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Source of mystery odor still not found; some say Salton Sea to blame

Dead tilapia fish rot on the mud of the shore of the Salton Sea in March. Funding to stop the ecological collapse of the sea is not likely in the near futures with its $9 billion price tag. (Getty Images file photo)
A mail carrier in San Bernardino said it smelled like rotten eggs. A woman in Rancho Cucamonga blamed it on dairy cows in Chino. A man in Rialto said he couldn’t smell it at all. And about 60 miles west in Los Angeles, curious callers in the north end of the San Fernando Valley were calling the Fire Department seeking answers.
They were among thousands across the Southland on Monday to catch a whiff of what officials said was the result of biological decay, possibly from the Salton Sea, and an unusual wind that pushed it west.
Fontana resident Walter Martinez, 33, may have best described the foul odor wafting through the Inland area.
“It’s kind of funky,” he said. “If I go outside and take a breath, I cough. I feel an air irritation.”
Air quality officials from around the region fielded phone calls throughout the day from residents concerned about the smell.
Field inspectors with the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar spent the day investigating the possible causes of what they described as “widespread sulfur odors.”
“Fish kills, algae Read more…
4.2-magnitude quake rumbles across Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A magnitude-4.2 earthquake and aftershocks rattled nerves across the Los Angeles region Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of damage.
The quake hit around 1:47 p.m. and was centered 24 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It was followed by more than a half-dozen aftershocks up to magnitude-3. The jolt was felt widely across Los Angeles County including the San Fernando and Read more…
Ring of Fire: Update
Labor market risks of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in southern California
PDF file of this Regional Report | Other BLS Regional Reports
Authors:
Richard Holden, Amar Mann, and Tian Luo
Bureau of Labor Statistics Read more…
Experts: Mega-Quakes Can Create Pole Shifts
Mega-thrust earthquakes like the ones that recently struck Chile and the Fukushima region of Northern Japan, can cause the magnetic field to flip. If a quake is strong enough there is evidence it may even set off a geological pole shift tossing the Earth off its current axis and killing billions of people within a matter of minutes.
This the grim picture painted by decades of research and evidence strewn from the peaks of the Andes to the volcanic shards lying off the Pacific islands of Hawaii.
Cities could be swept away in the blink of an eye
Enormous earthquakes cause enormous damage. The threat is real and growing, as world renown physicist and popular science author, Dr.Michio Kaku , recently explained on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
According to Dr. Kaku, some of the world’s most important and populated cities could be swept away in the blink of an eye. “In our life time, we could very well see one of these cities destroyed,” Kaku claimed. “Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mexico City, Tehran, and Tokyo.”
It is actually Mankind and not nature that has placed up to one billion people at risk. “We are creating mega cities where there used to be Read more…
Study: Half of supermarket meat may have staph bug
ATLANTA (AP) — Half the meat and poultry sold in the supermarket may be tainted with the staph germ, a new report suggests.
The new estimate is based on just 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased from grocery stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Flagstaff, Ariz. and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Proper cooking kills the germs, and federal health officials estimate staph accounts for less than 3 percent of foodborne illnesses, far less than more common bugs like salmonella and E. coli.
The new study found more than half the samples contained Staphylococcus Read more…
High Gas Prices May Turn Suburbs Into Slums
Americans rarely think much about zoning, but it governs almost every facet of how we live our lives. And unintended consequences of 50-year-old zoning codes may be about to turn some of our loveliest and quietest suburbs into the next slums.
Why? Simply because they’ve been built too far away from everything else, and we won’t be able to afford the gasoline it takes to go to and fro.
Suburbs: slums of the future?
At least, that’s the provocative conclusion of Peter Newman, one of the authors of a study released by the Planning Institute of Australia late last year.
The study looks at the future of suburban Australia, which has evolved in patterns very much like suburban America: sprawling, low-density, auto-dependent residential enclaves miles away from commercial areas and office parks.
“Urban sprawl is finished,” Newman told The Age. “If we continue to roll out new land releases and suburbs that are car-dependent, they will become the slums of the future.”
Following World War II, with the rise of affordable automobiles, cheap fuel and an increasingly Read more…
Superbug spreading to Southern California hospitals
A dangerous drug-resistant bacteria has spread to patients in Southern California, according to a study by Los Angeles County public health officials.
More than 350 cases of the Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, or CRKP, have been reported at healthcare facilities in Los Angeles County, mostly among elderly patients at skilled-nursing and long-term care facilities, according to a study by Dr. Dawn Terashita, an epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
It was not clear from the study how many of the infections proved fatal, but other studies in the U.S. and Israel have shown that about 40% of patients with the infection die. Tereshita was Read more…
Nuclear nightmare: Japanese reactor meltdown could propel ‘death cloud’ to US West Coast
Some Japanese officials have admitted that Tokyo Electric’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic reactor No. 1 may experience a total meltdown. That disaster would be followed by the release of a deadly radioactive death cloud that would drift over the Pacific and poison the people of the U.S. West Coast.
A worried Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Yuji Kakizaki warned:“If the fuel rods are melting and this continues, a reactor meltdown is possible,” Kakizaki said.
A core meltdown of the nuclear pile occurs from an intense build-up of heat Read more…
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