Newport Beach Ca

The Police Department has issued a rare coyote advisory this week warning residents living near the Upper Newport Bay that the predatory animals are becoming increasingly brazen. Newport Beach Sgt. Andy Gonis said that a coyote approached to within several feet of a child recently not far from the bay and scampered away only when an adult appeared. There have also been two reported coyote attacks on dogs. "It is a concern right now because of four coyotes that are very brazen," Gonis said.

Newport Beach can continue to give free beach parking -- a rare and valuable commodity in town -- to churchgoers on Sunday mornings, a federal judge has ruled. John Nelson, a Lido Isle resident, filed suit in January alleging that the city is violating the church-state separation clause of the 1st Amendment by giving worshipers special rights: free Sunday-morning parking at metered spots near four churches. But U.S. District Court Judge David O.

It's an evening tradition at Corona del Mar State Beach: At first, families descend on the 30 fire rings in the sand with bundles of wood, camping chairs and blankets, marshmallows and hot dogs. Then, as night falls, crowds of young people huddle around the glow of raging bonfires. When 10 p.m. hits, the police roll in to move them along. But that tradition could soon go up in smoke. Fed up with the late-night partying, smoke and mess left behind, Newport Beach officials may extinguish its dozens of fire pits once and for all. Councilwoman Nancy Gardner, who is spearheading the effort, said the nighttime scene at the fire pits at Big Corona, as the beach is known, has gotten out of control, with revelers burning huge nail-studded pallets and leaving hot coals in the sand.

A Newport Beach father defamed his son's high school baseball coach, an Orange County civil jury concluded Thursday, awarding the coach $700,000 in damages. The Superior Court verdicts, reached after less than six hours of deliberations, could help protect youth coaches from so-called "disappointment" lawsuits by parents who claim that coaches fail to help young athletes reach their potential.

Think of them as amphibious sumo wrestlers. A pack of rowdy sea lions has invaded Newport Harbor, sinking a boat, thrashing docks and -- with their cacophony of barking -- turning residents into sleepless zombies. In a scene that has played out up and down the West Coast, the whiskered creatures are charming tourists but exasperating local officials, who are studying a far-flung set of strategies to thwart the federally protected mammals.

Four alleged white supremacists are in custody on suspicion of stabbing a Latino while he was fishing at the Balboa Pier, after witnesses overheard the group roaming the Balboa Fun Zone talking about "white power," police said. The group approached the 37-year-old victim at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday and one abruptly stabbed him in the right shoulder blade, according to Newport Beach Police Sgt. John Desmond.

Priscilla Rainey, who turns 26 Saturday, left behind family, friends and school to become a sailor on an 18th century-style schooner. "I've wanted to do this since I was a kid," said Rainey, a deckhand for the Hawaiian Chieftain, a 103-foot square-mast tall ship that sailed into Newport Harbor on Wednesday. Making its first visit to Newport Beach, the Chieftain is anchored at the Cannery Restaurant on Lafayette Avenue and will be there through Jan. 15.

It was to have been a festive, end-of-school dinner dance aboard a yacht in Newport Harbor for students of a high school still too young to have a senior class. But the evening turned somber when classmates and parents learned that two popular students -- one who'd just been elected the school's first student body president -- were killed and four injured en route to the dance.

A jury on Tuesday found a former Newport Beach youth recreation leader guilty of 22 felony counts of lewd conduct, mostly for sucking the toes of more than a dozen young boys under his supervision. Jurors also found Trenton Michael Veches, 32, guilty of three misdemeanor counts of assaulting a child. Veches' lawyer, John Patrick Dolan, said he will appeal the verdict, which could carry a sentence of more than 300 years in prison but with the possibility of parole.

A battered, bruised and lucky yachtsman described in a tearful news conference Friday how he used his newfound faith in God to survive nearly six hours alone in the chilly Pacific off the coast of Southern California. It was the 23rd Psalm that he said was his deliverance. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.... Craig McCabe, a 58-year-old attorney from Newport Beach, quaked with emotion as he sat in a wheelchair at St.