PUBLIC SAFETY Murder-suicide shocks Newport Beach neighbors...

PUBLIC SAFETY

Murder-suicide shocks Newport Beach neighbors

Newport Beach Police found the bodies of newlyweds Uyen Tran and

Aaron Miles in their West Newport apartment following an apparent

murder-suicide Wednesday.

Tran, 35, had sent a text message to a relative that morning,

saying that if anything happened to her, her husband was responsible,

police said. Police checked on the Lugonia Street duplex Tran owned

and found the dead couple and a handgun Wednesday afternoon. Police

believe Miles shot Tran, then himself.

Neighbors gathered around the scene, anxious and surprised by the

unusual events.

* Serious traffic accidents in Costa Mesa this week left two

people in critical condition.

Newport Beach resident Steven Ford, 47, was struck by an SUV as he

crossed Irvine Avenue at Walnut Street Monday evening. Las Vegas

resident Chelsea Martin, 19, was critically injured after she

allegedly ran a red light at the corner of Newport Boulevard and Fair

Drive, police said.

* Newport Beach Police are growing more suspicious of the

circumstances of local couple Thomas and Jackie Hawks’ disappearance

last month.

Family members reported the couple missing last month after the

two were not in contact with them following the sale of the couple’s

55-foot yacht, which they lived on in Newport Harbor. Police and

family members are seeking the public’s help in seeking the couple.

* Attorneys for Greg Haidl, son of former Orange County Assistant

Sheriff Don Haidl, said the younger Haidl’s civil rights were

violated when Sheriff’s deputies shot him with a Taser gun in jail.

Greg Haidl is on suicide watch in jail awaiting retrial on charges

he and two friends gang-raped an allegedly unconscious 16-year-old

girl in 2002. Officials with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department

said they acted appropriately.

POLITICS

Another bit of air under El Toro’s wings

Newport-Mesa city officials will watch with interest a proposal

floated Tuesday by the city of Fullerton to operate a commercial

airport at the closed El Toro Marine Air Station, but they’re not

expecting much to come of it.

Fullerton officials asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to

try to acquire the military base property from the U.S. Navy, which

plans to sell it in an online auction beginning Jan. 5. Fullerton

then would seek a lease to operate an airport there.

Local officials were skeptical, in part because Newport Beach

unsuccessfully tried in 2000 to ease growing air traffic at John

Wayne Airport by having an airport built at El Toro.

That plan faced bitter opposition and was nullified that year when

Orange County voters approved rezoning the base as parkland.

* Costa Mesa is among 14 Orange County cities that will share

$19.8 million in federal homeland security funds announced recently

by Rep. Chris Cox.

The money will pay for counterterrorism equipment, planning and

training in the cities, which also include Fullerton, Irvine and

Santa Ana.

EDUCATION

Famed UCI professor wins award

UC Irvine Psychology professor Elizabeth Loftus received the 2005

University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology for her

research on false recollections and distorted memory.

The award included a $200,000 prize, which she plans to use to

further her research at UCI. The Grawemeyer Awards annually honor the

most powerful ideas in psychology, education, religion, music

composition and improving world order.

Loftus’s research has shown that people can recall events that

never happened when their minds mix inaccurate information with their

memory of what actually occurred. In 2002, Loftus was ranked the top

woman psychologist of the 20th century by the Review of General

Psychology.