KVPR News Podcast

Next Tuesday, California is slated to reopen its doors following more than a year of pandemic-related restrictions. The state’s reopening system, known as the Blueprint for a Safer Economy, will dissolve, and businesses and houses of worship will be permitted to open without capacity limits or distancing restrictions. Life will not immediately return to pre-pandemic normal, however—especially if you’re unvaccinated. Even though the state is eliminating its own mask mandate, we will instead fall

Christopher Goffard is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with the Los Angeles Times and the host of the popular podcast, “Dirty John.” His current project is another crime related podcast, this time set in Stanislaus County. It’s called “The Trials of Frank Carson.” Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with Goffard about the podcast and what it has to say about the inner workings of the criminal justice system.

As communities in the San Joaquin Valley grapple over the recognition of Pride Month, Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock got reactions from local leaders in the LGBTQ+ community. She spoke with Estevan Parra, coordinator of LGBTQ+ and gender programs and services at Fresno State, Kathleen Arambula-Reyna, festival director and board president of the Fresno Reel Pride Film Festival, and Brian Poth, co-founder and executive director of The Source LGBT+ Center in Visalia.

In early April, Monterey County and a group of community organizations held a COVID-19 vaccine clinic in a school gym in the rural city of Soledad. In a promotional video produced about the event, locals shared what brought them out to get their vaccinations. “I did it to protect my kids,” said Greenfield farm worker Rosa Chavez in Spanish. “My family encouraged me to take the COVID vaccine…and I feel more secure now,” said Soledad resident Maria Ruiz. The video highlights a Monterey County

Last August, the state of California introduced a “health equity metric” in its method of evaluating progress in fighting COVID-19. Ostensibly, that meant the state would be grading counties not just on their countywide case rates, positivity rates, testing and (later) vaccine numbers, but also on all of those measures within their most disadvantaged census tracts. This week’s COVID update features two segments: In the first, we present a feature that explores the impacts of the Fresno County

The California agency in charge of workplace health and safety recommended Thursday to lift masking guidelines in certain cases. Cap Radio’s Steven Rascón has more. The Cal/OSHA proposal targets employees who interact with the public and those whose workplaces aren’t 100-percent vaccinated. The changes come just two weeks before the state fully reopens. It bucks the recent recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowing vaccinated people to unmask in most cases.

For our series looking at how people are processing their experiences around the pandemic, we hear from Rodia Montgomery-Gentry. She’s a social science teacher and department chair at Madera South High School. As schools start to reopen, Montgomery-Gentry reflects on the challenges of connecting to students through online learning. FM89’s News Director Alice Daniel produced this audio postcard.

More than two decades after coming to Fresno State to teach Spanish and Portuguese, Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval was recently named the ninth president to lead the university. Since last fall, he had been serving as the interim president. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with him about his vision for Fresno State, his approach to closing achievement gaps, and when fans can expect to return to Bulldog Stadium.

The Kings County city of Corcoran is slowly but steadily sinking, as much as 11½ feet in some places over the last 14 years. Lois Henry, a journalist with SJV Water, recently wrote about it for the New York Times. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke with her about how agriculture, and its reliance on groundwater, is to blame.

Most of California is experiencing extreme drought right now. That means the possibility of bigger, more destructive wildfires earlier in the summer. CapRadio’s Scott Rodd has this report from Butte County. Lunchtime brings a crew of laborers to this taco stand in Oroville. They’re taking a break from clearing trees and brush around nearby homes. One of them tells Sissy Savoye about free and reduced-cost programs to remove hazardous vegetation in fire-prone areas. She leaves with a box of tacos