**Controlled Burns: The Billion-Dollar Firefighting Secret Taxpayers Overlook** *By Elena Vasquez, Global1.news* SACRAMENTO — As wildfire seasons grow more ferocious, a deceptively simple tool is quietly saving taxpayers billions: intentional fire. Prescribed burns—carefully set, low-intensity fires that clear dead brush—cost a fraction of the aerial armadas deployed to fight megafires. Yet federal land managers still treat them as an afterthought. The math is stark....

Drawing a Line in the Sand: Rural NC Battles PFAS Pollution Downstream from industrial sprawl, rural communities in North Carolina are waging an escalating war against “forever chemicals” that have poisoned their water and soil. For decades, PFAS compounds—linked to cancer, immune disorders, and developmental delays—flowed quietly from manufacturing sites like the Chemours plant into the Cape Fear River, turning wells and farmland across Bladen, Cumberland, and...