"Local activists try to halt the shipment of explosive Bakken crude oil through their neighborhoods."

"More than 5 million Californians — most of them in Los Angeles and Kern counties — live near an oil or gas well, and expanding drilling in the state could increase their exposure to health risks, according to a report released Wednesday by a national environmental group."

"The signs appear about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, tacked onto old farm wagons parked along quiet two-lane roads and bustling Interstate 5."

"Chevron Corp. is spending millions of dollars on a Richmond, Calif., city council election in an attempt to 'buy' the council, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said."

"This summer, California’s water authority declared that wasting water — hosing a sidewalk, for example — was a crime. Next door, in Nevada, Las Vegas has paid out $200 million over the last decade for homes and businesses to pull out their lawns."

"A long-running battle over an oyster farm at Pt. Reyes National Seashore may be winding down. The National Park Service says a settlement agreement would, if approved by a federal court, would require the Drake Bay Oyster Company to cease operations by the end of the year."

"Mountain lions in Southern California are under growing pressure from a shrinking gene pool, fragmented by highways and urban sprawl that has left the cats' territories increasingly isolated from each other, a study published on Wednesday showed."

"President Barack Obama is planning to designate 346,000 acres within the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of Los Angeles as a national monument, a step supporters say will ensure better stewardship in one of the nation's most heavily visited forests but worries some local officials because of potential restrictions."

"PORTLAND — New threats and a legal settlement prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal today to list West Coast populations of fisher as threatened under the Endangered Species Act."