KVPR News Podcast

We’re still learning the devastation caused by last year’s wildfire season in California. The National Park Service just completed a study that estimates ten to 14 percent of our state’s mature giant Sequoias were destroyed in a single wildfire. The trees were wiped out by the Castle Fire, which burned 273 square miles of tall timber in Sequoia National Park which sits on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and is named after the tree, a redwood, They can grow to 200 feet tall, and live for

Clovis North High School sophomore John Estrada has qualified for the state science fair four times since middle school. But his project this year, a drought-detecting robot, earned the 16-year-old top honors at the world’s largest science competition, the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair . One of more than 1,800 competitors from 64 countries, Estrada walked away from this year’s virtual fair with a grand prize: The Gordon E. Moore Award for Positive Outcomes for Future

As of earlier this month, 127 kids aged 12 to 17 years old had died of COVID-19 in the United States . The number may pale in comparison to the more than half a million adults who’ve died so far, but because deaths among kids are so rare, the total is still high enough to rank COVID-19 among the leading causes of death among that age group. Death, however, isn’t the only negative COVID outcome in young people: More than 3,700 kids and teenagers have been diagnosed with Multisystem Inflammatory

Naindeep Singh, the executive director of the Jakara movement, a volunteer training organization and a hub for Sikh Californian youth, has joined us as part of our series looking at how people are processing the magnitude of this pandemic. He spoke with FM89’s Alice Daniel for this audio postcard.

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened awareness about the connection between race and health equity, raising the question - how might this experience change public health policy moving forward? Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock explored the topic, and the calls to declare that racism is a public health crisis, with Dr. Venise Curry, a health advocate and board member with The Climate Center, Monica Davalos, research associate with the California Budget and Policy Center, and Whitney Pirtle,

Since January a group of San Joaquin Valley high school students have been part of the CMAC Youth Voices documentary filmmaking training program. Their films, which range in topics from immigration to the digital divide, debut Sunday at 1 p.m. in a live showcase on CMAC's YouTube channel . Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with one of the students, Ishan Singh. He’s a junior at Sunnyside High School in Fresno, and his documentary is about Indian farm protests. Lisa Talley, one of the

More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, many basic questions about the virus have been answered, including how it spreads, how it responds to treatment, and how it affects the body. But even those lessons learned apply mostly to generally healthy people and those with the most common pre-existing conditions, and unknowns still abound for many population subsets—including pregnant women. Last month, however, a wide-reaching scientific paper published in JAMA Pediatrics found that pregnant

On this week's Valley Edition , we continue our series looking at how people are processing the magnitude of this pandemic. Today we hear from 79-year-old Dezie Woods-Jones. She’s the state president of Black Women Organized for Political Action and a former vice mayor of Oakland. Woods-Jones lives in Madera County. FM89’s Alice Daniel caught up with her there and produced this audio postcard.

On Thursday, the CDC announced something that many have been waiting for, permission for fully vaccinated people to take off their masks in most settings. It was presented as a significant step toward normalcy. But just before that announcement was made, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock had this conversation with mental health professionals about the complicated feelings some of us have about getting back to normal. She spoke with Henry Meraz, owner and clinical director of Safe and

Earlier this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended the drought emergency declaration to much of California, including the San Joaquin Valley. To better understand the significance of that decision, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke to journalist Steven Greenhut. He is a columnist for the Orange County Register and the author of a book for the Pacific Research Institute called “Winning the Water Wars.”