Nation in brief: Elephant seal repeatedly tries to cross California highway

SAN FRANCISCO – Wildlife experts and law enforcement officials on Monday worked to keep a determined elephant seal off a Northern California highway that it has repeatedly tried to cross, snarling traffic in the area.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer Andrew Barclay said callers first reported the 500-pound mammal was trying to climb the divider wall of Highway 37 near Sears Point in Sonoma.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service crews and CHP officers managed to usher the adult seal back into the San Francisco Bay. But instead of swimming away, the animal got back on land at least twice, Barclay said.

Most of those trying to help the seal left the area Monday evening after she got back in the water and the tide got lower, decreasing her chances of reaching land.

Barclay said some CHP personnel would patrol the area overnight in case the mammal again attempts to reach land.

Marine Mammal Center spokeswoman Laura Sherr said the seal doesn’t seem injured and that she probably got lost and confused after swimming up the wrong waterway.

Judge backs Planned Parenthood

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A federal judge on Monday blocked the state of Missouri from revoking the abortion license of a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Columbia, saying the state had treated the clinic more harshly than similar institutions and had moved to withdraw the license because of political pressure from some state lawmakers.

U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and mid-Missouri after the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said in September it would revoke the clinic’s abortion license Dec. 1.

Laughrey had earlier issued a temporary restraining order, which was scheduled to expire Monday.

The judge’s ruling doesn’t allow the clinic to resume abortions immediately because it still needs to find a physician who meets the state requirement that a doctor must have local hospital admitting privileges to perform abortions there.

The Missouri attorney general’s office is reviewing the ruling, spokeswoman Nanci Gonder said.

Woman accused of Wal-Mart binge

LECANTO, Fla. – A Florida woman has been accused of taking methamphetamine and driving a motorized shopping cart through a Wal-Mart while drinking wine and eating sushi and cinnamon rolls.

According to a Citrus County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, security officer Robert Gross observed 25-year-old Josseleen Lopez consuming $32.36 worth of food and wine inside the Lecanto store.

Gross said he watched Lopez open some sushi, eat a piece and then put it back on the shelf.

Lopez did the same thing with a package of mini muffins and cinnamon rolls, according to Gross. Lopez also ate most of a rotisserie chicken, the security officer said.

Lopez told authorities she was homeless and hungry and had just injected herself with methamphetamine.

She was arrested on charges of retail petit theft and possession of drug paraphernalia.