Joe Moore

Bakersfield may become the latest California city to consider loosening laws against raising chickens in residential backyards.

The Bakersfield Californian reports that the city's Legislative and Litigation Committee discussed the idea at a meeting on Tuesday. It's currently illegal to keep chickens in most residential areas in the city.

Dr. Tony Vang announced his resignation today from his seat on the Fresno Unified School District Board of Trustees. The resignation, which Vang termed a "retirement" is effective today.

Vang cited family and workload related issues with his job at Fresno State for prompting his resignation.

For over three decades, the group Chanticleer has brought worldwide audiences a unique blend of music ranging from medieval to pop to original choral works. The San Francisco ensemble has become recognized as one of the premier male choral ensembles in the world, and visits Fresno for a concert at the Paul Shaghoian Concert Hall on Tuesday September 18, 2012, presented by the Fresno Community Chorus.

DFI Marketing of Fresno has announced a recall of 28,000 cartons of cantaloupe after a sample tested positive for Salmonella bacteria. Dresick Farms Inc grows produce on a farm in Huron, in western Fresno County.  

Here in California's San Joaquin Valley, the disease known as valley fever can strike anyone at almost anyone at almost anytime. Just ask Dr. James McCarthy.

"It's pretty difficult to prevent something that you can acquire just by breathing in the air," says McCarthy. 

Just breathing in the air. Air that contains the spores of a soil fungus found throughout much of the Southwest, but especially in the southern portions of the San Joaquin Valley. 

Homer Joy, the songwriter behind the Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam hit “The Streets of Bakersfield” has died. Joy was a talented performer in his own right, and a leading figure in the so-called Bakersfield Sound movement of country music.  

Owens’ own recording of The Streets of Bakersfield in the 1970’s went largely unnoticed, but his 1988 remake with Yoakam hit number one on the Billboard music country charts.

A West Virginia resident is the third person to die of hantavirus in the last month after visiting Yosemite National Park. The outbreak of the rare disease, which is contracted through contact with the urine or feces of infected deer mice has prompted a worldwide health advisory for individuals who visited the park earlier this summer. A total of eight cases have been reported so far. All of the cases but one involve people who stayed at the "Signature Tent Cabins" at Yosemite's Curry Village. The other case involves a person who visited camps in the High Sierra.

A Central Valley dairy is once again facing a recall of its milk products, just months after a similar incident resulted in products being pulled off store shelves.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture announced the recall of raw milk, raw skim milk and raw cream from Kerman based Organic Pastures Dairy today after a routine test discovered campylobacter in a sample of cream. The recalled products all bear the date code of September 13.