They'rrre ba-a-ack! Remember the midnight helicopter squads descending on peaceful L.A. neighborhoods, breaking the quiet and scaring us with their dowsings of malathion? (No? Too young? Still living in New York?) Well, if news from the hinterlands is any indication, our old friend the fruit fly may have returned from the 1980s. And this time it's personal.

The Associated Press reports that “the California Department of Agriculture says it's begun an eradication effort after discovering four Oriental fruit flies in Los Angeles County.” The flies were discovered in baited traps set up in La Verne. While infestations of yore most memorably involved the Mediterranean fruit fly (Medfly for short), the new menace's moniker suggests an un-PC reference to Asia. Hey, at least they didn't call it the swine fly.

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