Category: News

California makes it easier to thin vegetation fueling wildfires. Will it make a difference?

SACRAMENTO —  California regulators said Tuesday that they have streamlined the state’s permit process to speed up the approval of tree-thinning projects designed to slow massive wildfires that have devastated communities in recent years. The state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection approved a vegetation management program based on more than a decade of analysis of…

By JohnValbyNation January 1, 2020 0

Crime in L.A. dropped again in 2019. Police credit community outreach and gang intervention

Violent crime in Los Angeles declined for the second consecutive year in 2019, which was the 10th consecutive year the city saw fewer than 300 homicides. Gang-related homicides and crime related to homelessness remain persistent trouble spots, officials said. But the overall crime picture continued several positive trends from the previous year, and officials said…

By JohnValbyNation January 1, 2020 0

Sonny Mehta, editor in chief of Knopf, dies at 77

Ajai Singh Mehta, known as Sonny, had an insatiable appetite for books. He poured that passion into the publishing world, where he served as president and editor in chief of Knopf for 32 years and chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for a decade. Under his leadership, Knopf published some of the world’s greatest…

By JohnValbyNation January 1, 2020 0

Estonia's long-gestating 'Truth and Justice' reveals universal, personal struggles

Author A.H. Tammsaare is hardly a household name in North America, but in Estonia he’s one of the nation’s most prominent literary figures. If American high school students are reading John Steinbeck’s ”The Grapes of Wrath” or “Romeo and Juliet,” then Estonian teenagers are dreading the text of Tammsaare’s challenging “Truth and Justice, Part One.”…

By JohnValbyNation January 1, 2020 0