“In the southern Sierra Nevada it’s devastating,” Tom Smith, a forest pest management specialist for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire), told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s epidemic and it’s probably going to get even worse.” As the beetles deliver a final death blow to the trees already weakened by drought, many believe the massive die-off increases the likelihood of devastating fires.   read more

The liberal arts school was founded in 1996 as an institute and also operated as an Islamic seminary before transforming into a four-year college in 2009. It offers a B.A. in Islamic Law and Theology as well as courses in politics, astronomy, and American history, among others. "Religiously-affiliated colleges are plentiful in the United States, but the vast majority are Christian," said Jack Jenkins. "There are a few Jewish higher education institutions...and even some Buddhist schools.”   read more

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr., in Sacramento, ruled that the state can continue to pursue its claim against Hyatt for a piece of the $40 million he earned in 1991 after being granted a patent he first sought in 1970. Interest and penalties have swelled California’s claim to $55 million. The state says Hyatt was a resident at the time of the windfall, but he claims he fled to no-tax Nevada just in time.   read more

State law compels the AG to write a petition title and summary of no more than 100 words and ship it to the Secretary of State’s office for circulation by May 4. It has been characterized as a colorful way of fostering a discussion of free speech, an examination of the flawed ballot initiative system or a clever piece of performance art. It's a hate-filled rant that looks oddly out of place in California, but probably resonates with the Fox News demographic across America.   read more

The flamethrower ignites 87-octane gasoline as it shoots 25 feet straight out. “You can use it for clearing snow and ice, or weeds, like with a propane torch. Pyrotechnic event displays, like they use at concerts,” according to co-developer Chris Byars. Or, “You can start bonfires from a great distance away, or it’s just something you can enjoy with friends—just a cool toy.”   read more

Church spokesman Larry Kamer said the system, which is just water pouring from a hole above the alcove, was supposed to act as a deterrent, with the assumption being that no one was so desperate for safe shelter that they would put up with being regularly doused. They were wrong. Homeless people huddled in them with umbrellas and plastic gear.   read more

Duncan recorded music with nasty lyrics for a CD featuring a gun and bullets on the cover. He also posed on social media websites with friends who were implicated in a 2013-14 crime spree that included nine shootings. Duncan was charged under provisions of Proposition 21, which allows the authorities to prosecute gang members who profit from crimes of other gang members, even if they aren’t directly involved.   read more

In a unanimous decision, the state justices granted Chang posthumous admission to the Bar. It is the court’s first such posthumous declaration. The ruling is an eight-page apology for the sentiments and actions of the state—and the subsequent failure to put it right for 125 years—that denied Chang an opportunity to practice law.   read more

The Bishop Paiute Tribe is suing the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department in U.S. District Court, claiming its sovereign rights were violated by the arrest of a tribal police officer. The Sheriff’s Department, which has and uses stun guns, wants tribal Officer Daniel Johnson punished for using a stun gun on a woman during a domestic dispute, and asked for the order to stop the tribal police from “illegally exercising state police powers under the color of authority.”   read more

Robert Durst, black-sheep member of a wealthy New York real estate dynasty, has been in law enforcement's cross-hairs since the 1982 disappearance of his wife in New York State, the subsequent Beverly Hills murder of a close friend, and the murder and dismemberment of an elderly neighbor in Galveston, Texas. In the final episode Sunday night of the six-part HBO documentary about him, Durst is captured on mike whispering to himself, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”   read more

The odds of an 8.0 quake in the next 30 years have risen from 4.7% to 7%. While that is only 2.3 percentage points higher, it can also be read as a much scarier 48.9% increase. The new report abandons past models that assumed an earthquake happened along a single fault, and factors in multiple faults rupturing simultaneously.   read more

Last week, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) announced it had secured the land to build a slower, five-mile version of the 760-mph L.A.-to-S.F. transportation system envisioned by Silicon Valley billlionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2013—along the edge of Quay Hays’ 9-year-old yet-to-be-realized community vision centered on renewable energy and organic farming.   read more

A phalanx of local and federal agencies participated in raids this week at 37 “maternity hotels” in Southern California, gathering evidence but not arresting people. Wealthy Chinese are reportedly paying $15,000 to $50,000 to operators of "maternity hotels" who arrange for the pregnant women to attain U.S. citizenship for their children by delivering them here.   read more

By an 861-293 vote, the state GOP officially sanctioned the 38-year-old group at its biannual gathering of the party faithful over the weekend. It is perhaps one thing to be wanted and another to be accepted. John Briscoe, president of the socially conservative California Republican Assembly (CRA), amplified the conflict. “I have a hard time understanding how we’re going to charter an organization that’s in opposition to our platform,” he said.   read more

Although woodrats, western gray squirrels, deer and other small mammals are generally considered the most likely creatures to host the western black-legged ticks that carry the bacteria responsible for Lyme disease, birds might give them a run for their money. Researchers looked at 623 birds at 14 sites in Mendocino County and found 284 juvenile ticks on 100 of them. Fifty-seven of those birds had Lyme disease spirochetes. Twenty-three of 53 bird species tested were infected.   read more

Rice won. But to be fair to the other candidates, it must be said, this was not a head-to-head battle with early frontrunner California Attorney General Kamala Harris, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or any of the other presumed Democratic candidates in this bluest of blue states. It was a poll of how “inclined” people were to vote for a particular candidate and they could be inclined toward more than one.   read more