Governor Gavin Newsom’s remarks on California’s embattled high-speed rail project in his State of the State address Tuesday seemed to confuse just about everyone. Supporters and opponents alike questioned whether he’s scaling back the project, or even abandoning it. Turns out … he really isn’t changing all that much. Capital Public Radio’s Ben Adler explains.

These words made heads spin across the nation:

Governor Gavin Newsom signed his first pieces of legislation into law on Wednesday, and he chose to sign them at a school where the water contains a carcinogen and kids can’t even use the drinking fountains.

Newsom opened his visit in a history classroom, introducing the bills to a room full of students at Riverview Elementary School in the Fresno County City of Parlier. “Shall we sign?” he asked, crouching down before the front row with a pen. “Yes,” they shouted, raising their hands excitedly.

Last week we spoke with writers Nikiko Masumoto and Brynn Saito about their Yonsei Memory Project. For the past several months, they’ve been working with artists, teachers and others on how to tell personal stories about social injustice in front of an audience. It's all part of a greater effort to get people talking about civil liberties struggles going back to the Japanese American incarceration during WWII. On Feb. 9, the storytellers shared their work at Fresno State. We’d like to play some excerpts starting with one called Expectations.

Today on Young Artists Spotlight we will feature the music of the University High Chamber Choir from Fresno. All of the students at this public charter high school located on the campus of Fresno State participate in music programs, and today FM89 listeners are in for a treat. Hear the a capella sounds of over 40 talented choral music students, led by instructor Greg Lapp perform on this week's program. 

Check back soon for audio and video from this week's performance.

If you or a loved one needed to go to the emergency room, how would you pay the bill? If you’re like most Americans, you don’t have huge cash funds socked away for a trip to the ER. Most of us are overwhelmed by the high cost of healthcare—and it doesn’t help that medical costs are often hidden.

Almonds are a nearly $3 billion industry here in the San Joaquin Valley—but without honeybees to pollinate the trees, there would be no harvest. By some estimates, as much as 90 percent of the country’s bees are trucked to California for the almond bloom.

Self Help Graphics and Art, an organization in Los Angeles that intersects art and social justice, is celebrating its legacy of producing art prints by Latinx, Chicana, and Chicano artists with an exhibit called Entre Tinta y Lucha: 45 Years of Self Help Graphics and Art.  

CSU Bakersfield’s Todd Madigan Gallery is currently housing more than 50 art prints from the exhibit. The exhibit is inspired by the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s and the rise of printmaking as an art form.

Megan Anderson Bohigian has been a teacher and writer for years, but only started publishing her own work after she retired in 2012. Her latest collection of poems, “Vanishing Point," uses metaphors to compare nature to her personal experiences. Megan says the inspiration to write about her memories in this way comes from "playing" with words; the poem often “emerges,” only after writing and rewriting a poem.

Pacific Gas and Electric, the primary utility provider in the Central Valley, filed for bankruptcy last month leaving questions about what this means for California’s renewable energy industry. Many renewable energy companies contract with PG&E, but as the company’s assets are examined, those contracts could be changed. This could also affect the state’s ability to rely on 100 percent clean energy by 2045.

On this week’s Valley Edition: We look at how pesticides may be contributing to honey bee deaths, and what that means for the $3 billion dollar almond industry. We also look at how the bankruptcy filing from utility provider PG&E could derail the state’s renewable energy goals.

Later, we take some time to explore the arts and culture scene by visiting an art gallery in Bakersfield and talking to a Fresno writer with a new collection of poems.