During the first two weeks of April, deputies of the Douglas and Lyon counties sheriff’s offices will be conducting increased traffic enforcement patrols on various highways and roadways within the two counties.

The increased patrols will specifically target distracted drivers and unsafe motorcycle operators.

This enforcement detail is partially paid for by a grant from the State of Nevada, Department of Public Safety, Office of Traffic Safety.

By Maneeza Iqbal, News 10

SACRAMENTO – A three-state drug trafficking bust led to the arrest of 14 people and the seizure of 1,300 pounds of marijuana.

Dylan Hudson, 26, of Placerville was charged with conspiracy to grow and distribute marijuana and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute on Thursday by a federal grand jury, said Lauren Horwood, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of California.

On March 8, a tip lead police to a private shipping company in West Sacramento, where authorities seized 80 pounds of high grade marijuana, then allowed the empty crate continue on to Chicago, California Attorney General’s Office said.

In Chicago, officers followed Hudson and Jon Stansfield, of Chicago, to Milwaukee, Wisc, where they arrested the two men and seized another 120 pounds of marijuana and $300,000 in cash.

On the same day, authorities executed a search warrant on Hudson’s property on the 3000 block of Charm Way, in Placerville, where 946 pounds of processed marijuana, 2 pounds of hash, eight firearms, $100,000 in cash, $35,000 in silver bars and gold coins, three generators and two ATVs were seized, the attorney general’s office said.

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By Cheryl Millham

As I look out the window and see it snow, it is hard to remember that last week was the start of spring. But in the world of wildlife, life goes on and spring is the start of new “wild” beginnings.

Coyotes and raccoons are breeding in the months of February, March and April. Once the female is impregnated, the gestation for both species is the same – 63 days. Most babies are born during April and May.

So, why am I telling you this bit of interesting news?

Now is the time to look around your house for any air vents which may have been pushed in or are missing. Also check to make sure the crawl space opening (the access to get under your house) is securely sealed. Also, look for vent openings into the attic area. Make sure all of these are repaired.

If your house is not kept in good repair, Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care will be getting a call from you asking how to get a raccoon out from under my house, or a statement saying that a coyote has had babies under my porch. It is always better to repair your house before you have any wild animals living with you.

Now is the time ensure wildlife don't have babies at your house. Photos/LTWC

Coyotes are good parents and have to feed their babies, so they are always looking for more food in the months of April, May and June.

Also, please take extra special care of your small dogs and cats. To a coyote, they do not see them as a human’s loved pet. Coyotes just see them as food to keep their babies alive.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care at (530) 577.2273.

Cheryl Millham is executive director of Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care.

• The Amador-El Dorado Unit of CalFire has launched a website.

• Deborah Palmer, who became manager of the El Dorado County Health and Human Services Agency’s Public Health Division this month, is promoting the April 2-8 National Public Health Week theme – A Healthier America Begins Today: Join the Movement.

• North Lake Tahoe Massage & Skin Care opened in this month in Tahoe Vista. For more information, call (530) 546.4885.

• Deborah Osborn with Traveling Toothfairy Dental Hygiene Practice is expanding to the South Shore. This mobile service brings preventive dental hygiene services to those with disabilities, seniors, and people with special needs. For more information, call (775) 851.6018.

• Joan Hoffmann is offering a four-day (April 30-May3) drawing and watercolor journaling class at Sorensen’s Resort in Hope Valley. For more information, call 800.423.9949.

By Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times

More than 40 million American adults already take an aspirin a day to prevent heart disease. Now many more are weighing the pros and cons of daily aspirin use in light of new studies finding that it also may reduce the risk of many cancers and stop the spread of tumors.

Six months ago Vanessa Brannan, a 31-year-old Seattle mother of two, learned she had colon cancer and Lynch syndrome, an inherited condition that increases risk of the disease and other cancers. Some of the best data on aspirin’s effectiveness against cancer has been found in patients like Brannan. In one British study, patients with Lynch syndrome who took aspirin for two years cut their risk of colon cancer in half.

Yet doctors still don’t know how much aspirin these patients — or anyone else — should take. So Brannan is taking 325 milligrams daily, though patients in the British study received nearly twice that amount. Her oncologist, though, recommended just an 81-milligram baby aspirin. “We kind of decided to split the difference and get as much aspirin into me as we can, knowing that higher amounts have been proven to work,” she said.

She is not the only cancer patient grappling with uncertainty. The science about daily aspirin and its effect on cancer is still in its infancy. In research studies, subjects have received doses ranging from 75 milligrams a day to 1,200 milligrams a day.

Now some scientists think low doses may work if they’re taken every day; American clinical trials of every-other-day aspirin had no effect on cancer rates at all.

Renewed interest in aspirin was set off by studies by researchers at Oxford, published last week in The Lancet, that found that after just three years of daily aspirin use, the risk of developing cancer was reduced by almost 25 percent when compared with a control group not taking aspirin.

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By Todd G. Buchholz and Victoria Buchholz

Americans are supposed to be mobile and even pushy. Saul Bellow’s Augie March declares, “I am an American … first to knock, first admitted.” In “The Grapes of Wrath,” young Tom Joad loads up his jalopy with pork snacks and relatives, and the family flees the Oklahoma dust bowl for sun-kissed California. Along the way, Granma dies, but the Joads keep going.

But sometime in the past 30 years, someone has hit the brakes and Americans — particularly young Americans — have become risk-averse and sedentary. The timing is terrible. With an 8.3 percent unemployment rate and a foreclosure rate that would grab the attention of the Joads, young Americans are less inclined to pack up and move to sunnier economic climes.

The likelihood of 20-somethings moving to another state has dropped well over 40 percent since the 1980s, according to calculations based on Census Bureau data. The stuck-at-home mentality hits college-educated Americans as well as those without high school degrees. According to the Pew Research Center, the proportion of young adults living at home nearly doubled between 1980 and 2008, before the Great Recession hit. Even bicycle sales are lower now than they were in 2000. Today’s generation is literally going nowhere. This is the Occupy movement we should really be worried about.

For about $200, young Nevadans who face a statewide 13 percent jobless rate can hop a Greyhound bus to North Dakota, where they’ll find a welcome sign and a 3.3 percent rate. Why are young people not crossing borders? “This generation is going through an economic reset,” said John Della Volpe, who directs polling at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, which surveys thousands of young people each year. He reports that young people want to stay more connected with their hometowns: “I spoke with a kid from Columbus, Ohio, who dreamed of being a high school teacher. When he found out he’d have to move to Arizona or the Sunbelt, he took a job in a Columbus tire factory.”

In the most startling behavioral change among young people since James Dean and Marlon Brando started mumbling, an increasing number of teenagers are not even bothering to get their driver’s licenses. Back in the early 1980s, 80 percent of 18-year-olds proudly strutted out of the D.M.V. with newly minted licenses, according to a study by researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. By 2008 — even before the Great Recession — that number had dropped to 65 percent. Though it’s easy to blame the high cost of cars or gasoline, Comerica Bank’s Automobile Affordability Index shows that it takes fewer weeks of work income to buy a car today than in the early 1980s, and inflation-adjusted gasoline prices didn’t get out of line until a few years ago.

Todd G. Buchholz is the author of “Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race.” Victoria Buchholz, a student at Cambridge University, is at work on a book about the neuropsychology of the teenage brain.

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By Kathryn Reed

South Lake Tahoe’s reputation for not enforcing its laws is changing. Twenty-three letters went out this month alerting property owners they are violating the city’s sidewalk snow removal ordinance.

The city will have enforcers out this weekend to see if more letters need to be written when this storm is over. Fines will keep going up.

Snow in late February covers the sidewalk along Highway 50. Photos/LTN

“We get complaints from people who know about the ordinance and want to know why businesses are not complying. They are tired of walking in the road and slipping in icy, snowy conditions,” City Manager Tony O’Rourke told Lake Tahoe News.

The city delayed implementation of the ordinance for a year so businesses could put a plan of action together for this winter. Even with the mild winter, property owners have let the snow accumulate, which at times forces pedestrians into the travel lane along Highway 50.

Even though this is the first year for South Tahoe’s sidewalk snow removal ordinance, it has been state law for years. The problem is no one has enforced it.

The problem with leaving the snow is it becomes a health and safety issue.

The city ordinance says, “It shall be the duty of all owners, and their tenants, of real property within the city whose property borders, or is an easement, any improved sidewalk or walkway to maintain the sidewalk or walkway in a safe condition for its use by pedestrians and other members of the public. The duty created by the ordinance shall include the duty to keep the sidewalk or walkway free and clear of all dirt, sand, gravel, filth, rubbish, ice and snow.”

In addition to the year delay, Explorer cadets with the city hand-delivered — before the white stuff started coming done — to each business on Highway 50 information about the policy.

After the first significant storm, warning letters went out.

Repeat offenders received a letter dated March 19 that said, “A significant effort was made to make you aware of your above stated responsibility prior to this winter season. As of [time], March 19, 2012, the sidewalk/walkway adjacent to your property/business had not been adequately cleared. Twenty-four hours had elapsed since the end of the most recent snow event and no action had been taken to remove the snow/ice from the sidewalk/walkway adjacent to your property. You are, therefore, assessed a fine of $50 ….”

That payment is due April 20. As of March 30, one business paid the fine, three are appealing it and one has been dismissed.

The entities receiving a letter and fine are:

• Ski Run Liquor Market

• Bank of America

• South Lake Tahoe Senior Center

• Lake Tahoe Unified School District

• American Gasoline

• Chapel of the Bells

• Whiskey Dicks

• Trout Creek Motel

• Sky Lake Lodge

• Tahoe Mountain Wedding Chapel

• Re/Max Realty Tahoe

• Nickelodeon Motel

• Tahoe Retreat

• Head Shop

• 76 Conoco Phillips

• Coldwell Banker

• Tahoe Nails and Spa

• Staple

• Church of Christ Scientist

• Thrans Florist

Dirt and concrete walks in front of Chase realty offices have not been adequately cleared.

• Chase International

• Star Tahoe Offices

• Speed Trac.

El Dorado County owns the senior center.

The issue with the school district was confusion over whether the city was taking responsibility of snow removal in front of South Tahoe Middle School this year or starting next year. The city will be responsible going forward and the district’s fine has been waived.

Besides businesses, the city has had to figure out how to clear walkways it’s responsible for.

“It’s so much more labor intensive to do sidewalks than streets,” explained Stan Sherer, community services director. “We have made adjustments with our crews on addressing sidewalks. We can’t hold the public to higher standards than ourselves.”

Marnell Heinz, the city’s street superintendent, will be making a presentation about snow removal to the Sustainability Commission on April 4 at 3pm at Lake Tahoe Airport. The meeting is open to the public.

Plus, there are areas in town where the walkway is dirt – which presents the conundrum of clearing vs. moving dirt.

“Dirt areas lead to inconsistencies in removal areas,” Sherer said.

One of the outstanding issues is regarding the Caltrans right-of-way. Legally, those new sidewalks put in last summer by the state are their responsibility until the entire project is completed and the city takes possession.

However, Caltrans won’t clear the area where it owns the right-of-away.

“Our position throughout the region, including Truckee and Susanville, is that we do not remove snow from the sidewalks. Yes, we know we own the sidewalks until construction is complete. But at this point, Caltrans still does not maintain sidewalks,” Deanna Shoopman, Caltrans spokeswoman, told Lake Tahoe News.

Lake Tahoe News has submitted a Public Records Request to Caltrans to secure documentation about encroachment permits from the Y to Stateline in order to assess the areas in the city Caltrans is legally responsible for. For now, the city is doing the state’s job.

STATELINE — It was wall-to-wall people Friday night as more vendors than usual filled the aisles of the Harrah’s Lake Tahoe convention center for the annual Business Expo.

B Gorman, CEO of Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce – the event producer, expressed to Lake Tahoe News her enthusiasm for the increase in vendors.

The attendance was estimated at more than 1,100 – on the high side compared to years past.

The Beacon and Fresh Ketch hand out samples March 30 at the Business Expo. Photo/LTN

It was a mix of regulars like Lakeside Inn, Calstar and Heavenly, to newbies like the Urban Sitter, AAA out of Carson City and Lake Tahoe Business Referral Network.

One of the busy vendors was Tahoe Best Friends – the doggie day care center in South Lake Tahoe. As owner Paige Rice was leaving, she commented how successful the night was for her.

While the expo is designed to inform the public about various businesses in the area, it really is more like a party and a time to reconnect with friends after being holed up for the winter. Lots of food and alcohol contributed to people stepping into the wild side.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Wind will be the word most likely to describe the storm that is blowing toward Lake Tahoe.

The low pressure system will bring a cold front to the region starting Friday night. Winds from the south to southwest are expected, with a lake wind advisory in effect. Sustained winds are forecast to be about 30 mph, with gusts of 50 mph.

A winter storm warning is in effect above 5,000 feet from 7am Saturday to 7am Sunday.

Slick roads could lead to accidents like this one earlier this month on 15th Street in South Lake Tahoe where the driver ran into a tree. Photo/LTN

Rain at lake level is likely before 11am Saturday because it will be a warm storm. However, the precip will change to snow, with 5 to 10 inches collecting above 5,000 feet, with 1 to 2 feet above 6,500 feet.

By Tuesday the high in South Lake Tahoe is expected to be 57 degrees.

 — Lake Tahoe News staff report

The South Lake Tahoe Optimist Club will be hosting the annual Easter egg hunt on April 7 at Lake Tahoe Community College.

The hunt begins at 11am sharp.

An bonnet contest and costume parade are part of the festivities.

This free event is for infants to age 11.