SWITCH: Mobile | ePaper | Subscribe

Homes Rentals Jobs Autos Contests

Tracie Cone

This Wednesday, March 6, 2013 photo shows a sign posted near the gate near at the entrance of Cat Haven, the exotic animal park in central California where a 26-year old female volunteer intern was killed by a lion, in Dunlap, Calif. (AP Photo/Gosia Wozniacka)

Victim of fatal lion attack had 'dream job' at Cat Haven

Gosia Wozniacka, Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Thursday, March 7, 2013 - 10:45am

DUNLAP, Calif. — The Seattle-area intern fatally mauled by a lion at a Central California exotic animal park loved lions and tigers since childhood, “was absolutely fearless” around them and hoped to work at a zoo after her six-month internship, her father said late Wednesday.

Animal attack, Lions, National Read more Comments

National Park cuts detailed in memo

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 3:04pm

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The towering giant sequoias at Yosemite National Park would go unprotected from visitors who might trample their shallow roots. At Cape Cod National Seashore, large sections of the Great Beach would close to keep eggs from being destroyed if natural resource managers are cut.

Gettysburg would decrease by one-fifth the numbers of school children who learn about the historic Pennsylvania battle that was a turning point in the Civil War.

As America's financial clock ticks toward forced spending cuts to countless government agencies, The Associated Press has obtained a National Park Service memo that compiles a list of potential effects at the nation's most beautiful and historic places just as spring vacation season begins.

Outdoors, National Park Service, Sports Read more Comments

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2012 file photo, Mount Rainier National Park Ranger Matt Chalup, left, hands park information to one of the first visitors to the park at the Nisqually entrance near Ashford, Wash. The politics have been fierce and the fingerpointing incessant. Come March 1, the across-the-board federal spending cuts called sequestration go into effect, launching a new season of economic uncertainty for a nation still trying to shake off a recession. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

Memo details impact of cuts on National Parks

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Friday, February 22, 2013 - 3:06pm

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The towering giant sequoias at Yosemite National Park would go unprotected from visitors who might trample their shallow roots. At Cape Cod National Seashore, large sections of the Great Beach would close to keep eggs from being destroyed if natural resource managers are cut.

Budget cuts, National Parks, National Read more Comments

This undated photo provided by the Tulare County Sheriff's Department shows Hector Celaya, 31. Authorities say that Celaya is a suspect in shootings in which three people died and four others, including two young girls, were wounded Saturday, Dec. 8, 2012, on the Tule River Indian Reservation in the Sierra foothills of California's Central Valley. (AP Photo/Tulare County Sheriff's Department)

5 dead in Indian reservation shootings

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Monday, December 10, 2012 - 10:19am

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — The church bell that rings out to announce the deaths of tribal members on the Tule River Indian Reservation tolled repeatedly Sunday after a man went on a shooting rampage that left a daughter, his mother and her two brothers dead. The suspect also died in a shootout with police.

Crime, Murder, Shootings, National Read more Comments

FILE -- In this file photo from Sunday Oct. 23, 2011, tents are seen in Curry Village in Yosemite National Park, Calif. On Monday, Aug. 27, 2012, Yosemite officials announced a second person had died of a rare, rodent-borne disease after staying in one of Yosemite National Park's most popular lodging areas, prompting federal officials to step up efforts to locate and warn recent visitors. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

1,700 Yosemite visitors at risk from deadly hantavirus

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 1:50pm

FRESNO, Calif. — About 1,700 people who stayed in tent cabins at Yosemite National Park this summer were warned Tuesday they may have been exposed to a deadly rodent-borne virus blamed for the deaths of two campers.

Hantavirus, National Read more Comments

A security guard opens the gate at the Central Valley Meat Co., the California slaughterhouse shut down by federal regulators after they received video showing dairy cows being repeatedly shocked and shot before being slaughtered, on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012 in Hanford, Calif. Federal regulators are investigating whether beef from sick cows reached the human food supply. (AP Photo/Gosia Wozniacka)

Calif. congress members ask USDA to reopen plant

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Thursday, August 23, 2012 - 2:07pm

FRESNO, Calif. — Three Central California congressmen are asking the federal government to reopen a slaughterhouse at the center of a cruelty and food safety investigation, citing the region’s high unemployment.

Republican lawmakers Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy and Jeff Denham signed a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Thursday saying that shutting the plant will do nothing to further the goal of responding to the alleged animal abuse.

The trio is asking Vilsack to intervene against attacks occurring at the behest of radical groups.

Animal Cruelty, California Read more Comments

In this Wednesday, April 11, 2012 photo, Debra Tate, younger sister of murdered actress Sharon Tate, leaves Corcoran State Prison in Corcoran, Calif., after she testified at a parole hearing for Charles Manson. The panel denied parole for mass murderer Manson, 77, in his 12th and possibly final bid for freedom. Tate and Barbara Hoyt, the Manson family member whose testimony helped put the killers in prison, have bonded in their long quest to keep those responsible for the murders behind bars. (AP Photo/Tracie Cone)

Women linked by Manson murders form odd friendship

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Monday, April 16, 2012 - 10:08am

CORCORAN, Calif. -- On August 9, 1969, two naive 17-year-old girls were launched on a path that led to the unlikeliest of friendships.

That infamous night, four young people under the sway of a charismatic career criminal slipped into a neighborhood of Hollywood glitterati, then bludgeoned and stabbed rising young actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and three others. Across town the next night, the band killed again.

The name Charles Manson quickly became a synonym for unimaginable evil, which nobody knows better than Debra Tate, Sharon's little sister, and Barbara Hoyt, the Manson family member whose testimony helped put the killers in prison.

Murder, Charles Manson, Friendship, Serial killer, National Read more Comments

This file combo of photographs shows how Charles Manson has looked over the years from 1969 up to the most recently released photo in 2011. Manson is scheduled to have a parole hearing at Corcoran State Prison in Central Calif., on Weds., April 11, 2012. (AP Photo, File)

Calif. prison panel denies Manson’s bid for parole

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 4:03pm

CORCORAN, Calif — A prison panel denied parole Wednesday to mass murderer Charles Manson in his 12th and probably final bid for freedom.

Crime, Murder, Charles Manson, Parole, Prison, National Read more Comments

(California Department of Corrections/The Associated Press)
77-year-old serial killer Charles Manson

Manson skips 12th parole hearing, may be his last

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 12:01pm

CORCORAN, Calif. -- Debra Tate hopes that Wednesday is the last time she has to walk into a prison and argue to parole officials that Charles Manson should not be freed.

For four decades, the sister of murdered actress Sharon Tate has traveled to whatever rural California prison has held the notorious cult leader and his band of murderous followers for hearings she says are too numerous to count.

"I've tried to take this thing that I do, that has become my lot in life, and make it have purpose," says the 59-year-old Tate, who was 17 in August 1969, when Manson sent his minions across Los Angeles on two nights of terror. "I've been doing it for Sharon and the other victims of him for the last 40 years."

Charles Manson, Corcoran State Prison, parole hearing, Prison, National Read more Comments

Snow dump in Sierra Nevada exceeds forecast

Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 2:47pm

It's finally looking like ski season in California's Sierra Nevada as a late winter storm exceeded forecasts by dumping at least 6 feet of fluff at the highest elevations.

Sierra Nevada, Skiing, Snowstorm, Weather, National Read more Comments

Parents of Pentagon shooter warned authorities

Brooke Donald, Tracie Cone The Associated Press

Last updated Friday, March 5, 2010 - 2:42pm

HOLLISTER, Calif. -- The Pentagon shooter had been behaving erratically, and his family feared in January that he had bought a gun, a law enforcement official said Friday.

Crime, National Read more Comments