Sorted by date Results 26 - 34 of 34
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Mexican man living in the U.S. illegally used his job as an Uber driver to target intoxicated young women and was charged Monday with raping, assaulting and robbing four victims, California prosecutors said. Alfonso Alarcon-Nunez drove women to their homes, assaulted them, and stole property including cellphones, computers and jewelry, officials said. He collected his fare payments through the smartphone app Venmo to disguise his identity and his Uber records. DNA evidence helped lead detectives to Alarcon-Nunez, who was a...
MONTECITO, Calif. (AP) — Hundreds of rescue workers slogged through knee-deep ooze and used long poles to probe for bodies Thursday as the search dragged on for victims of the mudslides that slammed this wealthy coastal town. Seventeen people were confirmed dead and eight others were missing. Family members anxiously awaited word on loved ones who hadn't been heard from since the onslaught early Tuesday. "It's just waiting and not knowing, and the more I haven't heard from them — we have to find them," said Kelly Weimer, whose elderly par...
MONTECITO, Calif. (AP) — At least eight people were killed and homes were torn from their foundations Tuesday as downpours sent mud and boulders roaring down hills stripped of vegetation by a gigantic wildfire that raged in Southern California last month. Rescue crews used helicopters to pluck people from rooftops because debris blocked roads, and firefighters pulled a mud-caked 14-year-old girl from a collapsed Montecito home where she had been trapped for hours. "I thought I was dead for a minute there," the girl could be heard saying on v...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Firefighters took advantage of calm winds in Southern California to reach 50 percent containment of a massive wildfire, officials said. "We've had a very productive day," said Deputy Chief Mark Brown of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protections. "The weather conditions were just right for us." Monday was the first of a two-day window of calm winds in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties where the so-called Thomas Fire has burned for two weeks. The fire northwest of Los Angeles has now spread to about 423 s...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The nation's homeless population increased this year for the first time since 2010, driven by a surge in the number of people living on the streets in Los Angeles and other West Coast cities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its annual Point in Time count Wednesday, a report that showed nearly 554,000 homeless people across the country during local tallies conducted in January. That figure is up nearly 1 percent from 2016. Of that total, 193,000 people had no access to nightly shelter and i...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Scientists assessing long-term efforts to eradicate invasive ants on the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast have enlisted a four-legged expert to make sure a project to kill off the destructive pests has succeeded. A yellow Labrador named Tobias has lived for three months with a handler on Santa Cruz Island. The specially trained dog keeps its snout to the ground, rooting through more than 1.6 square miles (4.1 square kilometers) of underbrush, searching for nests of Argentine ants that threatened the e...
NORWALK, Calif. (AP) — A California utility has launched unique systems combining a hybrid battery and gas turbine to produce and store electricity for use during hot summer months and other times when power demand soars. The new Hybrid Electric Gas Turbines are the first of their kind in the world, officials with Southern California Edison and manufacturer General Electric said during an event Monday near Los Angeles. The new systems will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution by 60 percent and save millions of gallons of cooling w...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Scientists will fan out across a California desert valley this weekend to take an inventory of everything there that flies, hops, runs, swims or grows in the dirt. It's been 45 years since researchers last scoured Amargosa Valley near the northern edge of the Mojave Desert. That accounting of species led to federal protections within the remote region and new scientific understanding of its biodiversity. Over three days, experts in a variety of fields will once again tally birds, bats, toads, crickets, coyotes, lichen and n...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — After her husband asked for a divorce, Amber Clisura gave back her engagement ring, kicked him out of the house and tossed everything that reminded her of the ruined marriage. Except for one item: a polished steel barbecue smoker that her future ex-husband had fashioned for her from an old oil drum. "It sat there on the patio and rusted and rusted, and it became a sad symbol of the relationship," Clisura said. The four-legged smoker had been a treasured handmade gift, but eventually Clisura couldn't bear to look at it. She c...
