The pilot of the helicopter that crashed near Los Angeles, killing former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and eight others, told air traffic controllers in his last radio message that he was climbing to avoid a cloud layer before plunging more than 1,000 feet into a hillside, an accident investigator said.

With hundreds of thousands of Californians again in the dark amid high wildfire danger Thursday, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom had a message: "I own this." Newsom again blasted California's utilities — most notably Pacific Gas & Electric — for failures to modernize electrical systems. He said shutting off power shouldn't have to be the alternative in a state that is the most technologically advanced. But he also personalized the crisis.

Nevada officials condemned comments Wednesday by Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman after she called for casinos and other nonessential businesses to reopen and suggested the city could serve as a test case to measure the impact during the coronavirus pandemic. One local official called her comments "reckless and dangerous" and another described them as an "embarrassment."

A gun-rights group sued Thursday to block California from enforcing its assault weapons ban, contending it violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The lawsuit was the latest among gun advocacy and lobbying groups to challenge California's firearms laws, which are among the strictest in the country, and comes after a recent series of deadly mass shootings nationwide involving military-style rifles.

The union representing teachers in Los Angeles — the nation's second-largest school district — postponed the start of a strike until Monday because of the possibility of a court-ordered delay of a walkout. United Teachers Los Angeles previously said its 35,000 members would walk off the job Thursday for the first time in 30 years if a deal wasn't reached on higher pay and smaller class sizes. However, a judge was considering Wednesday whether the union gave legally proper notice of a strike and could have ordered teachers to wait.

One of the most recent threats to California's environment has webbed feet, white whiskers, shaggy fur and orange buck teeth that could be mistaken for carrots. "Boy, they're an ugly-looking thing," said David Passadori, an almond and walnut grower in central California. "And the way they multiply — jeez."

Coroner search teams, many accompanied by a chaplain, have fanned out across Paradise, visiting dozens of addresses that belong to people reported missing since last week's explosive blaze leveled this town of 27,000. At least 42 people were confirmed dead, making it the deadliest in state history .

A Nevada judge is being asked to freeze the awarding of new dispensary licenses in the state's booming recreational marijuana sales market. Businesses that lost bids for new licenses last year are challenging the criteria and personnel the state used to award the potentially lucrative permits last year.

When the Nguyen brothers opened their first 7 Leaves coffee shop in 2012, they didn’t dare tell their mother and father. The siblings feared that they would be devastated. After all, their parents were Vietnamese migrants who fled their war-ravaged homeland in the 1990s and eventually settled in Orange County, California’s Little Saigon. They’d dreamed that their four boys would grow up to be successful white-collar professionals, not purveyors of creamy jasmine and mung bean tea drinks and aromatic Asian-style iced coffees.

Community members have raised more than $76,000 for a black teacher who was captured on video punching a student who had repeatedly called him a racial slur and other names.