"California legislators aiming to pass more stringent regulations on the sale and dissemination of ivory and rhinoceros horns received a boost last Friday when a San Francisco man pleaded guilty to selling an undercover federal agent two black rhinoceros horns for $55,000. The art dealer Lumsden Quan and Mill Valley man Edward Levine will face sentencing in December."
"Here’s a sobering update on efforts in Mexico, Hong Kong and mainland China to stave off the extinction of the vaquita, a critically endangered porpoise inhabiting Mexican waters at the north end of the Gulf of California that is the world’s smallest, and rarest, cetacean."
"With water scarce in Northern California’s Klamath Basin, a federal agency is again releasing water into the Klamath River to prevent a repeat of the 2002 fish kill that left tens of thousands of adult salmon dead."
California's Department of Pesticide Regulation gave Ventura County residents a misleading story about why it had allowed cancer-causing pesticide to be used by strawberry farmers near a local high school.
"A court in the Netherlands has ordered Russia to pay compensation for seizing the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise during a protest against an offshore oil platform two years ago, a ruling which Moscow dismissed as lacking legal authority."
"No leaks, no spills, no impact on climate change. The Keystone XL pipeline would have 'no impact' on the environment if it were approved and built, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday. For that reason, the billionaire said he would approve the controversial project 'immediately' if elected president."
"Several large solar power plants under construction in the United States have in the past few months promised to do something that none has done before: offer prices equal to or lesser than that of a natural gas-fired power plant, even as gas is abundant and cheap."
"U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she has asked President Obama to bypass Congress and create three new national monuments in California, giving federal protection to more than 1 million acres of mountain ranges, sandy expanses and forests lying roughly between Palm Springs and the Nevada border."
"Oil, the lifeblood of many countries that produce and sell it, appears to be rapidly turning into an ever-cheaper economic curse. A year ago, the international price per barrel of oil was about $103. By Monday, the price was about $42, roughly 6 percent lower than on Friday."
"President Obama came to Las Vegas Monday to throw his weight behind the booming solar energy industry in its recent political struggles, and to announce a bevy of initiatives to promote clean-energy growth in America’s homes and on its rooftops. It was the first stop in a climate and energy-focused tour that will also take the president to New Orleans and Arctic Alaska this month."
