Fox 35 news, first at 10 on a Thursday night, sexual abuse claims on the Central Coast,
some of them close to 50 years old, are rocking the Catholic Church.
And that brings the Bishop out to explain.
He is accused of beating a puppy with a golf club.
Today he tells his side of the story in court.
And she's one of the most familiar faces on local television.
Tonight she reaches a major milestone in her fight against cancer.
It's in tonight's Life in the 831 on the Central Coast, only 10 o'clock news.
Tonight, fresh on the Central Coast, Fox 35 news, first at 10.
The Catholic Church trying to heal wounds of the past and look to the future.
Good evening, I'm Rosalinda Roman.
And I'm Brian Special, first at 10 tonight.
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Monterey is in Salinas tonight.
He's talking about sexual abuse.
So far 13 people have filed claims against the diocese saying they were sexually abused
by seven priests, most of them between the 1950s and the 1970s.
Tonight Monterey Bishop Sylvester Ryan is talking to parishioners.
Kevin Bollinger was at tonight's open forum.
He joins us with more from the newsroom.
Kevin?
Well Brian, Bishop Ryan wrapped up a four day tour of the Monterey Diocese.
That's covering Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito, and San Luis Obispo counties.
The focus to take part in an open discussion with Central Coast Catholics, the topic, the
past, present, and future of the church after the sex abuse scandals.
I think this is probably the greatest crisis in the history of the Catholic Church in the
United States that we've ever had.
That's led to a zero tolerance policy against sexual misconduct inside the Catholic Church.
That was the message delivered to about 50 Catholics at Madonna Del Saso tonight.
Bishop Ryan and his staff outlined pending abuse cases on the Central Coast and the charter
pledge to try and avoid future cases of sexual abuse inside the church.
Obviously this has been a very critical and difficult time and there is a lot of hurt
and there's a lot of concern by people who are Catholics about how we are dealing with
this.
Bishop Ryan says communication is key to bringing people back to the church.
People have a wonderful sense of trust of their bishops and I think that it's important
for me to, in a certain sense, meet that trust by being here personally with them.
And the open dialogue was well received.
It is a good idea that the people get to know what's going on so that we can support our
priests and so the secrecy is no longer there.
I'm a pretty strong Catholic and so I still believe in what our church is trying to accomplish
and I think he brought it all to the front and I really don't know that much more can
be done than what they're doing.
I think it seems to me like they're covering all the bases they possibly can.
Now it's a job of mending fences.
I think it's going to take time for people to rebuild that trust in different levels.
I mean some people have not lost that trust but I think we've taken some significant steps
backward in people trusting us that we are what we say and that we say what we do.
Bishop Ryan says the Catholic Church is paying the price for what has happened and that hopefully
the ordeal will make for a stronger church in the long run.
Ryan, regaining the trust is really what it's all about.
Kevin Bollinger reporting, thanks.
And over the past four days Bishop Ryan also spoke in Santa Cruz, Seaside and in San Luis
Obispo.
To settle some sex abuse lawsuits the Diocese of Monterey may start selling some real estate.
According to the county assessor's office the diocese owns more than a hundred properties
in Monterey County alone.
A local realtor says some of them were bought 40 years ago for $20,000 and those could sell
for about $800,000 today.
And properties have gone up since the 1950s, double every decade, triple, sometimes triple
in a decade.
And this has to be worth probably over a hundred million.
Certainly California real estate in general has been a good investment.
Unfortunately we were hoping to use that land to expand our ministries or our educational
services.
The diocese is currently defending itself against seven sexual abuse lawsuits.
If they do reach any settlement agreements in those cases they don't plan to sell any
parishes or schools to cover those costs.
Other news, and you heard it here first last night, the Santa Cruz City School District
has voted to close two elementary schools at the end of the current school year in an
effort, of course, to balance the budget.
Both Natural Bridges and Branciforte Elementary will be shut down.
The school board voted five to two late last night to convert the schools to other uses.
The Branciforte will now house the district's four alternative schools while it has yet
to be determined what will happen in Natural Bridges.
Of course, as you might expect, parents and students not too happy with any of this.
It's heartbreaking to know that we're going to have to make our kids go somewhere else
when we've raised them here at this school and it's such a wonderful school and to see
it gone it's really hurtful.
I have to say that probably every school in this district is a wonderful school.
It wouldn't have mattered which school closed.
It would be a great disappointment because all of these schools have been neighborhood
schools.
I was thinking that maybe this campus could be a homeless shelter for people who don't
have homes and I think it might make the community a better place if we had to see the homeless
shelter.
We might be better off if we had people like that running things too.
The school board president tells us the district had to reverse last year's decision to keep
all six elementaries open because of external forces like the state budget crisis and declining
enrollment.
He says he was just trying to protect his kids when he hit a puppy with a golf club.
Steven Jackson of Santa Cruz took the stand in his own defense today.
He testified the Pomeranian puppy was constantly barking and scaring his three young children.
This is video of some Pomeranian puppies that are like the one that was killed.
Jackson claims he didn't take a full swing at the dog with his golf club but witnesses
say he hit the puppy twice.
The dog's skull was crushed and it had to be put to sleep.
The prosecution is expected to cross examine Jackson tomorrow.
Also in Santa Cruz police are warning people to be on the lookout for a sexual predator
who they say has assaulted two women during the past week.
They want you to take a good look at this sketch.
Investigators say that on both occasions the man touched the women's breasts and then ran
off.
Both assaults happened near Walnut and Grover streets close to Santa Cruz high school.
One happened last Saturday, the other on Tuesday night.
Elsewhere immigration officials will now work more closely with the National Child Protection
Group to fight sex crimes against children.
It's all in an effort to bolster what they call Operation Predator which has taken more
than 1700 sex offenders off the streets including more than a dozen from the central coast that
were arrested during this raid in November.
The agreement means the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and the Center
for Missing and Exploited Children will share information and resources which they say will
help track down predators and locate missing children.
Several community groups are organizing a peace vigil in Salinas this weekend.
They are hoping to draw attention to the recent surge in deadly gang violence in their city
and they want to offer their support and prayers to the families affected by those crimes.
Now last Saturday as you see here a similar rally was held on the city's east side where
most of the violence has been.
Since the first of the year five people have been shot to death and several others have
been wounded.
An early morning fire in a popular Santa Cruz restaurant has the owner wondering if he'll
ever be able to rebuild.
The fire broke out at around four o'clock this morning at Cafe Brazil on Mission Street.
Flames were shooting out of the attic roof when firefighters arrived.
Look at that.
A second alarm was called to make sure the fire didn't spread to surrounding buildings.
Now the owner tells us that after 33 years in the same location you'll have to decide
whether it's worth it to start over.
The fire department estimates damage at $100,000.
No cause has been determined.
A Pacific Grove man suspected of drunk driving is under arrest after a multi-car crash on
Highway 68.
Officers say the 20-year-old was driving towards Salinas this afternoon when he lost control
of his car.
They say he hit a Ford Explorer head on then crashed into another SUV.
Investigators say five adults and a baby were taken to a local hospital.
No word tonight on their injuries.
The young man was taken into custody.
He faces felony DUI and underage drinking charges.
As it stands now, owning a large sport utility vehicle like an Escalade or a Hummer and using
it for business purposes means you can get a tax break here in California.
But some state lawmakers are trying to change that.
They say that the SUVs are bad for roads and for the environment and instead want to see
the tax incentives shifted to companies that rely on smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
The state assembly voted on a bill today that would do just that.
The final tally though, a 36-36 split, meaning that owning a large SUV will continue to pay
off at least for now.
Governor Schwarzenegger was in Walnut Creek today to drum up support for Propositions
57 and 58.
The measures are a $15 billion bond initiative and a balanced budget act.
The governor wants voters to approve those in March.
He says the money would help balance the state's budget.
Public state controller Steve Wesley joined Schwarzenegger in voicing both optimism and
caution.
Wesley says the propositions need to be passed or the state is going to be in even more trouble.
In the Bay Area, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzalez is in fair condition after suffering a minor
stroke last night during his State of the City address.
Gonzalez apparently suffered the stroke about halfway through the speech.
Shortly after, a woman took the podium saying the rest of the program was cancelled.
The mayor underwent an MRI and an angiogram at the hospital.
Aides close to Gonzalez say he had been in good health right up until the stroke.
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination has moved from New Hampshire to South Carolina.
During a debate tonight, the seven men vying for the White House agreed on one thing.
They say they can and must compete successfully against President Bush this fall in the South.
The debate unfolded five days before the next round of Democratic contests.
Still a long, long way to go.
Many more states.
For us too.
We're just getting started here on Fox 35.
When we come back, she has one of the most recognizable faces in local television news.
Today, her battle with cancer took a dramatic turn.
That's tonight's Life in the 831.
Plus, a young man accused of killing a playmate while imitating a pro wrestler is free tonight,
we'll explain.
And the Michael Jackson case takes yet another bizarre turn.
Fox 35 News, First at 10, we'll be right back.
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Seinfeld, tonight at 10.30 on Fox 35.
You're watching Fox 35 News, First at 10.
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Tate told the court that she has forgiven the teen for what she called a brutal murder.
Tate said he accidentally killed the girl while imitating pro wrestling moves.
Martha Stewart's trial is on hold.
The defense accuses prosecutors of withholding vital information about the testimony of its star witness.
The key witness sold Stewart's imcloned system stock on her behalf.
He was expected to testify that the shares were sold after Stewart received illegal insider information.
But a lawyer for Stewart's co-defendant, who's a stockbroker, is being given a week to study the new information,
which could raise questions about how that sale actually happened.
The judge shut down the trial until Monday.
And new information in the Michael Jackson case, the singer reportedly served coke cans filled with wine
to young boys he wanted to seduce.
Vanity Fair Magazine says Jackson called the white wine Jesus Juice and the red wine Jesus Blood.
In the same article, Jackson's former financial advisor says the pop star's ex-wife threatened to go public
with his secrets unless he paid her at least $8 million.
Debbie Rowe was the surrogate mother of two of Jackson's children, but not their biological mother.
And the advisor also says Jackson has been in and out of rehab for an addiction to demerol and morphine,
most recently in 1999.
Most of you are probably familiar with Beverly Byers.
She's a longtime Central Coast news anchor who currently works for our sister station, KION 46.
Well, Bev's been out of work for a few months now as she continues to battle breast cancer.
It's been a very public and a very brave ordeal, one that had a very happy moment this morning
at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. It's Bev and a bell in tonight's Life in the 831.
It rests peacefully on a wall in the cancer wing, ready to serve its one and only purpose.
I am thrilled. This day couldn't come fast enough.
In this case, this old ship's bell is waiting for our own Beverly Byer,
who's in her sixth month of treatment for breast cancer.
It's been two surgeries, very rough chemotherapy, the radiation, a lot of time for thought,
and prioritizing the rest of my life.
She's been through a lot. She's been through 33 fractions of radiation and finished today.
So it's a pretty big day for her.
It's a great day for her, yeah.
A big day because it's her last day of treatment for a disease that she discovered she had just in time.
I was told that if I had waited one more year, I wouldn't be here.
That's just a three-mile test.
A fight that hasn't been easy.
There's some real tough times when you can't move.
The chills, the sweats, just the aches that come with it, the nausea, the other various symptoms.
This is much harder than I thought it was going to be.
But today, she's done, done, done, done.
The bell is summoned.
Ring the bell three times well.
Told to clearly say, my treatment's done. This course is run and I'm on my way.
And three quick and vigorous chimes mark the transition from cancer patient to cancer survivor.
I hear the smile and live on.
And she does live on and make all of us really proud.
She's so amazing.
She is. Hurry back, Bev. It is. Hurry back, Bev, please. We need you back here.
Absolutely.
No doubt about it.
Well, we have some breaking news we want to tell you about coming into the KCBA newsroom right now.
Let's go out live to Constitution Boulevard and Laurel Drive.
We have some video coming up in just a minute where two cars are involved in a head-on collision.
We're working on getting that live picture right there for you.
And it happened near Natividad Medical Center.
The officers on the scene tell us five people have been hurt.
A mother has suffered critical injuries and her child, who we're told, was not wearing a seat belt, has minor injuries.
A helicopter just landed in a field around that area.
Paramedics took three other people to the hospital with minor injuries.
We will have more information for you as it becomes available.
Something you obviously hate to see.
Yeah, and when that call came in and we heard on the scanner that a child went and hit the windshield because they weren't wearing their seat belt, our hearts just...
I can't believe it.
And the neat thing is one of our editors, Steve, was saying that he's trained his baby.
When the baby gets in the car, if he's got his mind somewhere else and doesn't buckle up, he says, buckle me up, Daddy.
That's right.
Yeah. Buckle me up, Daddy.
Let's see the temperature.
No?
Yeah.
Okay, there we go.
There are the high clouds that came in today.
They are ushering in some cool air.
Cool. We're already out of the 50s.
48 degrees, 93 percent humidity.
Precious 30, 19.
And it is rising in Windsor North at three miles an hour.
Weather's next.
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Now, KCBA Fox 35 weather.
Good evening, everybody. Thanks for staying with us here today's lows and highs.
We went from 37s at Hollister and Carmel Valley up to 62s at Watsonville and Carmel Valley.
Everybody was give or take a degree about where they were yesterday.
Two big exceptions.
Watsonville picked up five degrees.
Gilroy lost five degrees.
And if you compare to seasonal average like yesterday, if you take out the 41 in Santa Cruz that was above seasonal average in the morning, all the other temperatures were below.
Not only will we cool today, but this system, while it's not going to bring us rain, it is going to bring us cooler air that is going to stay in place for the foreseeable future.
This storm ought to be coming in by about Monday.
Let's set things in motion.
You'll see the southern end of this storm as it goes off to the northeast, just fading out of the picture.
As that parcel of air hits Monterey Bay, it may drop a drop or two, but that's all.
I'm not even going to put rain in the forecast.
Winds on the bay tomorrow, westerly five to ten, increasing to 15 knots in the afternoon.
Seas two feet swells, westerly three to nine feet, 14 second intervals.
There are your first two morning tides.
For tonight, fog and low cloudiness will be redeveloping.
Partly cloudy conditions otherwise.
Southeasterly winds five to ten miles an hour after midnight.
And the winds 36, the temperatures 36 to 46.
Tomorrow, a mostly cloudy day after morning fog, we will have westerly winds five to 15 miles an hour, 49 to 59 the run.
Down the valley, all those mid to upper 50s around the corner, we see 54 big surf, 55 seaside, everybody else 56, 57.
If you're going up into the Santa Cruz Mountains, it's going to be rather chilly, just passing the 40 mark at Ben Lomond, 52.
54 Aptos, 56 Hollister, a whole passel of 57s.
So there's tomorrow, mostly cloudy. Saturday, Sunday, partly cloudy. Monday, rain.
Hunter said if it's the AT&T and it doesn't rain, I'm leaving.
So we're going to put it raining.
And then on Tuesday, I gave you a little rain icon as well.
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Good. Okay, everybody.
We got sports.
Holding court tonight, Andre Agassi in the semifinals in Australia, plus his old rival is coming to Pebble Beach.
And the story of a local referee who's been making calls for four decades.
He's next here on KCBA Fox 35.
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The last American standing in Australia has made quite a name for himself down under.
With four Aussie Open titles and a winning streak of 26 matches, 33-year-old Andre Agassi,
seated fourth this year, battled the big Russian Marat Safin in one semifinal.
The 10-year age difference really didn't seem to show too much in the first two sets.
Safin though barely managed to win both in tie breaks.
Andre rallied to win the next two sets, 7-5 and 6-1.
Don't spit like that.
Now, but in the fifth, Safin's simply superior, winning 6-3.
He will meet Roger Federer or Juan Carlos Ferrerro in the men's final,
while Agassi heads to San Jose for the Seable Open.
And how about this for a last-minute entry in next week's AT&T retired tennis superstar Pete Sampras
replacing boxer Oscar De La Hoya, who's been forced to pull out of the Pro-Am to train for an upcoming bout.
Look for Sampraso to put up a good fight, as he just played in the Bob Hope, and he's a single-digit handicapper.
Umpires and officials are really called all kinds of things, if you think about it,
most of which aren't suitable for this broadcast.
But tonight, Aaron Anderson catches up with a local zebra who's been married to basketball
longer than he's been married to his own wife.
Here's the lowdown on Andy Flores.
Andy Flores isn't known for tooting his own horn, but he has no problem blowing a whistle.
That's right, Andy's a basketball official who's been working high school games here on the peninsula for the last 40 years.
I lasted this long because I really enjoy it. It's not for the money. I still love it.
Flores says he's hanging him up. At least, that's what he says now.
It should be noted that he's been threatening to retire for years, but has always returned to the game he loves.
You know, I've been blessed that I have never run into any predicament or any serious things.
Except for fans yelling at you. But after my fourth or fifth year, it's just in one ear, not the other.
Don't kid yourself, officiating's a tough job. You've got to deal with the players, the coaches, and the fans.
So how does Andy unwind? Line dancing, which ironically leads right back to basketball.
It's the steps that you do forward, backwards, side to side. And sometimes there's head movements.
I mean, I really get into it.
Andy has young legs, though he wouldn't say exactly how old. Next year, he will continue to deal in steps,
either whistling basketball players for taking too many, or teaching the latest on the dance floor in Salinas, Aron Anderson, Fox 35 Sports.
It was cotton-eyed Joe.
Pretty cool. PG, Allisell, MVC, Hollister. All winners tonight, Stanford winner and Cal Luz at Oregon.
Very good. Thanks, HF.
And still ahead, the dumb criminal file gets a new edition.
And it comes with our three favorite words, caught on tape.
All right. We'll let you know what this wannabe criminal is up to. And have those lottery numbers next. Stay with us.
A robbery in suburban St. Louis, and it's all caught on tape.
Take a look at the video from the liquor store in Missouri.
They are calling him the Clown Bandit because of the comedy of errors caught on tape.
The robber makes a run for the booze, and then just off camera, he slams into a door, and next, he slips and falls.
Thatta boy.
Yeah. Slips and falls. Whoops.
And then he still grabs the goods and heads to the window that he came in, but it's too high to get out of,
so he throws the bag out the window and he broke most of the bottles, which is what he went there for in the first place.
So the crook left empty-handed, and by the time the officers that saw the tape stopped laughing, they said,
if you know anything about it, please, I'll please.
Right on. Way to go, man.
Yes. Very interesting.
You ever know that you're my hero.
What were our three favorite words, caught on tape? Pete doesn't agree with that. Your three favorites?
It's gonna rain.
It's gonna rain.
It's gonna rain.
Always got a rain on the parade, doesn't it?
My goodness.
We're a BBB without rain. Think about it.
Yeah, it wouldn't be...
It wouldn't be...
It wouldn't be in Arizona with these guys.
That's probably more like it. That's gonna do it for us. Seinfeld's next year on KCBA. We'll see you back here tomorrow.