The best job for an inmate at Avenal State Prison? Working at the on-site egg production facility, which supplies eggs to all the state prisons.
Stories For Central Valley
Though Lindsay’s economy has diversified, oranges still have a big presence.
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Lindsay is a Central Valley town of 12,000 built up around olive and citrus groves. Twenty years ago, a state-wide freeze signaled the start of a series of events that crippled Lindsay’s economy. But the town buried its troubled past and forged a new identity. (aired on The California Report Nov 2010)
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In 1929, oil was discovered in the Kettleman Hills — and the nearby town of Avenal was born. But by the 1960s, the oil business dried up, and Avenal struggled to find a new economy and identity. They found one, but in an industry most towns had previously shunned. (aired on The California Report March 2011)
Rural California has long faced a shortage of doctors, and in the San Joaquin Valley studies show the number of primary care physicians per person is about half the state’s average. But here and there, you can find physicians who really commit to their communities. We meet a couple of dedicated rural physicians, and a collaboration to cultivate more doctors like them.
There’s been some record-setting heat around California this summer — it’s more than just an annoyance for those who can’t take refuge because the outdoors is their office. In July, when temperatures in California soared above 100 for almost three weeks, three farm workers died. State regulators are investigating those deaths to see if employers violated heat illness prevention laws.
