Mark DeForest

Mark DeForest has been in and out of jail several times. Officers would like him back behind bars.

The 30-year-old is accused of burglary and grand theft from Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort in 2016. He posted bail and never showed up for court last November.

A felony arrest warrant has been issued.

DeForest was also arrested in 2015 on burglary charges as well as driving under the influence.

He is described a 5-foot-10, 165 pounds, blond hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information about DeForest’s whereabouts is asked to call 530.573.3300.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Two Carson City residents died in the head-on collision on Kingsbury Grade on July 4.

Thomas William Guard, 52, was driving and Moriah Ann Williams, 38, was the passenger. Guard’s 2012 Scion Xb crossed the center line into the direct path of a Ford F150 that was headed west.

The collision occurred at 9:26pm Tuesday about two miles up from Foothill Road.

Guard and Williams were pronounced dead at the scene.

The female driver and the male passenger in the Ford F150 were both transported by CareFlight to Renown Medical Center in Reno with serious, but non-life threatening injuries. Their names and hometowns have not been released. 

The driver of the Scion and both driver and passenger in the F150 were wearing seat belts.  The passenger in the Scion was not restrained. There was also a dog in the Scion that died.

Anyone with information regarding this collision is asked to call 775.687.9617 or email dhildebrand@dps.state.nv.us.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Karen Weise, Bloomberg

“Are you with Tesla or Panasonic?” the waitress asks with a smile. It’s morning in Reno, and it’s natural to assume anyone eating breakfast among the rustic wood walls and Instagram-worthy succulents of the Whitney Peak Hotel would work at the mammoth Tesla Gigafactory, jointly run by the two tech companies. For transplants landing in Reno, the boutique hotel, formerly a casino, has become a common crash pad—albeit one wrapped by an outdoor rock-climbing wall.

Around 8:30am, the men arrive in waves. The Panasonic workers from Japan head for one buffet, with rice, pork, and miso soup; the Tesla crowd favors eggs. Soon they’re gone, traveling by carpools and shuttles 20 miles east into the desert to the factory, where they’ll make lithium ion batteries to power Tesla’s electric cars.

Not long ago, Reno was a home foreclosure capital and fading casino town. “There was only one place to go, and that was up,” says Mayor Hillary Schieve. Unemployment peaked at almost 14 percent in 2011, when Governor Brian Sandoval signed a law aiming to diversify the state’s economy, recognizing that gambling alone can’t sustain a workforce.

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A 4-month-old bear was found July 4 near D.L. Bliss State Park, with no signs of her mom.

She is now at Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care.

According to officials, the 15-pound cub was barely able to walk and had difficulty breathing. The lacerations on her legs have been stitched up. Because she did not have any broken bones it is not believed that she was hit by a car.

The goal is to rehab her so she could be released into the wild this coming winter.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Maya L. Kapoor, High Country News

Over three months in 2016, the Soberanes fire burned 132,127 acres of Central California’s coast, blazing through dry swaths of dense chaparral, mixed hardwood timber and redwoods. Costing $260 million to suppress, it became the most expensive fire in the country’s history.

And it wasn’t caused by lightning, which is relatively scarce in that part of the country, but by an illegal campfire in Garrapata State Park.

Human-caused climate change has meant more, and bigger, wildfires throughout the country. But as astute pyrologist Bruce Springsteen once wrote, “You can’t start a fire without a spark.”

According to wildfire research, the source of that spark is, more often than not, a person. What’s more, due to these human-caused ignitions, the country’s conflagrations have grown significantly larger and more frequent, while the overall fire season has tripled in length.

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By Elliott Almond, Bay Area News Group

Earthquakes midfielder Matheus Silva was swimming in Zephyr Cove early Tuesday when he cried out for help as the sun began peeking over the Sierra.

Then he went under the icy water. Friends thought the 6-foot-2 Brazilian was joking. But he didn’t resurface during a 6am swim to start the summer holiday.

“His heart stopped and he wasn’t breathing,” Eric Guevin of Tahoe Douglas fire said Wednesday.

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By Sarah Litz , Benjamin Spillman and Dustin Quiroz , Reno Gazette-Journal

Four major wildfires ignited in Northern Nevada this week and have burned thousands of acres in the Reno area.

Combined, the Winnemucca Ranch Fire, Earthstone Fire, Truckee Fire and Limerick Fire scorched nearly 108,000 acres – almost 169 square miles.

The most recent fire – the Winnemucca Ranch Fire – was reported at about 6:30pm Tuesday and has burned 3,500 acres in the hills east of the intersection of Pyramid Highway and Winnemucca Ranch Road. As of Wednesday, the fire was 20 percent contained.

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A federal bill that would increase the ability to store water, especially in times of drought, has passed the House.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Garden Grove. It is called the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act. The House approved it 233-180.

The congressman, who represents Lake Tahoe, on the House floor said, “It simply says the process needs to be more efficient, and that government agencies should coordinate and corroborate with each other, rather than talking past each other as isolated, and often inscrutable, fiefdoms. Five years of drought in California brought entire cities within months of exhausting their water supplies. The epic drought has now been followed with the wettest year on record, and we have helplessly watched our dams spilling millions of acre ft. to the ocean, because we have no place to store the excess for the next drought.”

The bill now goes to the Senate.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

The man who drowned near the Tahoe Keys on July 4 has been identified as William Weaver of Citrus Heights.

The 41-year-old was in a double kayak with his wife when the vessel over turned. Weaver was not wearing a life jacket.

He was pronounced dead at Barton Memorial Hospital just after being pulled from the water at 3:30pm.

The lake at the time was extremely rough, with white caps. It is also super cold.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee

A Placer County sheriff’s off-highway vehicle enforcement operation turned into a rescue effort Saturday when deputies encountered an ill U.S. Forest Service employee.

Sheriff’s deputies were on off-highway vehicle patrol in the backcountry near Foresthill when they stopped at the Duncan Peak fire lookout, where they discovered a Forest Service employee suffering from a medical problem that required immediate attention, according to the sheriff’s department.

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