western news

BROWNSVILLE, Calif. - Little-known Honcut Creek is the one place where imperiled California salmon might be able to make a comeback.

It's also where new logging rules soon will restrict how many trees can be cut on private land along this Feather River tributary, even though there aren't any salmon in its forested reaches.

In a move to track down uncounted Spanish-speakers, the U.S. Census Bureau is traveling to schools and telling children to explain the once-a-decade headcount to their parents. And the Census Bureau has enlisted a Spanish-language soap to include the census theme as a story line.

If fearful immigrants refuse to be counted, it could cost towns and cities much-needed government money.

Women are making "no progress" cracking the executive glass ceiling in California, according to a just-released study by the University of California, Davis.

The fifth annual "California Women Business Leaders" study concludes that progress for women at the 400 largest public companies headquartered in the state is little improved since the first survey in 2005.

Desert tortoise populations in the Mojave Desert continue to decline, despite years of study and protection since the reptile was designated a threatened species in 1990, experts say.

Researchers say observations support a gloomy view of the animals' status.

BREMERTON, Wash. - An old gill net covers the seafloor like a blanket. Small forage fish swim through its holes untouched -- but a baby seal is not so lucky. When Jim Norberg and Jake Johnston dive down from the Twila Dawn to recover the lost net, they find the seal, dead.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate announced this week that the state has a plan to reduce the prison population that will satisfy a judicial panel of judges.

Early -- very early -- one morning last week, state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod wandered to the back of the ornate Senate chambers and expressed a feeling shared by many of the other people in the room.

"I would rather stick my finger in a light socket," she said, "than spend another hour in here."

A record number of students are applying to attend California State University campuses next fall, and officials are urging those who haven't yet applied to get their paperwork in by the end of the month.

In the five weeks since the application period opened, 266,152 students have applied to attend a Cal State campus -- an increase of 53 percent compared with the same time last year.

A new study says people living near the San Jacinto Fault can breathe a little sigh of relief.

Shimon Wdowinski, a University of Miami associate research professor of geophysics, says the way the earth shifts along the San Jacinto Fault keeps significant pressure from building up in most places, leaving it less likely to have a major rupture.

The ferocious great white sharks of Northern California spend their time devouring sea lions, traveling, mating and, occasionally, touring San Francisco Bay, but they never socialize with sharks from other regions, according to a new study.