Driving through the heart of America, plugging into the main vein, with the Hollywood sign winking at me through the Los Angeles smog commanding the wheelhouse of a brand-new, incredibly cool Chevrolet Volt!

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It also ranked second-worst, behind Los Angeles, for smog levels, known formally as ozone pollution.

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Los Angeles, with its smog, bum economy, suffocating state debt and off the charts traffic, is the past.

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It's much like smog in Los Angeles, a small particulate dispersed over a large area.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Moreover, the state's growth in population after the second world war was producing horrible signs of environmental damage, though drivers and carmakers alike were reluctant to admit that the smog over Los Angeles was the result of automobile emissions.

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The Global Times warns of "danger signals" after Chinese scientists find a "large number of toxic and hazardous particles" in polluted air samples from Beijing and Tianjin in January that are similar to deadly smog in Los Angeles and London in the 1950s.

BBC: China media: Pollution strikes again

Southern California's seasonal "June gloom" weather, caused by a marine layer that traps smog over the Los Angeles basin, will probably pay an extended visit this year.

CNN: Western U.S. to get smoggy summer, fall

The search for cheap housing has pushed people away from the Pacific and into places like the "Inland Empire, " which is an hour or two drive through smog-filled traffic jams from Los Angeles.

CNN: The California Dream is fizzling out

The cold waters mean a large temperature contrast between the land and ocean -- conditions that favor the formation of a strong inversion layer that traps smog over cities, such as the Los Angeles, Calif.

CNN: Western U.S. to get smoggy summer, fall