Fresno Ca

If Kaiser Permanente's Fresno hospital had acted on complaints and kept a closer watch over its medical staff, two babies might still be alive, federal health inspectors concluded in a report released this week. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began investigating the hospital in October, two days after the Los Angeles Times reported that doctors and nurses had complained repeatedly to higher-ups about perinatologist Hamid Safari's medical and interpersonal skills.

The administrator of Kaiser Permanente's Fresno hospital stepped down Monday, days after the release of a federal report that criticized the way the medical center responded to complaints about a doctor who handled high-risk pregnancies. In a written statement released late Monday, Kaiser said Fresno hospital administrator Susan Ryan had resigned, effective immediately. Last week, the U.S.

Kaiser Permanente has suspended a physician who handled high-risk pregnancies at its Fresno hospital, more than four months after the Los Angeles Times reported that doctors and nurses there had repeatedly questioned his competence. In a statement released late Friday, interim hospital Administrator Linda Monte said that, effective immediately, perinatologist Hamid Safari would not be able to provide care to any Kaiser member in a hospital or outpatient setting.

A Fresno high school sophomore was shot dead by a campus police officer Wednesday after he struck the officer in the head with a bat inside the school, Fresno police said. The officer fired on the 17-year-old boy at least once as he struggled to regain his footing after being knocked to the ground, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer told reporters at an afternoon news conference. Officers tried to revive the student but he died at the scene, Dyer said.

Amber Frey, the former girlfriend of convicted wife-killer Scott Peterson, may lose her Clovis home after falling behind on mortgage payments. Fresno County records show Frey, who testified against Peterson as the prosecution's star witness during his double murder trial, was more than $16,000 behind in payments on her $539,000 house by May. Frey took out a $431,000 loan three years ago to buy the home.

A week ago, Father Geoffrey Farrow stood before his Roman Catholic parishioners in Fresno and delivered a sermon that placed him squarely at odds with his church over gay marriage. With Proposition 8 on the November ballot, and his own bishop urging Central Valley priests to support its definition of traditional marriage, Farrow told congregants he felt obligated to break "a numbing silence" about church prejudice against homosexuals.

A gunman was killed by police after a Mardi Gras shooting rampage injured three officers and a bystander and sent revelers scurrying for cover, police said. Joel Perales, 22, of Clovis started firing a gun Tuesday after officers tried to pull him over in an area crowded with Fat Tuesday partygoers.

Trudging down the wilted rows of his leased 10 acres last week, Fong Tchang stooped and broke off a brown stalk of dead sugar cane. "Doesn't smell sweet, does it?" he asked in his native Hmong. "Smells more like wine." The sugar cane was blasted in last month's historic deep freeze, along with rows of eggplant, \o7tong ho \f7soup greens, cabbages, strawberries, artichokes, a cornucopia of Asian squashes and lemongrass, a Hmong staple.

RICK NORSIGIAN discovered the object of his obsession one sunny Saturday seven years ago at a garage sale. A painter for the Fresno school district by day and inveterate antique buff the rest of his waking hours, Norsigian was combing through suburban castoffs when he came across a time-weathered wooden box. The crate was heavy with old glass-plate photographic negatives.

A school district employee resigned after administrators began investigating an e-mail titled "Proud to be White" that was deemed racially offensive by fellow employees, officials said. Keith Greer, a microcomputer specialist for the Central Unified School District, quit Wednesday after the e-mail message sent from his district e-mail account was reported by a fellow employee who was offended, district spokeswoman Courtney Roque-Bautista said.