News

This week on Valley Writers Read, Auberry author James Benelli reads his story "Spaghetti Farming In Kansas." This is a satirical story about a millionaire, Nick Worthmore and his wife Penny who, when they stop to get their car repaired in Kansas, wind up on an unexpected adventure.

The top Democrat in the California Senate is calling for more crisis access to mental health services to help reduce the state’s overcrowded prisons. 

But as Ben Adler reports from Sacramento, the proposals likely wouldn’t satisfy a federal court order to reduce the state’s prison population.

It’s hard to go anywhere in California without seeing a little signs warning about potentially hazardous chemicals. Now Governor Jerry Brown wants to give those signs an update. Katie Orr reports from Sacramento.

Proposition 65 requires California businesses to post warnings about potentially hazardous chemicals in the air. The voter approved law has been in place since 1986. Now Governor Jerry Brown wants the warnings to be more specific and he wants to modify the law requiring where the signs are posted.

This week on Valley Edition we explore the region through reports and interviews on valley fever, restorative justice in schools, health care, taxes and a Jazz festival in the area.

Teacher Jenna Perry’s 7th grade English class at Fresno Unified’s Yosemite Middle School sounds like most others. Kids work to finish up their assignments, as the period is about to end. But there is something that makes her classroom different.

“Ok, before we leave today, let’s go over our class goal today. Somebody tell me, should we earn a point for staying on task? Why or why not? Regina?” says Perry.

At the end of every class before students are dismissed, they go over their goals, which are spelled out in a social contract they all wrote and all signed.

In a motion filed in U.S. District Court yesterday, the state Attorney General raised questions about the federal order to exclude inmates especially vulnerable to valley fever from two Central Valley prisons.

California’s highest court has come down on the side of cities and counties in the fight over the location, or even the existence, of medical marijuana dispensaries. Katie Orr reports from Sacramento. 

What happens when society fails to care about people? And why do our priorities as individuals differ so much from our actions as businesses and lawmakers? In this edition of Valley Public Radio's commentary series “The Moral Is” Fresno State business law professor Ida Jones says that uncontrolled greed and a civilized society are incompatible.

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“The best of the bad options”. That’s how the Department of Corrections is characterizing its plan to reduce prison overcrowding in California. Katie Orr reports from Sacramento.

More inmates will be sent to lower security fire camps, some elderly and sick prisoners will be paroled early, additional beds will be leased from county jails. Those are among the measures California is proposing to further reduce prison overcrowding.

The collapse of honey bee populations in the U.S. is the result of a number of factors, ranging from insects and diseases to pesticides, according to new study released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection agency.

The report says a parasitic mite is the single most destructive pest to bee populations, and is closely linked with what has come to be known as colony collapse disorder.