Bottled water, which can cost 1000 times as much as tap water, may not be 1000 times as good. EPA standards are no stricter and samples of bottled water have been shown to contain excessive fluoride, arsenic, at least one known carcinogen and assorted debris.

Twenty year use of extremely toxic pesticides to increase pineapple production in the Hawaiian Islands and resultant contamination of local milk and water supplies has prompted some critics to charge that stewardship of the land has been betrayed by the state's elected officials, business people and research scientists.

For many of the San Francisco Bay Area's thousands of Central American refugees, asylum in the U.S. has not brought peace of mind. They have escaped war in their homelands but its terror persists. Many bear deep psychological wounds that have yet to heal.

Until recently, child care was the furthest thing from the minds of San Francisco developers calculating the cost of multimillion-dollar office complexes. But last year the city adopted an ordinance - the first of its kind in the U.S. - that includes child care in plans for commercial office space development.