In 1998 El Nino got blamed for nearly everything

In 1998, California once again got its eclectic share of tabloid court trials, celebrity deaths and weird weather.

Theodore Kaczynski was sentenced in May to four lifetimes in prison - plus 30 years - for sending homemade bombs that killed three people and injured 23. In documents unsealed afterward, the exasperated judge wrote that Kaczynski faked arguments with his lawyers, staged a suicide attempt and used "trickery" to save his life during his Sacramento trial.

Kaczynski avoided possible execution by ultimately pleading guilty. His antics, the judge wrote, were designed to keep a jury from hearing damning evidence - most of it in his own journal - documenting a 17-year bombing spree.

The much-delayed murder trial of accused serial killer Charles Ng finally started after 13 years of delays. Ng, 37, is accused of torturing and murdering a dozen people at a remote Calveras County cabin.

Arrested in Canada in 1985, Ng won numerous court delays by disqualifying judges and attorneys and moving the trial from Northern California to Orange County.

El Nino slammed into California, killing 17 and causing an estimated $550 million in damage to crops and property.

February rains drenched coastal areas, created tornadoes, overflowed rivers and ruined about 165 homes and businesses.

The weather phenomenon is caused by the interaction of the atmosphere with warmer-than-normal ocean waters. The 1997-98 El Nino season created worldwide disruptions in weather patterns, including flooding in Peru and drought in Indonesia.

In California, the No. 1 milkproducing state, El Nino rains put dairy cows in knee-deep mud, cutting production. Across the country, butter prices nearly doubled. The Central Valley's tomato crop was devastated.

El Nino was even blamed for a kudzu-like weed infestation in Ventura County. Arundo donax, which grows several inches a day, turned a stretch of Southern California coastline into dense, 25-foottall thickets.

In politics, Democrats reclaimed the governor's office and tightened their grip on the Legislature as Lt. Gov. Gray Davis won the seat being vacated by Pete Wilson.

Frank Sinatra, who charmed the generations from 1940s bobby soxers to disaffected 1990s grungers, died of a heart attack at age 82. His voice remains in hundreds of recordings, a voice that spoke to millions, but especially to the lone drinker at the end of the bar.

Hollywood lost others, including cowboy-actor-turned-sports magnate Gene Autrey; "Sea Hunt's" Lloyd Bridges, father of Jeff and Beau; onetime child actor Roddy McDowall, who broke hearts with boyhood performances in "How Green Was My Valley" and "Lassie Come Home"; Flip Wilson, the black comedian who trampled race and gender lines with his hip-swinging, back-talking female character Geraldine.

Politics lost Tom Bradley, a Texas sharecropper's son who became the first black mayor of a major American city and the only one in Los Angeles history.

Former Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, who penned "Soul on Ice" and promulgated violence and rape in the name of revolution, died of undisclosed causes at age 62. Later in life, he had become a Republican and a bornagain Christian.

California's literary ranks were thinned by the death of Carlos Castaneda, the mystical and elusive author of "A Separate Reality" and "The Teachings of Don Juan." And journalism bid farewell to beloved Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray, who won a Pulitzer and legions of fans by making sports a study in humanity and by documenting life's fragility, including the loss of his wife and his eye.

But of all the changes in 1998, arguably the most personal in California was the statewide smoking ban in bars and restaurants. Patrons and owners alike have complained long and hard, claiming infringement of personal rights and loss of business.

But in trendy Hollywood watering holes such as Barney's Beanery and Dan Tana's, in open defiance of the law, drinkers still light up with abandon.