"VENTURA, Calif. — An underground pipeline spewed thousands of gallons of crude oil Thursday near the Southern California coast but the foul-smelling goo was contained in a lengthy stretch of ravine and never reached nearby beaches."

"Firefighters across Arizona and New Mexico battled 31 wildfires on Wednesday, their efforts complicated by a relentless heat wave and bone-dry conditions. And in the Angeles National Forest, on the northern edge of Los Angeles, two fires kept more than 300 families from their homes as the fires threatened to merge into one."

"California’s last nuclear power plant will be phased out by 2025, under a joint proposal announced Tuesday morning by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and labor and environmental groups."

"After years of intense — and often controversial — restoration efforts, biologists are finally reporting some good news for the beleaguered California condor: More chicks are surviving in the wild, and the birds are becoming increasingly independent and expanding their range."

"A wildfire spurred by strong winds has mushroomed in size as it burned brush north of Santa Barbara, forcing the evacuations of hundreds of campers, some homes, and a refinery as it crept toward the ocean."

"Settling a major lawsuit from environmentalists, San Jose city officials on Tuesday agreed to spend more than $100 million over the next decade and beyond to reduce tons of trash that flows into creeks and San Francisco Bay, repair miles of leaking underground sewage pipes and clean stormwater contaminated with harmful bacteria."

"IMPERIAL COUNTY, Calif. -- The Salton Sea has gone from a midcentury vacation spot for movie stars to a post-apocalyptic desert with mounds of dead fish here, gurgling 'mud pots' there, blasts from a military bombing range on the horizon and sulfuric stench everywhere."

"Oil refineries have sued to overturn a series of new air pollution rules aimed at reducing emissions 20 percent at each of the Bay Area's five gasoline plants, the largest source of industrial pollution in the region."

"Firefighters are tackling larger and more aggressive wildfires as drought conditions continue for a fifth year in California, drying out swaths of forest land."

"Delta smelt have hovered close to extinction for years, but biologists say they’ve never seen anything like this spring. 'There’s nothing between them and extinction, as far as I can tell,' said Peter Moyle, a UC Davis biologist who has studied smelt and other Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fish species for nearly four decades."