In brief: Psychiatric patients’ busing spurs lawsuit

Las Vegas – The San Francisco city attorney filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the state of Nevada, claiming it has wrongfully and intentionally bused psychiatric patients to the city and declined to pay the costs connected with their care.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed the case in San Francisco Superior Court a day after a deadline he had set for Nevada to strike an agreement with the city.

Named as defendants were the state and several Nevada agencies, the Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas, and state health chief Mike Willden.

Folksy car dealer Worthington dies

Los Angeles – Cal Worthington, who built a fortune from a series of West Coast auto dealerships and became a TV fixture thanks to folksy car lot commercials urging customers to “Go see Cal,” has died. He was 92.

Worthington died Sunday after watching football with family at his Big W Ranch in Orland, Calif. The cause of death was not immediately determined.

The Oklahoma native founded his first dealership in the late 1940s in Southern California and quickly took advantage of broadcast advertising.

As his business empire grew to other western states, Worthington starred in a series of TV spots that featured him in his ever-present big white cowboy hat and his “dog” Spot, which would turn out to be animals ranging from tigers to elephants.

He also wrestled a bear, handled a snake, rode a hippopotamus and a pig, and almost had his hand bit by a mountain lion. Viewers frequently saw him trying to stand on his head, including a stint atop the upper wing of a biplane that turned him on his head. All of it was set to a speedy banjo tune with the refrain, “Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal.”

At one point, Worthington owned more than 20 dealerships in five states.