Month: July 2009

RIVERSIDE COUNTY – The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is looking for a man Friday after he escaped from an overnight standoff. The standoff happened at the Healing Waters Mobile Home Park near Desert Hot Springs in an area located along Langlois Road. The park is in an unincorporated area of Riverside County. Investigators recovered and

PALM DESERT – Trade in your old car and get a rebate for a new one. “I think it’s a good deal, especially in this economy,” says Ethan Stone. Well, it may sound better than it is. Through the “Cash for Clunkers” program consumers can buy a new car, and the government will chip in.

WHITEWATER – Whitewater resident Gordon Marino walks with his wife, Pam. She’s in a wheelchair because of a recent stroke. Pam was home alone when she experienced the symptoms. But, when she tried to call 911 for help, the phone was dead. “She had tried to call several times, 911, no dial tone at all,”recalled

CATHEDRAL CITY – The summer heat can be dangerous. If we don’t protect ourselves we get dehydrated, burnt and fatigued. The same goes for our cars. “If you want your car to be in good shape every time you drive it, you have to do preventative maintenance,” says Bob Doremus, Owner of Valley Smog and

PALM DESERT – College of the Desert officials are cutting classes and jobs in anticipation of losing $4.2million in state funding.School administratorsannounced cuts for a total of50 classes for the Fall semester. Students were told through email and the school website Thursday.Most of the classes that got pulled were ones that were offeredseveral times a

PALM SPRINGS – Leo Cardini waits by the phone. He’s waiting for a call from his partner of 34 years. Bill Carroll, 65, has been missing for more than a week. Bill was last seen on the morning of July 14 at the Comfort Inn near Indian and Baristo. Carroll went to the hotel after

The 80-member Assembly and 40-member State Senate is working late Thursday, doing some creative math to close a $26 billion gap. Freshman Assemblyman Manuel Perez spoke to us from Sacramento. “There seems to be a frenzy up here,” says Perez. “A lot of us just got up here late last night, as I did, or

INDIO – Sue Robinson and Bill Neeb are enjoying their golden years together. “I could see some intelligence, some sense of humor, and some depth,” recalls Robinson, of Indio. They met in January after months of dating disasters with incompatible and uninteresting people. For a moment, it seemed as if finding companionship in the Coachella

RIVERSIDE – Over 27,000 inmates would be released under a tentative plan stated in the latest California state budget. Prisoners with 12 months or less on their sentences would serve the remainder of their time on home detention with electronic monitoring. The California Department of Corrections says they won’t release violent prisoners. Others like Riverside

COACHELLA – The news of the night was supposed to be the vote on the 5% utility tax. Instead, it was the bombshell surprise resignation of City Manager Tim Brown.Right before the council was about to debate the utility tax, Brown told the mayor he was going to have surgery on Monday and would not

CATHEDRAL CITY – Two sex offenders who did not register with Cathedral City police were arrested, and authorities were searching for a third violator, police said. Dana Von Partee and Patrick Joseph Carlton were arrested Wednesday by Cathedral City police and a Riverside County sheriff’s task force, said police Lt. Glen Haas. The men were

PALM SPRINGS – As authorities continue to confirm the identities of two men found dead in the mountains near Palm Springs Sunday, a school in Colorado believes one of those men was a university professor. Colorado State University says math professorBob Liebler was hiking the mountains when he separated from his group this past Saturday.

PALM SPRINGS – Palm Springs School District Board Members heard quite an earful at Tuesday’sboard meeting.With state budget cuts expected,the board is probably calling for more layoffs and program cutbacks.The board would look to cut a total of $6 million to $11 millionworth of teacher salaries and programs. The cuts would come after the state

NORTH SHORE – The North Shore Yacht Club is not much to look at these days.The empty shell of a building was once a sportfishing resort. It’s been abandoned since a series of floods in the 1980s. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors asked for the federal stimulus dollars to fix this place up. “We’re

INDIO – A Desert Sands Unified School Districtsprinkler specialistkilled by electrocution in an apparent industrial accident was identified late Mondayas James Jeffredo, 50, of Indio.Jeffredo was killed while working at John Glenn Middle School in Indio earlier in the day. Indio Police say the worker’s body was found between the middle school and Amelia Earhart

CATHEDRAL CITY – “This is as bad as it gets,” said Roy Baufield, a resident of the Royal Palms Mobile Home Park. He and his neighbor, David Agapito, lost power on Sunday. They cooled off at a cooling center set up in the clubhouse at the Royal Palms Mobile Home Park. Park managers gave residents

PALM SPRINGS – Marlen Wears passes out fliers to visitors at Desert Regional Medical Center. The fliers outline why Wears and others nurses with the California Nurses Association are upset. Tenet Healthcare System cut down on their sick leave and paid time off. Wears thinks that’ll lead to nurses working when they’re sick. “Patients are

PALM SPRINGS – When was the last time your child went bananas over fresh fruit? For the kids in the Boys & Girls Club of Palm Springs, “fresh” is the buzzword this summer. “I didn’t really see a dissatisfied customer,” says Lois Bondurich, a part-time nutritionist. “There’s smiles on their faces, and they’re coming back

RIVERSIDE – Robert Gerenrich is unemployed and one of many Valley residents hit hard in these tough times. “I was in the streets and sleeping behind the place where I go pray and they let me sleep on the carpeting behind where I was praying. I had no food, I didn’t have many clothes, they

LA QUINTA – The Valley’s only ice skating rink is shutting down. It’s the beginning of the end for the Ice Garden in La Quinta. The signs at the front door announce it’s closing down Saturday, July 25th. Esther Garcia laces up her granddaughter’s ice skates here for the last time and says, “It’s very