REUTERS                                                                                                 NOV. 20, 2014
By Sarah N. Lynch

U.S. regulators on Thursday suspended trading in four small over-the-counter stocks of companies that they said have been touting the development of products to prevent or treat the Ebola virus, and warned investors to beware of similar scams.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said it had suspended trading in the shares of New York-based Bravo Enterprises Ltd, California-based Immunotech Laboratories Inc, Canada-based Myriad Interactive Media Inc and Wholehealth Products Inc, which is also located in California.

The SEC also issued a warning that "con artists" may be soliciting investors and claiming to be developing treatments or medicine to prevent the deadly virus.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/20/us-sec-ebola-scams-idUSKCN0J41V820141120

SFGATE                                                    NOV. 14, 2014

By Carolyn Jones      

California has adopted some of the nation’s strongest regulations to protect doctors, nurses and other health workers treating patients with Ebola.

The regulations, announced Friday by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, require the state’s 300 or so acute-care hospitals to provide hazardous material suits, respirators, isolation rooms and extensive training to those working with patients suspected of having the Ebola virus.

Nurses hailed the regulations as a model for the rest of the country.

 The regulations are more comprehensive than those put forth by the Centers for Disease Control, which the state’s hospitals have been following until now. California has not had any Ebola cases.

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http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/California-adopts-tough-Ebola-protection-rules-5894274.php

CBS NEWS                                                                                             Nov. 11, 2014

By Jonathan  Berr

About 20,000 nurses walked off the job today in California as part of a two-day series of events across the country organized by National Nurses United. The country's largest such union is aiming to draw attention to what it sees as inadequate preparation at most hospitals to treat Ebola cases.

"Nurses, who have been willing to stand by the patients whether it's the flu, whether it's Ebola, whether it's cancer, are now being asked to put themselves in harm's way unprotected, unguarded," said NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, in a statement.

The NNU has targeted Kaiser Permanente, the biggest nonprofit health insurer in the U.S., over what it claims is an "erosion in patient care." The strike affected 86 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics along with two other California hospitals. Another 400 registered nurses in Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C., are set to walk off the job tomorrow.

The organization is demanding that nurses and other care givers who interact with Ebola patients be given full-body hazmat suits that leaves no skin exposed or unprotected, along with air-purifying respirators that meet stringent standards of the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health.

THE MODESTO BEE                                   NOV.9, 2014

BY Ken Carlson

Nurses represented by the California Nurses Association are planning a two-day strike starting Tuesday at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics.

The union claims the Oakland-based health care system has ignored its concerns that the hospitals lack protocols to protect nurses against Ebola. About 18,000 nurses could participate in the labor action at Kaiser’s 66 hospitals and clinics, the union said.

No cases of Ebola have been reported in California as the epidemic continues in West Africa.

In a statement, Kaiser said the union is in contract talks on behalf of nurses working at its health facilities. The strike is scheduled from 7 a.m. Tuesday to 6:59 a.m. Thursday.

See complete story

 http://www.modbee.com/news/business/article3683584.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.modbee.com/news/business/article3683584.html

NEW YORK TIMES                        NOV. 1, 2014
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
When public health leaders and government officials make the case against isolating more people returning from the Ebolahot zones in West Africa, or against imposing more travel restrictions from that region, time and again they cite science and experts. It isn’t working very well.

Many support the efforts of Gov. Paul R. LePage of Maine to isolate a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa. Credit Craig Dilger for The New York Times

NBC NEWS                                   Oct. 30, 2014
By Maggie Fox and Stacey Naggiar

Close to 50 volunteers have come back safe and well from the Ebola hot zone in West Africa, aid agencies tell NBC News, even as states debate whether to force such workers into quarantine.

                                                                                    Denmark / U.S. CBP via Reuters file

A look at the numbers from groups such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps shows just about 150 people have gone to help fight the epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Of them, 47 have returned symptom-free.

Discussion of conflicting quarantine guidelines

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWSWIRE                     Oct. 30, 1014
Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) issued new guidelines on how states should deal with travelers from Ebola-stricken regions, but a lack of federal authority to mandate such guidelines has led to conflicting strategies, varying from state to state, which includes mandatory at-home quarantine for some travelers. Under current U.S. law, the states have the authority to issue quarantine or isolation policies, and they also control the enforcement of these policies within their territories.

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http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141030-lack-of-federal-authority-makes-fashioning-coherent-national-ebola-policy-difficult

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS                                                        Oct. 29, 2014

By Julia Prodis Sulek

California on Wednesday became the latest state to order a 21-day quarantine for travelers who have been in close contact with Ebola patients.

In an attempt to avoid the criticism lodged against New York, New Jersey and Maine that had blanket quarantine orders, however, California will allow county health agencies to impose the quarantine on a case-by-case basis.

By working with county health departments to assess the individual risks, the California Department of Public Health said it "respects the individual circumstances of each traveler while protecting and preserving the public health."

Quarantine can range from observation and monitoring to the "limitation on his or her freedom of movement."

In the Bay Area, a Stanford doctor who returned last week from Liberia where he was treating Ebola patients was already being monitored by the San Mateo County Department of Public Health. The department coordinated with the CDC and San Francisco International Airport when Dr. Colin Bucks arrived late last week. He had no symptoms of the disease and came to an agreement with health officials to avoid contact with others but can leave the house for limited activities, such as jogging alone.

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environmentalleader.com - October 7th, 2014 - Ilissa Ocko

California has officially entered its fourth consecutive year of drought, and is trapped in its worst water shortage situation ever.

Because we know that human-caused climate change can trigger and exacerbate drought conditions, media, public officials, California residents and scientists have all been wondering for years if rising global temperatures likely caused or contributed to the current drought in California.

The short answer: Yes, they did.

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reuters.com - By Ryan McNeill, Deborah J. Nelson and Duff Wilson - September 4, 2014

As the seas rise, a slow-motion disaster gnaws at America’s shores

Part 1: A Reuters analysis finds that flooding is increasing along much of the nation’s coastline, forcing many communities into costly, controversial struggles with a relentless foe.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

By Al Jazeera America - 29 August 14

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will resume issuing oil and gas leases next year for federal lands in California after a new study found limited environmental impacts from fracking and other enhanced drilling techniques, the agency said Thursday.

The move will end a halt that has stood since a federal judge ruled in 2013 that the federal agency failed to follow environmental law in allowing an oil extraction method known as fracking on public land in Monterey County.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/25588-blm-citing-no-threat-from-fracking-allows-drilling-to-resume-in-california

Andrew Blankstein and Kevin Monahan - Friday, 29 Aug 2014 | 8:45 AM ET - NBC News

The beach is so central to California's identity that the right of surfers and sun lovers to access the sand is guaranteed in the state Constitution.

But now so many local landowners want to block public access to their chunks of the coveted coastline that there are several hundred alleged violations pending before state officials, including a highly charged case in which Vinod Khosla, a green energy billionaire with ties to President Obama, is fighting surfers over access to a beach south of San Francisco.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101957304#.

huffingtonpost.com - Associated Press - by Ellen Knickmeyer - August 24, 2014

NAPA, Calif. (AP) — A large earthquake rolled through California's northern Bay Area early Sunday, damaging some buildings, igniting fires, knocking out power to tens of thousands and sending residents running out of their homes in the darkness.

Two major injuries have been reported, and hospitals have been very busy with moderate injuries, Napa Division Fire Chief John Callanan said. The 6.0-magnitude quake caused six significant fires, including at four mobile homes, Napa Division Fire Chief Darren Drake said.

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(UPDATES - SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE)

By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow | Next City | August 19, 2014

At one time, questionnaires about well-being were the province of mental health professionals. But in recent years, a growing number of city governments have been getting into the game. Last year, Santa Monica, California won a Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors’ Challenge grant to create a “Local Well-Being Index,” based in part on a survey it plans to administer next month. Other cities, including Seattle and Nevada City, Calif., are at various stages of implementing the idea as well (with different levels of direct municipal involvement). All share a goal that some see as unsuitable for government and others consider its fundamental task: to make citizens happier.

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/happiest-cities-well-being-survey-policy

Image: Not all cows get to spend their days with soft green grass under hoof. For many, the picture isn't so pretty, according to the book Farmageddon.

npr.org - July 31, 2014 - Barbara J. King

For Philip Lymbery, head of the U.K.-based Compassion in World Farming and his co-author Isabel Oakeshott, a visit to California's Central Valley amounted to an encounter with suffering.

In Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat, Lymbery and Oakeshott write that the mega-dairies of the Central Valley are "milk factories where animals are just machines that rapidly break down and are replaced." At one huge dairy they visited, cows stood idly outdoors, some in shade and some in the sun.

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