Calaveras County

Authorities in Northern California on Saturday announced the arrest of a 12-year-old boy in the stabbing death of his younger sister, whose killing last month sparked a manhunt for a supposed intruder who the boy had said committed the crime. Following a two-week investigation, Calaveras County sheriff's detectives arrested the boy in connection with the death of his sister, 8-year-old Leila Fowler. The boy, whose name was not made public, will be charged with murder, the county sheriff announced at a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

Authorities in Northern California on Saturday announced the arrest of a 12-year-old boy in the stabbing death of his younger sister, whose killing last month sparked a manhunt for a supposed intruder who the boy had said committed the crime. Following a two-week investigation, Calaveras County sheriff's detectives arrested the boy in connection with the death of his sister, 8-year-old Leila Fowler. The boy, whose name was not made public, will be charged with murder, the county sheriff announced at a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

The '49ers came to the Mother Lode country here looking for an easy fortune, but this summer the tinder-dry hillsides are rich with fear and anger--directed at the "Calaveras arsonist," who has struck 22 times in the county since June 26, destroying thousands of acres of wild land and more than a dozen homes.

His friends say he was the kind of person who inspired others to slow down and appreciate life. And that's what people in Calaveras County did after Marine Lance Cpl. Gavin R. Brummund was killed in Afghanistan . Thousands stood solemnly in tribute along California Highway 4 as the grieving families of Brummund and his young widow returned home after claiming the Marine's body in Dover, Del. Merchants in the little towns of...

American-grown bullfrogs hopped and leaped in qualifying competition Friday at the 64th annual Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee, challenging a 5-year-old distance record. The contest in the tiny, historic Gold Rush town made famous by Mark Twain lacked the controversy sparked by last year's entry of giant African frogs. "We expect about 65 or 70 frogs will compete in the grand finals Sunday," jubilee spokeswoman Debbie Rocco said.

The gold miners and antique dealers and loggers who dot the sparse foothills of Calaveras County call him simply by his last name: Ng. They snarl as they say it. Wind your way through the county Mark Twain made famous in 1865, and it won't take long to find someone with a chilling connection to the man they say defamed this place 120 years later. There's Danny Schembri at the car shop, who had to plow over the mound of makeshift graves with his tractor.

The Board of Supervisors has reluctantly signed off on an agreement that holds the state and a Northern California county responsible for the cost of trying accused serial killer Charles Ng, whose trial was moved here before Orange County's Dec. 6 bankruptcy. Supervisors had repeatedly said cash-strapped Orange County should be relieved of the massive and costly trial, which was transferred from rural Calaveras County last year because of extensive pretrial publicity.

Three people attending the annual fair celebrating the popular Calaveras County jumping-frog contest were seriously hurt Friday when a carnival ride collapsed. Fourteen other riders suffered minor injuries, said Dennis Townsend, a chief in the Calaveras County unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. The three most seriously injured riders were being airlifted to area hospitals, he said. Townsend said they were hurt when a type of swing ride collapsed shortly after 6 p.m. Friday.

Firefighters contained a wildfire that destroyed one home as it spread rapidly over 425 acres near a rural residential subdivision in Calaveras County, fire officials said. Authorities briefly evacuated at least 25 homes in the El Rancho Loma Serena subdivision near Mountain Ranch, 8 miles northeast of San Andreas, said Calaveras County sheriff's dispatcher Rhonda Saul. The blaze started when debris ignited by a resident burned out of control, according to fire spokeswoman Sharon Torrence.

A Calaveras County man, sought for investigation of murder, was arrested after his car ran out of gas and he appeared at the house of an off-duty sheriff's officer seeking a ride, authorities said. Bruce Allen Smedley, 18, was being held Saturday in the Calaveras County Jail without bail for investigation into the fatal shooting of Lala Hendricks, 44, of San Francisco, authorities said.

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Los Angeles and this tiny Gold Rush town share the same "City of Angels" nickname, and the similarities don't end there. Just as Hollywood honors its celebrities with a star on the Walk of Fame, Angels Camp gives the same treatment to its best frog jumpers ? make that frog jockeys ? with a spot on Main Street's Frog Hop of Fame. Frogs are ubiquitous in this Calaveras County town, which bills itself as "Home of the Jumping Frog. " The amphibian's image can be found on trash cans, billboards and just about everything in between.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday designated 1.6 million acres in California as critical habitat for the endangered red-legged frog, made famous by Mark Twain in his story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." The amphibian, once so plentiful that it was commonly featured on restaurant menus, eventually became endangered because of development encroaching on its habitat and the effects of pesticides and other chemicals. The habitat area is divided into 50 units across 27 California counties, including six counties that previously did not have designated critical habitat: Mendocino, Sonoma, Placer, Calaveras, Stanislaus and Kings.

Forget green beer this year. In this grape-rich Calaveras County hamlet, they'll be celebrating with green wine. Not surprisingly, a town with a name like Murphys takes St. Patrick's celebrations pretty seriously. Tucked away in the rolling Sierra Nevada foothills west of Yosemite National Park, it is holding its annual Irish Day bash, on Saturday, featuring a parade, food, music and plenty of sipping.

Three people attending the annual fair celebrating the popular Calaveras County jumping-frog contest were seriously hurt Friday when a carnival ride collapsed. Fourteen other riders suffered minor injuries, said Dennis Townsend, a chief in the Calaveras County unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. The three most seriously injured riders were being airlifted to area hospitals, he said. Townsend said they were hurt when a type of swing ride collapsed shortly after 6 p.m. Friday.

Deep under the wooded hills of Calaveras County -- in the belly of one of the state's largest caves -- I worm my way through a rocky slot that our cavern tour guide calls the "pancake." It's a rectangular gap, 3 feet wide by about 18 inches tall. Imagine the space under a Volkswagen Beetle. To squeeze through, I lie on my back, raise my arms over my head and push through with my legs. My headlamp shoots a beam into a darkness so heavy I can almost feel it wrap around me. The air smells of mud.

A wind-driven wildfire quickly burned 7,500 acres of brush and timber Saturday as it bore down on Sonoma County's wine country and threatened to knock out power to parts of Northern California. Meanwhile, another blaze destroyed 11 homes in Calaveras County, fire officials said. "It's blown up," said Dana Cole, a division chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection who was monitoring the Sonoma blaze. "Right now, we have no control on the head of the fire."

When Mark Twain published "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" in 1865, the frog helped make him famous, and he returned the favor. Since then, the frog has made the county famous, drawing upward of 40,000 visitors to fill motels, restaurants and shops full of frog trinkets for the annual May frog-jumping contest at a fairgrounds dubbed Frogtown.