County News Service

March 3, 2016 (San Diego) -- If you are registered as a No Party Preference (or nonpartisan voter) and get your ballot by mail, the Registrar of Voters wants you to know presidential candidates will not be listed on your ballot. If you’d like to vote for a presidential candidate in the June primary, you must take action and request a party ballot.

March 4, 2016 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Major insight into killer pancreatic cancer (BBC)
• Cancer-causing HPV plummeted in teens since vaccine, study finds (CNN)
• Strokes On The Rise Among Younger Adults (NPR)
• Cancer Trials At UCSD Aim To Use Body's Immune System (City News Service)
• More Women Are Having Mastectomies And Going Home The Same Day (NPR)
• Air Pollution Heightens Risk of Obesity and Diabetes (TIME)
• Gay man taking daily HIV prevention pills contracts resistant strain of the virus - in … Daily Mail
• Should Sprouts Come With A Warning Label? (NPR)
• Woman's blindness apparently reversed by stem cell treatment (Baltimore Sun)
• One cuppa a day could cut heart risk: Tea reduces likelihood of stroke or cardiac arrest (Daily Mail)
• Sleep Munchies: Why It's Harder To Resist Snacks When We're Tired (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• New low-power Wi-Fi could save batteries throughout your house (CS Monitor)
• VIDEO: Rise in butterfly numbers ‘inspirational’ (BBC)
• Using Billboards, Company Will Collect Personal Information To Help Advertisers (NPR)
• U.S. Navy Brings Back Navigation By The Stars For Officers (NPR)
• Smart rats sniffing out Cambodia's vast mine fields (AP)
• Chinese-owned brand Volvo is recalling 59,000 cars
• U.N. agency bans lithium-ion batteries on passenger aircraft (Reuters)
• In An Unusual Move, The EPA Tries To Pull Pesticide From Market (NPR)
• Is Nutritious Food In Peril, Along With Pollinators? (NPR)
• MIT team makes solar cells as light and thin as soap bubbles (CS Monitor)
• Why do people blindly trust robot rescuers, even when they're wrong? (CS Monitor)

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

Listen to Destination East County, also aired on KNSJ radio, by clicking the audio link.

We thank the County of San Diego for a Community Enhancement Grant supporting Destination East County.

By Miriam Raftery

This week’s Destination East County includes a night hike with stargazing at the Santa Ysabel preserve, a Pirate’s Cove run/walk at Lake Cuyamaca, live music in La Mesa, and the Julian Doves and Desperados performing wild west skits in Julian.

Plus we’ll have previews of coming attractions including St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, egg hunts, garden tours, a desert art show, a backroom beer pairing, a harmonica festival, a spring carnival, Snoopy the musical, and a hike to the Valley of the Moon..

So scroll down for all of these events and many more!

East County News Service

March 2, 2016 (La Mesa) - The La Mesa Chamber of Commerce held its 8th annual Salute to Local Heroes on Wednesday, February 24th at the Town & Country Hotel--and celebrated its own group of “Oscar” winners with a Mardi Gras themed event.

U.S.

March 2, 2016 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

Presidential primary

• Justice Dept. grants immunity to staffer who set up Clinton e-mail server (Washington Post)
• Jesse Ventura: I’ll run for president if Bernie Sanders loses (Daily Beast)
• Therapists confirm Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder (Psychology Today)
• Can Marco Rubio save his campaign and his career in Florida? (Washington Post)
• National poll: Clinton, Sanders both top Trump (CNN)
• Current Affairs: Unless Democrats run Sanders, a Trump nomination means a Trump presidency (Current Affairs)
• Ben Carson, seeing ‘no path forward’, signals end to candidacy (New York Times)
• Nearly 20% of Trump supporters disapprove of Lincoln freeing slaves (Vox)

General news

• ISIS leaders threaten Zuckerburg and Dorsey, say they will take down Facebook and Twitter(CNN)
• Abortion clinics are closing at record pace (Bloomberg)
• The unexpected side effects of legalizing weed (Newsweek)
• IRS says phishing and malware scams are up 400 percent this year (10 News)
• Despite promised transparency, US drone policy remains cloudy (CS Monitor)
• Investigation offers glimpse into polygamous sect's secretive compound (CS Monitor)
• 106 Burmese pythons captured in Florida in monthlong hunt (CS Monitor)
• IRS identifies more cyberattacks to access tax data (Reuters)
• U.S. Air Force vet one of first to face trial for Islamic State support (Reuters)

WORLD

• Former Tepco execs indicted over Fukushima nuclear disaster: media (Reuters)
• Mugabe birthday bash riles critics in drought-hit Zimbabwe  (Reuters)
• Cameroon frees several hundred hostages from Boko Haram (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Israel: Lebanon violated UNSC resolution calls to disarm Hezbollah more than 2,000 times (JPost)
• Huge increase in European products passing through Israel to Arab states (JPost)
• Missing radioactive material found dumped in south Iraq (Reuters)
• To stay or go? UK to vote on membership in European Union. (CS Monitor)
• Thousands pay respects to slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in solemn march (Social Media News)

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

Team will begin conference play October 8^th 

By Liz Alper

Photo: Mika Holder via goaztecs.com

March 2, 2016 (Colorado Springs, Co.) - The San Diego State Aztecs football program has released its 2016 schedule.

By Miriam Raftery

March 2, 2016 (Ocotillo) – The numbers are in –and for the third straight year, the Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility has fallen far short of the 34% capacity factor that Pattern Energy predicted the project would generate in its applications for lucrative federal subsidies.   In 2015, the Ocotillo project generated just 23.06%.  In 2014, it hit 26.4% and in 2013, when it was offline two months for hurling off a multi-ton blade, it produced a scant 15.7%.

We’re not surprised, since our award-winning 2014 investigative article, Was It Fraud? included forecasts by an international wind expert,Nicolas Boccard, who accurately predicted the project’s failure before it was built. He suggested the federal government had grounds for a False Claims Act suit against Pattern Energy.  We again raised questions about the project’s viability last year, in  a second story.

East County News Service

March 1, 2016 (San Diego) - If you’ve used your credit or debit card to purchase monthly trolley or bus passes through the Metropolitan Transit System’s Compass Card fare collection system, your security may be compromised.

Update 11:05 a.m.:  The suspect is now in custody and the lockdown has been lifted.

March 1, 2016 (San Diego) 10:50 a.m. -- San Diego State Police have issued a shelter-in-place alert due to suspect believed armed with a handgun near Alvarado Hospital.  10 News reports police attempted to stop a vehicle on I-8 near College Avenue and the suspect fled toward Alvarado.

If you are in this area, police ask that you stay inside and do not call police unless you have an emergency.

East County News Service

March 1, 2016 (San Diego’s East County) – It’s official – last month was the hottest February ever I San Diego County since record-keeping began way back in 1875. 

East County News Service

February 29, 2016 (San Diego) – Zika has recently been suspected of causing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disorder. It can leave patients partially paralyzed, sometimes permanently, also causing breathing problems in severe cases after the patient’s immune system attacks nerve cells, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Now results of a study published in the medical journal The Lancet confirm that nearly all of the blood samples from 42 Guillain-Barré patients in French Polynesia in the South Pacific two years ago also tested positive for Zika virus.

By Miriam Raftery

Correction:  A prior article in ECM stated that Senator Anderson supported construction of Sunrise Powerlink. His office indicates he took no position on the project. We regret our error.

February 29, 2016 (Alpine) – “Keeping constituents safe is my top priority,” Senator Joel Anderson states  in a letter today to Supervisor Dianne Jacob.  “I want to make sure all available and appropriate state resources are deployed so that my constituents are provided answers to their questions about the electric and magnetic field (EMF) levels in our community.”

Senator Anderson’s letter indicates he has contacted three state agencies regarding the EMF concerns, including the California Department of Health (CDPH), which advised him that they will review measurements taken by local governments to see how they compare with other schools that were surveyed by the CDPH in a previous study.  

By Leon Thompson

February 29, 2016 (Maryland Avenue Elementary School, La Mesa) – An overflow crowd attended the Town Hall meeting with the La Mesa City Council on February 20^th to discuss the City’s future.  Mayor Mark Arapostathis greeted the attendees.

In this part of La Mesa the subject of group-homes was very much on the minds of nearby residents.  The concentration of group-homes in this neighborhood is five times the normal number.  

Lots of free and discounted health/fitness services for Lakeside residents!

By Steve Lauria

View video with Senator Joel Anderson discussing the Lakeside Health Awareness Month: https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaHealthNetwork/videos/1234959753184102/

February 29, 2016 (Lakeside)--Lakeside is a rural area in the Eastern region of San Diego County. Many people find it a great place to call home, but like the rest of San Diego County, it has a growing problem with chronic disease and other health concerns.

Throughout the month of March, California Health Network, a nonprofit organization based in East County, is doing its part in improving  the health of the citizens of Lakeside by sponsoring Lakeside Health Awareness Month. Another 32 local health and fitness businesses are offering free and discounted services to  citizens of Lakeside. You can view the offers here: http://californiahealthnetwork.org/healthawarenessmonth

By Suzanne Potter, Public News Service

Photo:  Arnoshwithal/morguefile

February 28, 2016 (San Francisco) -- The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court in San Francisco Monday with far-reaching consequences for the 255 people sentenced to die in prison for crimes committed as juveniles.