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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The county's animal shelter has a wide variety of dogs available for adoption this week.
Mixed breed dogs with Yorkshire Terrier, Labrador Retriever, bluetick coonhound, pit bull, Chihuahua and terrier are needing new homes.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
In addition to the animals featured here, all adoptable animals in Lake County can be seen here: http://bit.ly/Z6xHMb .
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Yorkshire Terrier mix
This male Yorkshire Terrier mix is 2 years old.
He weighs 8.6 pounds, has a medium-length tan and brown coat, and has not yet been altered.
He's in kennel No. 3, ID No. 37402.
Pit bull terrier mix
This female pit bull terrier mix is 14 weeks old.
She weighs nearly 20 pounds, and has a short white and brown brindle coat. Shelter staff did not report if she had been altered.
Find her in kennel No. 4, ID No. ID: 37433.
'Zeus'
“Zeus” is a 9-month-old male Labrador Retriever-border collie mix.
He has a short chocolate- and white-colored coat, weighs 56 pounds and has been neutered.
He's in kennel No. 6, ID No. 37370.
Male Labrador Retriever mix
This male Labrador Retriever mix is 7 months old.
He has a short brown coat and weighs 29 pounds. Shelter staff did not report if he had been altered.
Find him in kennel No. 8, ID No. 37318.
Pit bull terrier mix
This male pit bull terrier mix is 3 years old.
He has a short blue coat and has been neutered.
Shelter staff said he's an outstanding, calm and charming dog that was attacked by another dog before entering the shelter.
He has no food aggression. A cat-free home would be best for him.
He’s in kennel No. 10, ID No. 36931.
'Dee'
“Dee” is a 10-month-old bluetick coonhound.
She weighs nearly 22 pounds, has a short blue merle coat and has been spayed.
Find her in kennel No. 14a, ID No. 37287.
'Missy'
“Missy” is a 4-year-old bluetick coonhound.
She weighs 39 pounds, has a short blue merle coat and has been spayed.
She's in kennel No. 14b, ID No. 37288.
Pit bull terrier mix
This female pit bull terrier mix is 4 months old.
She has a short brown and white coat, weighs 18 pounds and has not yet been spayed.
Find her in kennel No. 15, ID No. 37430.
Female Chihuahua mix
This female Chihuahua mix is 3 and a half years old.
She has a short black and white coat, weighs almost 11 pounds and has been spayed.
She's in kennel No. 18, ID No. 35315.
Female hound mix
This female hound mix is 8 years old.
She has a short black coat and weighs 54 pounds. It was not reported if she had been spayed.
Find her in kennel No. 25, ID No. 37390.
Male terrier mix
This male terrier mix is 3 years old.
He has a medium-length tan and white coat, and has not yet been neutered.
He's in kennel No. 29, ID No. 37185.
Labrador Retriever-hound
This male Labrador Retriever-hound is 14 weeks old.
He has a short black coat, weighs nearly 20 pounds and has been neutered.
He's in kennel No. 30a, ID No. 37282.
Labrador Retriever-hound
This male Labrador Retriever-hound is 14 weeks old.
He has a short black coat, weighs more than 20 pounds and has been neutered.
He's in kennel No. 30b, ID No. 37283.
To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NICE, Calif. – An Alabama man was injured Friday night when he was hit by a motorist in Nice.
Shane D. Nelson, 41, of Oneonta, Ala., suffered moderate injuries after being struck in a crosswalk on Highway 20 at Keeling Avenue at 9:10 p.m., according to the California Highway Patrol.
The CHP said Julie Bywaters, 64, of Nice was driving her 1990 Nissan eastbound at approximately 40 miles per hour through town.
She failed to see Nelson crossing the highway from the north to the south and struck him when she entered the crosswalk, the CHP said.
Nelson was transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport for treatment of his injuries, according to the CHP. Bywaters was uninjured.
Alcohol is not considered a factor in the crash, the CHP said.
The crash remains under investigation by CHP Officer Glen Thomas.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Tickets are still available for the 17th annual food and wine event, A Taste of Lakeport.
On Saturday, Aug. 24, five blocks of Main Street in downtown Lakeport will be closed to make room for the fine wines and foods of Lake County.
The tasting runs from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with a street dance following until 10 p.m. Event tickets are $30 in advance, $35 at the door, and include all activities and a souvenir wine glass. A $15 ticket is available for food tasting only.
An expected 20 wineries will offer tastes from fine wines either produced in Lake County or made from grapes grown in the county. Local restaurateurs and caterers will provide tasty bites to sample with the wines.
This year, all the tastings will be offered from booths located in the middle of Main Street in Lakeport. To keep the fun going, live music will play throughout the tasting by Polecat Rodeo and Without A Net. An antique car collection will be on view as well.
After 8 p.m., the party turns into a lively street dance under the stars with music by the LC Diamonds.
Tickets are available at these outlets:
- Soper Reese Community Theatre online at www.soperreesetheatre.com , or at the box office on Fridays from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., 375 S. Main, Lakeport, 707-263-0577;
- Lake County Chamber of Commerce, 875 Lakeport Blvd., Lakeport, 707-263-5092;
- Hillside Honda, 460 S. Main, Lakeport, 707-263-9000;
- Clearlake Chamber of Commerce, 3425 Bowers Road, Clearlake (cash or check only).
Proceeds from The Taste of Lakeport benefit the Lakeport Main Street Association and its work toward the continuing revitalization and renovation of downtown Lakeport.
For more information contact LMSA at 707-243-8843,
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected a new kind of stellar blast called a kilonova, which happens when a pair of compact objects such as neutron stars crash together.
Hubble observed the fading fireball from a kilonova last month, following a short gamma ray burst (GRB) in a galaxy almost four billion light-years from Earth.
“This observation finally solves the mystery of short gamma ray bursts,” says Nial Tanvir of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who led a team of researchers conducting this research.
Gamma ray bursts are flashes of intense high-energy radiation that appear from random directions in space. They come in two flavors – long and short.
“Many astronomers, including our group, have already provided a great deal of evidence that long-duration gamma ray bursts (those lasting more than two seconds) are produced by the collapse of extremely massive stars,” explained Tanvir.
The short bursts, however, were more mysterious.
“We only had weak circumstantial evidence that short bursts [might be] produced by the merger of compact objects,” he adds. “This result now appears to provide definitive proof.”
Astrophysicists have predicted short-duration GRBs are created when a pair of super-dense neutron stars in a binary system spiral together.
This event happens as the system emits gravitational radiation, creating tiny waves in the fabric of space-time.
The energy dissipated by the waves causes the two stars to sweep closer together. In the final milliseconds before the explosion, the two stars merge into a death spiral that kicks out highly radioactive material. This material heats up and expands, emitting a burst of light.
The resulting “kilonova” is about 1,000 times brighter than a regular nova, which is caused by the eruption of a white dwarf.
In a recent science paper Jennifer Barnes and Daniel Kasen of the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory presented new calculations predicting how kilonovas should look.
They predicted the same hot plasma producing the radiation also will block the visible light, causing the gusher of energy from the kilonova to flood out in near-infrared light over several days.
An unexpected opportunity to test this model came June 3 when NASA' s Swift space telescope picked up the extremely bright gamma ray burst, cataloged as GRB 130603B.
Although the initial blast of gamma rays lasted just one-tenth of a second, it was roughly 100 billion times brighter than the subsequent kilonova flash.
From June 12-13, Hubble searched the location of the initial burst, spotting a faint red object. An independent analysis of the data from another research team confirmed the detection.
Subsequent Hubble observations on July 3 revealed the source had faded away, therefore providing the key evidence the infrared glow was from an explosion accompanying the merger of two objects.
The team's results appeared Aug. 3 in a special online publication of the journal Nature.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
People should know the legal requirements for the proper execution (signing) of wills.
Under California law, the execution of a will must be witnessed by two persons generally competent to act as witnesses.
Wills are not notarized. An exception exists for handwritten wills – so-called “holographic wills” – which do not require any witnesses.
Let us examine the significance of witnesses when the will is later offered for probate.
California requires that the subscribing witnesses be present together when the testator either signs or affirms his/her signature, and the witnesses must understand that the instrument is the testator’s own will.
If a testator is unable or unwilling to find two disinterested witnesses then he or she might decide to proceed with a holographic (handwritten) will and avoid the witness requirement.
Furthermore, the two witnesses should be disinterested persons who receive nothing under the will. Otherwise, the law presumes that the interested witness procured such gift by duress, menace, fraud or undue influence. In that case, unless the presumption is overcome, the gift is invalidated.
When an unopposed will is offered for probate, these requirements must be shown to be satisfied. Accordingly, the subscribing witnesses sign an “attestation clause” under penalty of perjury to that effect.
Such so-called “self proving” wills may then be admitted without further evidence regarding execution. Otherwise, an affidavit or declaration of a witness and a copy of the will must also be submitted. This may become a problem if the witness is unavailable after the testator’s death.
If the will’s attestation clause is irregular or incomplete, then provided there is proof of the genuineness of the subscribing witnesses' signatures, this may be sufficient to show due execution.
When one of the witnesses’ signatures cannot be proven to be genuine then the person offering the will must then establish by clear and convincing evidence that the testator intended the document to constitute his or her will.
Such evidence may be credible testimony from someone to whom the testator declared the document to be his or her will.
When a will is opposed, an additional requirement applies. Then each subscribing witness must be produced and examined both as to whether the will was properly executed and whether the testator had testamentary capacity.
If a witness is forgetful or doubtful when examined then the proper execution of the will may be proved based on other evidence as discussed above.
A presumption of proper will execution exists when the testator's and the witnesses' signatures are proven to be genuine.
If the genuineness of any signature on the will comes into question, the court may order the will to be examined by a handwriting expert.
Accordingly, the names of each subscribing witness are typically printed below the signature together with the witnesses’ legal street address. Otherwise, an illegible signature without any way to prove the identity and genuineness of the signature may result in the court finding that the will was not properly executed.
What if one or both subscribing witnesses is unavailable?
If one subscribing witnesses is unavailable then the court may admit the will based on the testimony of the other subscribing witness.
If neither subscribing witness is available the court may then consider the evidence of other non-subscribing witnesses, if any, to prove the will’s proper execution.
In sum, a person making a will should have two credible and disinterested persons, who are expected to outlive the testator, witness either the signing of the will or affirmation of the testator’s signature on the will, as relevant.
The subscribing witnesses should sign the will’s sworn attestation clause regarding the proper execution of the will. Notarization is not required.
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 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Hospice Services of Lake County is preparing to move forward on the project to renovate a property it purchased last year to be its headquarters.
Hospice Services, which has served the community since 1979, provides medical, emotional and spiritual care to persons with serious illnesses in their homes, as well as support for impacted families.
Last December, the organization purchased the former Calvary Baptist Church location to be its headquarters facility.
The 4.5-acre property is located at 1862 Parallel Drive in Lakeport.
The new location includes a 5,700-square-foot main building, a 1,600-square-foot residence and a garage.
The main building will be remodeled and expanded to 6,500 square feet to house the organization’s administrative and clinical staffs.
Hospice Services Executive Director Anja Koot said it's hoped that the project will begin by month's end.
Koot said the organization is committed to using local consultants, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers for the project, and intends to obtain financing for the project through a local bank.
She said they also will follow green building procedures and recycle usable materials and debris.
Following a review of submitted bids, the Hospice Services Board of Directors selected Lakeport-based Mitchell Construction for the project, which is expected to take six months to complete, she said.
At its June 12 meeting, the Lakeport Planning Commission approved the organization’s remodel plans.
Lakeport Planning Services Manager Andrew Britton said the commission eliminated a few conditions of approval, including a last-minute proposal to add a Lake Transit Authority bus stop.
Britton said that after hearing testimony at the well-attended meeting, the commission determined that a bus stop wasn’t warranted based on Hospice Services’ intended use of the property.
Hospice Services currently is headquartered at a 3,300-square-foot building on S. Main Street in Lakeport.
Because of the increased demand for services, Hospice Services has outgrown its current space, Koot said.
“We’ve been looking to expand for a number of years because our daily patient load has doubled since 2009,” said Koot.
Koot said Hospice Services also rents additional offices for part of its administrative staff in a separate location in Lakeport.
For more information about hospice care, call 707-263-6222 or visit www.lakecountyhospice.org .
Email Elizabeth Larson at
