CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES
1,500-acre blaze burns in San Diego County
JULIAN, Calif. (AP) - Firefighters are battling a 1,500-acre fire in rugged and remote eastern San Diego County.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says the blaze began at 12:20 p.m. Thursday north of State Route 79, east of the town of Julian.
The blaze is 30% contained, and no injuries or structure damage has been reported.
State fire officials announced a controlled burn earlier in the day near the fire, but it was unclear if the two blazes were linked.
Elsewhere, Los Angeles County firefighters made quick work of a fire that spread rapidly up a slope within sight of homes in Santa Clarita.
Ground crews and water-dropping helicopters attacked the 1:10 p.m. blaze and fully contained it at five acres about an hour later.
LONGTIME MISSING WOMAN
No clues found in missing woman case after search
GLENDORA, Calif. (AP) - Cold-case investigators have finished a search and say nothing was found in the former backyard of a Southern California woman who disappeared 35 years ago.
Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Holly Francisco says a ground-penetrating sensor detected something in the yard of the Glendora home where Wendy Byron lived before she vanished in 1978 at age 24.
Holes were dug there Wednesday and again Thursday morning but neither a team of shovelers from the coroner's office nor a backhoe turned up anything and the search has been called off.
Francisco says the home's current occupants were cooperative.
SUSPECT KILLED-BAKERSFIELD
Sheriff: Beaten Bakersfield man's death accidental
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) - Kern County's sheriff said the death of a Bakersfield man after a beating from deputies that was captured on video was an accident that happened primarily because of heart disease.
Sheriff Donny Youngblood announced the autopsy results at a news conference Thursday on the May 8 death of 33-year-old David Sal Silva. The coroner also found alcohol and methamphetamine in Silva's system.
Youngblood defended deputies, saying they followed policy and never hit Silva in the head or neck. He condemned the case's media coverage, saying it has sent unnecessary "shockwaves" around the country.
The case received extra attention over investigators' confiscation of cellphone video shot by witnesses.
Silva family attorney David Cohn tells the Bakersfield Californian he doesn't believe Silva could've died of a natural cause like heart disease.
DEPUTY SHOOTING
Deputy shoots man who grabbed her stun gun
SAN DIEGO (AP) - San Diego sheriff's officials say a deputy shot a man after he grabbed her stun gun and fired it at her.
UT San Diego reports Thursday that the shooting happened outside an apartment complex in Vista, after deputies arrived to investigate a report of a drunken person.
Lt. Glenn Giannantonio (jon-ahn-tonio) says deputies discovered four men smoking marijuana in a laundry room and 1 of them began to fight with the deputy. She tried to use the Taser to subdue 20-year-old Anthony Fernando Garcia. He took it from her and fired it at her, but missed.
The deputy then shot Garcia, who was taken to a hospital. His condition was described only as stable.
The deputy was treated for minor injuries.
EX-LAPD DETECTIVE-WIFE DEATH
Ex-LA cop gets 20 years for wife's death in Hawaii
HONOLULU (AP) - A retired Los Angeles police detective has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hawaii for the 2006 beating death of his wife.
The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that Judge Ronald Ibarra said during sentencing that 59-year-old Dan DeJarnette had done the opposite in killing his wife from what earned him a commendable career in law enforcement.
In November 2006, DeJarnette told police he woke to find his 56-year-old wife, Yu DeJarnette, lying on a lava embankment near their Big Island home. She was pronounced dead from head trauma at a hospital.
An autopsy later revealed she had two gaping wounds from a tire iron.
DeJarnette pleaded guilty in March to manslaughter while under extreme emotional distress.
DeJarnette moved to Hawaii after his 2003 LAPD retirement.
HIGH SCHOOL SEX HAZING
Calif. students sentenced in soccer sex hazing
LA PUENTE, Calif. (AP) - Los Angeles County prosecutors say three former La Puente High School soccer players have been convicted and sentenced in the violent sexual hazing of fellow students last year.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported Thursday that the teens accused of sodomizing other players with a javelin and a broken flagpole have been sentenced to probation or a few months in juvenile camp.
The teens' names haven't been released because they were minors at the time of the crimes, which took place between April and August 2012.
2 of the teens who were 17 at the time of the hazing pleaded no contest to a felony assault charge and a misdemeanor hazing charge. The third pleaded guilty to those charges.
An attorney for the victims could not immediately be reached.
ABALONE POACHING
2 cited for poaching abalone near Laguna Beach
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (AP) - California Fish and Wildlife officials say they cited two men for poaching abalone from a protected area near Laguna Beach.
Lt. Eric Ford says wardens saw 47-year-old Juni Pong and 47-year-old Kuan Yee wearing full scuba gear as they entered the ocean at Moss Cove in Laguna Beach.
After more than an hour the men emerged from the ocean, and were greeted by wardens on the beach. They each allegedly had two green abalone in their diving gear.
Ford says the abalone were returned to the sea after being photographed for evidence, and their diving equipment was confiscated and impounded as evidence.
Abalone can only be taken from waters north of the San Francisco Bay and only during specific seasons.
US-FILM-WIKILEAKS
WikiLeaks leaks 'We Steal Secrets' doc transcript
LOS ANGELES (AP) - WikiLeaks characterizes the new documentary, "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks," as biased and accuses its director, Alex Gibney of "errors and sleight of hand."
The publishing site released a statement Thursday announcing it had posted an annotated transcript of the film ahead of its Friday release.
No author is cited for the statement that accuses the film of inaccurately portraying the relationship between WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who provided hundreds of thousands of classified American documents to the site. The statement asserts that no one recently associated with WikiLeaks participated in the documentary.
Gibney was not immediately available for comment.
AP-US-JACKSON-AEG-SUIT
Emails show concern for Jackson deterioration
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A stage manager who worked on Michael Jackson's ill-fated "This Is It" concert warned an AEG executive days before the star's death that he was in a physical and mental decline and needed help, according to an email shown to jurors on Thursday.
The message from John Hougdahl was written five days before Jackson died in June 2009. The stage manager told AEG executive Randy Phillips that he had seen Jackson deteriorate before his eyes and felt he needed help.
Jackson's mother, Katherine, is suing the entertainment giant's parent company, AEG Live LLC, for negligence in the hiring of Jackson's doctor, who was later convicted of killing the pop superstar with an overdose of the anesthetic propofol.
The trial was recessed until Tuesday when AEG executive Paul Gongaware is scheduled to testify.
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