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On a Thursday afternoon in mid-January, Woodland Elementary School’s cafeteria is transformed into a vaccine center. The room is sectioned off into check-in points with nursing staff and a waiting area for newly-vaccinated staff members. 

Bill Peterson, 78, is greeted by a nurse as he walks in. He holds onto his health information packet as he walks up to the cafeteria stage, behind the curtain. Nurses are stationed there with vaccines. Peterson sits down, joking with them before he rolls up his sleeve. 

Fresno Police are on heightened alert on Inauguration Day, watching for any potential threats with protests. Speaking in front of City Hall Tuesday afternoon, Police Chief Paco Balderrama said the department hasn’t received anything credible to investigate, but teams remain in contact with the FBI to monitor intelligence. Balderrama said street closures are in effect Wednesday with officers concentrated in the downtown area. 

On a cloudy morning in Northeast Bakersfield, Dr. Mathew Beare walks along a narrow trail of damp fallen leaves to a small homeless encampment.  For over a year, Beare and his street medicine team have made the drive every Thursday from Clinica Sierra Vista in downtown Bakersfield to this barren site just off of Chester Avenue. 

The man who carried a Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol during last week’s insurrection was arrested yesterday for an act that served as a reminder that the roots of our country’s divisions run deep. The now infamous images of him walking through the Capitol with the flag resting causally on his shoulder raise questions about the history of the Confederacy, not just in the South, but also here in the Central Valley.

More than six percent of Californians have now contracted COVID-19 since the pandemic began, but in one San Joaquin Valley county, the case rate is almost twice as high.

A Sierra Unified School District board trustee who was at the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday refused calls for him to step down during a Monday night board meeting.

James Hoak listened to two hours of public comments that were split in support of and against him keeping his seat on the board. More than 400 people attended the virtual meeting. He responded directly when asked if he would resign.

“I can answer that real quick for you. I will be here until 2024, and I’ll see you at the polls,” he said.

In late December, Clementine Sanders called her son at Coalinga State Hospital to make sure he had received her Christmas card. That’s when his bunkmates informed her that her son, 58-year-old Shannon Starr, had died three weeks earlier. “I was just totally shocked,” she says. “Nobody called me.”

Since then, she says, none of her messages to staff or reception have been returned. “I still wasn’t notified and I still haven’t heard from the [hospital],” she says.

After a ceremonial swearing-in at City Hall, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer laid out his first priorities in office. He said his first order of business is an initiative to house those experiencing homelessness. 

Dyer emphasized helping people who have made encampments along the city’s  freeways.

“I’ve been working over the last several months with the governor’s office, as well as Caltrans and CHP,” he said. “And we’re going to be relocating those individuals from the freeway into housing beginning this month.”

Valley Congressman Jim Costa called the insurrection at the United States Capitol Wednesday an act of treason. He said he defends every American’s right to peacefully protest. 

The sale of Fresno’s historic Tower Theatre is raising concerns among businesses and residents. The buyer, Adventure Church, currently holds Sunday services at the theatre. But according to Fresno City Councilmember Esmeralda Soria, that’s a violation of current zoning laws. 

“We researched our land use and code on what is authorized and we have gotten a determination that actually the current use of religious assembly is not allowed,” says Soria. 

The last living climber on the first team to scale Yosemite’s El Capitan has died from complications of COVID-19. George Whitmore, 89, is best known for his historic climb in 1958 with his partners, Wayne Merry and Warren Harding. His pioneering techniques helped the group get safely to the top. 

“They enjoyed having done it. It was a great adventure to them but none of them ever really had a big head about it, so to speak,” says his widow, Nancy Whitmore, 76. 

Ambulance services in Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties are under a new policy to only transport patients in life-threatening situations. It’s a response to the surge in COVID-19 cases that is overwhelming hospital staff.

Dan Lynch, emergency services manager at the Fresno County Department of Public Health, said the new policy will help decrease the number of unnecessary emergency visits to hospitals. Lynch said paramedics and EMT’s will look for specific vital signs first.

Federal lawmakers are still trying to pass a $900 billion Coronavirus relief bill before the end of year. Before the pandemic, about 30 million Americans were food insecure, Congressman Jim Costa (CA-16) said in a press conference Wednesday in Fresno. Since the pandemic, he said that number has increased to another 8 million.

Valley food banks have collectively reported that as much as 25% to 40% of people they have been serving in the last six to eight months have never needed food assistance before. The stimulus package hopes to address that increase.

The California Department of Justice announced a settlement Tuesday with the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, following a four-year-long investigation into allegations of excessive force and other misconduct.

Among the issues filed: unreasonable stops, searches and seizures, access to services for people with language barriers and how the department addressed public complaints. 

It’s a Tuesday afternoon in downtown Fresno, and a line of cars has wrapped around the block from the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission to Chukchansi Stadium. A petite karaoke singer belts out George Harrison on the sidewalk, while the drivers, masked and corralled into reserved parking spots, wait for Testing Tuesday to begin.

Brianna Cisneros is the youngest of four siblings. On this cool December evening, she’s sitting at a table in her backyard with her two sisters, her brother and her father. A dog barks nearby, there’s music playing from a neighbor’s house down the street. Signs of normalcy in a not so normal year. 

Vietnam War veteran, Chongge Vang, 80, has been confined to his Sanger home during the pandemic, keeping busy with chores on his two-and-a-half acre property.

“I have nothing to do, so I have to walk around and then clean up, water all the trees, all the fruit, you know. That’s what I do,” he says. 

As the first 327,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine begin arriving in California, most San Joaquin Valley hospitals expect their initial shipments within the next few days.

As COVID-19 infections continue to rise throughout the San Joaquin Valley, they’re also ravaging the Valley’s prisons. That’s why two advocacy groups have planned protests this weekend outside prisons in Kings, Fresno and Kern Counties.

In early October, complications from diabetes forced Bessie Miller into the operating room. The former state employee and well-known advocate for West Fresno had needed round-the-clock oxygen for years, and because of poor blood circulation, calf injuries that wouldn't heal eventually left her legs in need of amputation.