Shallow-water seagrasses can’t survive without enough light. And fish, shrimp, crabs and other creatures we rely on for food can’t survive without seagrasses. Smithsonian biologist […]

The post Ecosystems on the Edge: Underwater Light and Seagrass appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A tiny invasive insect from Asia might have an effect on Chesapeake Bay waters. The emerald ash borer is killing millions of ash trees in […]

The post Invasive ash borer found in Smithsonian Environmental Research Center forest; ash deaths may impact Chesapeake waters appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A still from "POWER/RANGERS," a highly-produced Power Rangers fan film starring James Van Der Beek and Katee Sackhoff.

Update 2/28: The "POWER/RANGERS" film is back on YouTube and Vimeo. Watch the censored YouTube version with a new viewer discretion disclaimer here:

POWER/RANGERS

You can also watch the Vimeo version, featuring more adult content. The video's description emphasizes its lack of connection in any official way to the Power Rangers:

"Deboot of the Power Rangers. My take on the FAN FILM. Not a pilot, not a series, not for profit, strictly for exhibition. This is a bootleg experiment not affiliated or endorsed by Saban Entertainment or Lionsgate nor is it selling any product. I claim no rights to any of the characters (don't send me any money, not kickstarted, this film is free). This is the NSFW version. An alternate safe version is on youtube."

Director Joseph Kahn tells Deadline, "They put these disclaimers on so kids so don’t confuse our super-violent film with their Power Rangers brand. There are no hard feelings. We signed contracts. We can play it anywhere we want on all platforms. I think they realized that people just want to see it."

Previously: A Power Rangers short film went viral this week, starring Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) and James Van Der Beek (Dawson!) in a Tarantino-meets-sci-fi take on a dark future for the formerly Mighty Morphin'.

The company behind the 22-year history of the kids/toy icons issued takedown requests, leading to it being pulled from Vimeo and, on Thursday afternoon, a toned-down version being taken off YouTube. At the time, the video had received over 10 million views. It's still available to watch in this Facebook embed from the producer's Facebook page:

POWER/RANGERS Facebook embed

The film was directed by Joseph Kahn, best known as the music video director behind clips like Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" as well as videos for Britney Spears, U2 and others, and produced by Adi Shankar, who was also behind "The Grey" and "Dredd." Kahn co-wrote the film with Van Der Beek and lesser-known writer Dutch Southern.

This isn't the first quasi-legal fan film produced by Shankar. He's also done the same with Marvel Comics characters the Punisher and Venom. The Punisher film even had one of the actors who played the character on screen, Thomas Jane.

Watch those films (Warning: Adult language and violence):

Punisher short

Venom short

Kahn tells HitFix that Shankar came to him, offering him the chance to reboot an existing property.

One reason for the current legal contentiousness: The Power Rangers are set to hit the big screen next year in a Lionsgate film. Kahn says that, if that film was offered to him, he wouldn't be interested.

"I wouldn't even want to make 'Power Rangers: The Movie' for real," Kahn told HitFix. "Like if I had to make a 'Power Rangers' movie, this is it. It's 14 minutes long, and it's violent, and this is what I have in me. If they offered me the $200 million version, the PG-13 version, I literally wouldn't do it."

There's been a strong response to the video, but the response has been mixed — among the original Power Rangers. The original Green Ranger, actor Jason David Frank, said on Facebook that he was approached to be in the movie but declined. (The film's director denies this claim, saying that Frank must have confused them with another project.) Frank also criticized the adult content.

"I'm just a PG-13 guy," Frank said. "The cuss words, the drugs, all this other stuff, it doesn't fly with me." He says that he thinks the Power Rangers are still connected with kids, and he didn't like the idea of doing a dark and gritty version in that context. (Watch his video below.)

Green Ranger video

But the original Pink Ranger, actress Amy Jo Johnson, gave the film her stamp of approval, which Sackhoff enthusiastically responded to.

Amy Jo Johnson tweet 1

Amy Jo Johnson tweet 2

Katee Sackhoff tweet

Sackhoff told the Nerdcore Movement site that she loves fan films.

"Doing a fan video is kind of the biggest honor you can give a franchise. It’s something that inspired you so much that you want to create," Sackhoff said.

Kahn defended "POWER/RANGERS" on Twitter as being protected due to it being a satire and also cited fair use laws and free speech. He argued that there are lots of other fan films and pointed out that YouTube showed more leniency, leaving it up.

"Every image in POWER/RANGERS is original footage," Kahn wrote in a series of tweets to Vimeo. "Nothing was pre-existing. There is no copyrighted footage in the short."

He also said that it's being given away for free and that Kahn paid for it himself.

Kahn tweet

"It is just as if I drew a pic of Power Rangers on a napkin and I gave it to my friend," Kahn wrote. "Is it illegal to give pic I drew of a character on a napkin to someone for free? No. The world is watching your actions right now."

In a touch of irony, the video had been selected as a Vimeo staff pick before the service took it down. They also responded to complaints about it being taken down, saying that they had to due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and that they would restore the video immediately if the copyright claim was withdrawn, telling fans to complain to Power Rangers copyright holder Saban.

YouTube tweet

Despite the short film's success, hardcore Power Rangers fans are less sure about it, Shamus Kelley tells KPCC. Kelley created his own Rangers fan series, as well as co-hosting a Power Rangers podcast with over 300 episodes so far.

Casual fans are "far more open to the idea of dark/gritty because they see it as the show growing up with them," Kelley says. To hardcore fans, "it was either an abomination or the greatest unintended parody ever."

Kahn tells HitFix that the parody, of both Power Rangers and fan films in general, is definitely intended.

"The dark and gritty reboot thing is such a cliché that the intention was not only to make it dark and gritty but make it even darker and grittier than you could possibly imagine, hence the brains, the blood and the violence and the sex," Kahn said.

Kahn is set to answer questions about the film in a Reddit AMA on Friday at 2 p.m. We'll have to wait and see if there will be anywhere to watch it at the time.

Take a look behind the scenes of "POWER/RANGERS" via posts from the director and stars:

Behind the scenes tweet

Behind the scenes Instagram

Fight training 1

Fight training 2

The film also includes a techno take on the classic Power Rangers theme song, which you can listen to here:

Techno Power Rangers

This story has been updated.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Apr 16, 2020; 133:jcs245373-jcs245373
CELL SCIENTISTS TO WATCH

Radon in household water supplies increases peoples overall exposure to the gas, but waterborne radon poses few risks to human health, says a new report by a committee of the National Research Council.

Good morning and welcome. There has been unprecedented interest in recent years about whether marijuana or its constituent compounds should be used as medicine. Since 1996, voters in seven states have approved the medical use of marijuana.

The federal government should not increase the maximum level of copper allowed in drinking water, because higher levels could lead to liver poisoning in infants and children with certain genetic disorders.

The vast majority of healthy people adequately meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide, says the newest report on nutrient recommendations from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys standard for the maximum amount of fluoride allowed in drinking water -- 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water -- does not protect against adverse health effects.

Evidence exists that people who lived or worked at Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina between the 1950s and 1985 were exposed to the industrial solvents tricholorethylene (TCE) or perchloroethylene (PCE) in their water supply, but strong scientific evidence is not available to determine whether health problems among those exposed are due to the contaminants, says a new report from the National Research Council.

The numerous technical and operational breakdowns that contributed to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and spill from the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico suggest the lack of a suitable approach for managing the inherent risks.

Hydraulic fracturing has a low risk for inducing earthquakes that can be felt by people, but underground injection of wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing and other energy technologies has a higher risk of causing such earthquakes, says a new report from the National Research Council.

Over the next several decades as the global population grows, society will be faced with pressing challenges such as providing reliable supplies of food and water, diminishing climate change and adapting to its impacts, and building healthy, resilient cities.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine offers guidance to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to inform the next revision of a permit program that requires industries to manage stormwater to minimize discharges of pollutants to the environment.

The supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) system is a secondary waste processing reactor of the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant (BGCAPP). It is perhaps second in importance behind the agent neutralization reactors, which perform base hydrolysis of chemical warfare agents stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot.

Dried and cracked earth is visible on an unplanted field at a farm on April 29, 2014 near Mendota, California. ; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• Summer is upon us, and KPIX in San Francisco reports three years of drought in the Central Valley has turned America's salad bowl into a "dust bowl." (KPIX)
• Speaking of summer and San Francisco, it appears denizens of the City by the Bay have done such a good job of conserving water, their water agency has already decided there will be no mandatory restrictions this summer. (San Jose Mercury News)
• Meanwhile, SFGate columnist Mark Morford wonders how water availability will factor into property values for summer get-aways north of San Francisco:

Wait, what? Right, the water. The Looming Issue. The Unexpected Fear. Water – or rather, the potential lack thereof – is something I didn’t realize I’d be quite so worried about when I started my search. But now? It’s damn near unavoidable. (SFGate)

• "As the Water Bond Turns" continues in Sacramento. In the latest episode, Gov. Brown stops playing hard to get and decides to commit, but will he find a willing (political) partner? Stay Tuned. (Sacramento Bee)

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

; Credit: Beatrice the Biologist / Scientific American

Today's dryku:
Food budgets are tight
Droughts do raise vegetables' price
But don't make snakes bite

Food:

• The USDA released its monthly food price outlook. Looks like prices are going to be up at least 3.5%. Fresh fruit could go up by 6%. Bloomberg has a chart showing how produce is projected to hit its highest price in 18 years. (LA Times)

Critters:

• Southern California seems to be seeing a higher rate of rattlesnake bites this year. Despite the article's headline, experts in the story say it's not because of the drought. A shorter winter has brought snakes out of hibernation earlier, meaning a longer active season, meaning more need for anti-venin.

As of June 12, 128 people were admitted to a hospital for a snakebite and of those, 93 received doses of anti-venin, Heard said. In 2013, 269 Californians went to a hospital for a snakebite and of those, 166 received anti-venin, he said. Simply doubling the number of patients needing anti-venin treatment would equal 186, more than 2013. (Some patients get “dry bites” meaning no venom is injected and therefore do not need anti-venin, he said). (Contra Costa Times)

• It's been a mixed bag for salmon this year. Some have needed to be trucked out to the ocean, because their streams are too dry. In the case of coho salmon, the drought has actually caused a record number to enter the ocean. It's not all good news though:

Biologists say that only 206 salmon egg clusters, known as "redds," were counted in the Lagunitas this year, well below the 20-year average of 250 "redds." And the fish that headed off to the ocean may not fare as well. They are smaller than normal and could face more difficult ocean conditions due to the warming pattern known as El Niño, scientists say. (Chico Enterprise-Record)

Fireworks:

• Sacramento cops are out in force, looking for illegal fireworks. The sheriff's department will double its number of officers on the hunt. Starting this week, having the little fire starters can mean jail time. (CBS Sacramento)

Water jerks:

• Everyone seems to be at a loss on how to get people to start saving water. Beatrice the Biologist may have stumbled onto the answer — it's a mixture of shame and badges. I'm going to print out the car one and post it in my window. Maybe then people will stop judging me for my filthy Camry. (Scientific American)

How has your community been affected by the drought? Share your story with a photo on Twitter or Instagram. Tag it #mydrought. For more details on our photo project, click here.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

This is a public service campaign suggesting you save water...and suggesting some other things too. ; Credit: SFPUC

Friday's news is going to make you wait for it...when it comes to an explanation for the picture above.

The Wall Street Journal takes on pricing and other big-think policies that various authors claim are worsening the drought.

• Those higher food prices Jed wrote about yesterday? Alyssia Finley, assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com, says they're the fault of environmentalists, and higher food prices will be the way the rest of the country will pay for California's "green sanctimony." (WSJ)
• Economist Edward Lazear argues that "government-dictated prices, coupled with restrictions on the transfer of water, have made a bad situation much worse." He takes aim at the state's limitations on water transfers (lifted, he doesn't note; but he argues that pricing distorts the need for transfers anyway). He argues that public agencies that protect environmental conditions with water should pay for the privilege:

Although there may be good reasons to ensure that some fish and wildlife be protected, we should not pretend that this protection is costless. Agencies that divert water for environmental purposes should be required to budget explicitly for the lost revenue associated with the decision to divert it for this purpose, rather than allowing it to be sold at the market price for urban or agricultural use. (WSJ)

...and he argues that farmers, who might have to pay more for water on a more-open market, should get extra money to help them transition to the free market.

• Cato loves Lazear's arguments, and offers one amendment. Chris Edwards wants the federal government to get out of the water business, and in California, to hand over the Central Valley Project to the state. (Cato)
• In other business news, it's going to be a mixed bag for boat businesses at California recreation areas this summer. They're nervous in Tahoe, but overall expect to benefit from Folsom Lake's bad year. (TradeOnly Today)
• CNN gets into the Firehawk, which is a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter with a giant water tank on it. L.A. County owns a few. They're going to be busy this summer, thanks to the drought. (CNN)
• And finally, in a move that reminds me of the time I wanted to name this blog "Hot, Wet, Climate Action," the San Francisco Public Utility Commission has a new, sexy (or is it sexxy?) campaign to conserve water, with words like "QUICKIE" and "DOING IT" popping out of copy alongside minimalist pictures of pieces of water plumbing. My favorite is "DIRTY HANDS" with its faucet shot to look like a piece of anatomy. (SFPUC)

VIDEO: Get paid for doing it nice!

How has your community been affected by the drought (besides getting more suggestive ads about jiggling the toilet handle)? Share your story with a photo on Twitter or Instagram. Tag it #mydrought. For more details on our photo project, click here.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Less water in Hoover Dam means less power coming from the Dam's generating units. ; Credit: Dawn Danby/via Flickr

Monday's fat stack of news also includes some views about what to do about drought and Western water supplies.

The New York Times has published six answers to the questions "What are the best ways to share the water? And how can we ensure it lasts for the foreseeable future?" Pat Mulroy, former general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, weighs in, as do several other think tankers:

[N]ew energy and fuel production options have become more water intensive. Unconventional oil and gas production methods such as hydraulic fracturing have significant implications for local and regional water quality and quantity. Bioenergy consumes water at various stages of production (including irrigation for crops) and also has impacts on water quality and quantity...We should be pursuing cleaner energy and streamlined approaches to conserving water in order to truly safeguard our water supply. (Newsha Ajami/Stanford University)

An incredible 40 percent of the water consumed by Americans goes into meat and dairy production. Livestock must drink water and there is some water use at the farm, but most of this water is for the producing animal feed...Is this a wise allocation of the limited supply of freshwater in America? (Arjen Hoekstra/University of Twente, Netherlands)

• Closer to home, the Sacramento Bee has an ongoing series about drought solutions. Mariposa County resident Tom DeVries, who lives in forestland at 4,000 feet, offers his take:

Trees take water; a big one can draw 100 gallons a day out of the ground. All that junk forest in California is sucking up water that should be filling my spring and well and flowing downhill toward the rest of you. (Sac Bee)

• You know who else has good ideas about how to conserve water in drought? Australians. (KQED)
• Jay Lund from UC Davis modeled a "mega-drought" with his team and found that the economic consequences of a big drought event could be mostly managed through smarter water conservation policies. (California Water Blog)
• Falling water levels at Lake Mead are lowering Hoover Dam's energy production. Generating units have recently been "derated," meaning that they're expected to have a lower capacity for producing electricity now that there's less water to turn turbines. (EE News)
• Jason Dearen and Garance Burke report on "senior rights holders," and how poorly California accounts for water use by people who have rights dating back before 1914 at anytime, and how much that matters now during the drought. (AP)
• You're gonna see a lot of these stories all week: it's a terrible year for setting off fireworks. I bet rural fire chiefs have their teeth on edge already. (Merced Sun-Star)
• And we'll finish up in Southern California. In the first of a duo of Dana Bartholomew stories, the Daily News reports on Turf Terminators, a company that offers to leverage the recently-raised turf removal incentive and swap out homeowners' lawns for less thirsty landscapes...essentially for free, since the company's premise is that it can do the work for the price of the rebate. (Daily News)
• In the second, Bartholomew profiles a Studio City water-conservation demonstration at homes along Rhodes Avenue. (Daily News)
• And a UCLA project examining water use and conservation potential in territory served by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power suggests that we're not pricing water well enough to encourage conservation. Authors of a policy brief with the California Center for Sustainable Communities say dual metering, for inside and outside, would also improve conservation. (Imperial Valley News)

How has your community been affected by the drought? Share your story with a photo on Twitter or Instagram. Tag it #mydrought. For more details on our photo project, click here.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A 1962 Thousand Oaks survey picture of H.L. Hall Water Well and Test Hole Drilling, and Aitken and Kidder Water Development, by Pat Allen. Water well drilling goes back a century in California, but records are scarce for public viewing.

Monday's news is nosy about your neighbor — and your neighbors' groundwater drilling.

• More great reporting from the Sacramento Bee on anachronistic problems of transparency in how we manage water in California. Even some well drillers now favor more transparency for groundwater "well logs":

In all other Western states, such records are accessible to whomever wants to see them – from university professors to civil engineers, real estate agents to the media. But in California, well logs are barred from public inspection by a 63-year-old law written to keep data gathered by well-drilling companies from falling into the hands of competitors. “The lack of information about well logs makes no sense, particularly as we are trying hard to manage a diminishing public trust resource,” said Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank in San Francisco. “This is another one of those anachronistic statutes that does not belong in a modern water management system,” Mount said. (Sacramento Bee)

• Nearly 90 percent of the $700 million in "emergency drought relief" money authorized by the governor a few months ago is yet to be spent. But, as our public radio colleague Ben Adler reports, that's not necessarily as bad as it sounds. Grants take time. (Capital Public Radio)
• The secret new trend in water district conservation isn't cops, it's guys who make "water-wise house calls":

One out of every four households has a leak of some sort, usually something as simple as a loose toilet flapper, [water district spokeswoman] Figueroa said. "Leaks are common," she added. "Don't be embarrassed." (SJ Mercury News)

• The New York Times reports on how Californians are tracking their neighbors' usage deep into the drought. Ian Lovett explores Twitter-based shower-shaming (a phenomenon this blog noticed some months ago), ratting your neighbor out for violating restrictions and other guilt-based behavioral nudges. About our region, he writes:

Most homes in Southern California have already been outfitted with efficient shower heads, toilets and garden hoses, making it harder for residents to significantly reduce their water consumption than it was during the last severe drought a quarter-century ago. (NYT)

And how has your community been affected by the drought? Share your story with a photo on Twitter or Instagram. Tag it #mydrought. For more details on our photo project, click here.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

When it comes to water usage, not all car washes are created equal. Most car washes don’t recycle water, but more and more newly built car washes are starting to. Santa Ana Express Car Wash opened three years ago and its million-dollar equipment recycles 70 percent of its water.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Washing your car with a garden hose can use up to 120 gallons of water. Most corner conveyor belt operations use less, but all that water can add up, as we told you in August.

That’s why the group LA Waterkeeper is challenging motorists to drive dirty and pledge to skip car washes for 60 days. 

"Water conservation is the easiest and most affordable way to quickly reduce water demand and also extend supplies into next year," says Liz Crosson, the group's executive director. 

This summer Ventura County’s water agency asked people to skip washing their rides for a month; some people got detailing and car washes as a reward. Crosson’s group is hoping bragging rights will be enough of an incentive. (Though there are some as-yet-undisclosed prizes.)

People who live in LA are really excited and interested by the cars that they drive," Crosson says. "And frankly, you can have a dirty car and you can have a sticker and have an excuse for having a dirty car so it saves your image too."

The campaign’s just kicking off this weekend (at the Abbott-Kinney festival), but Crosson’s already optimistic for success. Early adopters of the pledge are hundreds of people from the online site Reddit and the general manager for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

GO DIRTY FOR THE DROUGHT. Take the #DirtyCarPledge to not wash your car for 60 days. Ready, Set, Go Dirty! http://t.co/TsxdvsgpCv

— LAWaterkeeper (@LAWaterkeeper) September 25, 2014

From the ED, I’m Molly Peterson, 89-point-3. KPCC.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

What once were orchards and citrus groves now is a dense but sprawling urban area. The city of Los Angeles is considering ways to capture stormwater near where it falls so that water can be made use of throughout the city. ; Credit: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

With a historic drought showing no signs of letting up, the city of Los Angeles is drafting a new plan to use more local water sources by capturing storm water throughout the L.A. basin. At recent community meetings, officials from the Department of Water and Power (along with the city's Sanitation Department) have been showcasing potential ideas for the final plan, due out this summer.

This new plan would make storm water about 4 percent of the city's annual water budget. For the first time, LA is talking about making storm water a small but reliable part of the city’s water sources – 25,000 acre-feet, or somewhat over 8 billion gallons of storm water a year. For perspective, a typical one-inch rain event in Los Angeles County produces more than 10 billion gallons of storm water, most of which hits asphalt and concrete, flows into storm drains and goes to the sea.

It’s hardly a new idea. But storm water capture has taken on additional urgency because of the drought, because of the increasing price of importing water, and because of local water quality rules.

On top of that, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive order last October, directing the LADWP to cut its purchase of imported water in half within a decade, in part by cutting water consumption at least 20 percent.

Storm water capture projects have captured the energy and attention of environmental groups who’ve demonstrated them in backyards, neighborhoods, and alleyways.

LA could invest in much-larger-scale versions of those ideas. Good places for those bigger projects tend to be in the San Fernando Valley, where the geology is hospitable to rain water capture and the city has clearest rights. 

Some examples featured in the LADWP’s presentation aren’t yet approved, but are in consideration:

• Water capture and storage at the Van Norman Complex; 
• The Canterbury Power Line Easement, running between the Tujunga Spreading Grounds and the Pacoima Wash, which would capture 1500 acre-feet of water a year; and 
• Converting Strathern Park (near the Hollywood Freeway) from a disused gravel pit/landfill to a wetlands park, in joint operation with L.A. County. 

Storing storm water in the ground means protecting some areas from industrial pollution, and means filtering and treating polluted groundwater as it’s pulled from aquifers. Last November’s $7.5 billion dollar water bond earmarked funds for storm water capture and for groundwater cleanup. DWP officials say they’re hoping to bring some of that money to Los Angeles.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

President Trump speaks at the White House Friday. He is replacing an official who issued a report that found testing delays and equipment shortages at hospitals.; Credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

President Trump is moving to replace the Department of Health and Human Services watchdog whose office found severe shortages of medical supplies in hospitals as COVID-19 cases surged.

In a Friday night announcement, the White House named Jason Weida as its nominee to take the permanent inspector general post currently occupied by Christi Grimm, who's been in that role in an acting capacity since January.

A longtime staffer with Health and Human Services, Grimm was leading the inspector general's office in April when it issued a report chronicling testing delays — up to seven days in some cases — as well as severe shortages of supplies in hospitals amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Hospitals reported that they were unable to keep up with COVID-19 testing demands because they lacked complete kits and/or the individual components and supplies needed to complete tests," the survey of 323 hospitals found. "When patient stays were extended while awaiting test results, this strained bed availability, personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies, and staffing."

The report also recalled how one hospital had even resorted to making its own disinfectant.

Trump reacted to the report by calling its findings "wrong," asking to know the name of the inspector general and suggesting the report was politically motivated. He later took to Twitter to castigate Grimm and the report even further.

"Why didn't the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report. Another Fake Dossier!" Trump tweeted in early April.

Grimm is a career official, not a political appointee, and began serving in the Office of the Inspector General in 1999.

The nomination of Weida — currently an assistant U.S. attorney — marks the latest replacement of a high-level watchdog by the president. A month ago, he fired the inspector general who raised concerns that eventually led to his impeachment. Days later, he removed the inspector general charged with overseeing the government's coronavirus response bill.

Sen. Patty Murray, ranking Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said that Trump's nominee "must not get through the Senate without ironclad commitments" to continue the agency's current investigations without political interference.

"We all know the President hasn't told people the truth about this virus or his Administration's response, and late last night, he moved to silence an independent government official who did," Murray said in a statement released on Saturday. "Anyone who demands less will be complicit in the President's clear pattern of retaliation against those who tell the truth."

Health and Human Services did not comment to NPR on Grimm's future role, but said in statement that the agency had been preparing "to assist a new Inspector General appointee over a year ago, when the previous presidentially-appointed and senate-confirmed Inspector General first announced his intention to retire from government service. We will continue to work conscientiously to support a smooth leadership transition."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Rick Bright filed a complaint this week with the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency responsible for whistleblower complaints.; Credit: /Public Health Emergency via AP

Attorneys for Rick Bright, the government scientist who said he had been reassigned and subsequently filed a whistleblower complaint, say a government watchdog agrees that he should be reinstated to his post.

Bright was serving as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which is working on a vaccine to combat the coronavirus.

He said he was ousted from the position last month because he wanted to spend money on safe and vetted treatments for COVID-19 — not on ones without "scientific merit," such as hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that President Trump and others had been touting.

Trump on Wednesday called Bright "a disgruntled employee who's trying to help the Democrats win an election."

Bright's attorneys say that the Office of Special Counsel, which hears whistleblower cases, determined there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that his removal was retaliatory and therefore prohibited.

Bright's attorneys say OSC plans to contact the Department of Health and Human Services to request that it put Bright's removal on hold for 45 days so the office can complete its investigation into the allegations.

The OSC said it "cannot comment on or confirm the status of open investigations."

In a statement to NPR, Caitlin Oakley, a spokesperson for HHS, said: "This is a personnel matter that is currently under review. However, HHS strongly disagrees with the allegations and characterizations in the complaint from Dr. Bright."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

I got the word this week from The Crest of Westwood that they'll be streaming coverage of the Golden Globes at The Crest on Sunday.

It's free and open to the public; doors open at 4:30 and the event starts at 5pm.

The Crest's Virginia Chavez writes, "We're encouraging formal attire, but it's not required for entrance."

But Off-Ramp says, "Phooey! Dress up. It's what classy people do." Like this stunning couple:

(Anne Knudsen/LA Public Library Herald-Examiner collection)

The caption of this 1985 photo reads, "David Hasselhoff in a burgundy-and-black striped tuxedo kept pace with wife Catherine Hickland's high fashion style: Ellene Warren's silk shoulder-beaded jacket, silk jacquard pants and matching evening bra. Hasselhoff and Hickland attended the Emmy Awards at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

There's such a thing as an "evening bra?" I don't think so.

The Crest - 1262 Westwood Blvd. LA, CA 90024 - (323) 553 - 3500

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

At the corner of Glendale and Glenfeliz, Jeff Harmes created an art garden completely from scratch. ; Credit: Alana Rinicella

On the median on the Atwater Village side of the Hyperion bridge, Jeff Harmes built a garden. It's an act he calls "taking nothing and making it into something that everyone can get something out of, that can inspire everyone."

Having lived on the streets for 30 years, Jeff says grew to hate litter. He used to sweep street gutters with a piece of cardboard and remove trash packed into the forks of trees. He thought of them as small acts that would go mostly unnoticed.

On a whim last spring, he started tilling the median — or "the island," as he likes to call it ... although "oasis" is more like it, now. He made rock sculptures from stones he scrounged out of the L.A. River. In celebration of spring, he made a peace sign out of flowers. 

He says he doesn't know much about gardening or landscaping. He learns as he goes and looks to commuters for suggestions. In the absence of running water, he relies on rainfall.

Vibrant succulents sit next to kitschy items like gnomes and plastic flamingos. Intricate formations of seashells and stones contrast starkly against the neatly patted dirt. A young girl even donated her seashell collection for the peace sign. 

Recently, though, a vandal smashed the peace sign and wrecked Jeff's plants, including his squash crop. With help from the neighborhood, Jeff has been able to rebuild the garden. New plants have sprouted and the stonework has been repaired.

Jeff says his new goal with the garden is for people to draw something positive from it. "I want hate to be transferred into something beautiful," he said. Moving forward, he hopes to expand it down the island. 

(Note: This post has been edited. The original called it a "meridian," which is an invisible geographic line. "Median" is correct.)

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Freshwater from salt water using only solar energy

Rick Bright filed a complaint this week with the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency responsible for whistleblower complaints.; Credit: /Public Health Emergency via AP

Attorneys for Rick Bright, the government scientist who said he had been reassigned and subsequently filed a whistleblower complaint, say a government watchdog agrees that he should be reinstated to his post.

Bright was serving as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which is working on a vaccine to combat the coronavirus.

He said he was ousted from the position last month because he wanted to spend money on safe and vetted treatments for COVID-19 — not on ones without "scientific merit," such as hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that President Trump and others had been touting.

Trump on Wednesday called Bright "a disgruntled employee who's trying to help the Democrats win an election."

Bright's attorneys say that the Office of Special Counsel, which hears whistleblower cases, determined there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that his removal was retaliatory and therefore prohibited.

Bright's attorneys say OSC plans to contact the Department of Health and Human Services to request that it put Bright's removal on hold for 45 days so the office can complete its investigation into the allegations.

The OSC said it "cannot comment on or confirm the status of open investigations."

In a statement to NPR, Caitlin Oakley, a spokesperson for HHS, said: "This is a personnel matter that is currently under review. However, HHS strongly disagrees with the allegations and characterizations in the complaint from Dr. Bright."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

As you rush to buy something for your mom, con artists will be trying to make a dent in your wallet. Here are some common types of fraud to look out for not only this Mother's Day.

The post Scams to watch out for not just this Mother’s Day appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

Access to water is often described as a basic human right, so rights violations may be committed where corporate activities interfere with individuals' access to water. Water supply is generally the responsibility of government, but recent Dutch research has suggested that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can have a significant impact on the sustainability of freshwater supply in countries with weak governance regimes.

Organophosphates (OPs) used to protect materials from fire and in other industrial processes have affected the quality of groundwater, particularly in urban areas and near landfill sites, according to recent research.

A new study indicates that water management in the Netherlands uses a reliable warning system for extreme weather, which can incorporate wind and coastal surge level forecasts, as well as precipitation forecasts.

A new Spanish study has highlighted current developments in the tourism sector that have significant implications for water supply and demand, but are barely addressed in recent land use policies. The findings indicate that any tourist destination that is to follow the ???quality tourist??? model will have an increased water demand in domestic residential areas, which is one of the biggest threats to sustainable water management.

A recent study compared the decentralised treatment of pharmaceutical contaminants in wastewater at hospitals with centralised treatment at conventional and upgraded wastewater plants. The results suggest that additional (post) treatments may not always provide significant benefits.

Blue-green algae, or ???aquatic cyanobacteria???, can produce harmful toxins and present a serious health hazard when they bloom in large numbers. Researchers from Germany have now identified plant species that could be used to sustainably treat water by removing such cyanobacterial toxins.

A recent study has revealed how water use has changed across the world over the last 60 years. Growing populations and economic development, particularly in newly-emerging countries, have increased water demand, but technological developments have led to water efficiencies and savings, which moderate these demands.

Green roofs can cool buildings in summer and prevent heat loss in winter. A new study suggests, however, that in the warm climates of southern Europe the additional cost of watering means that 'cool roof coatings??? may be more cost effective.

Urban water use increases with a population’s average income, finds a study of a stressed river basin in Spain. Consumption also increases with population age, but falls as education levels rise. Such information could help municipal water providers predict future water trends and to develop appropriate measures by which to manage demand. There is huge interest in mining polymetallic nodules in deep-sea environments. These bumpy rocks on the seafloor contain highly valuable materials including manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel and copper.

A circular economy, in which waste is minimised and resources are kept within the system, relies upon inventive ways of turning waste into a resource. A new study explored the possibility of using the microalga Scenedesmus obliquus to refine and process brewery wastewater. The alga efficiently removed pollutants from the effluent, produced biomass and biofuels in a range of different forms — and with different bioactive compounds — and encouraged waste barley and wheat to germinate at increased rates. This is especially important for breweries, as barley seeds are one of the main feedstocks for the industry — and thus are key to increasing its sustainability and circularity.

How can we grow more crops without taking too much water away from freshwater ecosystems for irrigation? A new study indicates that it is possible to double crop production by 2050 without exceeding set limits for water extraction if more crops are grown in regions with higher rainfall and with corresponding shifts in international trade and agricultural management. However, without appropriate safeguards, and if we follow the current business-as-usual scenario, this could come at the ecological cost of converting natural land and forest into cropland. This research provides a ‘first-step’ in analysing potential trade-offs in the global food-trade-water nexus.

Groundwater is the earth’s largest freshwater resource and is vital for irrigation and global food production. In dry periods farmers pump groundwater to water crops, this is already happening at an unsustainable level in many places — exceeding the rate at which rain and rivers can refill the groundwater stores. This study seeks to identify where groundwater pumping is affecting stream flows and estimates where and when environmentally critical stream flows — required to maintain healthy ecosystems — can no longer be sustained.

New research has compared the environmental impact of four alternative methods of water supply in Copenhagen. Results indicated that rain and stormwater harvesting is the most environmentally sound approach, whilst desalination currently has a large environmental impact, mainly due to electricity use. However, if freshwater extraction is included as an impact, the environmental credibility of desalination is improved.

The Deepwater Horizon accident raised concerns about the safety of deepwater drilling. From an analysis of risk assessments in the Norwegian Oil & Gas (O&G) Industry, a new study suggests that current safety approaches and indicators are limited and more extensive monitoring of drilling operations is needed to avoid events similar to Deepwater Horizon.

Sediments collected from coastal Louisiana over a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been found to cause health defects in the Gulf killifish. Nearly all adult fish studied had signs of significantly altered gene function and embryos exposed to polluted sediment were less likely to hatch

New research has investigated the combined impact of climate change and land cover change on external household water consumption and local night-time temperatures. It estimates that a 3ºC rise in temperature combined with a high degree of urban sprawl would increase water consumption by 4,061 litres per household for the month of August due to increases in evaporation from ground surface. The study recommends full integration of land use planning and water management.

Under pressure from rising food prices, many nations have begun to acquire large tracts of agricultural land in foreign countries, a practice known as ‘land grabbing’. New research has now quantified current levels of land grabbing and demonstrated that it is accompanied by concerning levels of ‘water grabbing’ which could affect water supply in the ‘grabbed’ countries.

Researchers have reviewed early warning systems (EWS) for water hazards, such as flash flooding, landslides, river flooding and coastal flooding. They conclude that EWS continue to provide valuable information to allow emergency services and local communities prepare for water-related natural hazards. However, there are a number of challenges to address to gain the most benefit from EWS.

Underground water aquifers are a significant source of drinking water. In a recent study, French researchers found that pesticides applied to crops can take many years to sink down through the ground and reach groundwater. This means that they may still be entering aquifers, even after agricultural application has stopped.