"On a cool February morning, around 60 people gathered in the Sierra Nevada foothills to take part in a ceremony that, for many decades, was banned."

"The discovery was heartbreaking for biologists, who consider the mountain lions of Southern California to be among the most threatened mammals in North America: a young male with the distortions of inbreeding — a tail kinked like the letter “L” and only one descended testicle."

"A record-smashing heat wave sent temperatures in areas across the Bay Area well over 100 degrees Sunday, choking the region with the smoke of weeks’ worth of wildfires and putting more than 2 million customers under the threat of rolling blackouts as the state’s energy grid neared capacity."

"It’s a good summer for the big cats who already have to deal with development, traffic, poisons and wildfires." "California mountain lions are in the middle of a baby boom."

"State officials threw a lifeline to four fossil fueled power plants along the Southern California coast, deciding the facilities are still needed to provide reliable electricity even as they contribute to the climate crisis."

"More than 140 cities and counties in California intend to update their long-term plans over the next two years to include environmental justice, meaning air pollution, water quality, and other factors affecting disadvantaged communities would get a closer look."

"A Los Angeles utility said Wednesday that one of its natural gas plants is leaking globe-warming methane, prompting calls from environmentalists to abandon plans to extend the life of other California facilities like it."

"When a massive wildfire swept through California’s oldest state park last week it was feared many trees in a grove of old-growth redwoods, some of them 2,000 years old and among the tallest living things on Earth, may finally have succumbed. But an Associated Press reporter and photographer hiked the renowned Redwood Trail at Big Basin Redwoods State Park on Monday and confirmed most of the ancient redwoods had withstood the blaze."

"At least four people have died as a result of wildfires fueled by a heat wave and a blitz of lightning strikes in [California's] northern areas. The clusters of fires merged into orange infernos that are creeping up on residential areas, turning neighborhoods into ash and smoldering ruins."