Maria Cuevas and her 1 1/2-year-old son, Ethan, are regulars at her parents' home just north of downtown Fresno. The small but tidy bungalow near Belmont Avenue is where she lived until a year ago, and now it's where she can catch up with four generations of family -- for conversation or dinner, recently a shrimp stew made with a spicy tomato broth.

Pota Yang is resigned to the fact that her rural neighborhood west of Fresno has become an illegal dumping ground. Fresno County supervisors are considering a plan to reduce the growing problem: require county households to sign up for trash service. That way, the thinking goes, there won't be a need to dump.

More Valley students are relying on loans – including risky private loans – to cover the cost of college, and more of them can't make the payments once they get out. Higher tuition, fewer grants and a bad economy have put some students on a path to financial disaster.

Finding a job in the real world is always a challenge for the proverbial liberal-arts major. This year, even college graduates with vocational degrees are struggling to get work.

Just about every time dairy farmers milk their cows these days, they're losing money. They face growing pressures from all sides: weak demand, a declining export market and low milk prices.