By JANET ZIMMERMAN, The Press-Enterprise

Violent crime would decline if cities limited the number of liquor stores and banned the sale of single-serving containers of beer and other alcoholic beverages, researchers at the University of California, Riverside said.

Botanists are combing Southern California hillsides and deserts in a nationwide scramble to gather and stockpile enough native plant seeds to restore public lands destroyed by wildfires and replace endangered species' habitat lost to commercial solar development.

A 340-ton boulder that has come to be known simply as "the rock" is being readied for an epic, nine-day move to a Los Angeles museum, requiring a specially built trailer and clearances from utilities and cities along the route.

Over several months during fall and winter, dozens of volunteers fanned out across the Mojave Desert in search of the smallest Joshua tree they could find.

They were part of a project to determine whether Joshua Tree National Park will lose its namesake plants to global warming within the next century -- a problem that park officials have been grappling with.

Tens of thousands of uranium-laden spent fuel rods, like those at risk of meltdown in Japan, have piled up at Southern California's San Onofre nuclear power plant and other U.S. facilities as government leaders haggle over a solution for long-term storage of the radioactive waste, experts say.

Wispy white jet contrails are a familiar sight, a sign of today's considerable air traffic and, to some people, a visible reminder of environmental threat.

New research showing that the average teenager sends and receives 3,339 cell phone texts a month -- more than 100 per day -- doesn't surprise many American parents. These include some people whose text-centric cell phone bills total 300 pages and are delivered in a box.

The strengthening of La Nina, the weather system known for bringing drier and warmer winters to Southern California, has water and fire officials bracing for shortages and wildfires.

A century-old oversight by the federal government was remedied last week when the Chemehuevi Indians were finally given official title to their 32,500-acre reservation along the Colorado River in eastern San Bernardino County in California.

With the rising price of copper, federal officials are noting an increase in cases of "wire burning" in California in which thieves set stolen electrical wire ablaze to get rid of the insulated covering and increase their recycling profits.