Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a partnership Wednesday with three local universities aimed at positioning the city to compete for hundreds of thousands of federal dollars for clean technology research and a proposed state institute to study climate change. The partnership with Caltech, UCLA and USC is part of the agenda Villaraigosa outlined in his State of the City speech Tuesday to lure and retain companies that focus on green endeavors such as solar, wind, battery and hydrogen fuel cell technologies. Villaraigosa said the CleanTech LA alliance, which also includes the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Business...