LOS ANGELES

Women get life terms for men's murders

Two older women sat stony faced as a judge denounced their greed Tuesday and sentenced them to spend the rest of their lives in prison for murdering two indigent men to collect insurance policies taken out on their lives.

Superior Court Judge David Wesley handed down two life terms each without possibility of parole, to Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75.

The women were convicted of a scheme in which they befriended homeless men, took out policies, and then killed them in murders staged to look like hit-and-run auto accidents.

Prosecutors say the women collected $2.8 million before the scheme was uncovered.

The judge said the two men they killed needed only food, water and shelter.

"They needed a helping hand. They thought they were getting this from you," Wesley said.

"Instead these unfortunate men were sacrificed on your altar of greed."

LAKE ISABELLA

Flooded roads in fire area are cleared

Bulldozers worked Tuesday to reopen roads and clear tons of mud left by flash floods after thunderstorms unleashed downpours on mountain slopes burned bare by California wildfires.

An evacuation warning remained in effect for about 80 homes in the Erskine Creek area of Lake Isabella, a Kern County town near the 57-square-mile Piute Fire about 90 miles north of Los Angeles.

"It's safer if they just stay out till the threat is over," said fire spokeswoman Barbara Dougan.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the fourth day in a row for the town downslope of the massive fire.

After about an hour of rain before nightfall Tuesday, Kelso Creek swelled and ran over a roadway, said Kern County Fire Department spokesman Chris Stroub.

"Today it wasn't so bad because the rain fell on the eastern, desert side," Stroub said. "That drainage is less inhabited and people were prepared for it because it's been going on for a couple days now."

Earlier rainstorms left the town's main streets covered by ash and mud Monday afternoon.

Donna Campbell, who works in the town, said the mud covered one block of Lake Isabella Boulevard nearly 3 feet deep and "has people's belongings in it."

SACRAMENTO

Home loans for veterans on ballot

An initiative to extend California's low-interest home loan program to recent war veterans is the 12th measure to qualify for California's November ballot.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill by Sen. Mark Wyland, a Republican from Carlsbad, on Tuesday. It asks voters to approve $900 million in general obligation bonds for veterans.

The money would extend the state's existing CalVet Home Loan program to veterans of the wars in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Schwarzenegger said CalVet already has helped about 420,000 veterans who served from the end of World War I to the Vietnam era buy houses. The bond would pay for about 3,900 low-interest loans — 1,300 a year for three years.

The governor says the loans would not affect the state's general fund because veterans would repay the cost of the bond.

— From wire reports