Man in a hazmat suit sanitizing an apartment room with chemicals. (Photo: Ljupco Smokovski, via Shutterstock)The cost of killing bugs in California will start to rise if lawmakers adopt Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to reduce toxic pesticide use by gradually increasing fees, a measure that could affect everyone from crop dusters to home gardeners. The fee hike, phased in over four years, is included in the governor’s budget proposal.
Spraying crops with an herbicide to prevent crop losses to pests. (Photo: pfalztv, via Shutterstock)California is deciding whether to add a popular herbicide’s ingredient to the list of officially recognized cancer-causing compounds — a move that has run into a legal road block. At issue is glyphosate, a prime ingredient in the Monsanto Company’s herbicide Roundup.
Prescription drugs displayed across a counter top. (Photo: Motorolka, via Shutterstock)FairWarning: When the Republican-controlled Congress approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription drugs, it slapped on an unusual restriction: The federal government was barred from negotiating cheaper prices for those medicines. Instead, the job of holding down costs was outsourced to the insurance companies delivering the subsidized new coverage, known as Medicare Part D.
A professionally operated drone heads into the sunset. (Photo: Concept W, Shutterstock)On a Saturday night in early December, while relaxing at his Martinez, Calif., home, Chinese exchange student Owen Ouyang decided to have some fun. He went out to the front yard and launched a sleek new drone he had recently purchased online for about $1,000. The 2.8-pound drone, advertised as “easy to fly,” proved anything but. Soon after takeoff, the drone veered dangerously toward a power line. It then climbed more than 700 feet – right into the path of a California Highway Patrol helicopter
Bixby Creek Bridge in Big Sur, south of Carmel. (Photo: Tom Tietz)For those attempting to oust Charles Lester, the executive director of the California Coastal Commission, the upcoming hearing is a referendum on his job performance. For the environmentalists who follow the commission, it’s a coup and an attempt to seize the upper hand in the power struggle between pro-development interests and an environmentalist staff that they believe has defined the commission since the reign of Peter Douglas.
A child getting vaccinated. (Photo: Thinkstock, Dimitry Naumov)The Kaiser study found that, on an individual level, under-immunization—where a child misses one or more of the required doses before age 3—was higher in neighborhoods with more families in poverty as well as those with more graduate degrees. But even after adjusting for factors such as race and income, the study still found statistically significant geographic clusters of under-immunization.