Santa Barbara

The Santa Barbara, California, school district is considering a proposal to ban D and F grades “to address student inequities.”

New desalination and water recycling technology, combined with wise management and political cooperation, hold out new hope for California’s water.

Harvard University is buying up vineyards in California’s wine country, reportedly to gain access to the water rights allotted to those properties.

A teenager from Santa Barbara, California, who found a purse containing $10,000 in cash while on his way home from school this week returned the purse to its owner.

Students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, (UCSB) had some strong opinions about President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy troops to the U.S.-Mexico border but seemed shocked when they learned former President Barack Obama did the same thing.

The death toll in the mudslides in Montecito, California, rose to 17 on Wednesday, with over a dozen people still considered missing as rescue crews rushed to save those still trapped by the debris.

A mudslide shut down the 101 Freeway in Montecito, California, on Tuesday morning as heavy winter rains hit the region devastated by the recent Thomas fire. #BREAKING: Mudslide shuts down the 101 in Montecito. People asking to be rescued from

The Thomas fire, which has scorched more that 270,000 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in Southern California, is set to become the largest in the Golden State’s history, according to predictions by AccuWeather.com.

The Thomas fire, which continues to ravage Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties, is now officially the second-worst in the history of California — and is rapidly closing in on the top spot.

Firefighters appear to have succeeded in their epic battle to prevent the Thomas fire from sweeping into coastal towns in Santa Barbara County, including the city of Santa Barbara itself.

With firefighters gaining the upper hand as “red flag” winds die down, it appears that the bill for this year’s California wildfire season will come in at around $180 billion.

Downtown Santa Barbara, normally a vibrant holiday destination, is virtually empty as residents have evacuated the area ahead of the advancing Thomas fire, which continues to spread west, though firefighters are making progress.

Firefighters in Santa Barbara County are racing to finish containment lines to restrain the Thomas fire before high winds arrive on Friday evening that could push the blaze further west and threaten the city of Santa Barbara itself.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed two bills to try cushion patient turmoil as insurers continue to dump Covered California.

A California company fighting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in court has written to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to complain that Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers are still pursuing a case after President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on water policy removed the basis for the lawsuit.

Santa Barbara has finally escaped being the last California community to suffer “extreme drought,” but it remains the poster child for blow-back from limiting water to limit growth.

Flames have fast multiplied in the Santa Barbara, California, Sherpa Fire that started Wednesday, leading to mandatory evacuations in some areas, as more than 6,000 acres had burned as of late Friday night.

Veteran actor Dick Van Dyke introduced Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally in Santa Barbara on Saturday, where he urged older voters to cast their ballots for the insurgent Democrat presidential candidate and called him “the sanest man in America.”

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders didn’t let his 28th wedding anniversary, or the Memorial Day weekend, slow down his campaign Saturday by holding three huge rallies across southern California.

Isla Vista pastor Father Jon-Stephen Hedges took an alleged 30 punches from a University of California Santa Barbara student who was half-naked, i.e. from the waist down.

A Local television news anchor in California faces charges for driving under the influence (DUI) and assaulting a police officer after being tracked down and arrested Sunday evening.

Illegal alien Victor Martinez (Ramirez) is one of two men that could face the death penalty in California for first-degree murder in the brutal rape and bludgeoning–with a claw hammer–of 64-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran Marilyn Pharis.

The Santa Barbara City Council voted unanimously this week to approve a loan to reopen a mothballed desalination plant in an effort to battle California’s record four-year drought.

Californians drastically cut their water use in May, but water bills for millions of the state’s residents will inch higher as municipal water agencies continue to lose money during a record four-year drought.

A few of over one hundred tarballs collected on some southern California beaches were tested found to have come from the Santa Barbara oil spill that occurred on May 19 just north of Refugio Beach. Some samples were also connected to naturally occurring ocean floor seepage.

Strange black blobs of tar-like goo surged on onto southern California’s Manhattan Beach by the thousands, closing down the two-mile area Wednesday while the U.S. Coast Guard and National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration are investigating the source and substance.

The sad look of south Santa Barbara beaches after the recent oil spill is serving as a backdrop for environmental protesters to advance their causes that have little to do with the ocean’s birds and fish. But as the protesters chanted “End Oil Now!” billions of microscopic bacteria are feasting on the oil that has been on their diet for millenniums.

On Thursday, volunteers who had joined professional environmental cleanup contractors to remove the detritus from a Wednesday oil spill that washed up on Refugio State Beach were asked to go home and leave the job to the experts.

With the first anniversary of Elliot Rodger’s Santa Barbara attack just around the corner, California Democrats are pushing to expand the list of misdemeanors that bars gun ownership for ten years.

A Santa Barbara newspaper, determined to hold its ground against its critics, has continued to use the term “illegals” when describing people living illegally in the United States, prompting protests and counter-protests in the normally serene city by the ocean.

The Santa Barbara News-Press will not change its usage of the term “illegals” to describe people in the United States without permission, despite an attack on Wednesday night or Thursday morning that left the message, “The border is illegal, not the people who cross it,” spray-painted in red on its front entrance.

Parents Matt and Raeona Dies cannot bring their young daughter back to life, but have pushed to hold accountable those responsible in the DUI crash that killed her. A quiet early November settlement granted the couple $2.5 million from the United States Government, a co-defendant in the lawsuit seeking damages and asserting the Congressional aide behind the wheel that night became intoxicated on government time. Reports have indicated a possible cover-up from Congresswoman Capps’ office.