Babysitters

Parents who normally find themselves scribbling last-minute instructions and emergency phone numbers for their baby-sitters can now make their lives a little easier--and their kids' lives a little safer. The Babysitter Center, a magnetized dry-erase poster, offers basic first-aid tips and space for emergency telephone numbers. The poster is free (except for postage) from the Council on Family Health, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to consumer health and safety.

A young boy and his baby-sitter were seriously injured Wednesday when the boy's dog, a pit bull-Labrador retriever mix, attacked them in the backyard of his Pacoima home, authorities said. The 3-year-old boy suffered multiple cuts, wounds and gashes to his head, face and neck, and one of the baby-sitter's arms was broken, said Jim Wells, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. "The boy was basically mutilated," Wells said. A neighbor said the dog had never lashed out before.

A San Bernardino man embroiled in an international adoption dispute over twin babies was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of child molestation, a San Bernardino County sheriff's spokesman said. Richard Allen, 49, is expected to be charged today with lewd and lascivious behavior, a felony, in several incidents with two teenage girls, sisters who worked as baby-sitters for Allen and his wife, said Chip Patterson, a sheriff's spokesman. Allen was held on $100,000 bail.

An award-winning Long Beach firefighter who allegedly had a sexual relationship with his family's teenage baby-sitter during the early 1990s pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 30 counts of felony child molestation. Wayne Anthony Chaney, 41, a public information officer for the Fire Department, sat handcuffed in the courtroom during his arraignment in Long Beach Superior Court. His attorney entered a plea of not guilty on Chaney's behalf. Deputy Dist. Atty.

Eight months after a 2-year-old boy died of injuries from a beating, a Garden Grove couple who baby-sat for him was arrested Wednesday and booked on suspicion of first degree murder, authorities said. Nha Dac Ho, 23, and Huong-Thuy Huynh, 29, were arrested for allegedly striking Timothy Tran of Anaheim several times on his head last March while watching him, Garden Grove Police Capt. Dave Abrecht said. "The head trauma caused him to be nonfunctioning, nonresponsive," Abrecht said.

Police searched Wednesday for a missing Lake Forest woman who had told her husband she was being stalked at Cal State Long Beach, where she is a student. Kristine Chieko Arabaca, 26, was last seen about 10 a.m. Monday when she dropped off her year-old son at a baby-sitter's house in Artesia on her way to a 12:30 p.m. class, police said. "This is very unusual," said Tom Dominguez, an investigator for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. "Kristine is very reliable with very close family ties.

It's become a standard plot line in science fiction: An alien parasite infects the brain of a hapless victim and slowly converts its host into a slave. Biologists, though, have long known they need not look to outer space for examples of such horrifying behavior. The latest case in point comes from deep in the Costa Rican rain forest.

A special first aid training program at Arroyo Vista Recreation Center will teach young baby-sitters what to do in the event of an emergency. The Ventura County chapter of the American Red Cross will offer the baby-sitter's training class from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 7 at the center, 4550 Tierra Rejada Road, Moorpark. The cost is $25. Topics will include basic care skills, safety and safe play, first aid, leadership and professionalism. The class is open to children ages 11 to 15.

A woman was arrested Thursday in Orange on suspicion of stabbing her live-in baby-sitter, police said. Christine Pham, 36, and the woman who cares for Pham's three children apparently were arguing shortly before 8 a.m. at the family's home on North River Trail Road, Orange Police Capt. Art Romo said. "It appears . . . the 69-year-old baby-sitter was moving things around the house," Romo said.

A high school baby-sitter has been arrested on charges of molesting four young girls who were friends of his family. Robert Schoales, 18, turned himself in at a Fullerton courthouse Monday. Schoales is charged with four counts of child molestation for alleged "inappropriate touching" of the girls, ranging from 2 to 7 years old. The girls are from two families, for which Schoales did baby-sitting, said Buena Park Police spokesman Sgt. Chris Nunez.