Kern County

The vast majority of the country’s table grapes are grown right here in the San Joaquin Valley. But this year, a freak summer storm took a big bite out of that production.

In what one attorney called a “moment of truth” for the City of Bakersfield, a judge ordered the city to keep enough water in the normally dry Kern River to protect fish populations.

On Tuesday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order against a Bakersfield aviation company following allegations that pesticides it had applied had drifted and harmed neighboring crops, pastureland and people.

Landowners and residents who live in front of the Auxiliary Dam at Lake Isabella are being swamped by “seepage” coming through the earthen dam that is ruining septic systems, causing sinkholes, clogging the area with weeds and breeding swarms of mosquitoes.

California officials unveiled a plan to permanently seal some of the state’s more than 5,000 orphaned oil wells, including dozens nestled among Kern County neighborhoods that have been the focus of advocate attention for decades.

In a recent visit to the Valley, federal and local officials touted the benefits of carbon capture, a technology seen as pivotal in the fight against global warming.

The role puts him in charge of a fractured Republican party with the slimmest of majorities. Residents of McCarthy's district are split between backing him and the party's more conservative members.

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy was challenged for the job, but in the end claimed the House Speaker gavel. The San Joaquin Valley politician catapulted to one of the most powerful positions in Washington, D.C.

The law signed by Gov. Newsom last month bans new oil and gas drilling within about half a mile of homes, schools, and hospitals starting in 2023. Shortly after it was signed into law, oil industry representatives moved to repeal the legislation through a referendum.

Kerry Klein’s reporting on infant and maternal mortality in Kern County and Bakersfield OB-GYN Dr. Arthur Park began with an email from the Medical Board of California in 2019.