2 dead, homes destroyed in Southern California wildfires

MALIBU, Calif. – Two people were found dead as a pair of wildfires stretched from inland canyons to the Pacific in Southern California on Saturday, leaving people sifting through the remains of both mansions and modest homes for anything they had left.

The two bodies were found severely burned inside a car on a long residential driveway in Malibu, Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said. The home is on a winding stretch of Mulholland Highway with steep panoramic views, where on Saturday the roadway was littered with rocks, a few large boulders and fallen power lines, some of them still on fire. Most of the surrounding structures were leveled.

The deaths brings to 25 the number of people killed in the state's wildfires in the past few days, with 23 found dead in a Northern California wildfire.

Firefighters have saved thousands of homes despite working in "extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they have never seen in their life," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.

Those vicious conditions on Friday night gave way to calm Saturday, with winds reduced to breezes. No new growth was reported on the larger of the two fires, which stands at 109 square miles (282 square kilometers), and firefighters now have the blaze 5 percent contained.

Progress also came against the smaller fire, prompting Ventura County officials to allow people in a handful of communities to return to their homes.

Hundreds of thousands across the region remain under evacuation orders, and could stay that way for days as winds pick up again.

Osby said losses to homes were significant but did not say how many had burned. Officials said earlier that 150 houses had been destroyed and the number would rise.

Fire burned in famously ritzy coastal spots like Malibu , where Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West, Guillermo del Toro and Martin Sheen were among those forced out of their homes amid a citywide evacuation order.

"It was way too big a firestorm," said Lani Netter, whose Malibu home was spared while her neighbor's burned. "We had tremendous, demonic winds is the only way I can put it."

The flames also burned inland through hills and canyons dotted with modest homes, reached into the corner of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and stretched into suburbs like Thousand Oaks, a city of 130,000 people that just a few days ago saw 12 people killed in a mass shooting at a country music bar.

Wildfire raged on both sides of the city still in mourning, where about three-quarters of the population are under evacuation orders that officials urged them to heed.

"We've had a lot of tragedy in our community," said Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks, whose district includes Thousand Oaks. "We don't want any more. We do not want any more lives lost."

Nothing was left but the horses for Arik Fultz, who spent Saturday sifting through the remains through the charred remains of his 40-acre ranch near Malibu.

"It just doesn't feel real that it's all gone," Fultz said. "Just yesterday, what, 24 hours ago I was feeding horses in the morning."

Two houses, two barns, three trailers and decades of accumulated possessions are gone.

All 52 horses survived, after a wild scramble to save them.

Fultz's mother, 61-year-old Tricia Fultz, said everyone expected the fire to stay well south of their property, but shifting winds forced them to take the horses out to open pastures as quickly as they could.

Three were still in their pens when the adjacent barn caught fire, and Tricia Fultz just had to open the pens, burning her hands and hoping for the best.

She, her husband and six others rode out the fire in a tunnel a short distance up the road as the fire burned the hillsides above and all around them.

"It's so surreal because it's so dark, and when we're in the tunnel you can't see anything," Tricia Fultz said. "There was so much burning and so much black."

The fire hopscotched around the Oak Park neighborhood of 70-year-old Bill Bengston, leaving most houses untouched.

The home for 22 years of Bengston and his wife, Ramona, was the only house on his block that burned. And it burned everything.

"It's all gone," he said softly as he sifted through the remains. "It's all gone."

The hardest to lose were the photos and the mementos handed down through the family — a cigar box that belonged to his great-grandfather; the handcuffs his father carried in World War II.

"We're somewhat devastated," Bengston said. "Still a little bit numb."

The area burning in Southern California is in severe drought, U.S. government analysts said. California emerged from a five-year statewide drought last year but has had a very dry 2018, pushing parts of the state back into drought and leaving others, like the area of the Northern California fire, abnormally dry.

Fox News.

Gunman who killed 12 died from self-inflicted gunshot

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – An autopsy determined that the gunman who killed 12 people at a Southern California bar died from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said Saturday.

Ian David Long, a 28-year-old ex-Marine machine-gunner, fatally shot 11 people at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks and a police officer who responded just before midnight Wednesday. The officer exchanged gunfire with Long, who was found dead at the scene.

Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said an autopsy determined Long fatally shot himself.

Authorities have yet to determine a motive and are exploring all possibilities. Among them is whether Long believed a former girlfriend might have been at the bar, which was filled with about 150 people on its popular college night that attracts students from several nearby schools.

Sheriff's Capt. Garo Kuredjian said investigators were still interviewing witnesses, have served a search warrant at Long's home and searched the car Long drove to the bar.

"We're going to exhaust every investigative means possible," Kuredjian told the Ventura County Star.

Kuredjian said there is no timeline for completing the investigation. The analysis of items obtained in the searches could take months, he said.

Former Sheriff Geoff Dean, whose last day on the job was Friday, said investigators believe Long targeted the bar but don't know why. At least a half-dozen people interviewed by The Associated Press who described themselves as regulars at the bar don't ever recall seeing Long there.

Authorities described an attack of military efficiency . When Long shot his .45-caliber pistol, he killed. All of the injured suffered cuts, bruises and other minor injuries in frantic attempts to escape the gunfire. Some smashed windows and jumped out.

Based on time stamps, investigators say, Long posted to Instagram during the attack. The post involved his mental state and whether people would believe he was sane.

His social media accounts have been taken down but a law enforcement official said Long posted about his mental state and whether people would believe he was sane. The official, who was briefed on the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Long grew up in Thousand Oaks and several people who knew him described him in disturbing terms. Long made others feel uncomfortable going back to his teens.

Dominique Colell, who coached girls' track and field at the high school where Long was a sprinter, remembers an angry young man who could be verbally and physically combative.

In one instance, Colell said Long used his fingers to mimic shooting her in the back of the head as she talked to another athlete. In another, he grabbed her rear and midsection after she refused to return a cellphone he said was his.

"I literally feared for myself around him," Colell said in an interview Friday. "He was the only athlete that I was scared of."

Police said Long had no criminal record. However, last April, yelling and loud banging noises coming from the home Long shared with his mother prompted a next-door neighbor to call authorities .

Deputies responded and a mental health specialist who assessed Long worried he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder but found no grounds to hospitalize him.

Fox News.

Teenager beheaded in southern India in caste-based violence

By Swati A. Gupta, CNN

Updated 3:06 PM ET, Fri November 2, 2018

People protest in Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on October 31 over the killing of the 13-year-old girl.

(CNN)Concerns about caste-based violence in India are growing after a 13-year-old girl from a lower caste was beheaded in one of the country's southern states last week, with her alleged assailant coming from a higher, majority caste, according to police.

The complaint filed with police in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu alleges that the victim had rejected the advances of the accused, triggering a violent reaction.

"The girl was brutally murdered. The investigation is ongoing and the accused has been arrested," said Ponkarthik Kumar, senior police official in the district.

The police have charged him under the act that criminalizes caste-based violence, which has existed in India since 1989.

The lower castes, also known as Dalits, one of the most marginalized groups in India's complicated caste system -- a community of people once known as the untouchables, who were often denied the right to education and employment through systemic discrimination and abuse.

In spite of numerous laws and court rulings that have attempted to provide a level playing field, deep-rooted bias has repeatedly hampered progress, activists say.

"Why does the establishment not show that strength? Such incidents are constantly happening. When we are pushing for advocacy, the political will must be questioned, or the lack of political will must be questioned," said Radhika Ganesh, a political activist who has been advocating for Dalit rights for years.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of crimes against people of lower castes was more than 47,000 in 2016.

"The reason behind the violence is the high level of politicization of caste-based politics. Because of that there is extensive abuse of political power," said Ganesh.

Violent protests across India

Crimes against women under the act are underreported in official Tamil Nadu statistics, accounting for only 5% to 8% of total crimes against members of lower castes, said Jayna Kothari, executive director at the Centre of Law and Policy Research. Kothari explained that some offenses against them that should be included are instead classified as regular crime.

"This data is a source of great worry. The question becomes that ... should it be registered as a gender crime or a (lower) caste crime? It should be both. We should look at violence in an intersectional way. You cannot isolate it," said Kothari.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court in an ongoing case reversed an important provision of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The court ruled that the police could not immediately arrest a person accused of a crime against someone of a lower caste.

The act is designed to protect people belonging to lower castes from retribution or intimidation that could follow after a complaint is filed and orders immediate arrest of the accused as a counter measure.

Violent protests organized by Dalit groups broke out across the country and the Indian government was forced to pass an executive order bypassing the Supreme Court order and rolling back their changes.

On Wednesday, activists in Tamil Nadu's capital of Chennai organized a protest called Violence of Silence that saw 300 people march through torrential rain to protest the latest in a long list of injustices.

"Caste is an open sort of practice accepted in Tamil Nadu. Everyone is silent about it and the silence is tantamount to creating the violence around it," said Ganesh.