California

A large bear with a big appetite was caught on camera by campers as it raided their campsite and came back for seconds and even thirds in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Tens of thousands of California utility customers were still without power Friday morning, though PG&E gradually started restoration efforts as a fall heat wave causing extreme wildfire danger began to subside.

California Democrats hold all the statewide offices and a supermajority in the Legislature. Only 24 percent of registered voters in the state are part of the GOP. An NBC News exit poll during the Democratic presidential primary in March, which Bernie Sanders won, found California voters have become more liberal and less moderate over the past decade.

California election officials have received reports that unofficial ballot drop boxes were placed in several counties and said these set-ups are illegal.

Cool weather and light drizzle in some places provided relief for firefighters working to increase containment of numerous wildfires across California on Saturday, but the forecast for dry and warming conditions starting on Sunday signaled that the state’s lethal fire season is far from over.

In the wealthy city of Santa Monica, California, the historically Black Pico district retains its memories of the generations of families who called it home — and the legacy of racial segregation that created it. But today, soaring real estate prices are making the price of leaving hard to pass up, and longtime residents like Michele Duncan are saying good-bye.

Prosecutors say Harvey Weinstein has been charged with the rapes of two more women in Los Angeles County

California will develop a detailed plan for reparations under a new law signed on Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, making it the first state to mandate a study of how it can make amends for its role in the oppression of Black people.

California will develop detailed proposals for granting reparations to Black Americans under a new law.

Officials say the Zogg Fire in Shasta County, Calif., has burned at least 7,000 acres.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a law requiring California to house transgender inmates in prisons based on their gender identity

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, University of California Regent Richard Blum, has been named by the state auditor’s office as one of the regents involved in an admissions scandal where UC wrongly admitted dozens of students as favors to well-connected people

A lack of firefighting resources in the hours after it was sparked allowed a fast-moving wildfire to make an unprecedented run through Southern California mountains

In just a few days, the monster Camp Fire in Northern California tore through a Butte County community to become the state’s most destructive wildfire on record.

Prescribed burning consists of intentionally setting parts of a forest on fire so that when a wildfire does strike, it has less “fuel” to grow. Kristen Shive, director of science at Save the Redwoods League, says that’s a practice that could help with relentless wildfire seasons exacerbated by climate change.

California garment worker Santa Son had hoped this was the year the state Legislature would end a system that pays her and other workers for the number of items they make — not the hours they work.

The smoke from dozens of wildfires in the western United States is stretching clear across the country — and even pushing into Mexico, Canada and Europe

Firefighters battling the West Coast wildfires say this year’s blazes are some of the worst they have ever seen

With the smell of California wildfires in the air, President Donald Trump on Monday ignored the scientific consensus that climate change is playing a central role and renewed his unfounded claim that poor forest management is mostly to blame for historic infernos roaring up and down the West Coast.

“If you are exposed for 12 hours of smoke in the air, then that is like 12 hours of continued smoking,” says Dr. Zab Mosenifar, a critical care pulmonologist at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.