In the wide-open spaces of southwest Fresno County, living in Lanare (population 590) is deceptively risky. People in Lanare's ZIP code die a decade sooner than those in the Woodward Park area of northeast Fresno, according to a Fresno State study released last year.

Use The Bee's database to learn if your favorite restaurant, fast food operation, deli, cafeteria, mobile kitchen or other food service establishment passed muster with the Fresno County health inspectors.

Data includes employees with a 2011 gross pay of $17,000 or more at Fresno State; the State Center, West Hills, Kern and College of the Sequoias community college districts; and all unified and high school districts in Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties

The head of the California High-Speed Rail Authority is being asked by a congressional subcommittee to provide a detailed account of how the state agency plans to spend more than $3 billion it has received from the federal government.

Junior Villarreal, once an earnest high school freshman with a passion for history and baseball, missed hundreds of classes at two Fresno campuses. Last March, he was fatally stabbed a few blocks from Sunnyside High.

The San Joaquin River restoration has hit a strange snag -- a vast area of swiftly sinking farmland. It means the much-heralded return of salmon runs to the state's second-longest river will wait a little longer.

In the depths of the Great Depression, a pair of restaurateurs and a visionary young architect produced a landmark eatery that lit up downtown Fresno.

Here's a curveball for city of Fresno officials trying to broker an agreement with Madera County over growth: There's already a five-year-old plan in place from a previous dust-up. And that's left some, notably officials in Madera County, wondering why they should bother with a whole new deal.