SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Commissions that oversee coastal lands and water pushed the Trump administration to leave California out of plans to expand offshore drilling, saying the state will throw up any barriers possible to prevent pumping and transportation of oil.

“We are California and we will fight back to protect our beautiful coast,” said Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi of Torrance.

Janet Barker’s eighth grade English classes at Parras Middle School are working to change social policies, both great and small. Last Wednesday, Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi dropped by to offer his advice to Barker’s students as they worked through their Democracy in Action project.

The project was based on Barker’s philosophy to bring as much life experience to the classroom as possible, “instead of research papers trapped in a folder…why do it unless it’s going to be useful?” Barker said.

After years of mounting delays and cost increases, the first formal state audit of the California bullet train project was authorized Tuesday by the legislature's joint audit committee.

The decision comes after the rail authority disclosed this month that the cost of building the first 119 miles of track in the Central Valley would cost $10.6 billion, a 77% increase over the original estimate of $6 billion.

Jack London was mesmerized the first time he saw surfers riding the waves of the ocean. It was 1907, and he’d docked at Waikiki Beach in Honolulu during a sailing trip from San Francisco when he spotted them: “One after another they come, a mile long, with smoking crests, the white battalions of the infinite army of the sea,” he wrote in a magazine essay published later that year.

Earlier this month, two California state legislators, Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) and Ian Calderon (D-Whittier) introduced to their collegues a bill that would officially declare surfing to be California's "official" sport.

AB 1782 opens with the plea that: "Surfing is an iconic California sport, and is home to a number of world-famous surf breaks like Malibu, Trestles, Mavericks, Rincon, Steamer Lane, and Huntington, which are destinations for both domestic and international surfers."

When a group of mothers organized the Redondo Beach Women’s March in a span of three days last year, they were expecting about 400 participants. They ended up with 2,000.

This year, the group, Progressive Parents South Bay, will attempt to avoid the same fate when hundreds of people head to Redondo Beach for the Anniversary Women’s March: South Bay L.A.