 patients says it will charge $2,340 for a typical treatment course for people covered by government health programs in the United States and other developed countries. Gilead Sciences announced the price Monday for remdesivir, and said the price would be $3,120 for patients with private insurance. The amount that patients pay out of pocket depends on insurance, income and other factors. “We’re in uncharted territory with pricing a new medicine, a novel...

ANAHEIM (AP)—Beachgoers packed Orange County's shoreline on Saturday and not everybody wore masks, worrying public health and elected officials who say people were letting their guard down even as the coronavirus surges across California. Data collected by health officials show hundreds of people have been infected in densely populated neighborhoods in Anaheim and Santa Ana that are more likely home to low-income residents, the Orange County Register reported Saturday. The residents living in the identified hot spots are more likely to live in multi-generational or...

By Ben Walker   Every team in Major League Baseball will shut its spring training camp over concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, a move that came in the wake of the Philadelphia Phillies announcing Friday five players had tested positive for COVID-19. The closures come while MLB owners and players try to negotiate a deal to begin the season, and raise the possibility the virus outbreak could scuttle all attempts at starting up this year. A person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press the spring complexes in Florida and Arizona will temporarily close...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)—Comedian D.L. Hughley announced he tested positive for COVID-19 after collapsing onstage during a performance in Nashville, Tennessee. The stand-up comedian, 57, lost consciousness while performing at the Zanies comedy nightclub on Friday night and was hospitalized, news outlets reported. On Saturday, Hughley posted a video on Twitter in which he said he was treated for exhaustion and dehydration afterward. “I also tested positive for COVID-19, which blew me away,” he says in the video. “I was what they call asymptomatic. I didn't...

Dr. James L. Snyder   Being limited as to travel and outside activities can sometimes get rather boring. You can be inactive only so long, and then you get in that car that drives you to crazy land. Finding something to do to keep me from being bored has become somewhat of a challenge. However, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage can always find something to do, especially something for me. That is why every day I "act" as if I am busy. I think I ought to get some Emmy award for that because I am a rather good actor. I have had a lot of practice. Not...

By Mike Stobbe   What's all this talk about a “second wave” of U.S. coronavirus cases? In The Wall Street Journal last week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a piece headlined “There Isn't a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave'“ that the nation is winning the fight against the virus. Many public health experts, however, suggest it's no time to celebrate. About 120,000 Americans have died from the new virus and daily counts of new cases in the U.S. are the highest they've been in more than a month, driven by alarming recent...