(Contra Costa Times) // Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, two power players in the tobacco industry, have donated more than tens of millions of dollars to defeat Proposition 29, a new tobacco tax on the June ballot. Prop 29 would increase taxes on a pack of cigarettes by $1 to $1.87, which would generate approximately $735 million annually that would mostly fund cancer research...
(SF Gate) // The recent State of the Air report assembled by the American Lung Association showed that the San Francisco metropolitan area is no longer on the list of the top 25 most polluted regions in the nation. Analysts cited California's large reductions in car exhaust and soot, as well as the implemented Spare the Air days as some of the factors contributing to making San Francisco among the cleanest counties in the country in terms of smog. However, this report shows that California is one of the most polluted states in the country...
(SF Gate) // Pieces of a meteorite that entered the earth's atmosphere on Sunday have been found in Lotus, in El Dorado County. A team from the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View has been searching this week and will continue looking for more fragments...
(Bay Citizen) // The Seneca Center Community Treatment Facility at San Francisco General Hospital, the city's only locked mental health facility for youth, is closing permanently on May 16 due to the $900,000 cut to the hospital's budget. Fourteen teenagers will need to be moved to other facilities...
(SF Bay Guardian) // SF Bay Guardian co-publishers have announced that they will step down from daily operations at the paper after 45 years of leadership. This change is due to continuing negotiations with a subsidiary of The San Francisco Newspaper Company LLC to acquire all assets related to the paper. SFN also owns the San Francisco Examiner.
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