Category: Bakersfield

Bakersfield
Stefi Mar

Museum Display Asks California to See Black Women “in Full”

In Los Angeles, visitors attending a Juneteenth weekend event at the A.C. Bilbrew Library were welcomed by a museum exhibit featuring a wall of faces — filmmakers and freedom fighters, Olympians and lawmakers — honoring Black women’s achievement and leadership.

Bakersfield
Stefi Mar

Opinion: Our Urban Hospitals Are at Risk. Billionaire Tax Cuts Are to Blame

As a frontline healthcare worker, I know what happens when hospitals are stretched too thin: people wait for hours in crowded emergency rooms, nurses try to care for too many patients at once, families delay treatment because they’re afraid of the bill. In many Black and working-class neighborhoods, this isn’t a temporary crisis, it’s a daily reality, and without intervention, it’s about to get much, much worse. 

Bakersfield
Stefi Mar

Gov. Newsom Signs Election Security Bill; Asm. Bryan Praises Move

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on May 29 aimed at strengthening protections for California elections, arguing that the measure is necessary to guard against voter intimidation, election interference and unauthorized access to voting systems.

Bakersfield
Stefi Mar

Doctors Seeing More Cases of Preventable Childhood Illnesses

Doctors across the United States say they are treating children for illnesses that routine vaccinations once made increasingly uncommon, raising concerns that years of declining immunization rates are beginning to reverse decades of public health progress.

Local
Kathleen Untalan

Bakersfield News Observer Takes Center Stage at Beale Library Juneteenth Event

In honor of Juneteenth, Beale Library hosted a celebration of Black newspaper history in Bakersfield on the first Saturday in June. Held in the library’s Local History section, the event titled Telling Our Stories: The Legacy of Black Newspapers in Bakersfield featured two keynote speakers – Katherine Jordan Morris, a historical researcher, who spoke on the history of older Black-owned newspapers in Bakersfield, and James Luckey Jr., who discussed the 50-year legacy of the Bakersfield News Observer. The event was organized by Lynnet Kemmer, the Local History Librarian at Beale.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

COMMENTARY: Our Voices — When Armed Power Appears at the Ballot Box

There are sounds you never forget once you have heard them. The slow crunch of gravel beneath a sheriff’s boots outside a voting station. The sound of a shotgun being cocked. The silence of Black citizens standing in line, afraid to make eye contact. The sound of a church mother whispering, “Baby, if I don’t come home tonight, tell your daddy I tried.”

Bakersfield
Stefi Mar

Musk and the $1 Trillion SpaceX Promise

Musk, founder of SpaceX and the world’s wealthiest individual, made a sweeping prediction over the weekend, suggesting his rocket company could surpass $1 trillion in annual revenue within the next several years. The forecast arrived just days after SpaceX made its public market debut, an event that valued the company at more than $2 trillion and instantly ranked it among the six largest American firms by market capitalization.

Bakersfield
James Luckey

Don’t Juneteenth Our Community

Juneteenth is more than a commemoration of delayed freedom. It is a warning about what happens when people are denied timely access to truth, power,