News Pix: Central Valley Farmers Flood Their Fields, Cal Women Head to Final Four and Berkeley's Outstanding Architecture

Terranova Ranch sits southeast of Fresno in the King's River basin, an area where farmers are pumping unsustainable volumes of water in dry years. At the other extreme, farms and communities here risk floods when rivers are pulsing with too much water. Terranova is experimenting with a way to address both problems. They capture excess river water in the occasional big water years, diverting it directly into crop fields, where the water will sink into the ground, and recharge the aquifer. (Courtesy Courtesy Phil Bachand and Don Cameron at Terranova Ranch)

Hundreds of Cal Bears fans rallied at Haas Pavillion Thursday to send off the women’s basketball team, who are headed to New Orleans for the NCAA Final Four. It's the first time the team has made it to the Final Four. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)

Berkeley may be known for its traditional brown-shingled Craftsman dwellings but the city boasts some fine contemporary architecture too. Berkeley Design Advocates last week gave awards to the teams behind nine recently built or renovated buildings, including UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium, with its striking elevated press box. (BDA/Berkleyside)

This week, Berkeley's emergency services conducted a drill at the Berkeley Adult School to practice how to respond to a Sandy Hook style scenario. The drill enacted a scenario involving injured and deceased "victims," as well as a barricaded gunman. (Emilie Raguso/Berkleyside)

UCSF employees are protesting the university's decision to cut 300 hospital jobs. About a hundred people shut down the street Thursday in front of the hospital. Police arrested 10 people who refused to leave the street. (Molly Samuel/KQED)

San Francisco Mission District native and Archbishop Riordan High School alumnus Jacob Valdiviezo was shot and killed early Easter Sunday in what police say could be an act of gang violence. Riordan football players showed support for Valdiviezo’s family on Wednesday, April 4, at a candle-light vigil for the slain teen. The crowd of mourners who gathered for the vigil was so large police closed the block to traffic.

Valdiviezo was walking with a friend near his family’s home when an unidentified man approached and asked what gang the two claimed, said Officer Albie Esparza, spokesman for the city's police department. The man then fatally shot the 19-year-old and fled the scene. Police have not made any arrests, and the investigation is ongoing, Esparza said. (Alex Emslie/KQED)