Health

Germans bask in a sunny streak

Posted in Celeb, Entertainment, Health, News, Politics, economy, what on July 26th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

Reporting from Berlin —

Germans are in a really good mood this summer.

An extraordinary run of luck has given them an uncharacteristically optimistic outlook for a change and replaced the usual angst-ridden gloom and doom.

A stylish performance by their team at the World Cup soccer tournament, a rare win at the popular Eurovision song contest, better-than-expected economic growth and lower-than-expected unemployment are fuelling a remarkable “era of good feeling.”

What labor may like best about Brown: He’s not Whitman

Posted in Education, Health, News, Politics, Science, economy, what on July 26th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment
Reporting from Sacramento —

The television ads seize on the millions of dollars organized labor is spending to help elect Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, warning that if he’s victorious, he would be “their governor.”

Labor leaders watching the spots, which are funded by billionaire GOP nominee Meg Whitman, should be so lucky.

Unions are indeed reaching deep into their pockets to help Brown, whose campaign needs the cash to compete with Whitman’s personal fortune. But how much return they will get on their investment under a Brown governorship is unclear.

Raw-food raid highlights a hunger

Posted in Entertainment, Health, News, Science, what on July 25th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

With no warning one weekday morning, investigators entered an organic grocery with a search warrant and ordered the hemp-clad workers to put down their buckets of mashed coconut cream and to step away from the nuts.

Then, guns drawn, four officers fanned out across Rawesome Foods in Venice. Skirting past the arugula and peering under crates of zucchini, they found the raid’s target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk.

“I still can’t believe they took our yogurt,” said Rawesome volunteer Sea J. Jones, a few days after the raid. “There’s a medical marijuana shop a couple miles away, and they’re raiding us because we’re selling raw dairy products?”

Cartons of raw goat and cow milk and blocks of unpasteurized goat cheese were among the groceries seized in the June 30 raid by federal, state and local authorities — the latest salvo in the heated food fight over what people can put in their mouths.

DWP defends withholding $73.5 million from L.A.

Posted in Health, News, Politics, what on July 21st, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

Executives with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on Tuesday issued a sharply worded defense of their decision to withhold $73.5 million from city coffers in the middle of a recent fight over electricity rates, saying they did so to protect the utility’s credit rating and its customers.

During a lively exchange with City Council members, several of whom made no effort to disguise their disdain for the DWP, current and former managers of the nation’s largest municipally owned utility responded to a report that accused them of misleading both the council and the public about the agency’s financial health.

After a lengthy standoff between the council and DWP over proposed rate increases, City Controller Wendy Greuel reviewed the utility’s records and concluded that, contrary to its claim, the utility could have made the promised transfer to the cash-strapped city budget without first being granted the increase.

But DWP Interim Chief Financial Officer Mario C. Ignacio said Greuel’s report contained “material misstatements of fact” and wrongly concluded that the utility could have dipped into an $800-million cash balance to make the transfer.

Weakening recovery brings deja vu

Posted in Education, Health, News, Politics, economy, what on July 20th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment
Reporting from Washington —

Even as Congress moves to extend jobless benefits for millions of workers, a growing body of evidence suggests the United States is heading toward an economic netherworld — avoiding a slide back into recession but growing so slowly that unemployment will remain high, home prices low and incomes essentially stagnant.

Many Americans may continue to feel much as they did during the worst recession in half a century: filled with insecurity, financial pressures and fading hopes for a quick return to better times.

“Extended unemployment benefits is helpful but hardly the booster rocket that’s needed to get out of the gravitational pull of this terrible economy,” said Robert Reich, a public policy professor at UC Berkeley.

Oakland could go to pot in a big way with four proposed factory farms

Posted in Crime, Health, News, economy, what on July 20th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment
Reporting from Oakland —

Oakland could approve a plan Tuesday to set up four marijuana factory farms, a step that could usher in the era of Big Pot.

The proposal is a testament to just how fast the marijuana counterculture is transforming into a corporate culture. And it has ignited a contentious debate in Oakland that could spread as cities face pressure to regulate marijuana cultivation and find ways to tax it.

“Everybody knows it’s going bigger and big money is moving in,” said Dale Gieringer, an Oakland resident and prominent marijuana activist. As the state edges toward legalization, he said, more businessmen will seek to capitalize on a fast-growing market in a recession-hindered economy, forcing cities to make difficult choices on how to exert control.

Studies show promise in curbing AIDS in Africa

Posted in Crime, Education, Health, News, Science, economy on July 20th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

For the first time in the bleak history of the AIDS epidemic on the African continent, researchers have identified two new approaches that could blunt the effects of HIV on women: a vaginal gel to block infection, and cash payments to delay sexual activity. Together, experts say, they might finally make headway against a disease that has already killed millions.

The approaches, described in separate findings released Monday at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, are considered especially important because women have borne the brunt of the epidemic. Men rarely use condoms or other methods that might prevent transmission of the virus, and their wives and partners are generally powerless to convince them to do so. Further, girls and young women are often forced into sexual activity because of their families’ abject poverty.

The more significant finding concerns the efficacy of a vaginal gel, containing a microbicide. The gel could place prevention squarely in the hands of women; unlike with a condom, their partners would not have to consent to its use, and might not even know it is being used. A clinical trial of the gel showed that it could block more than half of new infections if used regularly.

In the other study, researchers found that they could delay sexual activity in girls and young women by supplementing family income with modest amounts of money, as little as a few dollars a month. That delay led to a 60% reduction in HIV infections.

There’s a hole in this possible earthquake pattern

Posted in Education, Health, News, Tech, what on July 18th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

As UC Davis physicist and geologist John Rundle ponders the map of recent California earthquakes, he sees visions of a doughnut even Homer J. Simpson wouldn’t like.

The doughnut is formed by pinpointing the recent quakes near Eureka, Mexicali and Palm Springs.

Seismologists call the possible pattern a Mogi doughnut. It’s the outgrowth of a concept, developed in Japan, which holds that earthquakes sometimes occur in a circular pattern over decades —building up to one very large quake in the doughnut hole. Rundle and his colleagues believe that the recent quakes, combined with larger seismic events including the 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge temblors, could be precursors to a far larger rupture.

In campaign mode, Obama slams GOP as obstructionist

Posted in Health, News, Politics, economy, what on July 18th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment
Reporting from Washington and Bar Harbor, Maine —

Moving into campaign mode, President Obama on Saturday cast the Republicans as an obstructionist force bent on impeding the nation’s economic recovery for political purposes.

Obama used his weekly radio address to deliver a message that Senate Republicans are also blocking an extension of jobless benefits to millions of unemployed Americans suffering in a tough economy.

Arizona’s immigration law isn’t the only one

Posted in Crime, Education, Health, News, Politics, what on July 17th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

Colorado restricts illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition. Nebraska requires verification of immigration status to obtain public benefits. In Tennessee, knowingly presenting a false ID card to get a job is a misdemeanor.

Arizona’s strict new law has generated the most controversy, but there are hundreds of immigration-related laws on the books across the country. The laws regulate employment, law enforcement, education, benefits and healthcare.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit last week to stop the Arizona law from taking effect July 29, saying that immigration policy is a national responsibility and “a patchwork of state laws will only create more problems than it solves.” But according to experts, that is precisely what exists.

« Older Entries