November 10, 2015 (San Diego's East County)-- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• A hospital reduces repeat ER visits by providing social workers (NPR)

• San Diego State Searches For Breakthrough In Paralysis (KPBS_

• Heroin, Opioid Abuse Put Extra Strain On U.S. Foster Care System (NPR)

• With No U.S. Standards, Pot Pesticide Use Is Rising Public Health Threat (KPBS)

• TB 'joins HIV as most deadly infection' (BBC)

• If A New Cancer Drug Is Hailed As A Breakthrough, Odds Are It's Not (NPR)

SCIENCE/TECH

• ACLU urges digital privacy safeguards for students  (CS Monitor)

• Incredible cave lions found preserved in Siberian permafrost (ZME Science)

• Can orange peels fight mercury pollution in our oceans? (CS Monitor)

• Shadow-Censorship on Social Media Sparks New Concerns for Open-Internet Advocates (Reason)

• Soon It'll Be OK To Tinker With Your Car's Software After All (NPR)

• Why the FCC voted to cap 'predatory' prison phone rates (CS Monitor)

• NASA says Antarctica is actually gaining ice. Does this mean climate is fine? (CS Monitor)

• World's largest offshore wind farm to power nearly half a million homes(CS Monitor)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

By Ed Barrena

November 9, 2015 (San Diego)--San Diego is the worst major metropolitan area to build wealth, according to a report by financial website Bankrate.com.  The findings may not be entirely surprising to residents of San Diego, where rent and mortgages continue to climb and wages remain fairly stagnant.

Students’ hunger strike, athletes’ threatened walk-out led to action

By Liz Alper

November 10, 2015 (Columbia, Mo.) -  Just one year after the shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, the nation's collective eyes are again focused on Missouri. This week, students at the University of Missouri successfully pushed for resignation of the campus president following his failure to halt racial slurs on campus.

Warner Springs Ranch Resort, LLC Reopens Upgraded Clubhouse, Restaurant

November 10, 2015 (Warner Springs) – The Warner Springs Ranch Golf Club is ready for play after a two-year renovation undertaken after the property was bought in 2013 by Pacific Hospitality Group Inc.

November 10, 2015 (La Mesa) On Saturday, November 14^th, Guitar Center will present live music in a “Locals Only” concert at Grossmont Center shopping mall in La Mesa.  The event runs from 12 noon to 6 p.m. and will feature local bands, DJs and a banjo jam!

November 10, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) – A wind advisory has been issued for San Diego County’s mountains and deserts through 4 p.m. today.

West winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour are forecast with isolated gusts up to 55 miles per hour possible, particularly along mountain ridges and desert slopes.

By Miriam Raftery

If you’d like to earn about $10,000 a month and oversee the licensing, enforcement and administration of marijuana in California, also helping to craft regulations,  Governor Jerry Brown has a job for you.  A listing has been posted for a new state job: Chief of the California's newly formed Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation.

The state’s Department of Consumer Affairs will be weeding out any applicants with criminal backgrounds or conflicts of interest.  So if you’re a grower or dispensary owner profiting off the seeds of your labors, sorry, you won’t qualify.

By Sara Bell

Image via Pixabay by panicci

November 10, 2015 (San Diego’s East County)--In many places throughout the country, thunderstorms—and the rain, wind, hail, and lightning that come with them—are unavoidable. And in fact, according to the National Weather Forecast Office, lightning from thunderstorms causes “several hundred million dollars “ in property damage each year, while hail causes $1 billion in damages each year.

You might think that since there is nothing you can do to prevent thunderstorms, there’s nothing—other than staying indoors—that you can do to protect yourself, your family, and your home from their, sometimes, devastating effects.

November 9, 2015 (Lakeside)-- Lindo Park Elementary School, a K-5 school that has served the Lakeside community for over 60 years, received a $5,000 education grant earlier today from the Barona Band of Mission Indians. The Lakeside school teaches students to excel in a global society by integrating a research-based curriculum in a 21^st century environment.

The grant, which was sponsored by Assemblyman Brian Jones, will be used to purchase Life, Earth and Physical Science materials for the school’s fourth and fifth grade science laboratories.

November 9, 2015 (El Cajon)--As student loan debt is reaching record proportions, Congresswoman Susan Davis (D–San Diego) will host a forum on college affordability on Tuesday, November 10 at 6:30 p.m.  (Registration is at 6 p.m.) The forum will include representatives from the Department of Education and financial aid officers from local colleges, as well as a Legal Aid Society lawyer will discuss student consumer rights.

Experts will be on hand to answer questions about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), other types of student aid for high school and college students, the applications process, as well as responsible loan ownership. Learn about recent changes announced to the FAFSA.

East County News Service

November 9, 2016 (Alpine) – In the latest turn-around involving a suit filed against the Grossmont Union High School District over construction of an Alpine High School, Superior Court Judge Joel Pressman has set a new hearing date for December 17^th at 9:30 a.m.

Hear our recent interview on KNSJ with Bruce Wilcox, manager of Environmental and Salton Sea programs: https://www.eastcountymagazine.org/sites/eastcountymagazine.org/files/au...

 

November 9, 2015 (Salton Sea)--The Salton Sea is an ecological disaster poised to get even worse in three years, when water flowing into the lake from the Colorado River is scheduled to be shut off. Already, the inland lake smells like rotten eggs, contaminated by toxic run-off. As it evaporates, pollutants threaten air quality in both Imperial and San Diego counties. It also threatens the many migratory and waterfowl birds in this rich but vanishing habitat.

But this week, the tide is beginning to turn. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is beginning the first restoration project at the Salton Sea along Red Hill Bay on the southern shore. The project will flood 420 acres of exposed lakebed with water from the nearby Alamo River and the lake, creating wetland habitat for migratory birds and also keeping toxic dust out of the air, while still leaving room for energy companies to tap the region’s vast geothermal potential.

East County News Service

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Updated with correction: student corroborates Carson's Yale test story

November 8, 2015 (Washington D.C.)—Our nation’s first president, George Washington, once said, “I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”   President Abraham Lincoln was so noted for his integrity that he early on earned the nickname “Honest Abe."

But at least one presidential candidate today--and possibly several, may fall far short of those ideals. The latest in the spotlight this week is Republican candidate and neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Major media outlets have exposed that Carson made unsubsantiated claims about a West Point scholarship as welll as his troubled juvenile past.  Ironically, questions have also been raised about Carson's claim of being named most honest student in a psychology class at Yale University, though new evidence suggests this claim may be true.

East County News Service

November 8, 2015 (San Diego’s East County)—Hikers in the Japatul Valley area east of Alpine found human remains this morning, the Sheriff's department confirms.

Deputies from the Pine Valley sub-station responded at 9:30 to a call in the 24000 block of Japatul Valley Road and confirmed the grisly finding in a nearby canyon. The Sheriff’s Homicide detail is investigating the death, said Lieutenant Kenn Nelson.