California

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66 Surfers Crowd Onto Board to Break World Record

They somehow managed to ride a wave together for 12 seconds

(Newser) - About 5,000 spectators crowded the sand and a pier in Huntington Beach, Calif., to watch 66 surfers set a world record for most people riding a board at once. Surf champions and local heroes were among those who hung loose on a custom-built, 42-foot board off Huntington Beach yesterday....

3 Farm Workers Dead, 5 Hurt in Cali Van Accident

Van rolled over when driver overcorrected: cops

(Newser) - Three people were killed and five others hospitalized Saturday after a van carrying farm workers overturned on a central California highway, authorities said. The victims were returning from a day of working in the fields when the accident occurred on State Route 152 in Merced County, says California Highway Patrol...

Berkeley Complex Builder Paid $6.5M in Balcony Suits

And Segue Construction has one lawsuit that's still being litigated

(Newser) - A spokesman for the Bay Area contractor that built the Berkeley apartments where a balcony collapsed Tuesday , killing six, says the company has "a very good reputation" and has "never had an incident like this before," but a series of recent lawsuits suggests otherwise, the San Francisco ...

Distracted on Facebook, Lawmaker Screws Up

California assemblyman Scott Wilk admits he can't multitask

(Newser) - A Republican lawmaker accidentally cast his party's first vote for the California budget in years because he was distracted by Facebook. Assemblyman Scott Wilk was the sole Republican to vote for California's record $117.5 billion spending plan today. The Santa Clarita lawmaker later clarified he accidentally supported...

Tiny Tuna Crabs Invade Calif. Beaches

'Mini-lobsters' turn shorelines red

(Newser) - Tiny tuna crabs have been washing up by the thousands on beaches in California's Orange County. The Orange County Register reports that the crustaceans, which look like tiny lobsters or crawfish, created a bright-red rim along the shoreline of Dana Point, San Clemente, Newport Beach, and Huntington Beach yesterday....

Another Bad Milestone for California's Drought

Farmers with century-old rights told to stop pumping water

(Newser) - California's drought is now hitting farmers with water rights going back more than a century. The state today told those with rights dating to 1903 to stop pumping water from rivers and streams, reports the San Francisco Chronicle . Those with rights acquired later already had been ordered to cut...

Archaeologists Save Sphinx Buried in ... California

Relics from Cecil B. DeMille's 'Ten Commandments' set restored

(Newser) - After months of painstaking work in the sands of California, archaeologists have managed to restore a sphinx and other relics from a lost age—1920s Hollywood. The sphinx, one of 21 used in Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 movie The Ten Commandments, has been restored after it was excavated from...

Wireless Group: Radiation Warnings Will 'Stoke Fear'

Industry association says Berkeley's cellphone warning violates First Amendment

(Newser) - Last month, the city council in Berkeley, Calif., unanimously approved a measure that would require all cellphones sold within the city to come with a warning notice that informs consumers about radiation exposure. But a wireless industry trade group is now suing the city, saying that the warning violates sellers'...

Tallest Redwood in Muir Woods Not So Old After All

Ring analysis shows Tree 76 is a mere 777 years old—not 1,500

(Newser) - You had us all fooled, Tree 76. Up til now, scientists believed that the tallest redwood in California's Muir Woods was about 1,500 years old, the Los Angeles Times notes. But the 249-foot-tall giant—or, as the San Francisco Chronicle now refers to it, "a puerile sprig...

City Making Big Change to Kids' Fast-Food Orders

In Davis, California, the choice of beverage will be milk or water

(Newser) - It's not a typical question heard in fast-food restaurants, but the city of Davis, California, hopes to change that with a new rule: It will require servers to ask kids (or the parents ordering for them) if they'd like milk or water with their meal. Customers would still...

Motorcycles May Get Unique Privilege in California

Law to legalize 'lane-splitting' advances

(Newser) - Motorcyclists slowed down by California's freeway traffic may soon benefit from the first law in the nation to let them zip between cars in a practice known as lane-splitting. The state Assembly passed the measure today and sent it on to the Senate, reports the AP . It would let...

Shortcut Turned Deadly on Way to Mother's Day Dinner

Two weeks later, only wife found alive in California wilderness

(Newser) - A California couple set out for their son's La Quinta home on May 10 for a Mother's Day dinner. They never made it. Two weeks later, Dianna Bedwell, 68, has been found severely dehydrated in a white vehicle in a remote part of San Diego County; her husband'...

Calif.&#39;s New Rage: Fake Grass
 Calif.'s New Rage: Fake Grass 
May 24, 2015 1:30 PM CDT

Calif.'s New Rage: Fake Grass

As drought rages on, it begins to make more sense

(Newser) - From the same drought that brought the nation lawn-painting comes yet another fad in faux greenery: Fake lawns, nicknamed "frass," are gaining popularity in parched California, which is cracking down on water use. With live grass requiring 55 gallons of water a year per square foot, and with...

11-Year-Old With 3 College Degrees: It's No Big Deal

Tanishq Abraham graduated from American River College on Wednesday

(Newser) - Tanishq Abraham dreams of one day becoming a Nobel Prize-winning doctor/medical researcher and the president of the United States. That may not be such a stretch for him, since graduating with three degrees from California's American River College at the age of 11 "isn't much of...

Dying Mom Sues for Right to Die

Christy O’Donnell, 46, doesn't want her daughter to come home, find her dead

(Newser) - Christy O’Donnell knows how she will die, should her body have its way: "Most likely ... my left lung will fill with fluid, I’ll start drowning in my own fluid." Doctors could drain the lung, painfully; ABC News reports she has a morphine intolerance that makes pain...

Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Doesn't Fly: California Judge

Ruling says students should learn about STD prevention, all kinds of birth control

(Newser) - California has a sex-ed law on the books that bans schools from pushing abstinence alone in teaching about pregnancy and STD prevention, and a Fresno County judge has now enforced that law, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Superior Court Judge Donald Black's decision ruled that the Clovis Unified School...

Now Walmart Under Fire for Bottling Calif.'s Precious Water

Great Value's water comes from Sacramento municipal supply

(Newser) - First Starbucks , now Walmart is awash in complaints about its bottled water operation in Sacramento, which has been hard-hit by conservation measures amid California's drought. CBS13 reports the company's Great Value brand water comes from the Sacramento Municipal Water Supply and is sold to bottler DS Services...

'Beyond Worst-Case Scenario,' California Makes Water Move

Drought regulations will aim to cut usage by up to 36%

(Newser) - Tens of millions of California residents must drastically cut back on their water use, according to new emergency drought regulations . The most drastic measures so far will force a statewide reduction in usage by 25% from 2013 amounts, with some inland regions forced to cut consumption by up to 36%...

Cali Woman Horrified to Get 'Satanic' License Plate

DMV says system randomly spits out plate numbers, but Bobbie Larkins doesn't care

(Newser) - For reasons unspecified, you won't find the letters "I," "O," or "Q" in the first or third alpha positions of the alpha-numeric sequence on California passenger license plates, per that state's DMV . But there's nothing that prevents the system there from churning...

Native Americans Adopted Whites to Make Money

Now one of the Alturas Rancheria tribal members says strategy was 'mistake'

(Newser) - A tiny, casino-owning Native American tribe in Northern California has pursued an unusual strategy to boost revenue: adoption. The Alturas Indian Rancheria in Modoc County has adopted five members—two of whom are non-Indian—in recent years, the Sacramento Bee reports. The new members came with ambitious plans to make...

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