Air Pollution

Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center reopened its rooftop helicopter pad this week, six months after the state-of-the-art facility halted landings because helicopter fumes were leaking into the hospital's ventilation system. The landings, which resumed Tuesday, were cleared only after hospital officials installed more-robust filters over the facility's air intake system at about twice the cost of the original filters.

Three years after Margaret Hamblin was busted for running a $50 betting pool on football at the Elks Lodge, the 76-year-old grandmother believes she got some justice Thursday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law reducing the penalty for participating in such office betting contests. The betting pool measure was one of 128 bills the governor signed Thursday as he cleared his desk of legislation that had been delayed as lawmakers grappled with the state's budget problems.

Air pollution in China's industrial east appears to have significantly reduced light rainfall over the last 50 years, raising the possibility that cutting pollution could ease a severe drought in the region, according to a study released Saturday. Light rain -- anything from a drizzle to 0.4 of an inch in a day -- is also crucial for agriculture, as opposed to heavy rain, which triggers floods that can wash away crops. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that the number of days of light rainfall in eastern China decreased by 23% from 1956 to 2005 because of air pollution.

As the Station fire spread Sunday, lives were lost; homes and dense forests were destroyed. There were other consequences as well. Here is a look at three: Air quality The fire reduced air quality to hazardous levels in foothill communities of the San Gabriel Valley and San Fernando Valley, officials said Sunday. The cities of Altadena, La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta were directly affected by the smoke, as were the Los Angeles communities of Tujunga and Sunland.

A program to cut diesel emissions at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach by phasing out older cargo trucks is far ahead of schedule, and already has delivered cleaner air to nearby neighborhoods that have been enveloped by fumes, the mayors of both cities said Thursday. A year after the adjacent ports launched their "clean trucks" program, new, low-emission big rigs now account for about a third of the trucks hauling cargo to and from the complex, the busiest harbors in the nation.

It's easy to see how air pollution would affect respiratory disease: You breathe in smog-filled miasma all day and the ozone, other noxious gases and small particulate matter therein can make you wheeze and cough. Pollutants can trigger asthma attacks and bronchitis in susceptible individuals. But it's harder at first blush to understand links to other conditions. In two studies reported last week, bad air was associated with higher rates of appendicitis and ear infections. The new reports have been met with surprise because neither health problem seems obviously linked with the airway or bloodstream.

California transportation officials say that a new truck expressway is needed to handle an expected post-recession trade boom at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest seaport complex. But the neighborhood that has already borne the brunt of port pollution is setting up a legal roadblock to stop it. "There are at least 21 days to 28 days a year when the air is so bad here that we do not let the children go outside to play," said Elva Carrillo, who helps her husband, Alfred, run a small private school affiliated with his Apostolic Faith Church in Wilmington, just 750 feet from the proposed truck expressway.

The Environmental Protection Agency would require oil- and coal-burning power plants to dramatically reduce hazardous air pollution under an agreement announced Friday that ends a long-standing lawsuit filed by environmentalists. The agreement -- which would probably boost electricity prices but could potentially save thousands of lives -- commits the EPA to set pollution standards by 2011 for the power plants that are responsible for nearly half of all emissions of mercury, which can harm brain development in fetuses and children.

The United States will launch a satellite next month to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and determine what happens to the pollutant, NASA said Thursday. After vehicles and factories release carbon dioxide into the air, the world's oceans and land absorb much of it. But scientists cannot figure out where the remainder goes, a detail crucial to forecasting pollution's effect on climate. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory will orbit for two years.

The Environmental Protection Agency will soon begin testing the air around schools for toxic contaminants. The $2.25-million program will be the first of its kind. Monitors will focus on chemicals known to cause cancer and respiratory and neurological problems. States and local governments will monitor the air at 50 to 100 schools near industrial facilities or in cities with high concentrations of pollution.