California

In the desert east of Los Angeles, near the town of Twentynine Palms, lie abandoned houses. They're scattered throughout the landscape for miles: shells of dreams and broken lives. Who slept on this mattress? Where is that person now? Read more.

Wetlands are areas of land that are covered by a changing amount of shallow water. If wetlands are not protected, flooding may occur where it is not supposed to, causing damage. In our photo, a hydrologist inspects an area in California.

What's going on inside the mind of this boy in Berkeley, California? His shirt shows the face of a jungle animal, but the message expressed in the words above and below it comes from a famous rock song. Click here to find out the story behind that song.

The ocean near Santa Cruz, California, offers some fantastic surfing, especially for experienced surfers. These men are carrying longboards; with their extra length and a rounded nose, these are designed more to be stable and to float well than to be manoeuvrable.

California governor Jerry Brown (pictured, middle) took office in early January. Already he's got work to do. The state needs to save $25 billion by the end of June. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't able to balance the budget. So what radical means will Brown have to use?

A Hispanic farmworker clears an irrigation ditch in a cornfield in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The agricultural labor force in the US is largely foreign-born Hispanics, of whom 77 per cent are from Mexico. In recent years, a growing number have come from Guatemala and Honduras.

Jerry Brown was recently elected governor of California — again. He had already served from 1975 to 1983. In 2010, he defeated eBay billionaire Meg Whitman, who had spent a record amount of her own money.

Driving between San Francisco and Los Angeles, through the Central Valley, you see empty fields because there's no water anymore. Suddenly, there's an old sign on the side of the road, like a prayer, and then it starts raining.

The extraordinary story of "Venice of America" began in 1891 when the tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney and his partner Francis Ryan started buying oceanfront property 23 km west of Los Angeles. They built a resort  town and called it Ocean Park.