western news

The U.S. Army has suspended plans to relocate more than 1,000 desert tortoises from areas around Fort Irwin this fall and next spring because at least 15 percent of the tortoises moved earlier this year have died.

About 90 of the 556 tortoises moved in the spring are dead, mostly as a result of coyote attacks.

Even as a teenager, Gary Cino had an eye for a bargain, turning dollars into profits at Southern California swap meets.

As an adult, Cino became one of the nation's pioneering deep-discount retailers.

The San Joaquin Valley may have more at stake than the rest of California when voters decide Nov. 4 whether to build a statewide high-speed rail system.

Major Valley cities from Modesto to Bakersfield were bypassed a generation ago when the state built its main north-south highway, Interstate 5. But the rail system would have stations in most of those cities.

The fatal crash Sunday of a casino-bound bus in Colusa County, Calif. has raised concerns about the state's ability to regulate a growing trade of mom-and-pop companies ferrying thousands of gamblers daily to local casinos.

Rachel Bird and Gideon Codding have thought of themselves as bride and groom since their August church ceremony.

Now the state of California agrees.

Hoping to keep streams and groundwater cleaner, the people who run sewage plants around California want to change the way we get rid of old medicines.

The toilet is out. The hazardous-waste site is in. Except where it's not.

Then there's the trash.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Thirty years to the month after King Tut first took San Francisco by storm, antiquity's most famous monarch will attempt to reprise the feat.

LAS VEGAS -- As drought keeps lowering Lake Mead, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas scientist wondered how Las Vegas could find other sources of drinking water. His ideas led him out to sea.

Until now there were just a few legal options to get to the waves at Point Mugu, Calif.: Befriend someone in the military who didn't mind escorting you to the beach, boat in, or enlist in the Navy.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A week after he signed the tardiest budget in state history, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set another record: He vetoed the largest percentage of bills this year of any California governor in four decades.