Health

To ensure students get basic nutrition, Gavilan College opened a food pantry with a ceremonial ribbon cutting Feb. 25 on its Hollister campus. The well-stocked room is a collaboration between the college and the Community FoodBank of San Benito. Annette Gutierrez, Gavilan’s director of basic...

Food insecurity in California ticked upward over the past year, bringing the share of hardship back up to levels early in the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data released by the California Association of Food Banks on Dec. 12. “Families are buying less food,” said May...

In an effort to minimize impacts on wildlife and tribal resources, as well as to satisfy critics of the proposed Sargent Mine in southern Santa Clara County, the project’s applicant recently offered to scale back their original plans for the property. However, some of those...

Valley Water crews have dug about 160 feet into a giant tunnel that will be able to divert massive volumes of water out of Anderson Reservoir when the Anderson Dam Seismic Retrofit Project is completed.  The 20-foot diameter tunnel—which will be 1,750 feet long when...

Gun violence is a public health crisis in the United States, and an upcoming firearms buyback event in Morgan Hill aims to address the problem by keeping unwanted weapons out of the wrong hands, according to county law enforcement and government officials.  Some of that...

The California State Assembly Select Committee on Fentanyl, Opioid Addiction and Overdose Prevention on Aug. 12 during an informational hearing discussed the urgency of combating the rise in overdose deaths among youth in recent years primarily due to ingesting fentanyl.  Between 2019 and 2021, drug...

Three mothers from California's South Valley have turned their grief into advocacy after losing their teenage sons to fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills. Gilroy residents Geralyn Vasquez, Lisa Marquez and Stephanie Carrasco each lost sons between ages 17 and 21 to what the young men believed were...

Education advocates and community leaders gathered on a cloudy morning outside Saint Louise Regional Hospital to urge voters to support Measure A, a Santa Clara County sales tax ballot option aimed at preserving healthcare services threatened by recent federal funding cuts. The Sept. 30 rally...

The wild and suspenseful saga that is the winter of 2023 continues, with the latest chapter bringing rare snowfall to South Valley—not just once, but multiple times since last week—blanketing the hills above Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Hollister with accumulated frozen precipitation.  Some locations in...

Santa Clara County is steering $15 million into expanding childcare services in the county, officially launching last week a grant program that was approved in February.  Funds can be used by recipients for facility improvements and operating costs, including rent and wages.  The county Board of...