Monthly Archives: <span>December 2018</span>

Higher Percentage of California Pot Products Pass Safety Tests

A higher percentage of California marijuana products are passing strict safety tests, but the sudden closing of a lab that state authorities found wasn’t correctly checking for pesticides has raised new questions about the system intended to protect the purity …

Casinos Proposed as Way to Subsidize Texas Wind Insurance

A Texas lawmaker has proposed subsidizing the state’s underfunded windstorm insurance and flooding assistance by building casinos in coastal counties. State Rep. Joe Deshotel filed the bill on Dec. 7 to cover the cost of the Texas Insurance Agency by …

Vehicle Cyber Attacks Rise Six-Fold, Exposing Digital Weakness

Hopping into an Uber or a Car2Go is a great way to get around. Unfortunately, hackers agree, exploiting weaknesses in apps to go on “phantom rides” with someone else’s profile. From such trips—like a man in Australia who went on …

Rain Set to Drench Northeast Over Christmas Holiday

The U.S. Northeast is more apt to get mud this Christmas than snow. A storm system approaching the region this weekend will dump rain on New York, Boston and Washington as temperatures hover above normal, said Michael Schichtel, a senior …

South Dakota Researcher Developing Fire Risk Estimation Tool

South Dakota’s state fire meteorologist is part of a coalition using satellite technology to notify fire managers when fuels are abnormally dry. Darren Clabo, a research scientist and instructor at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, is collaborating …

Speed a Factor in Fatal Arizona Crash of Medical Helicopter

Three years after a medical helicopter crashed and killed the pilot and a nurse outside Phoenix, Ariz., a paramedic who became the lone survivor can still feel the cold and smell the fuel from that night. “I tell people all …

Report Says 2016 California Wildfire Fight too Costly

When a wildfire burned across Big Sur two years ago and threatened hundreds of homes scattered on the scenic hills, thousands of firefighters responded with overwhelming force, attacking flames from the air and ground. In the first week, the blaze …

California Alleges PG&E Falsified Pipeline Safety Records

Regulators on Friday accused one of California’s largest utilities of falsifying safety documents for natural gas pipelines for years following its criminal conviction and multimillion-dollar fine for a pipeline explosion that killed eight people near San Francisco. The California Public …

‘Changing Climate’ Intensifying Disasters Per Texas Report

Powerful natural disasters in Texas on the scale of Hurricane Harvey‘s deadly destruction last year will become more frequent because of a changing climate, warned a new report Thursday ordered by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in a state where skepticism …

Opinion: More People Means More Cars, and More Deaths

More than 1.3 million people died in road traffic accidents in 2016, an all-time high, according to the World Health Organization. A world with more people and more cars means more death on the world’s roads. Those deaths, though, are …