FRESNO – Tainted gasoline was sold at stations in California's Central Valley that stalled vehicle engines and left some motorists scrambling to find a shop for weekend repairs.
Drivers who bought unleaded regular Friday from about 16 stations in a 50-mile radius around Fresno ended up with gasoline that was inadvertently mixed with diesel fuel at a tank farm. It wasn't clear how many motorists were affected by the bad fuel, but a spokesman for the tank farm estimated 16 tanker trucks picked up fuel at the facility during the time of the mix-up, between 7 p.m. Thursday and 4 a.m. Friday.
MCT News Service
Man gets life term in crash killing 10
PHOENIX – A man who crashed an overloaded sport utility vehicle, killing 10 illegal immigrants while fleeing Border Patrol agents, has been sentenced to life in federal prison.
Mexican citizen Adan Pineda Doval, 22, was convicted in October by a Phoenix jury of 10 counts of transporting illegal immigrants causing death and two lesser charges.
A federal judge handed down the sentence Thursday. Pineda was driving a Chevrolet Suburban packed with 20 illegal immigrants outside Yuma on Aug. 7, 2006, when he crashed trying to avoid a spike strip agents had placed in the road.
Associated Press
Scouts to help out at national forests
REDDING – The Boy Scouts of America's national honor society plans to conduct its largest public service project since World War II at five national forests this summer.
The agreement announced Thursday with the U.S. Forest Service calls for 5,000 members of the Scouts' Order of the Arrow to provide more than 250,000 hours of conservation work over five weeks.
The forests are Shasta-Trinity in California; Mark Twain in Missouri; Manti-La Sal in Utah; George Washington and Jefferson in Virginia; and Bridger-Teton in Wyoming. The Scouts will remove invasive plants and build trails, bridges and campsites among other projects.
Associated Press
California graduating 10,400 nurses in '08
SACRAMENTO – A new study finds more Californians are becoming nurses.
The report released yesterday by the state Labor and Workforce Development Agency found California nursing programs are projected to graduate nearly 10,400 registered nurses this year. That is a 68 percent increase from the 2003-04 academic year.
The study attributes the increase to the California Nurse Education Initiative, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched in April 2005 to expand the number of nursing programs. Experts warned that it's too early to say the state's nursing shortage is over.
Associated Press
