ImageCredit...Philip Cheung for The New York TimesDeadly wildfires ravage Southern California as water runs low

Multiple out-of-control blazes in the Los Angeles area yesterday killed at least two people and seriously injured many others. The fires destroyed homes and businesses and blanketed highways in smoke. Officials warned of a dwindling water supply and said the worst was yet to come. Follow our live coverage here.7xm

Among national universities, Princeton was ranked No. 1 again, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. Stanford, which tied for third last year, fell to No. 4. U.S. News again judged Williams College the best among national liberal arts colleges. Spelman College was declared the country’s top historically Black institution.

Calls for school crackdowns have mounted with reports of cyberbullying among adolescents and studies indicating that smartphones, which offer round-the-clock distraction and social media access, have hindered academic instruction and the mental health of children.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes, and more areas were placed under evacuation orders by the hour. At least 18 school districts reported closures, and about 400,000 energy customers were without power. Air quality worsened as smoke poured into the sky. Here’s a map of the evacuations.

Hurricane-level winds in the area reached as high as 160 kilometers per hour, fueling the fires and hampering efforts to contain the devastation. Multiple firefighting agencies responded with strike teams, but the wind forced them to ground aircraft, making the fires particularly difficult to fight.

Context: The winter and late fall tend to produce catastrophic fires in California, and scientists have found that fires in the region have been moving faster. An analysis of 60,000 wildfires in the contiguous U.S. between 2001 and 2020 found that growth rates had increased over the decades in California and other parts of the West. As areas there become hotter and dryer, the ground becomes more flammable.

ImageCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

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