California is parched, with 100 percent of the Golden State entrenched in drought conditions for the first time in 15 years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM).

"With the expansion of D1 [moderate drought] across southeast California and southwest Arizona, this week marks the first time in the 15-year history of the USDM that 100 percent of California was in moderate to exceptional drought," according to a statement by the Monitor, which is a joint effort by the National Drought Mitigation Center, NOAA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. drought observers.

Since March 25, the state has been under "abnormally dry" conditions, and just this week the Drought Monitor listed the entire state as experiencing a moderate drought. [Photos: The 10 Driest Places on Earth]

Various parts of the state are feeling the California drought more than others. For instance, the city of Montague may run out of drinking water by the end of the summer, according to the Monitor; the city has asked residents to curtail outside watering at this time.

"This is the first time in over 80 years of water deliveries from the Montague Water Conservation District that this situation has occurred," a statement from the Monitor reads.

Many growers in Shasta Valley and Big Springs — both part of Siskiyou County, in the northernmost part of California in the Shasta region — are struggling to water their fields.

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U.S. drought conditions reveal all of California is experiencing at least moderate drought.

The Monitor quotes an observer in Siskiyou County to illustrate the frustration felt by farmers: "Our snow pack is pathetic, rainfall is way below normal, (low) stream flows are running at 2-3 months ahead of normal depending on the area, well levels have dropped severely and many wells are dry in spring or have levels typical of late fall, surface water irrigation supplies are non-existent to extremely limited in many areas, and the situation is only getting worse daily (especially after 3 consecutive years of drought)."

In fact, California's snowpack, or the snow that accumulates on mountaintops during the winter, is at less than one-third of its historical average, according to measurements from NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory reported this month.

CLICK IMAGE for slideshow: California Drought. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Winter is usually California's wettest time of the year, but a high-pressure ridge offshore created a jet-stream pattern that sent Pacific storms heading for California north into the Pacific Northwest and Canada instead. The high-pressure system first appeared in December 2012 and lasted so long that meteorologists gave it a nickname: the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge.

Last year (2013) was California's driest on record, according to the National Weather Service.

Follow Jeanna Bryner on Twitter and Google+. Follow us@livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

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California is totally parched

For the first time in 15 years, 100 percent of the state is in a crippling drought, an agency reports.
'Abnormally dry'

SKorea: We mismatched bodies from ferry disaster

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — As visiting President Barack Obama offered South Koreans his condolences Friday for the ferry disaster, the South Korean government conceded that some bodies have been misidentified and announced changes to prevent such mistakes from happening again.

There have been several reports in South Korean media this week of bodies going to the wrong families, with the error sometimes caught only after the remains were taken to a funeral home. An "action plan" released by the government-wide emergency task force acknowledged that "there have been cases where the victims were wrongly transferred."

Remains will be transferred to families when there is a match using DNA testing or fingerprint or dental records, the task force said. The transfer will be temporary when a body is matched though identification or physical description, and authorities will wait for more authoritative evidence before making the transfer permanent.

Divers have recovered 183 bodies so far, but 119 remain missing and are feared dead in the dark rooms of the submerged vessel.

Search officials including a navy spokesman and a diver said 35 of the ferry's 111 rooms have been searched so far, Yonhap news agency reported. They said 48 of the bodies recovered were found were in a single large room built to accommodate 38.

The ferry sank April 16 on its way from Incheon port to the southern tourist island of Jeju. More than 80 percent of the 302 dead and missing are students from a single high school in Ansan, south of Seoul.

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A diver jumps into the sea near an area where the capsized passenger ship Sewol sank during a rescue …

Obama arrived Friday afternoon at the Blue House, South Korea's presidential residence, and presented President Park Geun-hye with an American flag that flew over the White House the day the ship sank. His first South Korean visit since Park took office last year was aimed at issues including North Korea, but he noted that his trip comes at a time of "great sorrow."

"So many were young students with their entire lives ahead of them," Obama said, invoking his two daughters, both close in age to many of the ferry victims. "I can only imagine what the parents are going through at this point, the incredible heartache."

Accepting the flag, Park drew a parallel between the way Americans pulled together after the 9/11 attacks and the resilience of South Koreans following one of the worst maritime disasters in their country's history.

"The Korean people draw great strength from your kindness," she said.

Obama also said he was donating a magnolia tree from the White House lawn to Danwon High School in Ansan in honor of the lives lost and as a symbol of friendship between the U.S. and South Korea.

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A mourner weeps as he pays tribute to the victims of the sunken ferry Sewol in the water off the sou …

Eleven crew members, including the captain, have been arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. Prosecutor Yang Jung-jin of the joint investigation team said Friday that the cause of the sinking could be due to excessive veering, improper stowage of cargo, modifications made to the ship and tidal influence. He said investigators will determine the cause by consulting with experts and simulations.

The ferry Sewol was carrying an estimated 3,608 tons of cargo, said Moon Ki-han, a vice president at Union Transport Co., which loaded its cargo. That's also more than three times what an inspector who examined the vessel during a redesign said it could safely carry. It also far exceeds what the captain claimed in paperwork: 150 cars and 657 tons of other cargo, according to the coast guard.

The Korean Register of Shipping inspector's report said that changes made to the ship meant that it had to carry no more than about 1,000 tons of cargo, while taking on more than 2,000 tons of water as ballast to ensure stability. Before the modifications, the report said, the ship could handle more than 2,500 tons of cargo and needed only about 1,000 tons of water ballast.

Yet the coast guard says shipowner Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd. reported cargo capacity of 3,963 tons — a number unchanged from that reported by the Sewol's previous Japanese owner before the ship was redesigned. It was unclear why the earlier maximum tonnage noted in the register document was lower than that provided by either owner.

A naval architecture expert said Friday that the reported load could have set the ship tipping over with a significant turn. Tracking data show the ship turned 45 degrees before sinking, and crew members have reportedly said that they had tried to make a much less severe turn.

Grieving South Korea Puts Up Yellow RibbonsPlay Video

"The ship would suddenly fall even with just a small turn. It should not make a sharp turn," said Lee Kyu Yeul, professor emeritus in ship and offshore plant design at Seoul National University's Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering. "It should make a huge circle with 1 or 2 degrees of turn, but (the Sewol) made a small circle. So it fell."

Officials with South Korea's maritime ministry and coast guard each said they were not aware of the Sewol's cargo capacity, and that it was the shipping association's job to oversee it. The shipping association is private and is partly funded by the industry it regulates.

An official at the shipping association declined to talk to media by phone, saying it is under investigation by prosecutors.

Prosecutors have raided and seized documents at the Korean Register of Shipping and the Korea Shipping Association, which regulates and oversees departures and arrivals of domestic passenger ships, according to officials at both organizations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about matters under investigation.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Leon Drouin-Keith in Seoul and Gillian Wong in Jindo contributed to this report.

South Korean officials are scrambling to make sure additional bodies aren't sent to the wrong relatives.
Obama's gesture

Since the invasion of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama have had regular phone calls in an often half-hearted attempt to deescalate the ongoing crisis inside Ukraine. But as the U.S. and EU prepare to unveil new sanctions against Russia, Putin has decided the interactions should stop. The Kremlin has ended high-level contact with the Obama administration, according to diplomatic officials and sources close to the Russian leadership. The move signals an end to the diplomacy, for now.

“Putin will not talk to Obama under pressure,” said Igor Yurgens, Chairman of the Institute for Contemporary Development, a prominent Moscow think tank, and a close associate of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “It does not mean forever.”

READ MORE Observers Snatched In Ukraine

Obama and Putin last spoke over the phone on April 14, a call that the White House said was initiated at Moscow’s request. Obama urged Putin in the call to end Kremlin support for armed, pro-Russian activists creating unrest in eastern Ukraine. Obama also warned that the U.S. would impose more “costs” on Russia if Putin continued his current course. According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call, Putin denied Russian interference in eastern Ukraine and said “that such speculations are based on inaccurate information.”

Obama and Putin have spoken to each other about Ukraine regularly over the past weeks, including calls on March 28, March 16, and March 6. But that these calls are now on hold for the indefinite future, due to their lack of progress and frustration on both sides.

READ MORE Putin’s Pervy Propaganda

On Friday, Kerry warned that new round of American financial assaults on Russia were on the way. “We are putting in more sanctions, they will probably come Monday at the latest,” said in a private meeting in Washington, according to an attendee. Russian businesses and individuals close to Putin would be on the sanctions list, he added.

Diplomatic sources close to the process confirmed that Putin is not interested in speaking with Obama again in the current environment. The two leaders might talk again in the future but neither side is reaching out for direct interaction, as they had been doing since the Ukraine crisis began. The failure of the agreement struck last week in Geneva between the contact group of the U.S., EU, Russia, and Ukraine has made further direct Washington-Moscow interactions moot.

READ MORE Obama: I'd Save Drowning Putin

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U.S. President Barack Obama speaks as South Korean President Park Geun-hye looks on in a joint news …

Other top U.S. officials are also now out of direct contact with their Russian interlocutors. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is also getting the cold shoulder from his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu. Pentagon officials have reached out to Russia on Mr. Hagel’s behalf within the past 24 hours but have not gotten any response, according to Pentagon Spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren.

That leaves the channel between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as the only semi-functioning high-level diplomatic channel between Washington and Moscow. But even that often-frosty relationship has further chilled as the two sides hurled insults and accusations this week.

READ MORE John Paul II Crucifix Falls, Kills Man

After speaking over the phone Monday and then again Tuesday about the now defunct Geneva agreement on Ukraine, Kerry and Lavrov are now conducting diplomacy through the press—and leveling harsh and undiplomatic charges against one another.

Kerry appeared at the State Department press room Thursday afternoon to declare publicly that Russia was not keeping its word.

READ MORE Rare Zonkey Born at Mexico Zoo

“For seven days, Russia has refused to take a single concrete step in the right direction,” Kerry scolded. “Not a single Russian official, not one, has publicly gone on television in Ukraine and called on the separatists to support the Geneva agreement, to support the stand-down, to give up their weapons, and get out of the Ukrainian buildings. They have not called on them to engage in that activity. “

Kerry also lashed out at Russia Today, the Kremlin-sponsored television network, which Kerry said spends all its time “to propagandize and to distort what is happening or not happening in Ukraine.”

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A masked pro Russian militant holds a rifle as he stands watch at the barricades in Slovyansk , east …

READ MORE Havana Adios for a Baseball Legend

“Instead, in plain sight, Russia continues to fund, coordinate, and fuel a heavily armed separatist movement in Donetsk,” Kerry accused.

Lavrov publicly responded, “The U.S. is trying to pervert everything that is going on in Ukraine.”

READ MORE America's New Red Line For China

On Friday, Kerry summed up his recent interactions with his Russian counterpart” “I’ve had 6 conversations with Lavrov in the last few weeks. The last one was Kafka-esque. It was bizarre.”

U.S. and Western European officials, echoing Kerry, told The Daily Beast that new sanctions against Russia could come as early as Monday, following an EU meeting to endorse a list of 15 Russian individuals that will be targeted for new sanctions. The U.S. could also unveil new individuals for targeted sanctions on Monday, but while the U.S. list overlaps the EU list, the two lists are not identical.

READ MORE U.S. Weapons in Syrian Rebel Hands

The decision to move ahead with new sanctions, thereby pronouncing the death of the Geneva agreement and the current diplomatic process with Russia, was agreed on a Thursday night video conference call between President Obama (from Tokyo), Prime Minister Cameron, Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande and Prime Minister Renzi, several officials said.

“While they continued to hold open the door to a diplomatic resolution of this crisis, based on the Geneva agreement, the five leaders agreed that in the light of Russia’s refusal to support the process, an extension of the current targeted sanctions would need to be implemented, in conjunction with other G7 leaders and with European partners,” a spokesperson for Cameron’s office said.

READ MORE Russia Made a Medal Before the War Began

Those targeted sanctions will still fall short of what many in Washington, including leading Democrats, are calling on the Obama administration to do. During a stop in Kiev Thursday, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin said that the U.S. “should make more robust use of the powers established in Executive Order 13661, which authorizes sanctions against the Russian financial, energy, metals, mining, engineering, and defense sectors… and we should use this authority to sanction Russian banks… and to take on Russia’s manipulation of energy prices and supplies, which it uses to coerce not only Ukraine, but also many of its neighbors.”

Obama said Thursday there is a limit to the harm he wishes to see imposed on Putin. Asked during his stop in South Korea if he would save Putin from drowning, Obama said. “I absolutely would save Mr. Putin if he were drowning. I’d like to think that if anybody is out there drowning I’m going to save them.”

Related from The Daily Beast

• Pedophile Drugged and Abused 90 Students
• Putin Exposes CIA Cat Listicle Plot
• Kerry: Russia Making ‘Grave’ Mistake

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Moscow ends interactions with the Obama administration amid threats of sanctions, officials say. 'Does not mean forever'

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — President Barack Obama warned North Korea on Saturday that the United States "will not hesitate to use our military might" to defend allies, showcasing U.S. power in the region amid China's growing influence and Pyongyang's unpredictable nuclear threats.

Obama's visit to Seoul comes as North Korea has threatened to conduct its fourth nuclear test, leading Obama to raise the possibility of further sanctions.

"The commitment that the United States of America has made to the security of the Republic of Korea only grows stronger in the face of aggression," Obama said in a speech to some of the 28,000 American service members stationed in South Korea to keep watch on its northern neighbor. "Our alliance does not waiver with each bout of their attention seeking. It just gains the support of the rest of the world."

The website 38 North, which closely monitors North Korea, said commercial satellite imagery from Wednesday showed increased movement of vehicles and materials near what are believed to be the entrances to two completed tunnels at Punggye-ri nuclear test site. The movements could be preparations for an underground atomic explosion, although predicting underground tests is notoriously difficult.

Obama ridiculed North Korea's attempt to show force. "Anybody can make threats," he said. "Anyone can move an army. Anyone can show off a missile. That doesn't make you strong."

He said real strength comes from having an open participatory democracy, open markets and a society free to speak out against its government.

Obama Honors South Korean Ferry VictimsPlay Video

"We don't use our military might to impose these things on others, but we will not hesitate to use our military might to defend our allies and our way of life," Obama said to cheers from the uniformed troops who filled a field house at Yongsan Garrison, headquarters for U.S. forces in South Korea.

Obama's 10-minute speech followed a rare joint defense briefing with South Korean President Park Geun-hye that focused on efforts to counter the North's nuclear ambitions. U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of the joint U.S.-South Korea command, told the two presidents that his team "works together every day to make sure that we defend the Republic of Korea and that we deter North Korea."

Following his remarks, Obama was heading to Malaysia, the third stop on his four-country Asia swing. The mission of the trip was to underscore U.S. commitment to the region at a period of uncertainty between North Korea's provocations and China's growing power. While the U.S. has long been the most powerful military influence in the Asia-Pacific region, Pentagon spending is being slashed at the same time China has been boosting its defense budget.

Beijing still lags far behind the U.S. in both military funding and technology. But its spending boom is attracting new scrutiny at a time of severe cuts in U.S. defense budgets that have some questioning Washington's commitments to its Asian allies, including some who have lingering disputes with China.

At the same time, the U.S. military is seeking to redirect resources to the Asia-Pacific as it draws down its commitment in Afghanistan, though there is concern that budget cuts could threaten plans to base 60 percent of U.S. naval assets in the region. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert recently warned that U.S. capabilities to project power "would not stay ahead" of potential adversaries, given the fiscal restraints.

Raw: Obama Tours Gyeongbok PalacePlay Video

Earlier Saturday, Obama promoted trade between the U.S. and South Korea with executives from businesses including Hyundai, Samsung, Korean Air, Microsoft, Boeing, Goldman Sachs and others. "As important as the security relationship is and the alliance is between the Republic of Korea and the United States, what is also important is the incredible and growing economic ties that are creating jobs and opportunity in both countries," Obama said.

While in Seoul, Obama has paid tribute to victims from last week's ferry disaster. The vast majority of the 300 dead or missing were students from a single high school near the capital city.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Seoul and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Obama ridicules N. Korea's attempt to show force

The president warns Pyongyang that the U.S. will not hesitate to use its military might to defend allies.
Possibility of further sanctions