Orange Ca

A Santa Ana woman has been found dead inside her overturned SUV in Santiago Creek, officials said Tuesday. Lucia Arreola, 47, was found about 6:10 p.m. Monday by a California Highway Patrol helicopter pilot who discovered her vehicle off Santiago Canyon Road at the Santiago Creek bridge, officials said. It was unknown when the crash occurred or how long the vehicle had been in the creek bed, officials said.

Don Chew leaned in close, crinkled his nose and offered a Cheshire smile that threatened to envelop his face. Yes, he said, he is well aware that his grand dream -- a foreign man pioneering badminton, a foreign sport, in a foreign land -- has been preposterous from the start. But, he said, here's the thing: "It's all coming true." Chew's American tale has its roots in his native Thailand. It incorporates faces from Laos, Vietnam, China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

For Tom Hall, 77, the disillusionment came during the 1970s when the Mormon Church wouldn't allow blacks to become priests. Carma Naylor, 64, says she began doubting the religion in which she had been raised after debating the meaning of the Bible with a Jewish friend who had been born again.

A mother of three was charged Wednesday with attempting to set her husband and children afire as they slept. Hyang Lee, 39, is accused of placing the three children, ages 2 to 9, in bed with her sleeping husband in the early hours of Feb. 26, dousing them with lighter fluid and lighting a rolled piece of paper using a long barbecue lighter with the intention of setting them afire. Her husband awoke and struggled with her until he was able to douse the fire, authorities said.

The lights have dimmed for good at the Century Cinedome in Orange, a 30-year-old complex of domed movie theaters where several generations of filmgoers viewed everything from "True Grit" to "Halloween: H20." Unable to compete with the growing number of multiscreen cinemas in the area, the theater quietly closed its doors in early January. According to Century Theatres employee Andrew Poulain, the theater complex, on West Chapman near the Santa Ana Freeway, will be demolished in early February.

Hours after agreeing to pay $100 million and make public secret files of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, Bishop Tod D. Brown on Monday knelt in prayer for the victims of sexual abuse by priests. "We have done this in the larger hope of reconciliation and healing," Brown told about 100 worshipers at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange. "We hope that our actions can restore the trust that many have lost in the leaders of the church."

As they often do, things turned heated awhile back in Orange Park Acres when the local church proposed doubling the size of its school, raising the ire of residents concerned about overdevelopment and increased traffic in the bucolic equestrian community. "Stop the Salem School Expansion!" declared signs on street corners. Residents walked petitions throughout the community. Hundreds of neighbors on both sides of the issue packed Orange City Hall for a hearing.

An ongoing dispute over a broken screen door led to Sunday's shooting spree in an Orange mobile home park that left two people dead and three others wounded, authorities said Monday. Joel Stanley Martin, 66, armed with a .22-caliber rifle, broke into his neighbor's home about 5 p.m. and shot two women, killing one, police said.

City Council members will consider minor midyear budget changes at their meeting today and also will hear some heartening news from their firefighters. The council will discuss a report showing that the city's controversial move to take over ambulance service from the private sector has led to a substantial decrease in emergency response time.

In a move to circumvent an upcoming court hearing, the city's Fire Department today will begin its new ambulance program, six days earlier than planned. Two private ambulance companies are fighting an August council decision to allow fire officials to become exclusive providers of emergency ambulance care. Earlier this month, CareLine California and Medix Ambulance Service filed lawsuits in Superior Court seeking an injunction. A hearing on one of those two lawsuits is set for Oct.

A 27-year-old Pomona man died Saturday when the motorcycle he was riding went down in the Orange Crush freeway interchange. Authorities did not release his name. The 10 a.m. accident occurred in the transition lanes of the southbound Orange Freeway to the westbound Garden Grove Freeway, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said. No other vehicles were involved, he said.

An Orange County judge has issued an arrest warrant for a piano teacher about to go on trial for alleged lewd conduct with an 8-year-old girl, authorities said Wednesday. Daniel Peter Gaudin, 57, failed to appear for a pretrial hearing Friday, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Aleta Bryant, who is prosecuting the case. Gaudin, of Orange, was free on $100,000 bail after being arrested in April. Though his trial is set to begin Jan.

A man has agreed to plead guilty to transporting child pornography after admitting to taking sexually explicit photos of a boy and posting them on a website, authorities said Thursday. Joseph Stoterau, 27, of Orange faces up to 20 years in federal prison for taking the digital pictures of the boy, who was younger than 16 at the time. The images were found on the hard drive of a computer seized at Stoterau's home in August, according to the U.S. attorney.

For Tom Hall, 77, the disillusionment came during the 1970s when the Mormon Church wouldn't allow blacks to become priests. Carma Naylor, 64, says she began doubting the religion in which she had been raised after debating the meaning of the Bible with a Jewish friend who had been born again.

The woman accused of killing an Orange councilman in a head-on collision last week had pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter 12 years ago in connection with the death of a woman she fought with after a traffic dispute. Sara Ward, then 18, was sentenced to 264 days in jail, fined $500 and given three years' probation because the judge believed she was remorseful for the crime. In the death of Councilman Steven F.

A police officer shot a man who threatened him and his partner Saturday night, according to an Orange Police Department spokesman. A resident in the 4500 block of East Via Lardo called 911 and said that Frank J. Guttierez, 47, was outside the home, violating a restraining order, Sgt. Fred Lopez said. Before officers arrived, Guttierez, of Orange, walked away from the house toward a vacant field while screaming, police said.

City officials will begin studying streets where school crossing guards stand duty to see if all the guards are needed. The crossing guards became an issue last summer when city engineers found a 1993 state law that relieved cities of the full obligation of providing crossing guards. The city asked the Orange Unified School District to pick up half of the $300,000 annual tab for the guards, but the district trustees refused, saying it had always been the city's job.

When Orange police recently arrested undocumented day laborers in a Home Depot parking lot, the incident touched off the usual reprimands and praises from different sides of the illegal immigration debate. But it also raised a question: Why do day laborers, many of them illegal immigrants, risk arrest and possible deportation when job centers -- including one in Orange -- offer them a safer alternative? The answer is a mix of economic realities, ignorance and good old American self-reliance.

A 13-year-old Orange boy was hospitalized and his 15-year-old friend was arrested on suspicion of assault after the older teen complied with his friend's request to be set on fire, police said Sunday. The incident occurred about 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the victim's home on Bourbon Street. Witnesses told police the 13-year-old doused his shirt with cologne, then asked his friend to squirt him with lighter fluid and ignite the shirt.