Physicist Virginia Carter left the lab to work for Norman Lear’s production company.

The short, heroic life of the mountain lion known as M86 offers a promise of what could be — and, quite possibly, what must come to pass if the cougars of the Santa Ana Mountains are to survive. Winston Vickers, a veterinarian at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center and leading researcher and expert of…

Wildfires, like the Holy fire that torched 26,000 acres of the Santa Ana Mountains area in August, don’t typically pose a significant threat to cougars, expert sprinters as well as long-distance travelers who are skilled at escaping such threats. But one study of Southern California cougars — also known as mountain lions and pumas —…

Did you know adult cougars need to eat a deer about every 16 days? And that a mother with three cubs will need a deer every nine days? And if it has a running start, a mountain lion can jump 45 feet in a single leap. Here are some more facts you might not know about…

A car that crashed and burst into flames early Wednesday, Sept. 19, may have been in a street race, authorities said. When firefighters arrived to the 12:20 a.m. call, in the 2060 block of South Ritchey Street, they found the white sedan fully engulfed in flames, said Capt. Erik Miranda of the Orange County Fire…

HOLLYWOOD — Burt Reynolds was cremated shortly after his death on Sept. 6 at age 82, and his family is considering scattering his ashes at sea, but first he’ll be honored in a private service for family and friends Wednesday at a church in Palm Beach, Florida, the town where he spent almost his entire…

California’s poverty ranks were cut by 1.49 million people in five years — a 17 percent decline topped by only three states. New Census data shows California with 7.46 million living in poverty last year, according to the so-called “supplemental” poverty measure. It’s a relatively new income yardstick that adjusts poverty counts to include regional…

A longstanding plan to build a passenger rail system between Southern California and Las Vegas has a new financial backer, a company operating a privately funded rail project in Florida. Miami-based Brightline, whose rail service will connect Miami to Orlando by 2022, said Tuesday it had acquired…

Los Angeles, one of the world’s major fashion centers and long a symbol of glitz and glamour, is taking steps to ban the sale of new fur products, a move that would make it the largest city in the U.S. to do so. A proposal to ban the sale of fur products advanced in the…

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal announced Tuesday that he plans to step down at the end of the academic year.