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SAN FRANCISCO
Verizon slowed firefighters’ internet during wildfire
A Northern California fire department says a telecommunications company slowed its internet communications at a crucial command center set up to help fight one of the state's largest wildfires.
KQED radio reported Wednesday that Verizon acknowledged it wrongly limited data speed to the Santa Clara County Fire Department while its firefighters helped battle the state's largest-ever wildfire in Mendocino County three weeks ago.
The county had reached its monthly data capacity under its internet plan with Verizon when the company significantly slowed service.
The county first disclosed the issue in a court filing last week in support of a lawsuit seeking to restore net neutrality rules repealed by the Federal Communications Commission.
Verizon blamed a communication error and said the fire department's normal service should have been restored more quickly.
SAN DIEGO
San Diego can’t enforce law against homeless living in RVS
San Diego has been ordered to stop ticketing homeless people for living inside recreational vehicles.
The San Diego Uniontribune says the judge issued an injunction Tuesday in a discrimination lawsuit filed by a group of disabled homeless people.
Judge Anthony Battaglia said the city's vehicle habitation law can't be effectively enforced because it doesn't provide enough specifics about what makes a vehicle into living quarters.
Battaglia said some people have been ticketed simply for reading a book in their vehicle.
The injunction bars San Diego from issuing tickets or impounding RVS under the ordinance until the case is heard.
The judge didn't prevent the city from enforcing a separate law that bans overnight parking of RVS.
A spokeswoman for City Attorney Mara Elliott declined comment Wednesday.
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NEWPORT BEACH
Lawyer: Suspect in antigay killing struggled with sexuality
A California man denied killing a University of Pennsylvania student because the victim was gay and the suspect's lawyer says he struggled with his own sexual identity and suffered from a “serious mental disorder.” The Orange County Register reports Samuel Woodward appeared in court Wednesday and denied an added hate-crime attachment. He's pleaded not guilty to murder for the killing of 19-year-old sophomore Blaze Bernstein, whose body was discovered buried in a park after he disappeared in January. Woodward's lawyer, Edward Munoz, said Woodward suffers from a “serious mental disorder.” He says the 21-year-old has Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder that general causes affected children and adults to have difficulty with social interactions. Munoz told Buzzfeed News that Woodward “has a lot of issues, I think, around sexual orientation.”
MONTECITO Sign thanking first responders stolen
Someone has stolen a sign erected by a resident to thank emergency personnel who responded to the massive debris flow that devastated the Santa Barbara County community of Montecito in January. Kevin Rittner tells KEYT-TV the sign saying “Thank you first responders” went missing from his yard on Tuesday. Rittner says first responders saved him and his family, and the sign was a way of giving something back to the rescuers. Rittner plans to put up a replacement sign and perhaps not take it down until the first anniversary of the disaster. Montecito neighborhoods were ravaged and more than 20 people killed when a Jan. 9 downpour unleashed a debris flow from mountains recently burned bare by the huge Thomas Fire.
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BAKERSFIELD Human arm found in Kern River
The Kern County Sheriff's Office says a bag containing a human arm was found in the Kern River. Lt. Henry Bravo tells The Bakersfield Californian several youths were swimming in the river east of Hart Park Sunday evening when they felt something unusual under them, grabbed the bag and looked inside. Bravo says there were also other items inside the bag but those details are not being disclosed. The decomposed arm will be subjected to DNA testing. It's the second human body part found submerged in Kern County this summer. A leg was found in Buena Vista Lake in late July.