Women are entering California's wine industry in ever-increasing numbers. But how many of them are actually making the wines?
Lucia Gilbert Women winemakers also tend to collect a disproportionate share of awards in various competitions, observes Lucia Gilbert of Santa Clara University. She suspects the basis for that lies in the intense recruiting competition these women face as they leave school to join the winery workforce.
Gilbert's figures on the number of women winemakers statewide have been further broken down by region. She notes that their highest concentration, statistically, is in the counties to the north of Napa and Sonoma.
Newly adopted legislation seeks to make the state Fish and Game commission more professional and more accountable. The reappointment of the current Commission chairman could be the first test of how—or if—those changes will be applied.
When Kellogg first came up for reappointment, in 2006, he faced some concerted opposition from environmental organizations around the state. Eric Mills of Action for Animals was part of that.
There'll be a new number on your electricity bill this year. It's a "climate rebate" -- money paid back to you due to California's Assembly Bill 32 - the Global Warming Solutions Act. The bill, also known as the state's Cap and Trade law, is part of California's bid to curb greenhouse gas emissions, by changing the way we produce and consume energy. KRCB's Danielle Venton has more. (Oil refineries, such as this one in Long Beach California, will be among those businesses regulated by AB 32. Image courtesy of 
Barry Vesser, deputy director of the 
It's addictive, unregulated, and linked to multiple adverse health effects. It has even been branded a toxic substance. Yet sugar remains an almost inescapable ingredient in the modern American diet.
US policy for decades has emphasized making cheap food available, promoting dairy, corn and other grains. This has successfully supported those sectors of American agriculture, says Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California San Francisco. But while farmers, and especially food producers have profited, consumers are paying a double price.
French farmers stuff geese with carbohydrates to produce fatty livers for pate. Humans are doing much the same to themselves by consuming too much sugar. The consequences, only now becoming apparent, will likely be devastating, in an emerging epidemic of what Lustig terms, fatty liver disease.
