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Top Stories: Jan. 5, 2010

Homicide Charge Reduced; Trees Back in PA; Recycling Down

by Danny Wool on Jan 05, 2010
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Autism Cluster Identified in Santa Clara County
For years, researchers have been looking for the causes of what some are calling the autism epidemic. The incidence of autism seems to have increased a staggering 657 percent in just a ten-year period, from 1993 to 2003. So far, the focus has been all the usual suspects, with pollutants, environmental factors, and vaccines inevitably taking the lead.

Now new studies seem to indicate that there are certain autism "clusters" across the nation, and that these are areas where parents are predominantly white, highly educated, and older. Proximity to an autism treatment center has also been found to be a factor. Three such areas have been identified in the Bay Area: the western edge of San Francisco, Redwood City, and Santa Clara/Sunnyvale. In each of these areas, the incidence of autism is about twice as high as in neighboring areas.

But researchers are also careful to point out that it may not be some as yet unidentified environmental factor that results in higher autism rates. They suspect that residents in these areas benefit from better health care and are more aware of the signs that would lead to an autism diagnosis. In other words, the incidence of autism could be much higher than previously believed—perhaps even higher than the 1 in 166 children that is frequently given on television commercials—but that in many cases, parents are simply unaware of it.
Read More at CNN.
Read More at ABC 7.


Bautista Charged with Manslaughter, Not Murder
A Santa Clara County court has reduced the charges against Jennifer Bautista from murder to vehicular manslaughter, with a maximum sentence of seven years. Bautista allegedly killed her on-again, off-again girlfriend Leticia "Letty" Martinez on the morning of December 28 and leaving her body outside a Michigan Avenue church in Alviso.

The new charges came after a witness stepped forward, claiming to have seen Martinez jumping on the hood of Bautista's car after an altercation. Bautista then drove down the street with Martinez on her hood, and then fled the scene of the crime after depositing her body by the church. This resulted in an additional charge of hit and run to the arraignment. It is also being reported that Bautista was driving without a license.

The Martinez family was shocked by the new charges. "We'll never see Letty again, and she's gonna walk out like it was nothing," said Martinez's aunt, Mary Ramirez in protest. A plea entry and bail hearing are scheduled for January 11.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.


Trees Replaced in Palo Alto
The people of Palo Alto are still up in arms over the removal of 63 holly oak trees along California Avenue. The project was part of a larger beautification project, which planned to replace the holly oaks with red maple, as well as repaving the street and adding additional parking spaces. But for 3 months, the street remained bare, and the street is "not as beautiful as it used to be," according to at least one Palo Alto resident.

The city's Public Works Department is finally responding, at least in part. By late next month, 16 new trees, including large signature trees, will be planted along the street, and with them will come an apology. "There wasn’t enough public outreach before the removal of the original trees," says Assistant Public Works Director Mike Sartor. He promises that in the future, the public will be given sufficient advance notice before his departments starts chopping down the trees.
Read More at KCBS.


Recycling Takes a Hit Across the County
For some people it had the sanctity of a "social contract." You buy a can of soda pop or a bottle of juice, and you can expect to get the deposit back. It was even a source of ready cash—all nickels and dimes—for the needy people across the county, who would collect discarded beverage containers from the street.

Then the state stepped in, looking for ways to recoup its budget deficit. It borrowed over $400 million from the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund, leaving it drier than the bottles that were collected, and on November 1, the fund was forced to stop paying a recycling material handling fee to neighborhood recyclers.

Since this accounted for over half their budgets, many of the local recyclers were forced to cut back their hours, or even shut down shop. Since early this summer, six such centers have closed in Santa Clara County alone. Other sites, such as NexCycle in Sunnyvale have reduced their days of operation from five days a week to just two or three. If the trend continues, the county could see more and more plastic bottles and can littering the sides of the roads again, or worse, making their way to the Bay and eventually toward the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Read More at the Mercury News.



by Danny Wool on Jan 05, 2010
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