Climate

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Friday, Feb. 10. If you’ve just started following the contentious politics surrounding the Colorado River, it might seem like conflict …

Conservationist Mateo Sanchez uses a net to collect specimens in a Colorado River Delta estuary. A release of water from the canal into the riverbed began in May 2022 and …

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration on Wednesday proposed the first legislation focused on protecting a climate-threatened species while also permitting development across Southern California’s sunniest desert parcels. The Western Joshua Tree …

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. —  The bloodstains that mark the violent deaths of Aixiang Zhang and her husband, Zhishen Liu, are still visible on the ground of the mushroom farm where …

A small California city that was overrun by visitors four years ago when heavy winter rains produced a “superbloom” of wild poppies has a message for the public after this …

Modesto-based E. & J. Gallo Winery, which produces the popular Barefoot and Apothic wines, among many others, will pay a fine of nearly $380,000 for discharging more than 90,000 gallons …

The ocean is one of the planet’s great carbon sinks, absorbing nearly a third of the atmosphere’s greenhouse gas emissions. Swimming in its depths are the great whales, a population …

BAKER, Calif. —  To most travelers on Interstate 15 between Barstow and Las Vegas, the Mojave Desert’s jagged Soda Mountains rise above a seemingly lifeless wasteland of hellish sand dunes, lava …

Cold and windy conditions Sunday night and early Monday led to downed trees in Los Angeles County and snow delays on the 5 Freeway through the Grapevine. For the rest …

Call it water whiplash: As California recovers from one of its wettest months in recent history, the Colorado River is still dwindling toward dangerous lows. As a result, Southern Californians …