By Mike Moffitt, San Francisco Chronicle New computer models suggest that the current El Niño formation brewing in the Pacific could become the strongest in recorded history. The broad swath of warmer-than-usual seawater is spreading and deepening. The two largest concentrations are off the coast of Peru, where water is 4 degrees Centigrade warmer than […]
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By Kathryn Reed Former El Dorado County Supervisor Ron Briggs believes he is owed nearly $93,000 in back wages. The claim he filed against the county has been rejected. He expects the formal lawsuit to be processed in the coming months. Briggs served on the board for eight years, having left in January when the […]
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By David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Even the greenest, most eco-friendly politicians rarely utter the words Gov. Jerry Brown spoke at the Vatican’s climate change symposium last week. To prevent the worst effects of global warming, one-third of the world’s known oil reserves must remain in the ground, Brown told the gathering of government […]
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By May Ortega, Las Vegas Review-Journal A collection of biological codes sits in a library at UNLV. Much of the focus is learning how the codes can help cells fight off HIV. Researchers hope this work can be used to develop drugs much faster. A library of biological codes sits inside the Schiller Laboratory of Applied […]
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By Terra Breeden Tahoe and tourists are almost synonymous. This isn’t anything new. It was even in the case in the 1920s, though at that time it was mostly the upper echelon of society who summered here. To capture what life was like here in the 1920s, a group of history buffs started the Great […]
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By Tom Philpott, Mother Jones In normal years, California residents get about 30 percent of their drinking water from underground aquifers. And in droughts like the current one — with sources like snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains virtually non-existent — groundwatersupplies two-thirds of our most populous state’s water needs. So it’s sobering news that […]
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By Ananya Bhattacharya and Heather Long, CNNMoney Jordan Gallacher hasn’t had a job in three years. Many employers reject him with a form letter or email, but one said outright: “We don’t hire blind people.” Gallacher, 28, is a computer expert. He has a bachelor’s degree in management and entrepreneurship from Louisiana Tech University. Yet […]
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Publisher’s note: This is one in a random series of stories about what it’s like to go through the South Tahoe Public Utility District turf buyback program. By Kathryn Reed It took three tiny shovel indentations into the yard to be convinced this was not the route to remove dead grass. I needed a sod cutter. […]
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By Margot Sanger-Katz, New York Times After decades of worsening diets and sharp increases in obesity, Americans’ eating habits have begun changing for the better. Calories consumed daily by the typical American adult, which peaked around 2003, are in the midst of their first sustained decline since federal statistics began to track the subject, more […]
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By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times If it seems like mass shootings are becoming more common, researchers say there’s a good reason: They are. Between a 2011 shooting at an IHOP restaurant in Carson City that left four people dead and the 2013 attack on the Washington Navy Yard where 12 people were killed, a […]
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