California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A suspected California serial killer cannot afford a private attorney, a judge ruled Thursday, keeping in place a public defender in a case expected to cost taxpayers $20 million.

Joseph DeAngelo, a former police officer facing 26 murder and kidnapping charges, could be required to reimburse the county to the extent he is able after the trial, Judge Michael Sweet said in Sacramento Superior Court.

DeAngelo, 73, stood in an orange jumpsuit inside a courtroom cage. He appeared to have lost weight in jail since his arrest in April.

VISALIA, Calif. (AP) — A high school teacher in central California was arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment after forcibly cutting the hair of one of her students while singing the national anthem, authorities said. Margaret Gieszinger was arrested Wednesday after videos posted to social media showed a student at University Preparatory High School in the city of Visalia sitting in a chair at the front of the classroom as Gieszinger cuts his hair.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The second storm in a week brought record-breaking rainfall to parched Los Angeles on Thursday, jamming traffic on Southern California highways and prompting evacuations in wildfire-scarred areas.

A mudslide shut down Pacific Coast Highway and surrounding roads in and around Malibu neighborhoods charred by last month’s massive fire that destroyed hundreds of homes.

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- NASA's InSight spacecraft has sent signals to Earth after its successful landing on Mars, indicating that its solar panels are open and collecting sunlight on the Martian surface.

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter relayed the signals as well as images showing InSight's landing site, according to a release of NASA on Tuesday.

The solar array deployment ensures the spacecraft can recharge its batteries each day.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — The gunman who killed 12 people in a crowded Southern California bar had more than 150 bullets left to fire but stopped shooting to ambush arriving officers, killing one of them, police said Tuesday.

Investigators said they still don’t know why 28-year-old Ian David Long attacked staff and customers at the Borderline Bar and Grill in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks on Nov. 7.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Investigators on Tuesday plan to release a more detailed timeline of a mass shooting at a Southern California bar that killed 12 people in the first news conference since the week of the Nov. 7 attack.

Investigators haven’t said what they believe motivated 28-year-old Ian David Long to open fire at the Borderline Bar and Grill in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks. Long, who killed himself, posted on social media about whether people would think he was insane.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A massive wildfire that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes in Northern California has been fully contained after burning for more than two weeks, authorities said Sunday.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the Camp fire had been surrounded by firefighters after several days of rain in the Paradise area.

Los Angeles, Nov 23 (AFP) The fire that has ravaged northern California is now almost completely contained, authorities said Thursday as the death toll rose to 84.

Rain fell in the first measurable amounts in months in the drought-stricken area and this helped put out hot spots and smouldering fires, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

It said the so-called Camp Fire is now 95 per cent contained.

The number of people listed as unaccounted for in the deadliest and most destructive fire in state history stands at 563.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Company said Wednesday that it is confident in the safety of its 737 MAX aircraft despite a deadly air crash of a same-model jet of an Indonesia airline.

Boeing said in a statement that it is working closely with Indonesian authorities in the ongoing investigation into the Oct. 29 crash of Lion Air Flight JT 610 off the coast of Indonesia, which killed 189 people aboard.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — At first, the outlines of the mass shooter’s 28 years appeared unremarkable.

Ian David Long enlisted in the Marines out of high school and married at 19. Within five years, he was honorably discharged, divorced and in college.

As the picture sharpened, troubling details emerged — the kinds of clues that, in hindsight, make people wonder out loud whether the impulse that led Long to kill 12 people at a country music bar had been forming in plain sight.