The search for a man suspected of carjacking and kidnapping a young woman in San Luis Obispo is over.

Authorities arrested 23-year-old Joseph Ryan Soqui Friday night at a rest stop off Highway 101, near Gaviota. Soqui, who is a parolee, has been on the run since Wednesday.

Police believe Soqui carjacked a woman near the Cal Poly campus last Wednesday. They say he forced the woman to drive him to an ATM and then demanded she withdraw cash….

Richard Ziegler often told his co-workers at a California men's prison of his dream to move to the North Olympic Peninsula, build a house and fish.

He had bought property in the woods and planned to build a log cabin.

Ziegler, 59, retired in May from his job as a corrections officer at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo and followed his dream to his four wooded acres above Sequim Bay, his mother said Monday.

Ziegler was living in a fifth-wheel trailer on his property when authorities believe Shawn Matthew Roe approached him Saturday afternoon — apparently to steal Ziegler's white pickup truck…

The California Men's Colony prison faces another $175,000 in fines for more polluted discharges from its sewage treatment plant.

This is the latest in a long string of wastewater violations at the prison west of San Luis Obispo.

However, there's a new twist this time around. The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is planning to challenge a $40,000 fine for a sewage spill that took place in January.

The matter is set to go before the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board when it meets in San Luis Obispo on Sept. 4 and 5…

A man who helped his girlfriend kill her parents and burn their corpses in 1975 is making a new bid for parole.

Charles David Riley is scheduled to appear before a panel of parole officials on July 1 at the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo. Riley, who was 19 when the murders occurred, has applied for parole a dozen times.

Riley was convicted of helping Marlene Olive, his 16-year-old girlfriend, murder her adoptive parents, James and Naomi Olive of Terra Linda. The Olives were then doused with flammable liquid and set on fire in an old sewage cistern used as a barbecue pit at China Camp State Park…

The city of San Luis Obispo has settled a "donning and doffing" lawsuit with its police union for $55,000 in back pay and legal fees, and it will allow officers 10 minutes of paid time during each shift to put on and take off protective gear.

The union had asked for 15 minutes at the start and at the end of each shift in the federal case filed last year and had sought an unspecified amount in back pay.

"There was a decision out of Los Angeles, where they found after trial that it took approximately 10 minutes total," said Alison Berry Wilkins, the attorney for the union. "While we contended and still do that it takes longer, the settlement was factually in line with what a judge in Los Angeles found." The negotiated settlement will be added to the contract between the police and city and will include a provision for five minutes—coded as one-tenth of an hour — of overtime pay at the start and another five minutes of city-paid time (at regular pay levels) at the end of their shift…

San Luis Obispo County lost out on a $25.1 million grant that county officials had hoped to use for a new women's jail.

The state Correctional Standards Authority on Thursday preliminarily doled out $650 million in grants to eight counties of similar or larger size. San Luis Obispo County was ninth on the list.

The announcement is a blow to the women's jail project, which has been a focus of Sheriff Pat Hedges because the current jail is too small. County officials said the $30 million to $40 million project likely will be put on hold…

The former boys school in Paso Robles could become a 1,000- inmate prison after it closes in July, state prisons officials announced Monday. That new option joins two alternatives that have circulated since the closure was announced Jan. 3.

The other proposals call for a state re-entry prison with about 200 inmates and a firefighting camp. The property could house one or two of the proposed facilities, or have all three, state officials said.