Gas prices and a viral sand cat. Sacramento stories you may have missed this week

From a viral sand cat to an airport explosives arrest, the Sacramento region saw a busy stretch of news in early June.

Here’s a digest of top stories from this past week:

• Sacramento Bee readers picked the Sacramento Solons as their top name for a potential MLB expansion team in West Sacramento. The throwback name to a former minor league team drew 40 of more than 130 votes, beating the Bears (12) and Deltas (10).

• Sacramento will allow a historic 1949 Tower Records “Dancing Kids” neon sign to remain inside Tower District offices, where it was installed without city permission. A replica will be installed outside after a structural engineering report found the original is not suitable for reinstallation without significant modifications.

• California’s gas tax will rise 2.2 cents per gallon to 63.4 cents on July 1 under a state law requiring annual increases tied to the Consumer Price Index. Diesel taxes will also rise 1.6 cents to 48.2 cents per gallon.

• A sand cat named Margo at the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary went viral with her hiss, racking up nearly 10,000 Instagram likes and more than 74,000 views. Her audience extended to Japan, Russia, Hungary and Poland.

• The Sacramento GoldenSky country music festival will return Oct. 15, 2027 after cancellations in 2025 and 2026, backed by a $2 million city grant and about $1 million from Visit Sacramento. The California International Marathon will also double in size after Union Pacific agreed to delay trains along the race route by 45 minutes to an hour.

• A Sacramento man, Kimani Osayande Jones, 49, faces federal charges after TSA agents found explosive materials, a timer and a cryptic message in his carry-on at Sacramento International Airport. Officials said the explosive’s powder and fuse were “viable and energetic,” capable of sizable damage.