Sacramento Bee

A teenage hiker said Tuesday he was down to his last drops of water as he waited for rescuers on the Pacific Crest Trail in remote Alpine County on Sunday night.

A California Highway Patrol helicopter crew found D’Artagnan Driscoll, 18, of Apache Junction, Ariz., on Monday, roughly nine hours after he sent a rescue signal from a hand-held GPS device.

“I had about 8 ounces of water left when the California Highway Patrol found me,” Driscoll said, as he traveled Highway 395 on the way back to Arizona. “If I wasn’t dehydrated then, I would have been very soon.”

Driscoll said he was on a hike to Canada when he ran out of water. He used a cellphone application to find what were supposed to be water sources along the trial, but discovered they had dried out. The hike from Sonora, where he was dropped off on May 2, would have taken three months, he said.

Driscoll set off an SOS signal from his hand-held GPS tracker late Sunday and waited.

At roughly 7:30 a.m. Monday, the Alpine County Sheriff’s Office called Valley Division Air Operations for help finding the person who activated the emergency button.

With latitude and longitude coordinates, pilot Officer Bryan Souza and flight Officer-paramedic Greg Norrgard lifted off from Auburn Municipal Airport. After a 35-minute flight to Alpine County, the crew searched and found Driscoll around 9 a.m.

He scampered into the open area beyond the tree line where Souza landed at the edge of a cliff. Norrgard spoke with Driscoll, who was loaded into the helicopter and flown to Alpine County Airport. Driscoll did not require hospitalization.

Driscoll initially began his hike on the Pacific Crest Trail near the California-Mexico border on April 29. But he quickly discovered the water sources in Southern California were dry, so he had his parents pick him up.

Hoping the state’s northern areas had more water, he was dropped off May 2 in Sonora, where he expected to continue the journey to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. Driscoll was found about 30 miles from the Alpine County town of Markleeville.

The Arizona man, who has starred in one independent film, aspires to become an actor. Driscoll said he decided to hike the trail at the urging of his father.

“It seemed like a fun experience,” Driscoll said. “To my surprise, this trail was very rugged and difficult.”

A Placer County man punched a bear in the face because it walked onto his property and scared his dog. You’ll have to accept the words of the man and his friend.

The protective dog owner says that he didn’t run. He didn’t call wildlife officials. Instead, he wound up, created a fist and punched the bear in the face.

Two veterans are on a journey raising money for military families and vets who are pet owners

The four of them were strangers a few weeks ago.

“I had heard that a Marine was walking across the country in 30 days for a dog that had saved his life, and I said, ‘I’m in,'” said Joe Trainor Jr.

They did have something in common – two dogs, Spanky and C.T.

Marine vet Dan Spangler’s 2003 return home from Iraq, injured physically and mentally, would be a test of his will to live.

“Spanky is the one that saved my life,” Spangler said. “At the time, I didn’t realize it. He was the one that was there every time I’d wake up at night or anytime I wanted to hang out with somebody and needed to talk and couldn’t talk about what we did or what happened, Spanky was there to listen.”

Trainor, an Army Ranger veteran, says his story began right after Sept. 11, 2001.

“A month and a half later I found myself hooked up to a C130,” Trainor said.

And soon after, he says, he was right in the middle of a historical mission.

“I was the very first person on the first objective on the first mission on the war on terrorism,” he said.

Two combat tours and a traumatic brain injury later, Trainor also discovered healing through an animal.

He said, “Because a dog had saved my life four years ago when I had contemplated suicide for the very first time.”

Today the two are on a journey, Operation: Keep Your Spanky, that will take them from Camp Lejune, North Carolina to Camp Pendleton, California.

“We’re going to provide food and low-cost veterinary care to veterans and military families that are struggling financially so that they can keep their pets with the vets,” says Spangler.

It may not be war, but Spangler who began this mission, says it is a matter of life or death.

“Things like dogs and cats and other animals have shown huge advances in keeping veterans alive.”

Back to the Future III was filmed mostly in Tuolumne County and released in theaters 25 years ago this May.

Several local residents were used in the movie. Numerous people who were here at the time can tell you stories about where the actors and crew stayed, where they ate and various encounters around the community.

The scene above used Sierra Engine #3 from Railtown 1897. This scene was filmed west of Jamestown.

(San Francisco Chronicle) – Dan Fredinburg, the San Francisco man who died in the Mount Everest avalanche triggered by the Nepal earthquake, was invariably described in news stories as a Google executive. But friends and colleagues said he was much more than a tech exec.

Fredinburg, they said, was a funny and inspirational man who melded his work, his personal interests and adventures with his desire to change the world — with a particular focus on climate change.

In addition to his work at Google, where he was the head of privacy for Google X, Fredinburg helped found Save the Ice, a campaign to educate people on climate change.

“Dan was a mountaineer and explorer because he loved to climb and see the world,” said Dr. Mike North, co-founder of Save the Ice. “His purpose in the world was much bigger. Much of it revolved around calling attention to how we as individuals can make a difference.”

Fredinburg, 33, died after he sustained a major head injury when his climbing team was caught in an avalanche caused by the powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal that killed thousands across the country.

Fredinburg was climbing Everest for the third time, hoping to reach the summit, and raising money for a pair of Nepalese orphanages. He also was posting pictures on Instagram, Twitter and other social media on behalf of Save the Ice, and some reports say he was photographing or mapping Everest for Google.

A native of Arkansas, Fredinburg studied at UC Irvine and later Stanford before working for three years as a software engineer at Boeing, according to his profile on Google Plus. In 2007, he began working as head of privacy for Google X, the company’s innovation laboratory, which oversees products like the self-driving car and Google Glass.

A collection of thoughts, videos and pictures of the 2013 Rim Fire. Wildland Firefighter, Patrick Michael Karnahan was working as a patrolman on the northern end of the fire zone for two months. Having worked in green forest and then in the same area after it burned, was very sad for him.

All of the videos and pictures shared in this clip were taken by Karnahan.

Karnahan is now retired from the Forest Service after 19 seasons with the agency.

Republican Congressman Steve Knight held an “open house” at his Simi Valley office. At least that’s what he called it.

However, Knight and his security would not allow a group of men and women who want to stop illegal immigration into his office.

Knight met with the group outside after the “open house” ended and then threatened one of the men who questioned his vote for Amnesty. He can be heard telling the man, “Touch me again, I’ll drop your ass.”

Realizing that he was being filmed by the concerned citizens, Mr. Knight calmed down and began to explain the vote.

Gil Fulbright is running for Senate and is an honest politician.

WARNING: CURSIVE LANGUAGE USED

WARNING: CURSIVE LANGUAGE USED

The Associated Press

SOUTH GATE, CALIF. — The U.S. Marshals Service said Tuesday that it’s reviewing a video that shows a deputy grab a woman’s cellphone from her hands, smashing it to the floor.

In the 53-second video, a woman on the sidewalk appears to be filming officers with her cellphone and making continuous comments when a deputy U.S. Marshal charges at her.

The video was spotted by a South Gate police officer because its caption mentioned the department, and an investigation ensued, Capt. Darren Arakawa said.

No South Gate police were involved in the incident, which has generated dozens of phone calls and email complaints to him and the department’s chief from across the United States, Arakawa said. His officers were securing the area Sunday for an ongoing taskforce operation related to the Mongols Motorcycle Club, he said.

There was no complaint initiated by the woman involved to police, Arakawa said. But he noted “we have an obligation to look at it, and that’s exactly what we did.”

“We really want to put it out there, because we have to explain to people, to residents, that this wasn’t a police officer,” Arakawa said. “We keep getting these emails suggesting that we’re corrupt. I think it’s an isolated incident that does justify some sort of investigation.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Beatriz Paez, 34, said she feared for her life during the confrontation. She said she was out on a stroll Sunday afternoon when she came upon what appeared to be a massive federal operation — a stretch of street was blocked off and up to 10 people were on their stomachs with their hands on their heads.

She took out her cellphone and began filming. But the men wearing tactical vests that read “police” on the back noticed and started backing up to obscure her view.

The men stood with their backs to her and she made comments including “You need to stay away from me, I don’t feel safe with you closer to me.”

Paez said the deputy marshal who ultimately charged her grabbed the phone from her hand and smashed it to the ground — he then kicked a plastic cup down the street that she’d dropped in the struggle.

The phone’s screen is shattered and doesn’t work, according to her attorney Colleen Flynn, but they will be trying to recover Paez’s video from the phone’s chip.

The U.S. Marshals service declined to comment further on the video aside from confirming in a statement that their deputy was involved and that the matter was under review.

Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, said he was “deeply disturbed” by the video.

“There is no situation in which an officer can intentionally grab and destroy a camera being used to lawfully record law enforcement,” Villagra said. “The officer’s conduct is a blatant and deliberate violation of the Constitution and his duties as an officer to abide by the law.”

US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the self-proclaimed “Democrat Socialist”, is considering challenging Hillary Clinton for a White House run. What doesn’t he like about Clinton? He explains.

If elected, Sanders would become President at the age of 75.

“Fox News Sunday” is heard every Sunday morning from 10 – 11am on AM 1450 KVML.