The Sacramento Bee reported on major developments this week involving local government, education, sports and public safety. From a unanimous City Council vote on a potential zoo expansion to a decades-old murder case finally moving toward trial, here\u2019s a roundup of top stories for the week of April 26 through May 1, 2026:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Zoo expansion study advances: The Sacramento City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a memorandum of understanding to study a possible Sacramento Zoo expansion<\/a> in William Land Park. A working group is expected to begin meeting in May.<\/p>\n \u2022 Transportation safety push: Sacramento residents urged the City Council Tuesday to prioritize transportation safety<\/a> in the next budget after at least 18 traffic deaths so far in 2026. The Active Transportation Commission\u2019s 2025 report recommends about $8.2 million in first-year funding for safer street design, school travel programs and stricter traffic controls.<\/p>\n \u2022 Parking fines could increase: City Manager Maraskeshia Smith proposed hiking parking violation fees<\/a> to help close a $66.2 million budget deficit. The city\u2019s budget proposal also includes cutting 46 filled positions and 100 vacancies.<\/p>\n \u2022 New schools superintendent named: The Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Trustees voted 7-0 Thursday to make Cancy McArn the permanent superintendent<\/a>. McArn, a 30-year district veteran who had served in the role on an interim basis since February, will earn a base salary of $365,000 annually through June 2028.<\/p>\n \u2022 Playoff baseball in West Sacramento? Never too early to dream: The Athletics entered Thursday in first place in the AL West and believe they can avoid a repeat of their 2025 collapse<\/a>, when they lost 20 of 21 games. The team has told season ticket holders it would host postseason games at Sutter Health Park if the A\u2019s qualify for the playoffs.<\/p>\n \u2022 1991 cold case suspect extradited: James Lawhead Jr., 64, was flown from Arizona to Placer County on Thursday to face murder and kidnapping charges<\/a> in the 1991 death of Cinthia \u201cCindi\u201d Wanner. Investigators identified Lawhead through DNA evidence and tracked him down using facial recognition technology.<\/p>\n \u2022 Olivia Rodrigo coming to Sacramento: Olivia Rodrigo announced Thursday that her Unraveled Tour will stop at Golden 1 Center<\/a> on Dec. 15 and 16, marking her first tour dates in Sacramento. Tickets go on general sale May 7 through Ticketmaster, with a limited number of $20 \u201cSilver Star\u201d tickets available after the general sale.<\/p>\n \u2022 Illegal shark fins seized: California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers seized 40 shark fins<\/a> from a private jet arriving from Hawaii at a California airport in February. Possessing detached shark fins has been illegal in California since a state law passed in 2011, and the investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence based on our own originally reported, written and published content. Before publishing, journalists reviewed this content in compliance with McClatchy Media\u2019s AI policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sacramento Bee reported on major developments this week involving local government, education, sports and public safety. From…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1610,27675,121,2006,15950,123,122,103502],"class_list":["post-296814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-city-council","tag-olivia-rodrigo","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-bee","tag-sacramento-city-council","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-zoo-expansion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}