western news

Fluctuating ocean conditions may be depleting the food supply of young sea lions that are turning up skinny and ill on California beaches, mirroring the fate of Brandt's cormorants earlier this spring.

Democratic leaders said they are only days away from a deal to solve California's massive budget deficit, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger threatened to veto their plan and other Republican leaders said a final compromise could take weeks.

The state budget crisis will pour salt in California's economic wounds and help push the statewide unemployment rate to 12.1 percent by the end of 2010, according to a bleak forecast issued Tuesday.

In retirement, Susan Frye looked forward to cruising the high seas, spending more time in her garden and resting her weary body from two demanding decades of work as a registered nurse.

Riverside officials have righted what many believe is a decades-old wrong.
For 48 years, "Wong Way" was the name on a short connector street near downtown Riverside.
Now, it is "Wong Street."

With polls showing the legalization of marijuana gaining public support, and a state budget crisis fueling an ever-more-desperate search for revenue, backers of the first major statewide initiative to legalize marijuana for personal use -- and allow counties to tax and regulate the drug -- say they're preparing to get the matter on the November 2010 ballot.

Throwing orange peels, coffee grounds and grease-stained pizza boxes in the trash will be against the law in San Francisco, and could even lead to a fine.

Game wardens across California are finding that hard economic times can be deadly for animals. They're being killed, captured and sold on the black market or butchered for valuable body parts in unprecedented numbers, state officials said.

A federal program intended to reduce wildfire risks in the West has been largely ineffective because fuel-reduction efforts seldom hit areas near homes and businesses, according to a new study.

When the southern San Andreas Fault in California wakes from its long slumber one of these days, Terry Cornett may be one of the first to know about it.
He lives on a patch of land in San Bernardino County's Cajon Pass, where he regularly sees and shoots rattlesnakes and where the famous fault passes beneath the 120-year-old stone house he lives in.