On site at Bona Fide Books HQ, Oct. 14-16, award-winning author Todd Borg offers his acclaimed workshop, “The Hook, The Twist, and the Cliffhanger: What Works, and What Doesn’t in Entertainment Fiction”. For details and information on how to sign up, go online.

All Bona Fide Books events feature entertainment, peculiarities and wholesome libations. Bona Fide HQ is located at 1069 Magua St., No. 4, Meyers, behind the Getaway Café.

For more information, go online or call (530) 573.1513.

Writer and guest instructor Nicole Banas will teach a class Oct. 8 from 10am-1pm called “Using the Techniques of Film in Your Fiction,” a how-to workshop on integrating film techniques into fiction writing. This three-hour genre-bending class is designed to strengthen your writing. The cost is $25. It is at Bona Fide Books in Meyers.

All Bona Fide Books events feature entertainment, peculiarities and wholesome libations. Bona Fide HQ is located at 1069 Magua St., No. 4, Meyers, behind the Getaway Café.

For more information, go online or call (530) 573.1513.

On Oct. 7 at 7pm, Philadelphia poet and writer Jason Schossler, winner of the inaugural Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize, will read from his collection “Mud Cakes,” as part of the LTCC Writers Series. The reading is at the LTCC library in South Lake Tahoe. It is appropriate for all ages.

All Bona Fide Books events feature entertainment, peculiarities and wholesome libations. Bona Fide HQ is located at 1069 Magua St., No. 4, Meyers, behind the Getaway Café.

For more information, go online or call (530) 573.1513.

For those just breaking into writing for publication, check out Publishing 101 on Sept. 19 from 7-9pm at Bona Fide Books headquarters in Meyers. Wyatt will lead a session on everything you need to know to begin submitting your work, including identifying your target market, writing a query letter that will get you noticed, preparing your manuscript and avoiding common mistakes. The cost for the class is $19. Sign up online or at the door.

All Bona Fide Books events feature entertainment, peculiarities and wholesome libations. Bona Fide HQ is located at 1069 Magua St., No. 4, Meyers, behind the Getaway Café.

For more information, go online or call (530) 573.1513.

Cold and Trout Creek Community Forum is Sept. 13 from 5:30-7:30pm at Sierra House Elementary School in South Lake Tahoe.

It’s an opportunity to learn about water quality and defensible space projects going on in the neighborhood.

All roads leading to Yosemite National Park are open. Firefighters continue to battle the blaze that was started by a motor home a week ago.

The fire as of Thursday morning was 85 percent contained. It had charred 5,231 acres outside the park.

Full containment is expected this weekend.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

The monthly TAMBA trail work day for September will be on the highly respected (and used) Toads/Saxon Creek Trail. The section of trail to be worked on is in the upper portions along the rock gardens. No new alignments will be built, but the technical downhill rock lines will be kept in place, tightened up, armored better and protected from erosion and rear wheel brake dragging.

Because this is about 3 miles from the nearest road every volunteer will need to either ride his/her bike or hike in to the work area.

Plan to start work at 10am and have everyone to the work section by 9:30am on Sept. 24.

By Stuart Pfeifer, Los Angeles Times

The lawyer son of a former top California pension fund official was convicted on charges related to a scheme to have a client lie to a federal grand jury in exchange for cash.

Alfred Nash Villalobos, 46, of South Lake Tahoe faces up to 30 years in prison after his conviction Wednesday on extortion and obstruction of justice charges.

His father, Alfred J.R. Villalobos of Stateline, a former director on the board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, was sued by the California attorney general’s office last year. The suit accused him of plying a CalPERS executive with gifts to win business for investment firms he represented. Trial in that case is pending.

The younger Villalobos was arrested in 2009 on suspicion of accepting $50,000 cash from a lawyer whose client was the subject of a grand jury investigation into allegations of immigration visa fraud.

Villalobos represented a man scheduled to testify before the grand jury. According to prosecutors, he told the defense attorney he would have his client lie to the grand jury in exchange for cash.

The defense attorney went to the FBI, which secretly recorded conversations in which Villalobos negotiated the bribe, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph N. Akrotirianakis.

Read the whole story

A Lake Tahoe company is one of 10 firms recalling containers of gel fuel after federal investigators said the product is responsible for two deaths and nearly three dozen serious burn injuries from flash fires.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission launched an investigation into gel fuels in mid-June. About 2 million containers of the pourable fuel that comes in quart and gallon containers are being recalled.

The gel fuel being recalled are sold by the following companies:

• Fuel Barons Inc. of Lake Tahoe, Nev.

• Bond Manufacturing, of Antioch, Calif.

• Bird Brain Inc., of Ypsilanti, Mich.

• Sunjel Company (2 Burn Inc.), of Milwaukee

• Lamplight Farms Inc, of Menomonee Falls, Wis.

• Luminosities Inc (Windflame), of St. Paul, Minn.

• Marshall Group, of Elkhart, Ind.

• Pacific Décor Ltd., of Woodinwille, Wash.

• Real Flame, of Racine, Wis.

• Smart Solar USA, of Oldsmar, Fla.

If you have gel fuel from any of the above companies, contact the manufacturer for information about a refund.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

• South Lake Tahoe author Todd Borg is conducting a workshop called “The Hook, the Twist, and the Cliffhanger” Oct. 14-16. Go online for more details.

• Chili sales at Coyote Grill in Round Hill on Sept. 29 starting at 5pm will benefit Soroptimist International Tahoe Sierra.

• Joanna Mitchell, who has been serving as North Tahoe High School’s assistant principal, will be filling the principal position vacated there last month when Michael McDowell announced his resignation.

• Lothar Knieriemen, broker-Realtor, has joined forces with United Realty. His South Lake Tahoe business is now called United Country Tahoe Gateway Realty. Sept. 16 at 11am is the grand opening at 1714 Arapahoe St.

• Unification Church, whose members are known as Moonies, wrote a $10,000 check to Galilee Camps — which has a summer camp for children on the East Shore of Lake Tahoe.