Man acquitted of igniting massive 2018 Southern California wildfire

Man acquitted of igniting massive 2018 Southern California wildfire

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A man was acquitted Thursday of intentionally setting a fire that spread over 36 square miles (93 square kilometers) and burned more than a dozen cabins in remote Southern California canyons five years ago.

After a monthlong trial, a jury deliberated for a little more than a day before finding Forrest Clark not guilty of three felony counts of arson. Jurors convicted him of one remaining count of making criminal threats against his neighbor, the Orange County Register reported.

The Holy Fire in August 2018 tore through a vast area of Orange and Riverside counties, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. The blaze burned for more than a month.

Prosecutors alleged that Clark had been feuding with and threatening a neighbor and set fire to the man’s cabin, sparking the blaze. Clark’s cabin survived.

Letters, Oct. 2

I want to thank Niigaan Sinclair and the Free Press for his informative and moving article on the Brandon Indian Residential School children’s burial site. The historical yet disturbingly recent realities it reviews are stark and dark.

Woman took ‘meaningful’ responsibility after disposing of body: lawyer

A woman who was threatened with death if she didn’t help dispose the body of a Mexican man murdered in the basement of a North End home should serve no more jail time, a judge has been told.

Devlin Langlois, 25, has pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder in the March 2025 killing of 28-year-old Diego Moscoza.

“By pleading guilty, Ms. Langlois has already taken meaningful accountability for her actions,” defence lawyer Joshua Rogala told King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond at a sentencing hearing Monday.

He urged the judge to sentence Langlois to the equivalent of 14 months already served, plus two years supervised probation.

Man who killed two Indigenous women, was accused of killing third, back in prison less than year after statutory release

A Winnipeg man convicted of killing two First Nations women more than a decade ago — with charges stayed in a third slaying — has been sent back to prison less than a year after he left under conditions.

Parole Board of Canada officials revoked 67-year-old Shawn Lamb’s statutory release after a hearing last week.

“Your actions are not beyond your control, yet you continue to wilfully make poor decisions that place the public at risk,” board member Arun Kundu-Thomsen wrote in a decision released this week.

Lamb gained statutory release — a legislated conditional release most federal inmates automatically qualify for after serving two-thirds of their sentence — in November last year and lived in several Ontario facilities for federal offenders.

Netminder no stranger to heavy workload as Jets new No. 1 readies for regular-season start

Stuart Skinner is quick to admit that he wasn’t always wired this way.

As the Winnipeg Jets new starting goalie prepares for his fifth NHL season, Skinner conceded that the accountability aspect that is now synonymous with his character took some time to build up.

“As I grew up and got older, you go through certain things in life that either build character or make things worse for you. It depends on your choice and your decision,” Skinner said during a recent conversation with the Free Press. “I learned it through trial and error. I learned that, sometimes, it’s hard to get honest with yourself… For me, it’s definitely been a road for me to get to a place like this.

“It definitely is one of my pillars. Accountability is so important because that brings you into a spot of what you’re going to do next. It’s easy to let yourself off the hook. I’m more in the business of putting myself on the hook.”

Transit, roads and city council’s priorities

Did any of you happen to notice that the week of Sept. 14 marked an interesting confluence of events in Winnipeg? First up was the mayoral debate on public transit. Second was an announcement that the city would be undertaking a survey to determine whether their citizens’ “transportation needs” are being met.