Vaccinating the masses is underway in California, but Kern County continues to lag behind almost all other counties in its vaccination rates, as it has since the start of the vaccine rollout more than two months ago.
Environment & Climate
As coronavirus challenges mounted last year, officials scrambled to move resources around where needs were greatest.
How do you find sources that live in hard-to-reach places in the middle of a pandemic?
This story is part of a larger project series, "Voices from the Vineyard," led by Sarah Klearman, a 2020 Impact Fellow. She is reporting on how the twin crises of the pandemic and the wildfires have impacted the health of the valley’s farmworkers and their families....
“Disasters have a way of exposing the most vulnerable among us and putting them in harm’s way,” Terence Mulligan, president of the Napa Valley Community Foundation, told me.
As the number of coronavirus cases and deaths continue to tick up around the country, an estimated 13% of people in Shelby County are facing the pandemic without health insurance.
On one side of the Byhalia pipeline battle: Fossil fuel companies' clout. Squaring off against Big Oil: Black families fighting to protect their health, homes, loved ones and land.
The proposed Byhalia Connection pipeline, a joint venture of Plains All American Pipeline and the Valero Energy Corp., set off an environmental justice movement that's picked up steam in Memphis and around the country, as Black families from southwest Memphis square off with Big Oil.
An analysis of cases in 50 ZIP codes in Kern by The Californian shows that rural valley communities surrounding Bakersfield — many of which are home to prisons, farmworkers and some of the county's most impoverished pockets — were hardest hit.
San Luis Obispo County tenants are facing a “housing crisis point” as they struggle to find safe, affordable rentals and hold onto their homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic — and local advocates, attorneys and elected representatives are trying to find ways to help.