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The L.A. Community College District had imposed a moratorium to examine whether campuses had sufficient funding to support a planned 60% increase in new facilities, particularly in light of severe state cuts.

Air tankers and helicopters flew repeatedly into a deep rim rock canyon to douse the spearhead of a massive wildfire in Northern California and stop it from driving into a nearby mountain community and Lassen Volcanic National Park....

Irma Zamora ran into the electrified water at the Valley Village site and was killed. Another woman died trying to help her. Officials call them heroes. Irma Zamora's husband urged her not to get out of the car as they approached the scene of a spectacular traffic crash in Los Angeles' Valley Village neighborhood.

Hacker Dojo is equal parts shared office, lecture hall and after-hours salon for a variety of tinkerers, software coders and entrepreneurs who intend to reinvent the future. The idea for Pinterest was cooked up here. The makers of Pebble watches used the space as their West Coast headquarters. Today, however, it is threatened with extinction. City officials in Mountain View have ordered Hacker Dojo to comply with city regulations for offices or move out.

California health officials are warning fans of the popular Red Vines black licorice candy not to eat the treats because they tested positive for high levels of lead. American Licorice Co. of Union City, Calif., issued a voluntary recall Wednesday for 1-pound bags of Red Vines Black Licorice Twists with a best before date of Feb. 4, 2013. It was not clear what volume of product had been recalled. Company officials did not immediately return NBC News calls seeking comment.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties on Wednesday after a wildfire that has already destroyed 64 homes advanced with 75-foot flames on a tiny community at the doorstep of a national park.

LL Cool J plays a special agent on TV's "NCIS: Los Angeles" and now he's caught an actual bad guy. Los Angeles police say the rapper grabbed and held a burglary suspect at his Studio City home Wednesday morning.

Dozens of buildings, many of them likely homes, have been destroyed in recent days in a fire burning outside the Northern California community of Manton, fire officials said Tuesday night. Fire crews assessing the rural area determined Tuesday that 50 buildings had been destroyed, state fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said. The count included buildings burned since the fire began, but officials did not say when the structures were destroyed.

Researchers announced Tuesday the beginning of a FDA-approved clinical trial that uses umbilical cord blood stem cells to ‘cure’ autism. Dr. Michael Chez, director of pediatric neurology at Sutter Neuroscience Institute in Sacramento, Calif., said he and his colleagues have been processing the trial for more than a year now, and they have high hopes it will succeed.

West Hollywood has become the latest in a string of California cities — including Santa Monica, Long Beach and Pasadena — to ban single-use plastic bags at store checkout lines.