Chico

(Newser) - The powerful opioid fentanyl is believed to have caused what police in Chico, Calif., are calling a "mass casualty incident" Saturday morning. Authorities say one person died and another 12 were hospitalized after a mass overdose. Chico Fire Department Chief Steve Standridge says every ambulance in the city was...

(Newser) - The student body president of the California State University in Chico was stabbed and wounded in what police say was a racially motivated hate crime. Nigerian-born Joseph Igbineweka was attacked by two men who followed him and shouted racial slurs as he walked home from a party, CNN reports.

(Newser) - Eri Yoshida, Japan’s first female pro baseball player, has signed to pitch for a minor league club in California. The 18-year-old knuckleballer will play for the independent Chico Outlaws, though the team stresses that she’ll have to earn her roster spot in spring training, the Enterprise-Record reports. “...

(Newser) - Thousands of lightning strikes over a wide swath of Northern California ignited more than 700 wildfires that have burned some 44,000 tinder-dry acres of grassland, brush and forest. Firefighters managed to protect most homes in almost all of the fires. The historically bad fire season has been spurred by...