CALIFORNIA CAREER COLLEGES CLOSE ABRUPTLY: SAN JOSE (AP) — A company that operated five health care career colleges in California has abruptly closed its campuses 10 days after filing for bankruptcy.
Biohealth College in San Jose and the Bryman Colleges in San Jose, Hayward, San Francisco and Los Angeles together enrolled about 280 students whose course credits may now be worthless.
But California Department of Consumer Affairs spokesman Russ Heimerich, whose agency oversees for-profit colleges, says the students won’t have to repay any federal loans they may have taken out to finance their educations and may be eligible for tuition refunds from the state.
EPA REACHES SAN FRANCISCO BAY POLLUTION SETTLEMENT: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A San Francisco Bay Area water agency and six cities it serves have agreed to pay $1.5 million in fines to settle allegations that they allowed raw or partially treated sewage to flow into the bay.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the penalties are part of a settlement to a lawsuit it brought five years ago against the cities and the East Bay Municipal Utility District.
Under the deal announced Monday, the water district and the cities of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and Piedmont also agreed to invest an estimated $1.5 billion over the next 21 years to upgrade their aging sewer systems to prevent future spills.
According to the EPA, about 1.1 billion gallons of sewage was either forced out of manholes during storms or illegally discharged from the water districts between 2009 and last year.
MAN LYING ON STREET STRUCK, KILLED BY LAPD CRUISER : LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities say a man lying on a Los Angeles street was struck and killed by a police cruiser as officers responded to a call of a naked man running through a neighborhood.
Officer Liliana Preciado says the incident occurred shortly before 10:30 p.m. Sunday in the Jefferson Park area.
She says the officers stopped and rendered aid to the injured man. Paramedics were called and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
She could not confirm that the man struck by police was naked.
Officials will try to determine if the victim was mentally ill or possibly under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Preciado says the accident happened about two blocks west of where the naked man was reported.
BURGLARY SUSPECT STEALS POLICE VAN IN CLOVIS: CLOVIS (AP) — Authorities in Clovis say a handcuffed burglary suspect stole a police van and led officers on a high-speed chase before crashing and getting arrested for the second time.
Donald Walker, 32, had been arrested on suspicion of burglarizing a vehicle Saturday night and was in the police van awaiting a ride to jail. As officers were handling other prisoners, Walker managed to reposition his manacled hands and break the lock on a partition.
Walker then climbed into the driver’s seat and, while still handcuffed, drove off, nearly hitting officers and smashing through a gate.
Police say Walker crashed the van several times before ultimately wrecking it in a field. He was found with the help of canine units and a helicopter search team.
CATTLE AUCTION BOSS GETS PROBATION IN CRUELTY CASE: ONTARIO (AP) — The owner of a Southern California livestock auction house will serve probation for his role in an animal cruelty case that came to light after an undercover investigation by an animal rights organization.
Horacio Santorsola entered a plea of no contest Monday in San Bernardino County Superior Court to a misdemeanor count of receiving improperly held non-ambulatory animals.
He also must pay $1,000 in fines and fees to the Inland Valley Humane Society.
The Los Angeles-based group Mercy for Animals secretly filmed workers kicking and stomping on pigs, hitting emus with a baton and slinging baby goats by the neck and hind legs.
Santorsola and seven employees at his company, Ontario Livestock Sales Inc., were charged in 2012.
SUSPECT’S MOM ALSO CHARGED IN CALIFORNIA BURGLARY: LONG BEACH (AP) — The mother of a man facing a murder charge in a California robbery that ended in a second suspect’s fatal shooting has also been charged in the case.
Prosecutors said Monday that 49-year-old Ruby Adams is charged with first-degree residential burglary and first-degree residential robbery for acting as a lookout for her son and another female suspect.
That female suspect, 28-year-old Andrea Miller, died after the 80-year-old homeowner shot her as she fled down an alley.
Gus Adams was charged last week with murder, burglary, robbery and weapons charges in the July 22 Long Beach case.
Authorities say the 26-year-old can be charged with murder because he participated in a crime that resulted in someone’s death though he did not fire the weapon.
