Interview

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 Kathleen Schock spoke with CSUB President Lynette Zelezny.

Voters in the 22nd Congressional District will decide next month between Republican Devin Nunes, who has represented the district since 2003, and Democrat Phil Arballo, who runs a small business in financial services. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock posed questions to Arballo submitted from FM89 listeners on topics including COVID-19 economic recovery, education and racial divisions. Nunes' campaign did not respond to our request for an interview.

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 currently have active infections, and five have died.

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.

The election is less than 40 days away and we want to make sure your vote gets counted. We checked in with registrars of voters throughout the San Joaquin Valley to ask what voters should do to make sure their ballot is cast properly.

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.

California’s COVID-19 pandemic has evolved tremendously since it began in March, but one thing that hasn’t changed is that residents of skilled nursing facilities remain particularly at risk of severe infection and death. Although COVID-19 cases in skilled nursing facilities account for only 3 percent of the state’s overall caseload, almost 20 percent of the state’s deaths have occurred among these vulnerable residents.

While reports show that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affects communities of color, gaps in data have made it difficult to quantify the impact of the virus on indigenous populations. To get a better sense of how Native Americans in the Valley are faring during the pandemic, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Selina De La Peña, CEO of the Fresno American Indian Health Project.

A global pandemic like COVID-19 can be risky for anyone, but the risk level is on a totally different scale for Rachael Goldring Bell of Clovis. Born with congenital heart disease, she was later diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension and an immune disorder, all of which increase her risk of a severe bout of COVID-19.

Ever since a trip to Southern California in early March, the 27-year-old psychology student hasn’t left her house for fear of contracting the virus. Here's an audio postcard of her experience sheltering in place with her husband, her parents, two cats and two dogs.

After announcing that a data snafu had resulted in an undercount of thousands of new COVID-19 cases, state health officials said this week the problem’s been resolved—at least at the state level. County health departments are left to clean up the data that feeds into their own county dashboards.

Violinist Anjeli Macaranas recently graduated from University High School in Fresno and will be attending Harvard this fall, from home. She performed this spring on Valley Public Radio’s Young Artists Spotlight and as a guest on the Play On series early this summer. Valley Public Radio’s David Aus recently caught up with her to learn more about her Little Virtuosos Project and the interconnection between music and mental health.

In the southeast corner of Kern County is the Mojave Desert. In that dry landscape there’s a city that looks half built.

There are roads and some houses, but it seems unfinished. That city’s past and present are investigated in a new podcast from KPCC’s LAist Studios, called California City. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom suspended most evictions in April. But now state lawmakers are debating whether to lift the moratorium, leaving renters who have lost their jobs to the pandemic facing an uncertain future.

Performing arts venues have been dark since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March - including some of the Central Valley’s most historic theatres. But efforts are taking place to help these landmarks weather the storm.

To learn more, Valley Edition host Kathleen Schock spoke with Laurance Abbate, CFO of The Tower Theatre in Fresno, and Vikky Escobedo, Executive Director of the Fox Theatre in Visalia.

During a livestreamed address earlier this week, California Health & Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly dropped a bombshell: that the state infectious disease database known as CalREDIE, where labs report testing data and county public health departments extract local numbers, has been undercounting new cases.

Over the past few months, we’ve talked to a number of doctors and nurses about their experiences during the pandemic. Today we’ll hear from Dr. Amy Mehta. She’s a pulmonary critical care physician at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. FM89’s News Director Alice Daniel spoke with her earlier this week.  

Governor Gavin Newsom’s COVID-19 response this week shifted to eight counties in the San Joaquin Valley, where he is now sending support teams and $52 million in aid to assist with testing, contact tracing and other containment measures.

In February and March, the StoryCorps mobile 2020 tour was in Fresno and Bakersfield documenting the stories of San Joaquin Valley residents. As part of Valley Public Radio’s collaboration with the personal history project, we’ll be producing segments over the next year based on some of these recorded conversations. Today you’ll hear from two religious leaders in Fresno: Rabbi Rick Winer of Temple Beth Israel and Reza Nekumanesh, executive director of the Islamic Cultural Center.

One of the cornerstones of the COVID-19 response is contact tracing – when teams of people track down and get in touch with close contacts of those who have tested positive. In order to progress in reopening, Governor Gavin Newsom has required every county health department to take on 15 contact tracers for every 100,000 residents.