3 FIRMS BID ON SECOND PHASE OF HIGH-SPEED RAIL: SACRAMENTO (AP) — Three firms are bidding to build the second leg of California’s $68 billion high-speed rail system, which will run from Fresno to Bakersfield.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority says three joint construction ventures submitted sealed bids by Thursday’s deadline.
The contract to design and build the second, 60-mile phase is expected to be worth $1.5 billion to $2 billion. But the cost of each of the bids submitted Thursday will be kept secret while state officials review their technical merits.
The groups that submitted bids are: Dragados/Flatiron/Shimmick; Golden State Rail Partnership; and Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons, which is building the first 28-mile leg. That section stretches from Madera to Fresno.
Federal authorities signed off on the Fresno-to-Bakersfield route earlier this summer.
THIEF TAKES THOUSANDS OF CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS: APTOS (AP) — The Grinch has come early for a store in Northern California.
Between Saturday night and Tuesday afternoon, somebody broke into a cargo container outside of a shop in Aptos and swiped some 2,300 ornaments. The ornaments are valued at about $37,000.
John Hammond is co-owner of the shop, called Outside-In. He says the heist is a blow to his 18-year-old business but more ornaments are arriving at the store daily.
ROSEVILLE OFFICER ACCUSED OF CRIMINAL THREATS: ROSEVILLE (AP) — An off-duty Northern California police officer was been arrested at his home after authorities received a call from a woman who said her husband was waving a gun and threatening her.
Jude Michael Chabot, 30, has been placed on paid administrative leave from the Roseville Police Department.
He was arrested late Tuesday on suspicion of making criminal threats and brandishing a firearm.
Police say no one in the home was physically assaulted or suffered physical injuries. Firearms were seized and a criminal investigation is under way.
Chabot was booked at the Placer County Jail and has since been released on a $25,000 bail bond.
POLICE MAKE ARREST IN SLAYING OF OAKLAND MOM: OAKLAND (AP) — Police have made an arrest in the slaying of an Oakland woman who was killed in what has been described as a road-rage shooting.
But police announcing the arrest of 20-year-old Carl Stephen Dubose said Thursday the shooting included a combination of complex factors. They declined to elaborate.
Dubose was arrested on Wednesday in Elk Grove. Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent said the vehicle and firearm involved in the incident were also recovered.
Dubose is accused in the shooting Sunday of 30-year-old Perla Avina. Avina, a mother of four, was shot as she was riding in a car with her husband on the way back from a grocery store.
Her husband, Luis Lopez Gallegos, has said the other motorist did not like the way he was driving and opened fire.
TEEN ARRESTED IN THREAT AT SACRAMENTO SCHOOL: SACRAMENTO (AP) — Authorities say a 14-year-old girl who wanted a day off from school has been arrested for allegedly making a shooting threat at her Sacramento campus.
The girl was taken into custody Wednesday in connection with the threat found last week scrawled on a stall of a restroom at Bella Vista High School.
The graffiti warned that shootings would occur on campus Monday. Principal Peggy Haskins tells the newspaper that only about half of the school’s 2,000 students were in attendance that day because of the threat.
The student, who is not being identified because of her age, faces a felony charge of making criminal threats. She was taken to juvenile hall.
The girl told investigators she never intended to harm anyone and just didn’t want to go to school that day.
