Oxnard

EVENTS Gorge on strawberries, toss strawberry tarts, compete in a strawberry pie-eating contest or watch others do it at the 29th Annual Strawberry Festival in Oxnard. Live music, cooking demonstrations and plenty of fruity activities for the kids round off this tasty weekend event. Strawberry Meadows College Park, 3250 S. Rose Ave., Oxnard. 10 a.m. to 6: 30 p.m. Sat. and Sun. $12. http://www.strawberry-fest.org.

A reputed gang member was arrested in the 2009 slaying of an Oxnard man, police said Tuesday evening. Jorge Cervantes, 19, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon for his role in the gang-related killing of Alfredo Vargas, according to the Oxnard Police Department. Cervantes is an Oxnard resident. He was arrested by officers who saw him riding as a passenger in a truck. He was being held Tuesday evening at the Ventura County Jail. Two additional suspects were arrested earlier in the week for allegedly taking part in the killing, police said in a statement.  Police said that three other killings may be connected to the Lemonwood Chiques street gang, which is suspected of being involved in Vargas' slaying.

Video streaming by ustream.tv/occupyfreedomla Nine protesters were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of trespassing after blocking access to a Monsanto seed distribution center in Oxnard, group organizers said.  Those arrested were part of a decentralized network of food activists and Occupy protesters, said Adam Eidenger, a spokesman for the Occupy Monsanto group. Their aim is to protest Monsanto's sales of genetically modified seeds, he said. They also sought to bring attention to Proposition 37, a ballot initiative set to come before California voters this fall.

Most days, about two dozen student pilots circle over downtown Riverside, taking cues on takeoffs, landings and the position of other planes from the air traffic controllers at the city airport. "They're an extra set of eyes on the runway," flight instructor Jose Gonzalez said. "When you're new, that's pretty important. " But the guiding voices from the airport tower could go silent within weeks. The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to decide Friday whether to shut down as many as 238 air traffic control towers across the country, including 23 in California, as part of a plan to trim $600 million under the federal government's forced spending cuts, known as sequestration.

Reggie Bush is gone but Drew Brees is still around. So if you're looking for a quick glimpse of NFL action, make your way to Oxnard, where the New Orleans Saints are making an unexpected pit stop this week for a weeklong training camp. Practice Thursday and Friday is at 4 p.m. If you're looking for autographs, you might want to be in place a few minutes earlier. The practices have been lasting a couple of hours. Directions: North on the 101 toward Ventura, exiting Vineyard.

Dallas Cowboy training camp runs through Aug. 17 at the River Ridge Playing Fields in Oxnard, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.  Practice run from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Click here  for the schedule and address . The practices are free, but parking costs $10. ... Nearly 84% of domestic flights arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled time in the first half of the year - the best performance since the government started keeping track...

Construction has begun on a $25-million laboratory in Oxnard that its owners hope will be one of the most advanced auto emissions testing and powertrain development facilities in the country. Engineers for Volkswagen Group of America Inc. will work there on the company's signature VWs as well as other brands it owns: Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti. The 63,000-square-foot facility on four acres at 201 N. Del Norte Blvd. will also be a customer service support center for Bugatti dealers and customers in North and South America.

"Do you remember that morning?" That question by Ventura County prosecutor Maeve Fox was all it took to send a former Oxnard junior high student into a tailspin. On the witness stand Wednesday, the 17-year-old identified only as Mariah T. dropped her head and began sobbing, her long red hair spilling over her face as she turned away from the defendant, her former 8th-grade classmate Brandon McInerney, seated across the courtroom. Mariah T. was so overcome that she could no longer speak, and Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell called a short recess.

It's been nearly three years since Jane Laut shot and killed her husband, retired Olympic shot putter Dave Laut, in their Oxnard backyard. That point is undisputed. What jurors must decide is why, just before midnight on Aug. 27, 2009, a woman described as quiet and reserved pumped five bullets into Dave Laut, an Adonis who won the bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Laut's murder trial is set to begin Tuesday, although attorneys have indicated they may ask for a delay.

Edwin Diedrich, the grandson of early Oxnard settlers, died Monday of cancer. He was 82. Diedrich, a lifelong farmer, was born on the same ranch where his father was born in 1884. The ranch was purchased by Diedrich's grandfather Johnnas for $9,000 in 1882--11 years before Oxnard was incorporated. Johnnas came from Hanover, Germany, with his bride, Matilda, to begin a new life of farming in Oxnard. The ranch, located at 5th Street and Rose Avenue, is still farmed by the Diedrich family.

The Oxnard teacher who was fired for appearing in porn movies has until Feb. 13 to decide whether to appeal a decision dismissing her from the classroom, school officials said. The Commission on Professional Competence, in a 47-page report dated Jan. 3, found that Stacie Halas, 32, was unfit to teach eighth-grade science at Haydock Intermediate School and ordered her dismissal. Although Halas filmed the scenes in 2005 and 2006, before she was employed at the middle school, the ongoing availability of the videos will continue to hamper her ability to be an effective teacher, Judge Julie Cabos-Owen wrote.

When a man high on methamphetamine died in June after a brief struggle with Oxnard police officers, the department said officers were trying to restrain him for paramedics. But a Ventura County medical examiner's report released this week called the death of 26-year-old Robert Ramirez a homicide. At her attorney's office, Teresa Ramirez, the man's mother, was on the verge of tears Wednesday as she spoke of her son's death outside an Oxnard home. "I personally knocked on every door," she told reporters.

Video streaming by ustream.tv/occupyfreedomla Nine protesters were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of trespassing after blocking access to a Monsanto seed distribution center in Oxnard, group organizers said.  Those arrested were part of a decentralized network of food activists and Occupy protesters, said Adam Eidenger, a spokesman for the Occupy Monsanto group. Their aim is to protest Monsanto's sales of genetically modified seeds, he said. They also sought to bring attention to Proposition 37, a ballot initiative set to come before California voters this fall.

When 15-year-old Stacy Knappenberger was killed in 1980, Oxnard investigators were at a loss. The body of the Hueneme High School student was found in her home. She had been beaten and stabbed multiple times, and authorities suspected she had been sexually assaulted. But there were no arrests until this week, when, guided by a DNA match, officers in Fairfield, Ala., converged on the home of Thomas Young Jr., 65, a Vietnam veteran described by a next-door neighbor as mild-mannered and religious.

Dallas Cowboy training camp runs through Aug. 17 at the River Ridge Playing Fields in Oxnard, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.  Practice run from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Click here  for the schedule and address . The practices are free, but parking costs $10. ... Nearly 84% of domestic flights arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled time in the first half of the year - the best performance since the government started keeping track...

It's been nearly three years since Jane Laut shot and killed her husband, retired Olympic shot putter Dave Laut, in their Oxnard backyard. That point is undisputed. What jurors must decide is why, just before midnight on Aug. 27, 2009, a woman described as quiet and reserved pumped five bullets into Dave Laut, an Adonis who won the bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Laut's murder trial is set to begin Tuesday, although attorneys have indicated they may ask for a delay.

Jenny Dooley made six three-pointers and scored 21 points to power Ventura High to a 64-51 victory over Oxnard on Tuesday night in a nonleague girls' basketball game at Oxnard. Ventura (11-2), ranked No. 2 in the region by The Times, shot 47% from three-point range and forced 17 turnovers. Katey O'Brien had 16 points for the Cougars. Sienna Abraham scored 15 points for No. 9 Oxnard (6-6), which shot 38%.

Larry King's feminine attire was upsetting some of the students and faculty at E.O. Green Junior High in Oxnard. But there was nothing Assistant Principal Joy Epstein could do about it because King's high-heeled boots, earrings and eye makeup were within the Oxnard school's dress policy, Epstein testified Monday at the murder trial of King's classmate, Brandon McInerney. Epstein consulted with an administrator at the Hueneme Elementary School District after King started coming to school in late January 2008 in women's accessories.

Rolando Zaragoza, 21, was 15 years old when he came to the United States, enrolled in an Oxnard school and first heard the term " Oaxaquita. " Little Oaxacan, it means - and it was not used kindly. "Sometimes I didn't want to go to school," he said. "Sometimes I stayed to fight. " "It kind of seemed that being from Oaxaca was something bad," said Israel Vasquez, 23, who shared the same mocking, "just the way people use ' Oaxaquita ' to refer to anyone who is short and has dark skin.

EVENTS Gorge on strawberries, toss strawberry tarts, compete in a strawberry pie-eating contest or watch others do it at the 29th Annual Strawberry Festival in Oxnard. Live music, cooking demonstrations and plenty of fruity activities for the kids round off this tasty weekend event. Strawberry Meadows College Park, 3250 S. Rose Ave., Oxnard. 10 a.m. to 6: 30 p.m. Sat. and Sun. $12. http://www.strawberry-fest.org.