LAKEPORT, Calif. – There’s a new group of hopeful canines at the county’s animal shelter this week.

Mixes of border collie, kelpie, boxer and terrier are available to join your family.

Thanks to Lake County Animal Care and Control’s new veterinary clinic, many of the animals offered for adoption already are spayed or neutered and ready to go home with their new families.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

Border collie mix pup

This female border collie mix is 3 months old.

She has a short black and white coat and big brown eyes.

Find her in kennel No. 10, ID No. 33714.

Silky-wirehaired terrier mix

This male silky-wirehaired terrier mix is 3 years old.

He has a long brown and gray coat, a docked tail and has not been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 12, ID No. 33681.

Fox terrier mix

The female fox terrier mix is 2 years old.

She has a short black and white coat, and has not been spayed.

Find her in kennel No. 15, ID No. 33604.

Chihuahua-terrier mix

This female Chihuahua-terrier mix is 8 years old.

She weighs 9 pounds, has a short tan coat and has been spayed.

Find her in kennel No. 18, ID No. 33273.

‘Slick’

“Slick” is a 3-year-old male Australian Kelpie mix.

He has a short tricolor coat and weighs just over 42 pounds.

Find him in kennel No. 22, ID No. 33397.

Male boxer mix

This male boxer mix is 2 years old.

He has a short brown coat and a short tail.

He’s in kennel No. 23, ID No. 33691.

Male mastiff mix pup

This male mastiff mix pup is 17 weeks old.

He has a short black coat with white markings, and has not yet been altered.

Find him in kennel No. 32a, ID No. 33551.

Male mastiff mix pup

This male mastiff mix pup is 17 weeks old.

He has a short black coat with white markings, and has not yet been altered.

Find him in kennel No. 32b, ID No. 33552.

Female mastiff mix pup

This female mastiff mix pup is 17 weeks old.

She has a short black coat with white markings, and has not yet been altered.

Find her in kennel No. 32c, ID No. 33551.

Female mastiff mix pup

This female mastiff mix pup is 17 weeks old.

She has a short black coat with white markings, and has not yet been altered.

Find her in kennel No. 33b, ID No. 33555.

Adoptable dogs also can be seen at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dogs_and_Puppies.htm or at www.petfinder.com .

Please note: Dogs listed at the shelter's Web page that are said to be “on hold” are not yet cleared for adoption.

To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – The closure order for the Mill Fire area was adjusted on Saturday, restoring access to Letts Lake, while maintaining the closure within most of the fire perimeter on the Mendocino National Forest.

The new closure order opened up the M10 Road access to the north of the fire, including access to the recreation sites on the southern portion of the Snow Mountain Wilderness. On the south, it reestablishes access to Goat Mountain Road.  

The closure includes roads and popular off-highway vehicle trails that were damaged in the wildfire.

Residents and landowners or lessees of land within the closure area are exempt from the order to the extent necessary to access their property.

The forest is currently involved in Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) evaluation and activities to address the damage from the Mill Fire.

This includes looking at vegetation, soils and the watershed, as well as roads, trails and facilities in the area.

“We are happy to be able to allow the public to access Letts Lake and the Snow Mountain Wilderness from the M10 Road again,” said Forest Supervisor Sherry Tune. “We are asking the public to respect the closure order for the majority of the Mill Fire area, including roads and trails within the burned acreage.  This will help us maintain public and firefighter safety, as well as safely continue our work to stabilize and rehabilitate these areas to protect the natural resources and provide for future visitor use.”

The Mill Fire started Saturday, July 7, and consumed more than 29,500 acres between the Letts Lake area and the community of Stonyford on the Grindstone Ranger District of the Mendocino National Forest.

Violation of the closure order is punishable by a fine of no more than $5,000 for an individual, $10,000 for an organization, or up to six months imprisonment or both.

For more information, please visit www.fs.usda.gov//mendocino or contact the Forest at 530-934-3316.

For several days this month, Greenland’s surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations.

Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its two-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists.

On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet and the rest is lost to the ocean.

But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July.

Researchers have not yet determined whether this extensive melt event will affect the overall volume of ice loss this summer and contribute to sea level rise.

“The Greenland ice sheet is a vast area with a varied history of change. This event, combined with other natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann Glacier, are part of a complex story,” said Tom Wagner, NASA’s cryosphere program manager in Washington. “Satellite observations are helping us understand how events like these may relate to one another as well as to the broader climate system.”

Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was analyzing radar data from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Oceansat-2 satellite last week when he noticed that most of Greenland appeared to have undergone surface melting on July 12.

Nghiem said, “This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?”

Nghiem consulted with Dorothy Hall at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Hall studies the surface temperature of Greenland using the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.

She confirmed that MODIS showed unusually high temperatures and that melt was extensive over the ice sheet surface.

Thomas Mote, a climatologist at the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga; and Marco Tedesco of City University of New York also confirmed the melt seen by Oceansat-2 and MODIS with passive-microwave satellite data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder on a U.S. Air Force meteorological satellite.

The melting spread quickly. Melt maps derived from the three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet’s surface had melted. By July 12, 97 percent had melted.

This extreme melt event coincided with an unusually strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland. The ridge was one of a series that has dominated Greenland’s weather since the end of May.

“Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one,” said Mote.

This latest heat dome started to move over Greenland on July 8, and then parked itself over the ice sheet about three days later. By July 16, it had begun to dissipate.

Even the area around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles above sea level is near the highest point of the ice sheet, showed signs of melting.

Such pronounced melting at Summit and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889, according to ice cores analyzed by Kaitlin Keegan at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather station at Summit confirmed air temperatures hovered above or within a degree of freezing for several hours July 11-12.

“Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. “But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome.”

Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The Glenn County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the discovery of human remains at the Ord Bend Park.

Glenn County Sheriff Larry Jones said the remains were found at around 3:30 p.m. Friday by a Glenn County Public Works Department employee and a county inmate worker.

During clean up of a burn pile operation, a human skull was uncovered. Jones was notified of the situation by the supervisor of the worker on scene.

The sheriff and deputies responded and confirmed the find, also discovering additional bones. The area was declared a crime scene and the park was closed.

Detectives from the Major Crimes Unit were called to the scene. Due to the area still burning, the Ord Bend Fire Department was summoned to mist the area with water, Jones reported.

The scene was guarded through the night by members of the Sheriff’s Posse and the painstaking and laborious effort of processing the scene was started at 7 a.m. Saturday, according to Jones.

With the assistance of the Glenn County Sheriff’s Search & Rescue, dirt excavated from the scene was sifted through and additional bones were found, Jones said.

Jones said a specialist in forensic anthropology preliminarily identified the remains of that of a Caucasian female, between the ages of 35 to 45 years; however, additional forensic work must be completed.
 
The Glenn County Sheriff’s Office is conducting the investigation as a homicide. The process of attempting to identify the victim will now begin. Jones said the victim is classified as a Jane Doe at this time.   

He said it is far to early to determine whether or not the victim died at the location the remains were found or was dumped there. It is also yet to be determined how long the remains have been there but preliminary estimates put it at several months. The cause of death also is unknown.   

Jones said work was completed late Saturday afternoon at the crime scene and the park was reopened.

Additional information will be released as it becomes available, Jones said.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Dozens of firefighters responded on Saturday afternoon to a fire that started along a roadside and resulted in a large spot fire that burned in a nearby vineyard.

The fire began along Westlake Road near the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff and the Rodman Slough.

By Saturday night, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Linda Green, the incident commander, estimated the fire burned a total of 35 acres, including a seven-acre hot spot that had burned near a vineyard in the Robin Hill area.

Green said full containment was expected on Sunday morning.

“We’ll be out here all night,” said Green.

She said the fire area will be mapped on Sunday morning, and the final acreage could change.

The California Highway Patrol shut down a portion of Westlake Road as well as the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff, where flames consumed blackberry bushes and vegetation on a hillside lining the roadway.

The Nice-Lucerne Cutoff was reopened at about 10 p.m. Saturday, according to radio reports.

Green said firefighters were first dispatched shortly before 4 p.m.

When she arrived, the fire was running downhill and away from an area on the side of Westlake Road where there was a pile of dumped trash, including a broken toilet.

The fire scorched a large field of grass and oak trees across the road from the Westlake Seventh-day Adventist School, moving in the direction of the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff.

Green said no structures were damaged. Early on the fire pushed toward buildings on the Lake County Land Trust Rodman Preserve property at the corner of Westlake Road and the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff.

“But then the wind pushed the fire the other way,” she said.

Northshore Fire Battalion Chief Steve Hart said firefighters worked the main part of the fire from the ground.

Nearly an hour after the fire was reported, embers from the fire were reported to have drifted and started a fire on Mackie Road at Robin Hill Drive in North Lakeport.

Lakeport Fire Chief Ken Wells confirmed that the main fire’s embers started the second fire. He estimated it burned about seven acres in and around a vineyard, where he said additional hot spots were popping up.

Air tankers and a Cal Fire helicopter that Green said was from Vina in Tehama County worked the second fire as a crowd of people watched nearby.

Wells said firefighters did some firing operations to help stop the smaller fire, and a dozer line was put around it.

He said there had been concerns that the fire has caused downed power lines in the area. A Pacific Gas & Electric technician visited the scene and it later was reported that there were no fallen lines.

Green said the fire also had gotten close to structures in the Robin Hill area. Some residents there reported the fire coming close to their homes.

The fire’s cause remained under investigation, said Green. An investigator was set to arrive at the scene Sunday morning.

Early Saturday evening, the air tankers on the fire were being made available to go to new fires that had broken out in other areas of Northern California, including the Plumas National Forest, Green said.

Some of the Cal Fire personnel released from the scene Saturday evening had to return to the North Fire, burning near Cow Mountain in Mendocino County, which also began earlier in the day. That fire had burned 150 acres by nightfall.

Local resources had been stretched with a small wildland fire in Clearlake reported not long after the Westlake incident was dispatched.

Northshore Fire Deputy Chief Pat Brown said Williams Fire sent an engine and water tender to cover the district’s Clearlake Oaks station.

Agencies that responded to the Westlake Road fire scene along with Cal Fire included the U.S. Forest Service, Northshore Fire, Lakeport Fire, Kelseyville Fire, Lake County Fire, South Lake County Fire and CHP. PG&E also sent a truck to investigate the initial report of lines down.

Green said no firefighters were injured.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED REGARDING ACREAGE.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – Firefighters are at work Saturday afternoon trying to contain a fire on the near Cow Mountain.

The “North Fire,” which is visible from Lake County, is located off Mill Creek Road near Cow Mountain, southeast of Ukiah.

Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant told Lake County News that the fire began just before 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

“In the last couple of hours it’s grown significantly,” said Berlant.

It was reported to be 30 acres shortly after 3 p.m., rising to 150 acres and 10 percent containment about an hour later, according to Cal Fire.

Radio reports were indicating the fire was making a run up to a ridgetop.

Helicopters, air tankers and ground strike teams were being called to assist, with some engines to be positioned for structure protection, according to reports from the scene.

Additional information on the cause and firefighting effort will be posted as it becomes available.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The jury in the murder trial of a Lakeport man spent Friday listening to audio and watching video of his interrogations with sheriff's investigators in the hours after he is alleged to have stabbed a neighbor to death, believing wrongly that the man was a child molester.

Ivan Garcia Oliver, 34, is on trial for the death of 67-year-old Michael Dodele, who he allegedly stabbed 60 times on Nov. 20, 2007.

The fatal confrontation occurred just days after Oliver discovered that Dodele was listed on the Megan's Law sex offender registration Web site. Oliver mistakenly concluded that Dodele was a child molester, but he actually had served prison time for raping an adult female.

The defense alleges that Dodele was killed during a fight that erupted after Oliver confronted him.

Corey Paulich, a longtime Lake County Sheriff's deputy and the case's lead detective, had begun testimony late Thursday afternoon and continued on Friday morning, discussing blood evidence found in Oliver's home, the discovery of Dodele's cell phone and two knives Oliver is believed to have thrown out the window of his bathroom.

At the request of Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff, Paulich removed the two knives in their plastic canisters from the bags in which they had been packaged as evidence. He said blood was found on one of the knives.

Inside a white Buick parked next to Oliver's home at the Western Hills Mobile Home Park investigators found a half-full bleach bottle with blood on the bottom of it, which had been placed behind the driver's seat, and blood-stained clothes and a blanket in the trunk.

Paulich attended Dodele's autopsy at the Napa County Sheriff-Coroner's Office a week after his death. They found a small folded blade knife in his pocket, which was closed and had no blood on it, he said.

Hinchcliff played a 13-minute audio recording of Oliver speaking to Paulich and other deputies after being taken into custody at his residence, which was across from Dodele's trailer.

At first he refused to tell them his name. Speaking quickly and frequently repeating himself, his sentences peppered with profanity, Oliver alleged that Dodele had tried to hurt his 4-year-old son. Deputies could be heard telling him to calm down.

When asked his first name, he responded, “Sunshine.”

He followed by saying, “I did it,” and finally gave his correct first name.

The video of his interview at the sheriff's office later on the day of the stabbing had Oliver pacing around the interview room, wearing a beanie and a denim coat, with no shirt underneath.

He appeared agitated, frequently got up and down, fidgeted, rocked back and forth in his chair and stepped through the handcuffs so his hands were in front of him. His right hand, which he is alleged to have injured during the stabbing, was heavily bandaged.

Deputies gave him water, and later brought him a hamburger, chips and soda, and let him smoke cigarettes.

Paulich and Deputy Brian Kenner asked Oliver if he knew he was under arrest “for what went down.”

“What are you talking about?” Oliver replied.

They pressed him on what happened with Dodele, and his accusations that Dodele touched his young son.

“You're wasting your time, man,” Oliver told investigators. He also told them they were asking him stupid questions.

Paulich and Kenner frequently came and went from the room. Oliver would sit for a time then go and knock on the door to begin speaking with them again.

At one point, with Paulich and Kenner having sat nearby in silence for some time, Oliver blurted out, “I killed a man. I killed a man. I killed a man.”

He repeated his allegation that Dodele had touched his son. “I'm a father. I reacted like any father would react.”

“How did you kill him?” Paulich asked.

Oliver didn't respond.

Another lengthy silence was punctuated by a rapid response. “It was in the blink of an eye. It was in the blink of an eye,” he said, but would offer no details on how it happened.

At another point he got angry with detectives, who he accused of “fishing.”

“Ask me a direct question,” he said, yet didn't offer straight answers when they pressed him on details of the physical assault on Dodele.

Kenner asked Oliver if he grabbed Dodele. Oliver put his head down and didn't respond.

“I just want to know what this guy did to your kid,” said Kenner.

Oliver, in the portions of the interview shown Friday, didn't tell them.

“What do you want me to say, what do you expect me to say?” he asked.

Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 1.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A Lakeport man who last weekend led California Highway Patrol officers on a high speed chase before crashing into a power pole and escaping on foot has been arrested.

Dylan Eugene Waters, 26, was arrested Thursday night, according to the CHP.

He'd been sought for felony evasion and hit and run following the chase and crash on Sunday, July 22.

CHP officers had spotted Waters allegedly holding a meth pipe as he passed the site of a rollover collision on Highway 29 near Kelseyville, as Lake County News has reported.

Waters allegedly refused to stop at their command and led them on a high speed pursuit that ended on Cruickshank Road, when Waters lost control in a turn and hit a power pole, according to the CHP.

Since then, the CHP had conducted an extensive search for Waters.

At 10 p.m. Thursday CHP Officers Brendan Bach and Christopher Tuggle received an anonymous tip that Waters possibly was staying at the Lamplighter Motel, located at 14165 Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake, the agency reported.

Bach and Tuggle responded to the motel and observed Waters on the upstairs walkway, according to the report.

They directed Waters to stay where he was, but the report said he fled to a nearby room, where Tuggle and Bach made entry and ordered him to come out. Waters was arrested without further incident.

During a search of Waters, Bach and Tuggle found what they suspected to be marijuana and methamphetamine.

Waters was transported to the Lake County Jail, where he was booked on felony counts of evading a peace officer, possession of concentrated cannabis, possession of a controlled substance, and misdemeanors of obstructing or resisting a peace officer and being under the influence of a controlled substance.

Jail records indicated his bail was set at $100,000.

In a separate incident, Waters had been the driver in a fatal crash early on the morning of Tuesday, July 3, that claimed the lives of his brother, Kenneth Waters of Kelseyville, and Randy Orange of Clearlake Oaks.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Friday a judge denied a father and son from Lucerne their request for a temporary restraining order against the county, finding their arguments about irreparable harm due to the county's marijuana cultivation ordinance weren't substantiated.

Conrad Kiczenski, 21, and his father, Ron, 48, went before Judge David Herrick a day after filing their claim against the county and Sheriff Frank Rivero.

They represented themselves in the short hearing. Senior Deputy County Counsel Bob Bridges represented the county.

The county's interim urgency marijuana cultivation ordinance, sets limits on plants according to parcel size and location.

The ordinance sets limits on marijuana cultivation, allowing for up to six plants to be grown outdoors on a half acre or less, 12 plants with a 75-foot setback on parcels of half an acre to one acre, 18 plants and a 150-foot setback on parcels one to five acres in size, 36 plants and a minimum 150 foot setback on five- to 40-acre parcels, and a maximum of 48 plants on parcels 40 acres and larger.

Based on those numbers, the Kiczenskis – who live on a small residential lot – said they currently are out of compliance.

The Kiczenskis also asserted that the county was exceeding its authority by enforcing California’s Uniform Controlled Substances Act, and maintained that possession, planting and cultivation of cannabis is their religious duty, according to their case filings.

“I'm not a mind reader,” Ron Kiczenski said, adding that he has no idea of the sheriff is going to come and eradicate his plants. “All I know is we're currently in violation of what they say is the law at this point.”

If the county took the Kiczenskis' medicine and plants, “There'd be no way to replace anything,” Ron Kiczenski said, adding they can't afford to purchase marijuana from a dispensary.

Even more serious would be the loss of their seeds and the genetics they've worked to establish over the past five years, he said. “It would be lost forever. The DNA cannot be recovered.”

Herrick said the county's ordinance didn't address seeds, genetic experimentation or plant breeding. Ron Kiczenski said he was correct.

The chief problem with the case, said Herrick, was that he couldn’t deal with statutes that potentially would affect a person's ability to possess seeds; it was just the ordinance that he could consider.

He also said he could not tell the sheriff not to enforce the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act.

Conrad Kiczenski alleged that the law was not for the public benefit. Herrick said that view doesn't agree with the conclusions of the appellate courts.

Bridges said the Kiczenskis' complaint was not verified, and did not allege specific facts. He said what they were seeking went way beyond the Compassionate Use Act, suggesting they wanted a blanket exemption from state law.

He said the issues they raised in their suit over use of cannabis and hemp for clothing, paper and food also aren’t covered by the Compassionate Use Act. “This is just flawed,” said Bridges.

Herrick told the Kiczenskis that calling a complaint a verified didn't make it so, and that they failed to make a sufficient showing of harm.

He said the Compassionate Use Act didn't offer protections for religious beliefs, explaining that it's a defense to criminal charges.

Herrick concluded that the Kiczenskis didn't provide sufficient evidence to prove their case, and denied their application for the temporary restraining order. They could, he said, still push forward with seeking a preliminary or permanent injunction against the county.

This isn’t Ron Kiczenski’s first attempt at litigating over marijuana.

In 2003 he filed a complaint with the United States District Court, Eastern District of California seeking an injunction against the Justice Department to prevent his prosecution for possessing and planting hemp and cannabis.

The court later denied his case, and in 2007 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s ruling.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Forecasters say Solar Max is due in the year 2013. When it arrives, the peak of 11-year sunspot cycle will bring more solar flares, more coronal mass ejections, more geomagnetic storms and more auroras than we have experienced in quite some time.

On the weekend of July 14, sky watchers around the world got a taste of things to come.

It was mid-Saturday in North America when a coronal mass ejection or “CME” crashed into Earth’s magnetic field and triggered the most sustained display of auroras in years.

For more than 36 hours, magnetic storms circled Earth’s poles. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into the United States as far south as California, Colorado, Kansas and Arkansas.

In the southern hemisphere, skies turned red over Tasmania and New Zealand, while the aurora australis pirouetted around the South Pole.

The source of the CME was giant sunspot AR1520, a seething nest of tangled magnetism more than 15 times wider than Earth itself.

On July 12, the sunspot’s magnetic field erupted, producing an X-class solar flare and hurling a billion tons of electrified plasma toward our planet.

NASA’s twin STEREO probes and the European Space Agency’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory monitored the CME as it billowed away from the sun.

Using those data, analysts at NOAA and NASA successfully predicted the cloud’s arrival time. It would take almost two full days for the CME to cross the 93 million mile void between Earth and sun.

The CME’s impact sharply compressed Earth’s magnetosphere, briefly exposing geosynchronous satellites to solar wind plasma.

The shaking of Earth’s magnetic field caused compass needles to swing – just a little – and prompted electrical currents to flow through the soil at high latitudes. Fortunately, the strike did no harm; satellites survived and power grids stayed online.

Next came the light show. As the CME’s wake washed across Earth, the polar regions of our planet lit up like a Christmas tree.

Red, green, blue and purple auroras capped both ends of the planet, glowing, dancing, and ultimately spreading to places where auroras are seldom seen.

In Arkansas, for instance, “there was a faint glow off and on for most of the night,” reports Brad Emfinger from a little town called Ozark. “Around 3 a.m. there was an outburst of red and purple plainly visible to the naked eye.”

In Pawnee Grasslands, Colorado, photographer Robert Arn saw the Northern Lights for the first time ever: “As soon as I stepped out of the car, the sky looked like it was on fire. Then the Moon, Venus and Jupiter rose together in the east. To see the conjunction and the auroras side-by-side was incredible!”

Meanwhile at the other end of the planet, “auroras were going crazy over the South Pole,” reported Robert Schwarz at the Amundsen-Scott south pole research station “We enjoyed the show under crystal clear skies with an air temperature of minus 105 degrees F.”

In Ashland, Wisconsin, on the other hand, John Welling watched the show in his shirt sleeves: “Tonight was absolutely the best with a comfortable temperature of +78 degrees F and Northern Lights dancing overhead. The X-flare definitely lived up to the hype.”

From one end of the planet to the other, spanning more than 90 degrees of combined north-south latitude, 183 degrees of temperature, and 360 degrees of longitude, this was truly a global space weather event.

And it was just a taste of things to come.

Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – Governor Brown and the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians have agreed to an amended tribal-state gaming compact between the state of California and the tribe.

The tribe operates Coyote Valley Casino in Redwood Valley, in neighboring Mendocino County.

The compact is designed to address fiscal challenges the tribe has faced and to meet the requirements of federal law that the tribe be the primary beneficiary of its gaming operation, the Governor’s Office reported.

The amended compact will help the tribe to continue funding programs in local communities that mitigate the impact of gaming activities and address gambling addiction.

It includes provisions to protect employees and patrons as well as measures that the tribe must take to protect the environment during the construction and operation of gaming facilities.

The compact includes a provision allowing the operation of a maximum of 1,250 slot machines.

Up to 15 percent of the casino's net win from these machines will go to local communities as well as gambling mitigation and regulatory activities.

The compact requires regular audits of gaming operations and supersedes the 2004 compact between the tribe and the state of California.

The 221-page compact can be seen below.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Thursday several current and former sheriff's deputies testified to responding to the scene of a 2007 stabbing in which a man allegedly killed his neighbor because he mistakenly had concluded that he was a child molester.

Ivan Garcia Oliver, 34, is charged with murder, burglary, elder abuse and several special allegations for the killing of 67-year-old Michael Dodele on Nov. 20, 2007.

Oliver is alleged to have stabbed Dodele 60 times in his trailer at Western Hills Mobile Home Park in Lakeport, where Dodele had moved a short time before after being released from serving about 20 years in prison for raping a woman.

The prosecution alleges that Oliver misunderstood Dodele's sex offender registration information on the state's Megan's Law Web site and believed Dodele had served prison time for child molestation.

Oliver's defense attorney, Stephen Carter, has argued that Oliver was concerned about his 4-year-old son, and when he went to confront Dodele on that November morning a fight ensued and Dodele died as a result.

First on the stand on Thursday was Tom Andrews, who at the time was a deputy sheriff with more than 20 years' experience.

Andrews was dispatched to the mobile home park on the report of suspicious circumstances, with a male with bleeding hands said to be near space 19, Dodele's trailer. He was the first to arrive on scene, and he encountered Oliver near his own home, across from Dodele’s.

According to his testimony, Andrews asked Oliver the location of space 19. Oliver told him it was at the back of the park, but Andrews noticed that the space to his right was marked 19. When he pointed that out to Oliver, Oliver said the spaces were incorrectly marked. Oliver's hands did not appear to be covered with blood, Andrews said.

Andrews drove around the park, concluded he originally had been at the right place and went back to the trailer. He could see the trailer's sliding glass door was open, and so he went to the yard gate and announced himself.

He went to the door, pushed the blinds aside, and noticed what appeared to be blood on the floor, leading from the living room area to the left toward the kitchen, and down the hallway to the back of the trailer.

Andrews said he waited until Deputy Cynthia Radoumis arrived to cover him, and then they made their way down the hallway, following a blood trail that went into the bathroom, the door of which was closed.

Rather than go into the bathroom, Andrews said he continued into the back bedroom, where he could see a body on the floor, at the foot of a bed.

Dodele was found lying on his right side, in the fetal position, fully dressed. Andrews said he had no pulse but was warm to the touch. Paramedics arrived and confirmed he was dead. Andrews then requested that the sheriff's detectives bureau respond.

Andrews interviewed Israel Bojorquez, who had seen Oliver coming out of Dodele's trailer and reported being assaulted by Oliver earlier that morning.

When Andrews went to Oliver's home, he saw blood smears on the front of the residence and on a vehicle parked directly in front of it. A short time later, then-Sgt. Chris Macedo and several investigators arrived and took over the crime scene.

Deputies did a forced entry on Oliver’s home. Andrews followed several other deputies into the home, guns drawn, and took Oliver into custody.

Paramedic Jonelle Grandi also briefly testified about responding to the scene and finding Dodele with no pulse or heart activity.

She recalled that “there was blood all over the place.”

The investigation at the scene

Brian Martin, a former Lake County Sheriff’s lieutenant, arrived at the scene after Andrews did and participated in the forced entry at Oliver’s home.

Initially, deputies handcuffed both Oliver and his girlfriend. Martin said Oliver had blood on him, and Martin said deputies didn’t know if the couple were injured or involved with the murder.

“They were handcuffed for their safety and for our safety,” Martin said.

He said deputies searched Oliver’s bedroom and found a cell phone between the box spring and mattress. Martin contacted Dodele’s sister, who gave Martin her brother’s cell phone number. When he dialed the number, the cell phone that had been found under the mattress rang, and showed Martin’s phone number.

“That convinced us at that time that it was his cell phone,” Martin said.

Det. Corey Paulich, the case’s lead investigator, had found the window screen in Oliver’s bathroom pushed out and blood on the window sill. Paulich then asked Martin to search on the east side of Oliver’s residence, and in the backyard Martin found two folding knives – one silver and one black.

In an interview with Martin, Oliver’s girlfriend identified the silver knife as Oliver’s but couldn’t identify the second knife as his. She said he had three knives altogether.

Martin took Oliver to Sutter Lakeside for a blood test in order to collect DNA and to test for drugs. Later he checked the Megan’s Law Web site and printed out Dodele’s entry.

Another witness on Thursday was Lt. Brian Kenner, who was a detective at the time of the murder, and assisted with the forced entry into Oliver’s residence.

He said he saw blood on Oliver’s hands and on the floor of his home. After they went into the residence, he saw Oliver lying on his kitchen floor, handcuffed and secured. Kenner stood by to keep an eye on Oliver, who he said appeared agitated.

“He was asking us why we came into his house, what we were doing there,” Kenner said.

While Kenner was there with him, Oliver spontaneously said, “I just got to tell you, I did this shit.”

Oliver told Kenner that he was minding his own business, and alleged that Dodele tried to hurt his son.

Kenner recalled Oliver having a cut on his right hand, in the web between the thumb and index finger.

He went with Oliver when he was transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital for treatment of his hand injury. A doctor asked Oliver several times how he hurt his hand. Each time Oliver told the doctor he did it while shaving, Kenner said.

While he was at the scene, Kenner prepared a diagram of the home, which included documentation of what investigators believed was blood spatter on the bedroom wall. He also removed a hot water knob covered with blood from Dodele’s bathroom and cut out some bathroom flooring to preserve a footprint.

The trial resumes at 9 a.m. Friday in Lake County Superior Court Department 3.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .