Los Angeles Times

California is the world's largest grower of almonds, with trees on 860,000 acres, a crop that be imperiled especially in the drought now entering its fourth year, says the New York Times.

Two weeks of rainy and snowy weather "has provided California a foothold for drought recovery but three straight winters of subnormal precipitation will take time, possibly several consecutive wet winters to recharge the reservoir levels and...

With California seeing its first major rainstorm of the season, the Los Angeles Times said, "Scientists have yet to determine whether the Eastern Pacific is falling into an El Niño pattern and will produce a wetter than average year...

The Salton Sea, created just over a century ago, "is now in danger of shrinking by half," says the Los Angeles Times. At 370 square miles it is the largest lake in California.

"(T)he nation's largest irrigation district is in the wrong place," says the Los Angeles Times in story about the Westlands district of the Central Valley of California and its role as a driving force behind a $25 billion projects to ship water from...

The statewide referendum in Oregon over labeling foods containing genetically modified organisms is now the most expensive ballot question in state history, says the Salem Statesman Journal.

California's agriculture sector would shrink but survive a mega-drought that lasts decades, says the Los Angeles Times, based on computer simulations by university scientists.

Farmers and landowners in California are spending millions of dollars to drill increasingly deeper wells in California, says National Geographic.

Since the days of the Gold Rush, "groundwater has been considered a property right; landowners are entitled to what's beneath them," says the Los Angeles Times; California is the only state in the West that does not regulate groundwater.

The Mississippi Republican Party chairman, Joe Nosef, says there is too little time to examine all the materials in the party's contested Senate run-off election and told challenger Chris McDaniel to go court instead, says the Los Angeles Times.

Olive trees are taking root as a cash crop in California, with the drought as an inducement, says the Sacramento Bee, which cites a farmer who switched to olives from rice.

Florida Republican Mario Diaz-Balart tells Roll Call that the campaign for immigration reform is picking up momentum in the House.