California

Full containment of wildfires near

Exhausted firefighters were sent home Monday as remaining crews doused hotspots and watched for new ones — the vast wildfires that ravaged parts of Southern California all but surrounded.

More than 27,000 people remained displaced from their homes, but that was well down from the 80,000 at the peak of the fires.

All fires were expected to be surrounded by today, if not by Monday evening, said Andrea Tuttle, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Cool, moist air smothered remnant flames after a front on Halloween moved in off the Pacific and brought rain to some areas and snow in the mountains. “The weather continues to be healthy for us,” Tuttle said.

Efforts were rapidly turning to preventing mudslides and flooding. “With the weather now, the race is on to get that work,” said CDF Deputy Chief Bill Schultz.

Washington, D.C.

Tiny gold shells may help fight cancer

Highway 18 to Lake Arrowhead, Calif., is blocked by a mudslide. As firefighters closed in on wildfires Monday, concerns shifted to the threat of mudslides on hills burned bare.

Tiny gold shells that absorb certain types of radiation may become a new weapon in the ongoing battle against cancer.

Called nanoshells, the golden balls have a bit of mica in their center and can be designed to absorb radiation at various frequencies.

A group of Texas researchers injected the nanoshells — so small it would take 5,000 of them to reach the size of a poppy seed — into tumors in mice. They then exposed the tumors to near infrared radiation, heating them enough to kill the cancer but without injuring nearby normal tissue.

Their results are reported in this week’s online issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nanoshells should work in most soft tissue tumors but would be most effective on cancers that can’t be removed surgically because they’re in an awkward location, such as in the brain, the researchers said.

New York

State becomes third to ban ephedra

New York became the third state Monday to ban ephedra, an over-the-counter herbal supplement linked to scores of deaths.

The law, signed by Gov. George Pataki, includes a fine of up to $500 for each sale of the supplement. Ephedra’s prescription sales are not affected. The law takes effect immediately.

Manufacturers of ephedra are facing lawsuits and a possible ban by the Food and Drug Administration. Illinois already banned the substance, and California Gov. Gray Davis signed a law last month that will ban ephedra sales beginning in January.

In June, the federal government began building a case that could lead to banning ephedra, which is used to lose weight and boost athletic performance and has been linked to scores of deaths, according to the FDA.

New York City

Fines proposed in rat-control battle

New York has declared war on vermin by threatening to slap big fines on the sloppy habits of its Homo sapiens inhabitants.

Despite increased spending to combat the four-legged pests, the city has logged 1,611 rat complaints this year, a 29 percent increase from last year.

In an all-out assault, City Council Member Philip Reed has proposed legislation, known as “the Rat Bill,” that would raise the minimum fine to $300 for property owners and homeowners who disregard sanitation rules for trash disposal.

Repeat offenders would see their fines double to a $2,000 maximum.

“We have a serious rat epidemic. We are not making this up,” Reed said, citing a report by the city’s Department of Health. “The rat epidemic is the single biggest health threat we have that can be exterminated.”

Washington, D.C.

Defense Department settles with Linda Tripp

Linda Tripp will get more than $595,000 from the Defense Department to settle a lawsuit over the release of confidential personal information about her to a magazine, her lawyers said Monday.

Based on information supplied by Pentagon officials in 1998, The New Yorker reported Tripp did not admit an arrest on her security application for her job at the Defense Department. She had been arrested for grand larceny when she was a teenager.

Tripp, whose secret tapes of conversations with Monica Lewinsky helped lead to President Clinton’s impeachment trial, sued the Defense Department two years ago, alleging violations of the Privacy Act. She had worked for the department as a public affairs specialist.

The 1974 Privacy Act prohibits the government from releasing unauthorized personal information about individual Americans to nonfederal organizations.

Tripp claimed administration officials retaliated for her role in triggering the impeachment proceedings.

Indianapolis

Company to phase out flame retardants

The manufacturer of furniture flame retardants, which are accumulating in human bodies and wildlife, announced Monday that it would voluntarily stop producing the chemicals by the end of 2004.

Great Lakes Chemical Corp., based in Indianapolis, has been under pressure for several months by scientists and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which had asked the company to phase out penta and octa PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

Environmental scientists say the flame retardants, used mostly in polyurethane foam furniture, are doubling in concentration in the breast milk of U.S. women every few years and have been shown in animal tests to disrupt development of newborns’ brains.

Mark Bulriss, chief executive officer of Great Lakes Chemical, on Monday denied any risk from its flame retardants, calling them “both safe and effective.” But he said that the company had developed “a new generation of flame retardants” and would work with foam manufacturers to “transition away from penta PBDE in an orderly manner.” Great Lakes is the only manufacturer of penta.