Thousands of SoCal homes still without power as heat wave stretches into 7th day

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Parts of Southern California sweltered in triple-digit temperatures Monday as a heat wave stretched into the seventh day and contributed to power outages that left thousands without air conditioning.,”Nation

Thousands of SoCal homes still without power as heat wave stretches into 7th day

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Parts of Southern California sweltered in triple-digit temperatures Monday as a heat wave stretched into the seventh day and contributed to power outages that left thousands without air conditioning.

Temperatures soared in the San Fernando Valley with Woodland Hills reporting 102 degrees and Van Nuys at 99, according to the National Weather Service. Downtown Los Angeles also was expected to see temperatures climb above 100.

Southern California Edison said 20,000 customers in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties had no electricity, spokesman Steve Conroy said.

San Diego Gas and Electric Co., which serves San Diego County and southern Orange County, declared a power emergency and began preparing for potential rolling blackouts as demand hit a record.

About 30,000 of its customers experienced outages Monday, but electricity was restored to 22,000 of them by the afternoon, spokesman Peter Hidalgo said.

"We need immediate energy conservation, or else there will be rolling blackouts," Hidalgo said.

About 3,500 customers in scattered parts of Los Angeles also were without power, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman MaryAnne Piersen said.

"Probably more than 90 percent of them are due to stress on the system due to the heat," she said. "Different pieces of equipment get fatigued and blow out, so they have to be replaced."

Cuban exile activist plans to auction what he says is lock of Che Guevara's hair

MIAMI (AP) _ A former CIA operative and Cuban exile plans to auction what he says is a lock of Che Guevara's hair, snipped before the Argentinian revolutionary and friend of Fidel Castro was buried in 1967.

Gustavo Villoldo, 71, was involved in Guevara's capture in the jungles of Bolivia, according to unclassified U.S. records and other documents. He plans to auction the hair and other items kept in a scrapbook since the joint CIA-Bolivian army mission 40 years ago.

"It's time for me to put the past behind and pass these on to someone else," said Villoldo, also a veteran of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

The scrapbook also holds a map used to track down Guevara in Bolivia, photos of Guevara's body, intercepted messages between Guevara and his rebels and a set of Guevara's fingerprints taken before his burial.

It's hard to predict how much the collection will net at auction because there is nothing comparable on the market, said Tom Slater, director of the Americana department at Heritage Auctions of Dallas, which will put the collection on the block Oct. 25-26.

"We cannot recall ever having seen artifacts relating to Che's dramatic career and death appearing on the auction market, and we expect this offering to excite broad bidder interest," Slater said.

The Cuban government announced in 1995 that its anthropologists had uncovered Guevara's remains from Bolivia, and re-interred them in Cuba without doing DNA testing. Villoldo and other exiles and experts say the body is still in Bolivia.

State

Senior living facility could lose tax-exempt status

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (AP) _ More than 300 residents of a senior living facility could be displaced if the city revokes the property-tax exemption the facility has held for 20 years.

The residents of San Camillo, an independent-living apartment building in this Milwaukee suburb, have been told their expenses could jump $200 per month.

"That's a lot of money. A lot of money," said resident Dick Seiberlich. "And there are many people living here who would be hard-pressed to come up with it. Very hard-pressed."

The increase follows a decision the city of Wauwatosa made three years ago to reevaluate every tax-exempt property in the city. Though a decision isn't expected until later this week, residents have been cautioned that the building may lose its exemption, given recent Supreme Court interpretations of the law.

If the city decides that San Camillo shouldn't be tax-exempt, facility president Rick Johnson expects hundreds of thousands of dollars in new taxes that would have to be passed on to the residents.

"We feel that it's very shortsighted for the city of Wauwatosa to balance their budget on the backs of 85-year-old residents," Johnson said.

The management and residents have appealed to local and state officials to intervene.

City assessor Rhett Tuff said no determination has been made about the San Camillo property. But he noted that the city is obligated to ensure that exemptions are fairly applied because other property taxpayers shoulder the burden for exempt properties.

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