Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 1,300 people have died of COVID-19 in the seven counties of the southern San Joaquin Valley and foothills, according to official counts by county health departments and the state. The tallies aggregated in those health department dashboards, which represent between one and …
Read More »Young Community Leaders On Politics, Activism And The Power Of Voting
There’s a prevailing narrative that young people in America are not politically engaged and are unlikely to vote. But Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock recently spoke with three individuals who are actively challenging that assumption: Riddhi S. Patel, a 24-year-old coordinator for Sunrise Kern in Bakersfield, Alexandria Benn, a 25-year-old …
Read More »CSU Bakersfield President Lynette Zelezny On The University’s 50th Anniversary
California State University, Bakersfield marked its 50th Anniversary with a virtual celebration Oct.1 that included a speech from Sir Richard Branson and a performance from Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Gregory Porter. To learn more about the milestone celebration, and how the university is adjusting to distance education, Valley Edition Host …
Read More »COVID-19 Stats Continue To Improve, But Death Data Tell A Darker Story – Virus Update For Oct. 2
When we seek to quantify the toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities, we typically turn to official statistics like confirmed cases, hospitalization rates and, of course, death counts. But what if that final tally is an undercount, and the death toll is really much higher? An FM89 analysis …
Read More »Fresno County Advances In State’s Tiered COVID-19 Plan, Allowing More Businesses To Reopen
After weeks of improving COVID-19 numbers, Fresno County has advanced to the next tier in the state’s reopening framework known as the Blueprint for a Safer Economy . The county is the first in the San Joaquin Valley to graduate out of the purple tier, the most restrictive level that …
Read More »Valley’s New Cases Drop, But Not Within Avenal State Prison – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 25
As the COVID-19 caseload continues to fall in San Joaquin Valley communities, the opposite trend has been happening inside Avenal State Prison: With more than 2,500 cumulative cases, the facility now has the dubious honor of being the state prison with the highest cumulative case count. More than 250 men …
Read More »California Voters To Decide On Affirmative Action and Property Tax Increases In November
Propositions 13 and 209 were some of the most impactful in California’s history, but now their fates are back in the hands of voters, who come November will weigh in on whether to bring back affirmative action and potentially increase property taxes for some businesses. To learn more about these …
Read More »Valley’s New Cases Drop, But Not Within Avenal State Prison – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 25
As the COVID-19 caseload continues to fall in San Joaquin Valley communities, the opposite trend has been happening inside Avenal State Prison: With more than 2,500 cumulative cases, the facility now has the dubious honor of being the state prison with the highest cumulative case count. More than 250 men …
Read More »Kern County Demands Governor Newsom Stop ‘Moving The Goalposts’ On COVID-19 Reopening
Earlier this week, the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted to challenge a part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to reopen counties during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing a data algorithm unfairly penalizes the county. According to the raw numbers, Kern County is currently meeting the data targets that would allow …
Read More »Creek Fire’s ‘Fire-Breathing’ Cloud To Aid Research On Wildfires And Climate
In the early days of the Creek Fire, photographs went viral of what looked like a mushroom cloud billowing into the atmosphere over the blaze . It’s no wonder that type of cloud, known as pyrocumulonimbus, was dubbed by a NASA writer as “ the fire-breathing dragon of clouds ”: …
Read More »How Climate Change And Forest Management Are Contributing To A Historic Wildfire Season
For two weeks, the Creek Fire in the Sierra National Forest has been destroying property and pumping smoke and ash into the air. There’s also the Bullfrog Fire in the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness and the Sequoia Complex Fire, which is currently threatening the town of Three Rivers in Tulare County. …
Read More »Case Counts Improve, Yet State Guidelines ‘Penalize’ Kern County – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 18
Over the last few weeks, the local COVID-19 landscape has changed dramatically. In the San Joaquin Valley, average daily cases have dropped to a fraction of what they were in late July and early August, and hospitals are regaining the beds necessary for their normal, non-COVID volume of patients. Dozens …
Read More »Labor Day Getaway Instead Becomes Dogged Quest For Safety, Backpackers Recount
When James Sponsler and two close friends set out on a backpacking trip Friday night over Labor Day Weekend, they didn’t know the Creek Fire had started 30 miles away. “Just about lunch time on Saturday was when we noticed the massive thunderhead,” says Sponsler. “Unbeknownst to us, this was …
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