Gov. Jerry Brown is still planning to travel to Paris next month for the highly anticipated United Nations summit on climate change, which French leaders said will go on despite Friday's terrorist attacks. "As long as events move forward, the governor intends to participate," Evan Westrup, a spokesman...
Ambition and seemingly boundless energy had propelled Nohemi Gonzalez to move out of her mother's mobile home in El Monte to the campus of Cal State Long Beach. At the school, the 23-year-old had earned high marks in her chosen major, industrial design, and decided this semester to study in Paris,...
Californians could be justifiably proud earlier this fall when the State Water Resources Control Board reported that for the three steamy months of summer, the state had not only met Gov. Jerry Brown's mandated 25% reduction in water use but had surpassed it by nearly 4%. In several Southern California...
As a backhoe and skip loader ripped away the screen of arundo stalks, the outskirts of a hidden village of huts slowly came into view. Most were made from tents, tarps, blankets and sticks. A few stragglers slunk away, dragging what they could in suitcases and rickety carts along the sand and boulder...
Robert "Rabbit" Jaramillo pointed with an unsteady hand at a black-and-white picture on a framed poster from 1965 announcing a dance show at El Monte Community Center, where his band, Cannibal and the Headhunters, was performing. His wide, half-moon eyes nearly matched those of the young man in...
While waiting to make a brief court appearance Friday morning, the man accused of shooting at police officers from a top-floor condominium in San Diego's Bankers Hill neighborhood last week sang loudly in a holding cell. "We are the Illuminati; we stand for a new world order," Titus Colbert Jr....
Already faced with one of the lowest bar passage rates in the country, California students and academics shouldn't expect those statistics to improve over the next several years, according to a new study that examines the link between standardized test scores and bar passage rates. In July 2014,...
Peter "Sana" Ojeda sat quietly, occasionally rubbing a hand over his wrinkled face, his cheeks drooping down and setting his mouth into a permanent frown. The 73-year-old looked more like a none too happy grandpa than who he was accused of being: the reputed godfather of the Mexican Mafia in Orange...
Student leaders at Claremont McKenna College on Friday savored their victory at the departure of a high-ranked administrator deemed insensitive to minorities and won promises that the liberal arts school would seek to add more diversity among faculty and staff. Their win, after protest rallies...
A Pomona assemblyman called Thursday on the state Legislature to conduct a far-reaching audit of the Los Angeles County Fair Assn., saying he was shocked to learn of the large pay packages awarded to its top managers in years when the organization lost money. “How can this happen?” said Assemblyman...
A massive expansion of charter schools could change the fate of Los Angeles families who have suffered from inferior schools for generations, according to a top official from the Broad Foundation, which is spearheading the proposal. In the first public discussion involving the foundation's efforts,...
It's a scene that plays out at bars around the world: under the dimmed lights, a man orders a lady a drink. But at El Arroyo Bar in South Los Angeles, authorities said, some men ordered drink after wildly overpriced drink, over and over again, as a usually scantily clad young woman sat by their...
Removing one of the several obstacles to resuming executions in California, a federal appeals panel on Thursday struck down a judge's ruling that the state's snarled capital punishment system is arbitrary and therefore unconstitutional. In overturning the July 2014 ruling by U.S. District Court...
The face-off went down somewhere in Boston and stretched on for more than seven hours. And that's all we know about the day Gloria Allred grilled Bill Cosby. What happened at that early October deposition, regarding allegations that the comedian assaulted more than 50 women, remains a secret until...
A $1.4-billion downtown subway project designed to seamlessly connect three of Los Angeles County's far-reaching rail lines has been hailed as the missing link in Metro's expanding mass transit network. But before tunneling has begun, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is reporting cost...
USC junior Vanessa Diaz was raised in Dallas. But at a party two years ago, she was asked if she could speak English. When Diaz became offended, the other student tried to pass off the question as a joke. But it did not amuse her, any more than the idea of Mexican-themed parties on Greek Row featuring...
The weed warriors are back, peddling pot for the California ballot. And one old tale they're spinning is pure bunk. It's that too much tax money, cop time and jail space are wasted corralling and incarcerating marijuana users. Maybe that was true decades ago. But today it's a myth. No one gets...
Chosen as grand marshal of the Veterans Day parade here and asked to give a speech at the end of the route, Brad Fite planned to stress his story as a Marine severely wounded in Afghanistan and his refusal to give in to his injuries. In preparation, he even wrote some words in advance, akin to...
Entertainment industry billionaire David Geffen, who previously gave $300 million to support UCLA's medical school, is donating $100 million to establish a private middle and high school on the Westwood campus partly for the children of faculty and staff. Geffen and UCLA Chancellor Gene Block described...
When it comes to single residences consuming large volumes of water, Bel-Air has nothing on Rancho Santa Fe. An unnamed water user in Bel-Air made headlines last month for using 11.8 million gallons of water in a year, triggering widespread criticism of the "Wet Prince of Bel-Air." ------------...
Three men hunch over a table, scrutinizing a document. Maps paper the walls around them. The moment, captured in a black-and-white photograph, marks the beginning of a quest to catch a villain. For more than four decades, this team has been stalking the killer's every move, trying to identify patterns...
For many Navy veterans, their first experience on a ship came aboard a replica informally called the Neversail at the boot camp in San Diego. Starting in 1949, recruits learned the basics of seamanship aboard the wood and sheet-metal vessel anchored firmly to the ground — casting off lines, participating...
Encounters between rats and mountain lions generally have predictable outcomes. The prey dies so that the predator can live. But as civilization continues to push into landscapes once populated mainly by non-human species, the balance has shifted. People use highly toxic poisons to kill rats, then...
Smaller carbon footprints, generous tax rebates and lowering or eliminating fuel costs aren't the only reasons people buy the plug-in versions of electric and hybrid cars in California. In the first study of its type, UCLA's Luskin Center for Innovation has found another major incentive: state...
In a year dominated by heated debate over police use of force, the Los Angeles Police Department has seen a significant uptick in the number of times officers have fired their guns. Officers have opened fire 45 times this year, compared with 23 instances during the same period in 2014. Nineteen...
The people have spoken about what they want in a new superintendent for the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the hunt is on for Superman or Superwoman. The official verdict is that Los Angeles' students, parents, district staff, clergy and others want a "politically savvy and experienced...
A new report from the ACLU of California faults law enforcement officials for “a disappointing level of resistance” in their response to Proposition 47, the landmark ballot measure that downgraded drug possession and some theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanors a year ago.“Some are making irresponsible...
The board of the Southland's water importer Tuesday voted to pursue the purchase of four farm islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the ecologically troubled center of California's sprawling water system. The islands would put the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California...
Homicide detectives in Orange were searching Tuesday for a person seen bolting from a burning sport utility vehicle where police later found the charred bodies of three men. A surveillance camera captured images of the person exiting the black SUV on Monday afternoon after the vehicle lurched to...
It's early in the semester of your English literature course and one of your students has already missed four classes. The student seems fatigued and out of sorts, and writing assignments are dominated by themes of hopelessness and despair. The student may just be anxious about the start of classes...
Jurors began deliberating Monday afternoon in the trial of Joseph Mercado, who is accused of killing his former girlfriend, her brother and father during a shooting spree at the family's home in Hawaiian Gardens more than five years ago. Graphic testimony during the prosecution's closing arguments...
The trial of Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow in a massive racketeering and murder-for-hire case opened here Monday with wildly divergent visions of the bald man who sat quietly in a gray wool sweater, listening to a Cantonese translation of the proceedings.The prosecution told jurors that Chow was a...
Rain, lightning and snow blanketed parts of Northern California on Monday, but the occasionally severe storm system weakened as it moved south, bringing to parts of Southern California only chilly temperatures and light showers that were expected to continue through Tuesday morning.In Monterey,...
A controversial $490-million plan to more than double the number of charter schools in Los Angeles is facing its first major political test this week as the Board of Education considers two proposals aimed at limiting the growth and independence of charters.One of those would have the school board...
Seeking to counter complaints over rising numbers of students from other states and nations, UC President Janet Napolitano wants to expand enrollment of undergraduates from California by 10,000 by the 2018-19 school year, according to a proposal released Monday.The plan would boost in-state enrollment...
It's not unusual for thunderstorms to drench Death Valley this time of year, but this October was different. The northern section of the park was hammered by back-to-back storms, followed by a powerful weather system that dropped nearly 3 inches of rain in five hours, triggering a 1,000-year flood...
With California's economy on the rebound, the state's voters are slightly more upbeat than voters nationwide about their potential for a prosperous future, but a sharp divide separates the optimism of upscale coastal regions from the anxiety of financially stressed inland areas, according to a...
Video blogger Julien Solomita was on a Van Nuys rooftop just after nightfall Saturday when he noticed a bright cone of light streaking across the sky. As Solomita followed the mysterious object with his camera for a few minutes, it appeared to him and his friends to explode into a mushroom of light....
Just a few months ago, dozens of activists appeared before the Los Angeles City Council to speak out on Mobility Plan 2035, the sweeping proposal for adding hundreds of miles of new bus- and bike-only lanes. On Tuesday, partisans on both sides will get another chance to sound off — but not because...
Gary Serrato watched as a tractor worked its way across a field of dried-up weeds, slicing the sandy dirt into orderly furrows. The field was being readied not for a crop but for what he hopes will be a bountiful harvest of floodwater this El Niño winter. "We're going to capture as much as we can,"...
So the governor called the guy he had just hired to regulate oil and gas in California and asked a favor: Please check out my spread to see if there's any potential for drilling or mining. Only he didn't exactly ask. And knowing Jerry Brown, he didn't say pretty please. Well, I'm shocked, shocked...
A pair of skimmers is making it easier to keep this city's municipal harbor clean, alleviating one of the most frequent complaints from visitors and boat owners: trash and muck in the water. The machines each can remove as much as 500 pounds of trash from the water per month, city maintenance workers...
A naval test fire off the Southern California coast created a light that coursed across the sky shortly after dusk on Saturday, authorities said. Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted a Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea from the Kentucky, an Ohio class submarine, in the Pacific Test...
The fragrance from racks of pork ribs fills the air when the door to the newest restaurant in Little Saigon bursts open. Two guys, one from Texas, the other a local, peeked in, inhaling. "Hey, it's so cool that they set up a pit," says Eric Hart, a marketing associate from Houston. "Yeah, this...
Janki Kaur was 22 when the rioting mob burst into her home and murdered her husband and father in front of her. She listened as they raped her mother in the next room. More than three decades after living through that violence in the suburbs of New Delhi, she has only one explanation for why her...
Two factors are animating the presidential contest among the Democrats who control California's elections: a sharp left turn and a focus on those who continue to suffer economically. Those topics also are dominating the 2018 campaign for governor. Yes, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and U.S. Rep. Loretta...
A former Army and Navy Academy headmaster was acquitted Friday on four of five charges that he had molested two cadets during a 1997 ski trip. The jury deadlocked on charges that he molested another cadet repeatedly from 1999 to 2001. After five days of deliberations, Vista Superior Court Judge...
To federal investigators and prosecutors, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow is and has always been a criminal. Ever since he arrived in Chinatown from Hong Kong as a 16-year-old with swagger. Even as he testified for the government in exchange for a reduced prison sentence in an earlier racketeering case....
USC has expanded its footprint around its main location south of downtown by moving nonacademic programs away from campus, leasing more space downtown and upgrading a shopping center it has owned for years. But as the campus has steadily grown, one piece of property around the school's main hub...
When Tina Padilla met Gabriela Calzada a year ago, the teenager was fresh out of juvenile camp. Calzada wore baggy clothes and a tough-girl attitude to go with her ankle bracelet. She wasn't regularly attending school. But over the past year, Padilla saw a change in Calzada, whom friends called...
In a South Los Angeles classroom, a boy hassles a girl. The teacher moves him to the back of the room, where he scowls, makes a paper airplane and repeatedly throws it against the wall. Two other boys wander around the class and then nearly come to blows. "Don't you talk about my sister," one says...
Whether she's driving a hybrid car, installing solar panels on her roof or tearing up her beloved front lawn and replacing it with mulch, Carrie Wassenaar said, she wants to do her part for the environment. "I try to be responsible," the 39-year-old animation line producer said. "I want to feel...
When English teacher Johanna Bernstein assigned her students at Westchester High to read my column about a young man who'd been paralyzed in a shooting, she envisioned a lesson on vocabulary and composition: Charismatic. Embody. Plight. Rap sheet. Why did the writer choose those words? What do...
For 14 years now, sometimes three times a week, Robin Russell has gotten up around 3 a.m. and driven his maroon van from Pasadena to the same spot in Griffith Park, not far from the zoo. In the dark, he rakes out a small clearing under an oak tree, unpacks a six-piece drum kit and sets up, everything...