Valley News

At about 10 a.m. Aaron Foster heads to Ivy and Lorena streets in southwest Fresno. In his pickup truck, he goes around neighborhoods in this area every day, or what he calls “hitting the loop.” “This is just the hood, we call it the block,” he said. “Every neighborhood got …

This year, the Tower Theatre in Fresno turns 80 years old. The theatre’s iconic marquee and tower have flashed fluorescent pink and purple since it opened in 1939. “The Memorial Auditorium was built then, and so the Tower Theatre was really the very last of those big, glorious, neon-lit theaters,” …

Dennis Hutson’s rows of alfalfa, melons, okra and black-eyed peas are an oasis of green in the dry terrain of Allensworth, an unincorporated community in rural Tulare County. Hutson, currently cultivating on 60 acres, has a vision for many more fields bustling with jobs. “This community will forever be impoverished …

The San Joaquin Valley’s largest city will soon be home to a new nursing program. Through a program offered by Samuel Merritt University in partnership with Kaiser Permanente Fresno, registered nurses will be able to obtain a Bachelor’s of Science degree in nursing. Although the private health sciences university is …

To the estimated half a million visitors it attracts each year, the Big Fresno Fair is synonymous with carnival rides, fried food, and horse racing. But to hospitals, the fair means something completely different: fewer visits to the emergency room. Joyce Eden, director of emergency services at Saint Agnes Medical …

If you look closely at local governments in the San Joaquin Valley, you’ll find a handful of city council members in their early twenties. One even ran and won as a 19-year-old. In the studio this week, moderator Kathleen Schock spoke with three of these local city councilmembers: Jewel Hurtado …

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California filed a discrimination complaint against the Fresno Unified School District Thursday on behalf of two black Bullard High School students, claiming the school failed to protect students from racial abuse. There’s been a pattern of racism and anti-blackness throughout the district, ACLU …

And for the weekend, let’s take a look at a recent aquisition at the Fresno Art Museum: Just added to FAM’s permanent collection is a piece from Fresno native Darren Waterson. He now lives and works in New York City, but he got his early art education at the museum. …

A recently published study says that Native American students in California experience suspension rates that are twice as high as the state average. The same study also found that expulsion rates of those students are particularly high in Kings County. The Sacramento Native American Higher Education Collaborative and the Community …

We in California are depleting our groundwater aquifers faster than we can replenish them. Over the last few decades in the San Joaquin Valley, that deficit has averaged close to two million acre-feet per year, a total that was exacerbated by drought conditions that may become more common as the …

A statewide survey conducted last month by the Public Policy Institute of California found most Californians see homelessness as a top issue for the state, but how counties are choosing to tackle it differs widely. In Kern County, officials are considering jailing homeless people for misdemeanor drug offenses. To go …

Buck and Bonnie Owens, Merle Haggard, Bill Woods – their names are forever associated with the Bakersfield Sound. But what about the lesser known artists who also belted out their stories of hardship defying Nashville’s more polished grooves? Music historian and writer Scott B. Bomar has just released a 10-CD …

In the past, when government agencies and the media requested court records from the Kern County Superior Court, they could typically access them for free. Last month, however, that changed, due in part to a rising number of incoming record requests. According to some sources, rising court fees are becoming …