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'God Help You If You Have A Car Crash Today' – Health Officials Warn Of Overflowing Hospitals Aug 31, 2021

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Coronavirus infections are now spreading faster in the San Joaquin Valley than in any other region of the state . And as hospitals reach critical capacity, health officials are warning that patient care is at risk. With more than 1,100 patients being treated with COVID-19 in area hospitals right now, rates of pandemic-related hospitalizations are rising almost as fast as they did during the devastating winter surge. “Our healthcare system is in a state of paralysis,” said Fresno County Emergency Medical Services Director Dan Lynch during a press briefing last week. Health agencies reported more than 11,300 new cases of the virus in the last week, a 7-day average not reported since the January surge. Seventy-five new COVID-related fatalities made this the Valley’s deadliest week since April. Unlike during previous surges, however, there’s a smaller pool of traveling nurses available to fill in gaps in care, and local hospitals don’t have the benefit of military doctors who were deployed

With Loved Ones Stranded In Afghanistan, Afghan Families In Fresno Face An Excruciating Wait Aug 27, 2021

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An Afghan woman who asks to be called Sana places a spread of dried fruit and nuts on the dinner table in her small apartment. It’s in keeping with Afghan culture. “When we have guests, it's must,” she says, getting ready to pour a cup of tea. “You should serve them green tea or black tea.” She is still following tradition for the guests in her home tonight, even though all she can think of is her mother, sister, brother and sister-in-law. Sana’s family has been making the dangerous trip to the Kabul airport every night since mid-August, desperately trying to get inside, ahead of August 31, the U.S. deadline for withdrawal. “My sister-in-law is pregnant now. And they went there and then they had very trouble and bad time there because it was gun shooting everywhere,” she says. The Kabul airport is the only way out for civilians trying to flee the country. All the borders are closed. “So the flight is the only way that they have right now and I don't know what's going to happen,” she

CalMatters Reporter Laurel Rosenhall On Newsom Recall Election And Power Of Latino Voters Aug 27, 2021

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Gov. Gavin Newsom has less than three weeks to convince voters to keep him in office, and recent polls indicate that the electorate is almost evenly split. To learn the latest on the recall, and why Latino voters could decide the election, Kathleen Schock spoke to Calmatters political reporter Laurel Rosenhall.

California Prison Poetry Contest Encourages Creativity Among The Incarcerated Aug 27, 2021

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High school teacher and Fresno-based podcaster Jordan Mattox recently founded The California Prison Poetry Contest. He’s currently collecting short poems from incarcerated men and women throughout the state. Entrants have a chance to win cash prizes and be published in a literary magazine. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock spoke to Mattox about what he hopes to accomplish with the contest, and how the idea grew from conversations with his wife, who works as a psychologist at Avenal State Prison.

Kids Discovery Station Brings New Learning Opportunities To Merced Aug 27, 2021

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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.

Valley Edition - August 27, 2021- Latino Voters And Recall, Local Music Venues, Poetry In Prisons Aug 27, 2021

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On the next Valley Edition: The latest in the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, and why Latino voters could play a deciding role in the election’s outcome. Plus, we explore the return of live music to local venues and how those venues are dealing with the pandemic. And poetry written from inside California’s prisons . Listen to these stories and more in the podcast above.

Bakersfield Police Department Agrees To Adopt Broad Policing Reforms Following State Investigation Aug 24, 2021

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The California Department of Justice has reached an agreement Monday with the Bakersfield Police Department to implement a wide-range of policing reforms. The state began its investigation in 2016 following a surge of citizen complaints, said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “The California Department of Justice launched an investigation that in our estimation revealed that the Bakersfield Police Department failed to uniformly and adequately enforce the law, leading to a pattern or practice of conduct that deprived Bakersfield residents of their constitutional protections.” The investigation alleged that the Bakersfield Police Department’s conduct resulted in unreasonable use of force, unreasonable stops, searches, arrests and seizures. Among other actions, the investigation found the use of unreasonable deadly force against those with mental health disabilities, failure to adequately address civilian complaints, failure to provide meaningful access to police services to individuals with

Crisis Of Homelessness And Affordable Housing In Fresno; Transitioning From The Streets To Shelter Aug 20, 2021

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Reggie Bess has been building his coin collection for the past 30 years. “And so this is my penny collection, this is what I'm working on today,” he says unfolding a cardboard panel with rows of coins. When he lost his home two years ago, he parted with a lot of other things but his coin collection? It mattered too much. “That there is 1884,” he says pointing to a penny in his collection. But now he doesn’t have to drag it from place to place. He’s relieved to have a motel room to himself. He just moved into the Travel Inn off Parkway Drive. “It's been a struggle. It's really good to be in a place where there's running water and light and air conditioning,” he says. Before he received a room, he was living in a tent off Highway 99. “If you lived in the dirt for any period of time, this is a Godsend, this is a blessing and I know that,” Bess says. An outreach team from the Poverello House contacted him about getting a room about a month before the move happened. It was all part of the

Wildfire Smoke In 2020 Led To More Valley COVID Cases, Deaths, Says New Study Aug 20, 2021

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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 just California, Washington and Oregon. According to county-level data provided to KQED by the researchers, one of the most affected regions was the San Joaquin Valley . In this interview, KVPR’s Kerry Klein sat down with senior author Francesca Dominici, a biostatistician at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the co-director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative, to learn more about the study and its implications for public health.

Valley Edition - August 20, 2021 - Wildfire And COVID Deaths, Redistricting, Fresno Art Museum Aug 20, 2021

Show notes

On this week's Valley Edition: Fresno's homeless and affordable housing crisis has exploded in the wake of the pandemic. We take a closer look at the struggle to find shelter for the unhoused and the city policies in place to offer relief. And a new study from Harvard explores the link between wildfire smoke and COVID deaths last year. Plus, how will the decennial process of redistricting shape politics in the Valley? And the Fresno Art Museum reopens to the public .

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