Kern County Ca

In an elder abuse case described by one investigator as the most outrageous he has ever seen, three former top managers at a Kern County nursing home have been arrested in the deaths of three residents who allegedly were given needless doses of psychotropic medications. The state attorney general's office contended in a criminal complaint that more than 20 residents at a skilled nursing center run by the Kern Valley Healthcare District were drugged "for staff convenience."

A runaway truck carrying hazardous materials crashed into 11 other vehicles on Interstate 5 north of Tejon Pass on Wednesday, injuring 11 people and closing all northbound lanes for almost three hours, the California Highway Patrol said. The accident happened in thick fog shortly before 1 p.m. on the long grade that descends from the mountains into the southern San Joaquin Valley.

Ann Barnett says she's always tried to do the right thing, whether for her church, her five children, her husband of 31 years or the people she serves as Kern County's elected clerk and auditor-controller. So she's bewildered by the anger that's come her way since she decided -- just before gay marriages become legal -- to stop holding all civil weddings at her county offices.

This town of 6,700 sits amid the richest oil fields in California, but nobody would mistake it for Dubai. There are no gleaming towers. Empty storefronts line its downtown streets. One of its two car dealerships recently folded, and a church recently went into foreclosure. To make more money, the city wants to move its eastern border 17 miles and annex an auto raceway under construction beside Interstate 5.

A Pasadena lawyer who was allegedly high on methamphetamine when he crashed into a Kern County sheriff's deputy's car and sent the officer plummeting to his death in the Kern River Canyon has been arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide. Daniel Patrick Willsey, 46, was arrested at his home Thursday by the California Highway Patrol in the Nov. 14 death of Deputy Joe Hudnall.

A 73-year-old man and his teenage stepson were killed when their single-engine Piper aircraft crashed in a remote area of Kern County, sheriff's officials said Thursday. Pilot Richard Smith and Kyle Runciman, 16, both of Fresno, were found dead at the site of the crash in the Tehachapi Mountains, according to a statement released by the Kern County Sheriff's Department.

Coroner's officials are looking for the family of a Lynwood man believed drowned in the Kern River nearly two years ago to help identify what they think are his remains. Antonio Gonzalez Serrano, 19, disappeared near the Live Oak Campground on July 17, 2005, said Ken Noack, a Kern County coroner's investigator. Gonzalez Serrano's body was never found. But in November, a fisherman found the remains of what appears to be a young man in the river not far from where Gonzalez Serrano was last seen.

An elderly Kern County woman has died from complications of West Nile, the first death in the state from the virus this year, public health officials said Friday. The virus, spread by infected mosquitoes, is of greatest danger to those older than 50, or people with diabetes and hypertension. The California Department of Public Health did not release information about the woman, but the Bakersfield Californian reported she was 96.

Three workers were killed and three others were badly hurt Thursday afternoon in an explosion on the edge of Kern County's Mojave airport during the test of a propellant system for a pioneering private spaceship. The blast occurred at a private test site run by Scaled Composites, a company founded by high-profile aviation entrepreneur Burt Rutan. In June 2004, the firm became the first business to launch a reusable manned rocket into space, a craft known as SpaceShip One.

KERNVILLE, Calif. -- A single-engine plane crashed near a remote Kern County airport Friday afternoon and exploded in flames, killing at least two people, authorities said. It was unclear how many were in the aircraft, which went down in a field next to the Kern Valley Airport, but at least two people were believed to have been on board and there did not appear to be any survivors, according to the Kern County Sheriff's Department. The department got a call at 5:46 p.m. about a possible crash.