Kids Learning to Swim at Community Pool in Central Valley

Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, July 15, 2026

• Much of the Central Valley is under a heat advisory Wednesday, as temperatures could reach triple digits. Many of the region’s unincorporated communities don’t have public swimming pools where they can cool off.  That also means residents don’t have a place to learn how to swim which could have tragic consequences. 
• California health officials say an outbreak of a foodborne stomach parasite — that’s generated nearly 7,000 suspected cases nationwide —  has not reached the state. 
• Riverside County’s Board of Supervisors has agreed to create a committee to study recommendations that call for oversight of its sheriff’s department. A grand jury recently made the recommendations after investigating concerns about jail deaths and a lack of oversight.

At the Orosi High School graduation last year, 201 students lined up in rows to walk onto an outdoor stage and receive their diplomas. But one student who should have been there wasn’t.

Two years ago, Alejandro Araujo and some of his friends were on a boat at Shaver Lake in the Sierra Nevada. “He had a safety vest, and he jumped in the water, and the safety vest must have just slipped right out of him and he never came up,” said Yolanda Valdez, superintendent of the Cutler Orosi Joint School District. “It was the most devastating, awful thing ever. He would have graduated this year. There was an empty chair at graduation and a moment of silence for him.”

The school district encompasses two neighboring farmworker communities, Cutler and Orosi. Valdez said the fact that so many kids in her district don’t know how to swim is a symptom of poverty. But it’s something the district is changing.

Thanks to a million-dollar grant from Tulare County and other one-time funds, the district now has a brand-new aquatics complex at Orosi High. Valdez said the district built the complex to teach water safety and save lives. Only recently a toddler in Cutler drowned in an above ground pool. “We want to teach our children how to swim so they can survive,” she said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 4,500 people in the United States die annually due to unintentional drowning. Drowning is also the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4. In areas that are rural or economically disadvantaged, drowning rates are higher. One CDC report found that in counties with high overall social vulnerability, fatal drowning rates are 1.59 times as high as counties with low social vulnerability.

This may be due to “reduced access to swimming pools, affordable swimming lessons and other evidence-based drowning prevention strategies.” Drowning rates are also about 35% higher in rural areas compared to urban areas, according to the CDC. “It’s an opportunity gap that our kids don’t know how to swim, it’s an opportunity gap that they didn’t have an aquatics complex,” said Valdez. “Swimming and being able to enjoy the waterways is also a quality of life issue.”

Let’s face it: Headlines about “explosive diarrhea” are the headlines nobody wants to see. But amid the current national outbreak of cyclosporiasis — a foodborne stomach parasite that’s infected thousands of people around the United States — it’s hard to avoid the updates about the severe cramping, bloating and yes, the “watery diarrhea with frequent, sometimes explosive, bowel movements” (in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s own words) this disease causes.

On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the agency had received reports of 1,645 confirmed domestic cases of cyclosporiasis — but was aware of over 5,000 more cases that required confirmation. So far, Michigan has experienced the worst rises in cyclosporiasis cases, reporting over 3,000 cases as of Tuesday. Other states reporting surges of the disease include New York, Illinois, Ohio and Texas. 

Some good news: The California Department of Public Health says that California “is not one of the states currently experiencing an increase in cases of cyclosporiasis,” and that the state has actually seen fewer cases of cyclosporiasis this year than it did in 2025. As of Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is only reporting between one and 10 cases in the whole state, although the agency’s map of nationwide cases generally lags behind the figures being reported by the states themselves.

CDPH said that from January to June 2026, California reported 41 provisional cases of cyclosporiasis, “compared to 80 cases during the same period in 2025.” The agency said that most of these 2026 California cases are associated with recent international travel. Since May 1, CDPH has reported four California cases of cyclospora in people who’d been infected within the United States — two of whom had visited the Midwest.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors has agreed to create a committee to study recommendations that call for oversight of its sheriff’s department. A grand jury recently made the recommendations after investigating concerns about jail deaths and a lack of oversight.

Since March 2023, 29 people have died in Riverside County jails. The spike in jail deaths prompted the civil grand jury to investigate the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

The grand jury concluded the department needs more transparency and accountability. It made several recommendations to improve jail conditions and form an independent oversight authority. The grand jury recommended the county grant the oversight authority subpoena and investigatory powers. Riverside County Supervisors Jose Medina and Karen Spiegel brought forth the item to create an ad hoc committee to evaluate the options for oversight, or whether they need it. The committee must present its findings to the board in 180 days.

Medina, who ran on a platform of sheriff’s oversight, said the ad hoc committee is a step in the right direction and that public policy decisions take time. “The best public policy is shaped when people are willing to share their perspectives, listen to one another, and stay engaged in the process,” Medina said.

Sheriff Chad Bianco said in a statement to KVCR that his department does not need more oversight and that the issue is being pushed by those with an “anti-law enforcement agenda.”