Bakersfield College announced Thursday what officials described as the single largest donation from an individual to any community college nationwide, a $13.7-million gift to the college from a Bakersfield dermatologist.

The donor, Dr. Norman Levan, is 95 and still sees patients once a week. Most of his gift will be used for a scholarship endowment that is expected to pay for fees, books and a portion of living expenses for about 250 Bakersfield College students each year.

A graduate of USC’s Medical School and former chief of dermatology there, Levan did not attend Bakersfield College. His ties to that community college began with his friendship with a former school president, John Collins, who was his patient as well, officials said.

The previous record for a private, non-corporate donation to a single community college was reported to be the $10 million Eli and Edyth Broad gave in 2008 to support arts programming at Santa Monica Community College. That same year, the Bernard Osher Foundation gave $50 million for financial aid for books, supplies, tools and uniforms across the California community college system, the largest donation to such a system.

Levan, a widower who has no children, is known in higher education circles for his philanthropy.  In 2006, he gave $5.7 million to Bakersfield College. He is also a major donor to USC and to St. John’s College in Santa Fe, N.M., which he also attended.

-- Larry Gordon

Former Raiders football defensive end Anthony Wayne Smith and two alleged associates have been charged with murdering a 31-year-old man in Lancaster more than two years ago, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Friday.

Prosecutors allege that Smith, 43, of Fontana; Charles Eric Honest, 41, of Los Angeles; and Dewann Wesley White, 32, of Bloomington, murdered Maurilio Ponce on Oct. 7, 2008. Charges of one count each of murder were filed against the defendants last month, and they were arrested earlier this week, prosecutors said.

According to the district attorney's office, Smith, who played with the Raiders between 1991 and 1998, was scheduled to be arraigned Friday along with White; Honest’s arraignment has been postponed to March 17.

Deputies in Palmdale witnessed a 17-year-old stabbing his baby boy to death inside a car Tuesday, soon after they recognized his vehicle from a reported kidnapping, an official said.

The father was shot and killed by deputies after a short pursuit.

The grisly chain of events began just before noon Tuesday when deputies got a call reporting a child abduction. Investigators learned that the 5-month-old boy had been taken from a sitter and the father had told the baby’s mother via cellphone that he would hurt the child.

Deputies spotted the father's car after an Amber Alert was issued about 3:30 p.m. As a pursuit began, they saw him “motioning as if he was stabbing the baby as he drove the car,” said sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker.

After a three-minute car chase, the suspect’s car hit a building and he escaped on foot. The deputies found the wounded baby inside the mangled car. He was taken to a hospital but did not survive, Parker said.

Other deputies caught up with the suspect as he was trying to break into a home. Deputies shot at the teenager. He was able to get inside the home but then deputies shot again.

The teen was killed, Parker said. The names of the father and the son were not released.

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-- Robert Faturechi

The rain that inundated Southern California overnight flooded roads and caused a string of crashes, at least one fatal, according to California Highway Patrol.

A driver died after his pickup truck collided with another truck while he was traveling northbound on Interstate 5 near Pyramid Lake at about 6:30 a.m. Sunday, just south of Vista Del Lago, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Ed Jacobs. The man's name has not been released, Jacobs said.

Another person injured in the crash was flown to a nearby hospital, Jacobs said.

Jacobs said it was unclear whether snow on the freeway contributed to the wreck, which triggered a second crash.

“The weather doesn’t cause crashes -- it’s people who drive fast in the weather that causes crashes,” Jacobs said.

More than twice as many crashes occurred overnight compared with a normal weekend, Jacobs said: 170 crashes from 9 p.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Sunday compared with 82 crashes during the same time last weekend.

The 110 Freeway was closed briefly Sunday morning in Highland Park due to flooding but reopened by 8:30 a.m., Jacobs said. California 14 was closed in the Antelope Valley for about an hour due to ice and snow but reopened by 8:34 a.m., he said.

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Photo: Hikers walk toward the snow-covered mountains in Deukmejian Wilderness State Park in La Crescenta on Sunday morning. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / For the Los Angeles Times

A man suspected of sexual assault was arrested Thursday during a theft investigation in Palmdale, according to authorities.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives were investigating David Jund on suspicion that he was stealing fuel from a diesel truck parked behind a store Jan. 20. The owner of the truck interrupted him and Jund fled in a white GMC tow truck, according to police.

The truck owner obtained Jund’s license number and worked with detectives to identify the suspect. Detectives linked Jund to two separate arrest warrants -- one for a burglary case from the Pasadena Police Department and another from the LAPD for a sexual assault case from August 2010.

Palmdale deputies located Jund’s truck Tuesday afternoon in the driveway of a Littlerock residence. Jund was inside the residence and deputies took him into custody. He is being held on $3-million bail.

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Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies pursued a burglary suspect through more than a dozen Lancaster yards, ending with a standoff after the man locked himself inside a stranger’s bedroom, authorities said Wednesday.

Deputies spotted two men Tuesday in a vehicle matching one reportedly seen at a residential burglary earlier in the day. When they tried to stop the men, the driver got out and ran, officials said. He hopped more than a dozen fences before forcing his way through the back door of a home in the 1200 block of East Donatello Street, Capt. Mike Parker said.

Deputies heard screaming inside the home. As they entered, a woman and her three teenage daughters ran out.

The man, who sheriff's officials identified as Bobby Smith-Harper, 20, had locked himself inside one of the bedrooms and was trying to break a hole through one of the walls to escape, Parker said. As a helicopter landed nearby carrying the sheriff’s department's SWAT team, the man finally surrendered, Parker said.

A second suspect, Glen Gaines, also 20, was arrested without incident.

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Pomona police were investigating a fatal shooting Tuesday night.

The victim was shot about 9:40 p.m. near the intersection of Huntington Street and Laurel Avenue, the Pomona Police Department said.

Police said the victim may have been a teenager.

A neighbor told the Los Angeles Times that multiple shots were fired and that the victim was lying in the street next to a bicycle.

No other details were available.

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-- Robert J. Lopez

A man and a woman died in a two-car crash in Palmdale on Sunday evening, police said.

The accident involved a Mercedes-Benz and a sport utility vehicle on Pearblossom Highway at Sierra Highway, said California Highway Patrol Officer Patrick Kimball. 

Three other people, including a child, were injured. Two were in critical condition at Antelope Valley Hospital.

Further details of the incident were not immediately available.

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-- Esmeralda Bermudez

Enolia Mims, an 81-year-old woman who went missing Thursday after cleaning house in the San Fernando Valley, has been found, according to her daughter.

Shari Mims said her mother was found late Friday night in Barstow, where her car ran out of gasoline. A tow truck driver drove her to a Motel 6.

"The tow truck driver asked her who he could call for her, and that's when we got the phone call," Shari Mims said. Officers with the Barstow Police Department picked up the woman and held her at the station until family members arrived to pick her up.

"Thank Jesus!" Shari Mims said in a phone interview. "It was an emotional roller coaster."

According to police, Enolia Mims had left her home in South Los Angeles about 8 a.m. to go to work in the San Fernando Valley. She had been seen last by her employer after she finished cleaning a house in the 20000 block of Elkwood Street in Canoga Park, police said.

The elderly woman was given wrong directions when she became lost, Shari Mims said.

"We found her and she's doing good," Shari Mims said. "We want to thank the city of Los Angeles because they swung into action."

-- Ruben Vives

A Lancaster man was convicted of attempted murder Thursday and faces up to life in prison for attacking a moviegoer with a digital thermometer.

A jury convicted Landry Boullard, 40, of  premeditated attempted murder in the February assault, which attracted widespread attention because of the motive and the weapon. The victim had asked Boullard's female companion to stop talking on a cellphone during the movie.

The incident occurred at a Lancaster cineplex during a screening of “Shutter Island.” Witnesses testified that Boullard and a companion had been talking throughout the film, disturbing several people when the woman's cellphone rang and she began a conversation, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Sherwood, who prosecuted the case.

“The victim asked the female to stop using the cellphone,” Sherwood said. Another woman seated nearby “said the victim was rather polite when he said it, nicer than he needed to be.”

But words were exchanged and Boullard stormed out, then returned and stabbed the victim with the five inch long thermometer. A friend of the victim and a stranger leaped to his aid. Boullard fled.

But the brief assault was brutal.