KVPR News Podcast

A new children’s museum is opening to the public next month in Merced. It will be the first of its kind in the city’s history. To learn more about the Kids Discovery Station , Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke to one of its co-founders, UC Merced professor of applied mathematics, Mayya Tokman.

Last year, the western states were hit with a double-whammy of natural disasters: Not just the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a historically long and intense wildfire season that blanketed the region with plume after plume of noxious smoke. The confluence of those two was deadly: A study published recently in the peer-reviewed research journal Science Advances estimated that wildfire smoke in 2020 exacerbated the effects of COVID by leading to as many as 20,000 cases and more than 700 deaths in

Last week, the Fresno Art Museum reopened its doors to the general public. It was a long awaited moment for the institution and art lovers in Fresno. To learn how it went and what new exhibits are on the horizon, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with the museum’s executive director and chief curator Michelle Ellis Pracy.

Now that the 2020 census data has been released, the work is on to redraw California’s political maps. To learn how the process is going and the political implications for the San Joaquin Valley, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Lori Pesante, director of civic engagement for the Dolores Huerta Foundation, Allen Bolar, political science professor at Bakersfield College and Don Simmons, retired sociology professor at Fresno State.

In the last month, Mariposa County has surged from one of the state’s lowest rates of new COVID-19 cases to one of its highest. As a result, county supervisors recently approved mask and vaccine mandates for county employees. As of July 15, Mariposa County had reported 472 total cases of COVID-19 among its 17,000 residents. By August 15, that total had risen to 662 – a jump of more than 40 percent in just one month. “You’re seeing just an explosive increase in the number of COVID patients, and

In 2019 the Brooklyn Museum in New York hosted an exhibition looking at art 50 years after the Stonewall uprising, a landmark moment in LGBTQ history. And on Thursday that exhibit will open for a second time at the Phebe Conley Art Gallery Fresno State. The exhibition, which runs through October, is presented by the university’s Center for Creativity and the Arts. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with its director, Cindy Urrutia, and Liz Looney with The James B. McClatchy Foundation,

This week the Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted to extend funding for the Disability Equity Project, a coalition of six local organizations that serve individuals and families living with a wide-range of disabilities. For the past year, these organizations have worked in partnership to help their clients through the pandemic. Exceptional Parents Unlimited, which supports children with special medical and developmental needs, has served as the project’s lead agency. Valley Edition Host

As the Delta variant continues to spread throughout the San Joaquin Valley, so do calls from public health officials to increase vaccination rates. But as KQED’s Central Valley reporter Alexandra Hall has learned, the reasons why some are avoiding the shot can be more complicated than many think. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with her about what she’s found.

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve relied not just on the medical providers based at our local hospitals, but also traveling nurses who move from place to place, filling in wherever help is needed. One such nurse, Grover Nicodemus Street, is a military veteran based in Colorado. So far during the pandemic, he has served in five different states, ranging from major population centers like New York City and Miami to the rural town of Tehachapi. He recently published a book about traveling from COVID

Small farmers in the Central Valley operate on thin margins even in good years, and now they are also grappling with drought, wildfire and the recovery from market disruptions that were caused by the pandemic. To get a better sense of how family farms are weathering these challenges, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Paul Towers, executive director of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers.