Kern County

The state Water Resources Control Board voted last week to move the Kern subbasin out from under its enforcement purview and back under oversight of the Department of Water Resources.

It was the biggest scandal involving the executive branch before Watergate, and it had roots in a Kern County oil field.

This early Kern County leader played a major role in the history of the Central Valley.

The gold fields of Kern County gave birth to a number of rough-and-tumble mining towns, some of which still exist today.

Calls for an investigation came after Mata’s family said they had called child protective services multiple times before Mata was found dead in a motel bathtub earlier this month.

While the bulk of the California Gold Rush took place from Mariposa north, the Central California foothills to the south also had a great deal of mining activity.

Amid ongoing uncertainty over federal funding of local health services, a project to prevent suicide and substance use among Native American youth in Kern County could be scaled back, or possibly eliminated.

Officials said reduced state and federal funding contributed to the cuts.

In a heated exchange, Senator Kennedy told the sheriff to "read the Constitution" after he testified his deputies had arrested people who had not broken the law.

A water district 200 miles north of Kern County is fighting back against a local agency’s threat to terminate an agreement that has supplied a 600-home development for the past 24 years.