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LUCERNE, Calif. – A Clearlake Oaks woman was injured in an early Saturday morning vehicle rollover near Lucerne.
Kathleen Wayland, 62, sustained moderate injuries in the crash, which occurred on eastbound Highway 20 east of Rosemont Drive.
Early morning radio traffic indicated Wayland herself called the crash in shortly after 4:30 a.m. Saturday.
The California Highway Patrol report on the crash said Wayland was driving her 2005 Chevy Malibu eastbound on Highway 20 at an unknown speed, and as she was rounding a left curve in the roadway she allowed her vehicle to drift onto the left shoulder.
The Chevy overturned and came to rest on its roof about 30 feet off the roadway, and that's how firefighters would find the vehicle shortly after 5 a.m. after searching for it along the highway for nearly 30 minutes, according to radio traffic.
When Wayland was found she was awake and alert, but firefighters on the radio said she had head trauma and needed to be extricated, which took about a half-hour to complete.
At the same time, REACH 6 came from Lampson Field, landing at Lucerne Harbor Park, where it picked Wayland up. The air ambulance lifted off for Enloe Medical Center in Chico at around 6 a.m., radio traffic indicated.
The CHP said Wayland was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash.
Alcohol is not believed to be a factor, the CHP said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County's unemployment picture showed a minor improvement in February, according to a Friday report.
The California Employment Development Department said that Lake County had an 11.4-percent unemployment rate in February, down from the revised 11.9 percent rate reported in January, and down from the February 2013 estimate of 13.7 percent.
California as a whole showed a slightly improved employment picture in February, with the Employment Development Department noting that the state's unemployment rate was at 8 percent, down from 8.1 percent in January and improved compared to the 9.4-percent rate reported in February 2013.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nationwide unemployment was 6.7 percent in February, up from 6.6 percent in January but down from 7.7 percent in February 2013.
The Friday report said that nonfarm jobs in California totaled 15,350,400 in February, an increase of 58,800 jobs over the month and 336,600 jobs over the year, according to a survey of 58,000 businesses.
A federal survey of 5,500 California households showed an increase in the number of employed people. It estimates the number of Californians holding jobs in February was 17,113,000, an increase of 45,000 from January 2013, and up 234,000 from the employment total in February of last year, the report said.
The number of people unemployed in California was 1,497,000 – down by 9,000 over the month, and down by 245,000 compared with February of last year, the Employment Development Department said.
Marin remained the county with the lowest unemployment, 4.8 percent, while Colusa registered the highest unemployment in February, with 24.2 percent, the report showed.
Lake County rated No. 35 for its 11.4 percent rate. The county's civilian workforce numbered 26,710 people in February, of which 3,050 were unemployed, compared to 26,750 people and 3,200 unemployed in January.
Local industries showing job growth included state government, 7.1 percent; total farm, 4.9 percent; mining, logging and construction, 3 percent; financial activities, 2.6 percent; and professional and business services, 1.7 percent.
Industries showing job loss were retail trade, -0.5 percent; and trade, transportation and utilities, -0.4 percent.
Lake's neighboring counties ranked as follows in February, according to the Employment Development Department: Colusa, No. 58, 24.2 percent; Glenn, No. 41, 12.8 percent; Mendocino, No. 16, 7.9 percent; Napa, No. 5, 6.1 percent; Sonoma, No. 7, 6.2 percent; and Yolo, No. 31, 10.4 percent.
The Employment Development Department reported that there were 539,062 people receiving regular unemployment insurance benefits during the February survey week, compared with 495,273 last month and 487,497 last year.
At the same time, new claims for unemployment insurance were 65,494 in February 2014, compared with 73,040 in January and 41,698 in February of last year, the Friday report said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NORTH COAST, Calif. – A law enforcement veteran slain Wednesday by an Oregon man on the run in the wake of committing several violent crimes will be remembered at a public memorial service planned for next week.
The services for Mendocino County Deputy Ricky Del Fiorentino, 48, will be held beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 26, at the Cotton Auditorium, 500 North Harold St. in Fort Bragg, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
A reception will immediately follow the memorial service at the Fort Bragg Middle School, located adjacent to the Cotton Auditorium, officials said.
The procession in Del Fiorentino's memory will depart at 7 a.m. and will travel approximately 60 miles along the routes of Highway 101, Highway 20 and Highway 1 before reaching the Georgia Pacific Mill site at 100 West Cypress St. in Fort Bragg.
A secondary law enforcement procession will depart the Georgia Pacific Mill site to travel to the Cotton Auditorium after the first procession arrives at the mill site.
Gov. Jerry Brown this week ordered that State Capitol flags be flown at half-staff in Del Fiorentino's honor.
“Deputy Del Fiorentino was killed upholding the oath he swore: To protect his community,” said Brown in extending his condolences to Del Fiorentino's family, friends, coworkers and the Fort Bragg community.
Del Fiorentino, a 26-year law enforcement veteran, was fatally shot on Wednesday morning by Ricardo Antonio Chaney, 32, of Eugene, Ore., according to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
Chaney had been wanted for an early Wednesday morning armed robbery, kidnapping of two people and carjacking of a BMW in Eugene, according to the Eugene Police Department. The two carjacking victims were able to escape a short time after the encounter with Chaney.
The Eugene Police Department said that it's believed that in addition to the carjacking and armed robbery, Chaney was a person of interest in the early Wednesday murder of 79-year-old George Bundy Wasson, who was shot and killed before his home was set on fire.
Following the carjacking, Chaney drove south to California, shot at a man at a business at Confusion Hill in Piercy, and led deputies on a high-speed chase on Highway 1 in the stolen BMW before Del Fiorentino confronted him shortly before noon on Wednesday on a subdivision road near Cleone, north of Fort Bragg, Mendocino County Sheriff's Capt. Greg Van Patten reported.
Del Fiorentino was shot multiple times and died at the scene, Van Patten said.
Fort Bragg Police Lieutenant John Naulty drove up behind Del Fiorentino’s patrol vehicle shortly after the shooting and engaged in a gun battle as Chaney, who was standing near Deputy Del Fiorentino’s patrol vehicle and was armed with an assault rifle, Van Patten reported.
During the course of the gun battle Chaney began to disappear into a bushy area beside a residence along the roadway. Fort Bragg Police Chief Scott Mayberry drove up behind Naulty’s patrol vehicle and provided cover as the pair began to retreat to a safer position, according to Van Patten's report.
A perimeter was established with several different local law enforcement agencies, and Van Patten said members from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team arrived to assist in the search.
Van Patten said Chaney was discovered a short distance away in the side yard of the residence behind the brush line near Deputy Del Fiorentino’s patrol vehicle.
Chaney was pronounced dead from what appeared to be two separate gunshot wounds, Van Patten said.
Chaney was wearing a military-style ballistic vest and was in possession of two assault rifles, and a double-barreled shotgun was located inside of the BMW which had been reported stolen in Eugene, Van Patten said.
A second male subject who at one point was thought to have been involved was located hiding inside of a pump house building. He was determined to be an innocent bystander who had ran from the scene for his own safety, said Van Patten, adding that it was determined Chaney was the only suspect connected to the shooting incident.
At the request of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office assumed investigative control of the shooting incident per the county’s officer involved fatal incident protocol, Van Patten said.
Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster's office released a statement Friday explaining that, pending completion of the ongoing formal investigation, it did plan to comment on any of the details in the fatal shooting.
“A clear, concise explanation of the events surrounding the deaths will be outlined in a report at the conclusion of the investigation,” according to spokesman Mike Geniella.
Geniella said Eyster had indicated that “it is not a matter of days but weeks before such a report is expected to be completed and ready for public distribution.”
The report on Del Fiorentino's shooting, according to Geniella, will be of similar scope to the “exhaustively detailed report” completed on the case of Aaron Bassler, alleged to have shot Fort Bragg Councilman Jere Melo and Mendocino Land Trust staffer Matthew Coleman in August 2011 before leading authorities on a five-week manhunt that ended in his own fatal shooting in early October.
Del Fiorentino leaves behind his wife; four children, ages 21, 19, 18 and 6; a 29-year-old step-son; a 5-month-old grandson; step-grandchildren, ages 6 and 3; his parents; and siblings.
Anyone wishing to make monetary donations to the Ricky Del Fiorentino Memorial Fund can do so by contacting or visiting any of the Savings Bank of Mendocino County locations or by mail to P.O. Box 3600 Ukiah, CA 95482, telephone 707-462-6613.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – For the past five years local child care programs, children’s groups, organizations and elementary school classrooms have participated in the Paper Doll Project in honor of April as the nationally recognized Child Abuse Prevention Month and Month of the Young Child.
Approximately 3,000 paper dolls have been distributed throughout the county, displayed in participating businesses, showing their support of Lake County children.
This year, the project gains new energy with the Raise Your Hand and Take a Stand advocacy focus.
The Lake County Child Care Planning Council is sponsoring the advocacy effort again, by providing supplies, materials, instructions and administrative support to any groups who would like to participate.
To request a packet of materials, please contact The Lake County Child Care Planning Council at 707-262-4162 or
Additional April advocacy activities include the annual Advocacy Walk and Children’s Festival on April 12 in Library Park.
The event begins with the inspiring Opening Ceremony at 10 a.m., followed by the Advocacy Walk and day-long festival with booths, resources and activities for families with children of all ages. All activities and events are free.
For more information, contact The Lake County Children’s Council at 707-262-4146 or email
Booth space is available for organizations. For more information on booth reservations, contact
The April Advocacy initiatives are supported by The Lake County Children’s Council, Lake County Office of Education, Lake County Child Care Planning Council, Redwood Children’s Servicers, Lake Family Resource Center, First 5 Lake, Easter Seals, and other supporting organizations.
Recently good came news for Medicare beneficiaries with chronic health conditions – like chronic diabetes, dementia and multiple sclerosis, to name a few – who require the skilled services that are covered by Medicare through skilled nursing homes, home health setting, or skilled outpatient therapy: No longer can they be denied or discontinued from Medicare coverage only because their condition is not improving or will never improve.
This is a result of the settlement to the federal case Jimmo v. Sibellius, a class action lawsuit in federal court.
The lead plaintiff – a lady whose leg was amputated because of complications from her diabetes – was denied coverage by a private Medicare contractor for skilled nurses and home health aides because her condition was “unlikely to improve.”
In Jimmino, the plaintiffs reached a settlement with Medicare, on Jan. 23, that the correct standard is whether the Medicare beneficiary needs skilled care and whether the skilled care is itself reasonable and necessary to treating the condition.
Importantly, the settlement does not create new Medicare regulations but reinterprets existing Medicare regulations correctly.
Previously, the skilled nursing homes and skilled home care providers have routinely required that a Medicare recipient must be able to improve and in fact make improvement. The “making improvement” standard was challenged in Jimmino.
The “improvement standard” has been widespread at skilled nursing homes where many people were told that they can no longer receive Medicare coverage for the first 100 days at a skilled nursing home, after being transferred from an inpatient hospital stay of at least three days, because they were not showing signs of improvement at the nursing home or could not improve.
Accordingly, any Medicare beneficiary who requires skilled services to maintain his or her health condition or to prevent or slow its deterioration, regardless of the underlying illness, disability or injury, may get Medicare coverage for such skilled services provided they are reasonable and necessary.
This applies to Medicare Home Health, outpatient therapy and skilled nursing facility benefits, and applies to both traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage.
There are limitations to the application of the Jimmino rule. First, it only applies to skilled services and not unskilled services.
Second, if the Medicare recipient is seeking skilled care for rehabilitation reasons only – i.e., only to restore lost function – then Medicare coverage would only apply if there is a favorable prognosis for recovery and the beneficiary improves through treatment.
Thus, Medicare coverage still does not apply when the Medicare beneficiary has no chance of rehabilitation or is not showing progress from rehabilitation.
Lastly, as the Jimmino settlement was agreed on Jan. 23 there are likely still some skilled nursing homes and skilled medical providers who do not know the correct Jimmino standard. For this reason it is important to be aware of the standard and to assert it when necessary.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, California. Fordham can be reached by e-mail at
New radar measurements of an enormous sea on Titan offer insights into the weather patterns and landscape composition of the Saturnian moon.
The measurements, made in 2013 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, reveal that the surface of Ligeia Mare, Titan's second largest sea, possesses a mirror-like smoothness, possibly due to a lack of winds.
“If you could look out on this sea, it would be really still. It would just be a totally glassy surface,” said Howard Zebker, professor of geophysics and of electrical engineering at Stanford who is the lead author of a new study detailing the research.
The findings, recently published online in Geophysical Research Letters, also indicate that the solid terrain surrounding the sea is likely made of solid organic materials and not frozen water.
Saturn's second largest moon, Titan has a dense, planet-like atmosphere and large seas made of methane and ethane. Measuring roughly 260 miles (420 km) by 217 miles (350 km), Ligeia Mare is larger than Lake Superior on Earth.
“Titan is the best analog that we have in the solar system to a body like the Earth because it is the only other body that we know of that has a complex cycle of solid, liquid, and gas constituents,” Zebker said.
Titan's thick cloud cover makes it difficult for Cassini to obtain clear optical images of its surface, so scientists must rely on radar, which can see through the clouds, instead of a camera.
To paint a radar picture of Ligeia Mare, Cassini bounced radio waves off the sea's surface and then analyzed the echo. The strength of the reflected signal indicated how much wave action was happening on the sea.
To understand why, Zebker said, imagine sunlight reflecting off of a lake on Earth.
“If the lake were really flat, it would act as a perfect mirror and you would have an extremely bright image of the sun,” he said. “But if you ruffle up the surface of the sea, the light gets scattered in a lot of directions, and the reflection would be much dimmer. We did the same thing with radar on Titan.”
The radar measurements suggest the surface of Ligeia Mare is eerily still. “Cassini's radar sensitivity in this experiment is one millimeter, so that means if there are waves on Ligeia Mare, they're smaller than one millimeter. That's really, really smooth,” Zebker said.
One possible explanation for the sea's calmness is that no winds happened to be blowing across that region of the moon when Cassini made its flyby. Another possibility is that a thin layer of some material is suppressing wave action. “For example, on Earth, if you put oil on top of a sea, you suppress a lot of small waves,” Zebker said.
Cassini also measured microwave radiation emitted by the materials that make up Titan's surface. By analyzing those measurements, and accounting for factors such as temperature and pressure, Zebker's team confirmed previous findings that the terrain around Ligeia Mare is composed of solid organic material, likely the same methane and ethane that make up the sea. “Like water on Earth, methane on Titan can exists as a solid, a liquid, and a gas all at once,” Zebker said.
Titan's similarities to Earth make it a good model for our own planet's early evolution, Zebker said. “Titan is different in the details from Earth, but because there is global circulation happening, the big picture is the same,” he added. “Seeing something in two very different environments could help reveal the overall guiding principles for the evolution of planetary bodies, and help explain why Earth developed life and Titan didn't.”
Ker Than is associate director of communications for the Stanford School of Earth Sciences.