San Joaquin Valley

If you listen to California’s political class, the high-speed rail project sounds like a textbook boondoggle. Yet in communities across California’s farm belt, the discourse is different. High-speed rail isn't "a train to nowhere" – it's a symbol of transformation.

Fifty years ago, two drifters murdered nine people in the bedroom of a home near Lodi. The memory of it never fades.

Hundreds of wells in Tulare Lake aquifer are at risk of going dry. Today's recommendation is the first time that state officials have moved to crack down on local plans that fail to stop excessive groundwater pumping.

Some independent California community hospitals have struggled with rising costs since the COVID-19 pandemic. Three declared bankruptcy this year, prompting the state to distribute interest-free loans.

Two of the three troubled California hospitals are especially vital to their communities because they’re the only emergency providers in their rural counties. Health care chains could keep them afloat.

The massive snowpack accumulated in California's mountains could trigger massive floods if hot weather causes a rapid melt.

The benefits of a long-sought and controversial project to replumb the Delta and send more water south are speculative at best, argue elected leaders from Yolo and Sacramento counties.

Mobile home parks are a last bastion of unsubsidized affordable housing in California. But when the health and safety of their residents is on the line, is the state doing enough to help?

California's bullet train project is still lacking enough money to complete its initial segment in the San Joaquin Valley, much less financing for a statewide system.

Up until this month, Madera County — with a population of more than 150,000 spread out across 2,000 square miles of Central Valley farmland and sparse Sierra — had a single general hospital. Then, on Jan. 3, it closed its doors for good. As CalMatters health reporter Ana B. Ibarra and California Divide reporter Nicole […]