Don Thompson

Despite her vow to stay away, Victoria Sinclaire’s family was one of the first to rebuild, braving the enduring threat of wildfires, and now, repeated power outages as the nation’s largest utility tries to prevent its equipment from sparking blazes on windy days like it did in Paradise a year ago.

Frustration and anger mounted across Northern California as the state’s biggest utility began another round of fire-prevention blackouts Tuesday that could leave millions of people without electricity, some for five days or longer. The shut-offs, aimed at keeping windblown electrical equipment from sparking wildfires, came as fire crews raced to contain two major blazes in Northern and Southern California before...

Firefighters on Monday continued to battle a destructive wildfire in Northern California’s wine country, trying to beat back flames that forced thousands to flee their homes.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a law that will make the state the first to allow employers, co-workers and teachers to seek gun violence restraining orders against other people.

A coalition of 21 Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its decision to ease restrictions on coal-fired power plants, with California’s governor saying the president is trying to rescue an outdated industry. In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency eliminated the agency’s Clean Power Plan and replaced it with a new rule that gives states more leeway in...

California has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, including a ban on the type of high-capacity ammunition magazines used in some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings. How long those types of laws will stand is a growing concern among gun control advocates in California and elsewhere. A federal judiciary that is becoming increasingly conservative under President...

California prosecutors said Monday that they used an unusual tactic to identify a suspect for three rapes committed more than 25 years ago, keeping the case alive long after the normal legal deadline would have expired.

Leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang were charged Thursday with directing killings and drug smuggling from within California’s most secure prisons, U.S. prosecutors said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom overruled a parole board’s decision to free Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten on Monday, marking the third time a governor has stopped the release of the youngest member of Manson’s murderous cult. Van Houten, 69, is still a threat, Newsom said, though she has spent nearly half a century behind bars and received reports of...

Police released footage captured on two officers’ body cameras during the seven-minute arrest of a 12-year-old boy in Sacramento.

Police have defended their use of a clear mesh bag known as a spit mask or spit hood on a combative 12-year-old boy as irate bystanders videotaped the tense encounter in Sacramento while objecting that the boy was being detained. Officers “appropriately used a spit mask to protect themselves and defuse the situation,” Police Chief Daniel Hahn said Wednesday in...

A gunman fired his semi-automatic rifle at Jewish worshippers after walking through a Southern California synagogue’s front entrance — a spot that religious leaders determined last year needed improved security.

One convicted killer has been accused of beheading another in what authorities call an exceptionally sadistic torture slaying at a California prison. Corcoran State Prison inmate Jaime Osuna removed several body parts from his cellmate, Luis Romero, Assistant Kings County District Attorney Phil Esbenshade said Friday. Charges accuse Osuna, 31, of repeatedly cutting Romero last month using what the prosecutor...

County health officials have quarantined a number of students at UCLA who were possibly exposed to measles, and they also Thursday announced another case of measles in a person who flew in and out of Los Angeles International Airport while infectious, as they continue to reach out to more than 1,500 people who may have been exposed to measles by...

California’s first-in-the-nation attempt to track racial profiling complaints against police produced numbers so unrealistically small that the board overseeing the tally wants departments to make changes to encourage more people to come forward.

When Gov. Jerry Brown cedes power to Gavin Newsom, it will be the first time since 1887 that California has had consecutive Democratic governors. But California isn’t getting a carbon copy in substance or style.

Some residents of a Northern California town devastated by a catastrophic wildfire nearly a month ago were finally allowed to return home Wednesday to sift through the charred remains in search of precious family heirlooms, photos and other possessions that may have survived.

Authorities reported 13 more fatalities from a blaze in Northern California that destroyed a town, bringing the total death toll so far to 42 and making it the deadliest wildfire in recorded state history.

As relatives desperately searched shelters for missing loved ones, crews stepped up the search for bodies in the smoking ruins of Paradise on Sunday, loading the remains of at least one victim into a hearse. Wildfires continued to rage on both ends of the state.

Sheriff’s investigators have begun the agonizing task of scouring through the wreckage of California’s most destructive fire on record in search of the dead. By Saturday, the death toll had reached 23, but it seemed likely to climb. With the entire town of Paradise wiped out and the fire still raging furiously in surrounding communities, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea...