Articles by Special to The Grapevine

Transit district adds NASA safety program

The North County Transit District (NCTD) is teaming up with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to work with Bombardier Transportation USA Inc. and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) to bring added safety through the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS) program. The C3RS is designed to improve railroad safety by…


Joe Camel wants to know: Why Is Juul Labs allowed to advertise e-cigarettes on TV?

Why does e-cigarette maker Juul advertise its product on TV when cigarette ads are banned? The short answer: Because it can. For nearly 50 years, cigarette advertising has been banned from TV and radio. But electronic cigarettes — those battery-operated devices that often resemble oversized USB flash drives with flavored nicotine “pods” that clip in on the end — aren’t addressed in the law. Since…


CREW: Trump’s 2,000 conflicts of interest

(Editor’s Note: While we primarily focus on local news, we also are Americans. In this light, we are sharing this report by the non-profit, non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued Saturday, Aug. 19, 2019. For the full report, visit here. It tells you all you need to know about the criminal who stole the presidency with aid of our Russian enemies….


Visa concerns deter foreign-born PHDs

Foreign-born Ph.D. graduates with science and engineering degrees from American universities apply to and receive offers for technology startup jobs at the same rate as U.S. citizens, but are only half as likely to actually work at fledgling companies, finds a study co-authored by researchers at Cornell University and the University of California San Diego. Instead, they choose to work at large technology companies with…


Regional Hate Crimes Coalition holds forum

In the wake of the Poway Synagogue shooting, the San Diego Regional Hate Crimes Coalition held a Hate Crimes Community Forum at California State University San Marcos McMahan House Wednesday night. It featured discussions of victim services, community impact and house of worship protection. The forum came nearly four months after a deadly shooting at a synagogue in Poway. On April 27 – the last…


CSUSM News: Track apps, Temecula time

CSUSM grad takes his apps to the track Erik Groset is no horse racing junkie, but like many people in San Diego, he enjoys a nice summer day at the Del Mar racetrack – the gorgeous seaside setting, fun times with friends and family, laying down a little money to make it more interesting. What Groset didn’t enjoy, on the many days he spent at Del Mar during the decade after…


Meet Safari Park’s Southern White Rhino calf

Edward, a 13-day-old southern white rhino calf at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, got his first chance to experience a true mud wallow this morning today, under the watchful eye of his mom, Victoria. Rhino keepers decided to create a wallow for the youngster to provide him the opportunity to experience an instinctive behavior for rhinos. Keepers scooped up mud from the area around…


UCSD study links climate change to wildfires

A new study by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and colleagues combs through the many factors that can promote wildfire, and concludes that in many, though not all, cases, warming climate is the decisive driver. The study, led by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, finds in particular that the huge summer forest fires that have raked Northern…


UCSD Report: El Nino costs state big bucks

Considering it’s been long known that El Niño conditions often bring about flooding precipitation to California, a ripe field for study would be a thorough study of the damage wreaked. And who knows catastrophic damages better than insurers? Their specialized knowledge prompted a pair of San Diego researchers to compare 40 years of insurance data against climate and water data to quantify the effect of…


Del Rey Avocado Co. opens new Vista plant

Fallbrook-based Del Rey Avocado Co., expanded its operations this year by opening up a new facility in nearby Vista that added 43,000 square feet of cold storage and ripening room space to its existing footprint in San Diego County. Since 1969, Del Rey Avocado Co. has operated from the same facilities in Fallbrook, California (northern San Diego County). For the last several years, the company knew…