By JONATHAN J. COOPER and SUDHIN THANAWALA , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — About 10,000 more people were ordered evacuated as two wildfires surged toward small lake towns in Northern California while the state’s largest and deadliest blaze of the year slowed slightly after days of explosive growth, authorities said. The twin fires in…
By MARTHA MENDOZA , Associated Press ANDERSON, California (AP) — Exhausted and hungry, some 12,000 firefighters are working 24-hour shifts battling deadly California wildfires and becoming resigned to fire seasons that start earlier, burn longer and unleash increasingly unpredictable blazes. “There’s a lot going on up here, endless fires, and they’re all characteristically pretty much…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and BRIAN MELLEY , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — The death count from a rapidly growing Northern California wildfire rose to five Saturday after two young children and their great-grandmother who had been unaccounted for were confirmed dead. “My babies are dead,” Sherry Bledsoe said through tears after she and…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and LORIN ELENI GILL , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — Only a handful of homes remain in the small northern California community of Keswick. The air chokes with the smell of smoke and chemicals, smoldering what’s left of people’s lives. The so-called Carr Fire roared through Shasta County, so thoroughly…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and BRIAN MELLEY , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire that roared with little warning into a Northern California city claimed two lives as thousands of people scrambled to escape before the walls of flames descended from forested hills onto their neighborhoods, officials said Friday. Residents who gathered their…
CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. (AP) — Wind-driven wildfires destroyed buildings and threatened hundreds of others Sunday as they raced across dry brush in rural Northern California. The Pawnee Fire that broke out Saturday near the community of Clearlake Oaks has destroyed 12 buildings and threatened an additional 600 as it burned out of control across about…
By AMY TAXIN and MICHAEL BALSAMO , Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Prosecutors were expected to begin making their case Wednesday against a Southern California couple suspected of starving and shackling their children in a case that drew worldwide headlines when the parents were arrested last winter. David and Louise Turpin are scheduled to…
By MICHAEL BALSAMO and AMANDA LEE MYERS , Associated Press ALISO VIEJO, Calif. (AP) — A deadly explosion that ripped through a Southern California day spa was a crime, authorities said Wednesday as they tried to figure out why someone would target a business that provided facials, waxing and wrinkle treatments. Authorities declined to say…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and JANIE HAR , Associated Press FAIRFIELD, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California woman denied that she or her husband abused their 10 children after authorities said the kids suffered puncture wounds, burns, bruising and injuries consistent with being shot with a pellet gun. The children, ages 4 months to 12…
By SOPHIA BOLLAG and DON THOMPSON , Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A DNA match led to the arrest of a 72-year-old former police officer in one of the most baffling and sadistic crime sprees of the 1970s and ’80s — a string of at least 12 slayings and 45 rapes in California by…