A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy shot and wounded a man Saturday night in East Los Angeles, the third deputy-involved shooting of the weekend.
Authorities said the suspect pointed a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun at the deputy after a chase that ended about 9:30 p.m. Saturday in the 1000 block of South Townsend Avenue. The deputy shot the man in the chest.
The man, who has not been identified, was taken to a hospital, according to a news release from the Sheriff's Department. He's listed in stable condition and will be charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, authorities said.
The two other shootings occurred Friday night.
Authorities said deputies were called to the 11200 block of Berendo Avenue in unincorporated Athens at 8:45 p.m. Friday after someone reported that a man with a gun had threatened her and their child.
Deputies saw a man matching the description driving about a block west of Imperial Highway and Vermont Avenue. The man fled after officers stopped his vehicle, and officers shot him multiple times after they "saw what they believed to be a weapon in the suspect's hand," authorities said. A weapon was found inside the man's car. He was declared dead at the scene.
Relatives and local civil rights leaders identified the deceased man as Woodrow Player Jr., 22, and said he had been affiliated with the East Coast Crips, served time in prison on a drug charge and was on parole when he was shot. Player's wife, 24-year-old Tyisha Player, said he was acquitted of a murder charge last year and had begun to turn his life around, including attending church and studying for his GED.
The civil rights leaders called for a federal investigation of the shooting. One witness, 35-year-old Shendall Duncan of Athens, said she saw deputies shoot Player three times in the back. Player attempted to keep running and was shot again, Duncan said.
Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Sheriff's Department, promised a thorough review of the shooting and said "the suspect reached for his waistband and turned toward deputies."
"They, thinking they were going to be shot at, fired," Whitmore said.
About two hours after Player's shooting, a sheriff's deputy shot at a man near the intersection of East Florence and Compton Avenues. According to a news release from the Sheriff's Department, deputies stopped a vehicle for suspected traffic violations about 10:40 p.m. Friday and detained three occupants "when a fourth occupant, the front passenger, produced a small-caliber handgun."
A deputy shot once at the man and missed him. The man, identified as 23-year-old Maynor Guerra, ran away and tossed the gun before he was arrested, authorities said.
Last Sunday, 16-year-old Avery Cody Jr. was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy who had stopped and questioned him in Compton. Authorities said Cody had a loaded handgun when he was shot, but an attorney for Cody's family said the teen did not brandish a weapon and posed "no threat" to deputies or anyone else.
Since late 2001, The Times has chronicled the lives of military personnel who have died while serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their stories, photos, personal websites and additional material have been collected in the California's War Dead database. Readers are invited to leave memories of their loved ones and colleagues.
“I had a dream about you last night. I am not even sure why I did. its been a long tme since you left this world. I did not know you very well but I knew you enough to know that you were a great person. I cried a little in memory of you. You were a great friend to Heath and Kathleen. They came to visit with there new baby boy. We even talked about those funny drawings you used to make. I dont kow why i am saying all this on the internet I guess its just better to write out your feelings. Miss you Erik. I know you are in a better place. Give God a kiss for me :)"
“A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of you. Whenever I’m driving I look at your dog tag hanging from my rearview mirror and I talk to you.I get Chipotle at least once a week for you, and I can never finish it because I start to cry when I remember you. I’m in a crappy relationship, and I can’t seem to get out of it. Each night I come home I start to cry because I wish I had someone as great as you to call my own. So many people loved you, and that degree of love doesn’t matter when it was someone as great as you. You touched and moved so many people, especially me. If I could trade places with you and give you back to your mom, I would. She loves you so much, and I hope you visit her as often as you can because she is such a good women with such a good heart.”
— heart broken friend, posted Tuesday on Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua R. Whittle, 20, of Downey, who was killed June 6 when he stepped on a land mine in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, on the Pakistani border
Workers will be drilling into the earth and collecting soil samples beginning today as part of a study of the proposed subway to the Westside.
Soil samples will be collected today at Wilshire Boulevard and Stanley Drive today in Beverly Hills and later this week in Hollywood, Century City and the Miracle Mile. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the drilling is designed to "assess conditions below the ground" for the Westside subway extension's environmental impact report.
L.A. transit officials for decades dreamed of building the "Subway to the Sea," a project that would connect L.A.'s rail transit system to the Westside. The original plan was for the subway to run down Wilshire Boulevard, but there are now several alternative routes.
It remains unclear whether officials can afford to build the project. The MTA is now in the process of building the Expo Line into the Westside, a light rail line that would go from downtown L.A. to Culver City and eventually to Santa Monica.
A fast-moving fire in a residential neighborhood in Pomona injured one firefighter and destroyed four homes, Los Angeles County fire officials said Saturday.
About 150 fire personnel battled the flames, which began just after 5 p.m. in a shed behind an apartment building on Gordon Street in Pomona. After igniting an oak tree and a palm tree, the blaze destroyed the apartment and then spread quickly through the neighborhood as wind carried embers for more than a block. The flames damaged eight additional homes, a detached garage and a few cars.
County fire inspector Frank Garrido said the flames were fueled by trees and vegetation around the houses. “There is thick, heavy dense growth in the backyards,” Garrido said.
A firecaptain suffered a back injury and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Neighbors reported that illegal fireworks might have sparked the blaze, but Garrido said investigators have ruled that out as a possible cause.
--Anna Gorman
A mid-summer festival is underway this weekend in Echo Park, but don’t even think of calling it the annual Echo Park Lotus Festival.
The city’s landmark lotus bed is dead, and the Asian community group that since 1972 held a summer celebration around the blooms couldn’t raise enough money to put on the event.
When the neighborhood’s chamber of commerce stepped in to put on a festival in its place, Lotus Inc., the nonprofit behind the original festival, refused to allow the chamber to use Echo Park Lotus Festival name, by which it has been known for years.
Saturday, at the event called the Echo Park Community Festival, indy rock music blared on loudspeakers, and ducks and turtles idly swam in the murky lake devoid of its once-teeming lotus blossoms and the dragon boat racing that had become a staple of the festival.
“It’s a little less of a celebration,” said Vanessa Garcia, 27, noting that this year’s festival was missing its theme celebrating Asian culture. “It was like a treat that came around once a year.”
Maxime Ung and his 10-year-old son, Nicky, were sitting on the edge of the lake Saturday, staring into the dark waters as plastic bottles, dead lotus stems, and duck feathers bobbed up and down. Without the lotus blossoms and the Asian theme, Ung said, the festival feels decidedly different. “It looks sad this year,” he said.
The pilot of a single-engine plane suffered moderate injuries Saturday after crashing near a home in Riverside County, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane lost power, hit a tree, skimmed the roof of a house and crashed into a fence in the backyard. The four people inside the home got out safely.
The plane had departed from Flabob Airport in Riverside about noon. Riverside County fire officials responded to the house, near Bolo Court and Hostettler Road, about 12:25 p.m.
The pilot, whose name was not released, was taken to a local hospital for treatment. The registered owner of the airplane, an Aircoupe, was Jack Fleisher of Manhasset, N.Y.
Laguna Niguel’s efforts to crack down on the crowds who drop their pants and bare their bottoms during a summer ritual appear to be working.
Under the blazing Saturday afternoon sun, about 100 people showed up to moon passing trains across from the Mugs Away Saloon, a huge drop from last year’s event, which drew 8,000 patrons who drunkenly bared all when the Amtrak rolled by.
"It was pretty mellow," Jim Amormino, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said of this year's turnout.
Last year, deputies had to shut down the event, which quickly got out of hand. "There were sex acts in public. There was total nudity," Amormino said. "There were people passing alcohol to minors and people were urinating anywhere they felt like it."
The Laguna Niguel City Council adopted laws in April to cover up the crowds by cordoning off the mooning grounds, restricting parking and banning drinking and urinating in public. Officials said at the time that they wanted to return the summer ritual to a fun, family-type affair.
Amormino said that even though the crowds were starting to thin out around 1:15 p.m., people appeared to be having fun. Mugs Away Saloon has been busy since morning, he said, and no arrests had been made so far.
A 30-acre brush fire briefly threatened homes this afternoon in the Antelope Valley, but firefighters were able to quickly contain the fast-moving blaze.
The fire broke out in an unincorporated neighborhood north of Lancaster about 1:30 p.m. in desert terrain and was knocked down about an hour later, said Brendon Peart, a Los Angeles County Fire Department dispatcher.
Some homes were evacuated, and about 100 firefighters were on scene. No injuries were reported.
The body of a surfer found floating face down in the surf of Newport Beach was identified today as a 44-year-old Costa Mesa man.
Paul Holden was body surfing alone near 13th Street and West Ocean Front Way when he was found about 1:45 p.m. Thursday, said Lt. Rob Morton of Newport Beach Police.
He was taken to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian where he was pronounced dead.
A 15-year-old Los Angeles girl who navigated a single-engine Cessna through thunderstorms in Texas and took in breathtaking aerial views of Arizona’s sunsets — landed her plane to cheering crowds at Compton Woodley Airport today, becoming the youngest African American female pilot to fly solo across country.
Kimberly Anyadike took off from Compton 13 days ago with an adult safety pilot and Levi Thornhill, an 87-year-old who served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. They flew to Newport News, Va., making about a dozen stops along the way.
Anyadike learned to fly a plane and helicopter when she was 12 with the Compton-based Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum, an after-school program that offers aviation lessons to at-risk youth and economically disadvantaged students. The organization owns the small plane.
She loved the feeling of streaking across the sky. She told her mom that it was like a wild ride at Magic Mountain.
Always up for a challenge, she came up with the idea to fly across the country a few months after learning to fly. Robin Petgrave, the aeronautical museum’s founder, warned that it would take a lot of preparation. “I told her it was going to be a daunting task,” he said, “but she just said, ‘Put it on. I got big shoulders.’ ”
[Updated at 2:34 p.m. Four people were shot and injured this afternoon in Athens while standing in an alley where another man was killed Friday night by sheriff’s deputies.
Paramedics had responded to the shooting and were transporting the injured, three men and one woman, to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Sheriff’s deputies ordered a gathering crowd to calm down after what appeared to be a drive-by shooting.
Witnesses said that at about 2:30 p.m., an old model gray Buick with three men inside stopped in front of the alley and about a dozen shots were fired from the car, which then sped away.]
Civil rights leaders had planned to meet today at the site of the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man by sheriff’s deputies in the unincorporated Athens area.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, said he and several other local leaders plan to gather this afternoon to talk to witnesses about the shooting of Woodrow Player.
"We’ll be talking with anyone who witnessed the shooting, get their version of the circumstances and their names and we’ll determine if the shooting was justified,” Hutchinson said in a statement. “If not, we’ll call for a federal probe.”
Hutchinson said civil rights leaders were concerned because “there are conflicting reports about the shooting.”
Player's relatives told television news crews at the scene last night that Player had been harassed by deputies after he was acquitted on murder charges in 2008. They also said he was shot multiple times.
Player was shot after he fled from deputies who were attempting to arrest him during a traffic stop near West Imperial Highway and South New Hampshire Avenue at 8:45 p.m. Friday, according to sheriff’s reports.
Deputies had stopped Player because he fit the description of an armed suspect who had been reported in the area, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Jauck said. When Player fled, they chased him, Jauck said. “They saw what they believed to be a weapon in his hand and fired at him,” Jauck said.
It is unclear how many times deputies shot Player. He died at the scene and investigators later recovered a firearm from his car, Jauck said.
-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Athens
Photo: Woodrow Player’s wife, Tyisha, left, is comforted by her friend Talonnie Smith near the location where Player was shot. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
A large percentage of men who regularly have sex with prostitutes in Tijuana do not use condoms and have a history of drug and alcohol abuse, according to a binational study published Friday in the online journal AIDS.
Of 400 men who answered questions for researchers from Mexico and UC San Diego, about half were from Mexico and the rest from the U.S., which suggests that their risky behavior could spread AIDS and other diseases on both sides of the border.
The researchers said that Tijuana has a "thriving" prostitution trade and though local authorities regularly test registered "sex workers" for AIDS, only about half of prostitutes have registered or been tested.
More than half of the men had had unprotected sex within the last four months, the researchers found. The average customer is 36 years old, unmarried and visits prostitutes more than 25 times a year.
Many reported being under the influence of drugs, particularly methamphetamine, while having sex with a prostitute.
Thomas L. Patterson of the UC San Diego's department of psychiatry and the Veterans Affairs health center, said the study's results show the need for an education campaign aimed at men who frequent prostitutes about the dangers involved.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department has beefed up patrols and will be on the lookout for public drunkenness today during the annual "mooning" of passing trains in Laguna Niguel.
For decades, a growing stream of regulars has come from as far as France to the Mugs Away Saloon in Laguna Niguel and — full of beer and confidence — mooned the passing passenger trains.
Last year, however, the annual moon-fest got a little too exuberant, drawing 8,000 beer-swilling, clothes-dropping patrons who bared more than their behinds when the Amtrak came rolling down the tracks.
Now, officials in the south Orange County city are planning to crack down on the event, which has grown from a small barroom bet among friends to a full-scale festival with reports of people passing out, having sex and freely sprinkling their clothes every which way as passenger trains chug past. Last year’s event was shut down by authorities, who brought in more than 50 officers and a squadron of helicopters to restore order.
This year, the Laguna Niguel City Council voted for a crackdown, and officials have been working with event organizers. Sheriff's officials have said they hope the extra deputies will prevent problems this year.
A magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck off the coast of San Diego this morning. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The quake struck 7:34 a.m. about 30 miles west of La Jolla and 37 miles west of San Diego, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake originated about 12 miles underground, the USGS estimated.
The shaker was felt across San Diego County including Oceanside, Escondido, Vista and Carlsbad, as well as in Temecula, Laguna Niguel and Ladera Ranch.
A man who was shot by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies after a pursuit in Athens was pronounced dead at the scene Friday night, authorities said.
Two deputies responding to reports of an armed man near the intersection of West Imperial Highway and South New Hampshire Avenue spotted the man and began chasing him around 8:45 p.m., according to sheriff's Deputy Byron Ward.
It was not clear what led to the shooting. Deputies recovered a firearm from the suspect, Ward said. It was also unclear whether the 22-year-old man fired at deputies. No one else was injured in the shooting.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot a suspect after a foot chase in the Athens area Friday night, authorities said.
Two deputies chased and shot a 22-year-old man at about 8:45 p.m. near West Imperial Highway and South New Hampshire Avenue, said a department spokesman, Deputy Derrick Thompson. The neighborhood is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County.
The man, whose name had not been released, was taken to a local hospital; his condition was not known Friday night, Thompson said.
No one else was injured in the shooting, including deputies, Thompson said.
Thompson said it was not clear whether the suspect was armed or why deputies were pursuing him.
Police and FBI agents are searching for a team of shotgun-toting bank robbers dubbed “The Buckshot Bandits,” who are wanted in connection with at least four violent bank robberies in the San Fernando Valley, including two committed earlier today.
Police responded Friday to reports of the robberies committed within minutes of each other. The first occurred at 12:10 p.m. at a Citibank in the 22000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills. The second was a half-hour later down the street at a U.S. Bank in the 17000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Encino.
The robbers — who witnesses described as two Latino men in their 20s — wore sunglasses, hats and casual clothes, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. They threatened customers individually, telling them to get on the floor, robbing at least one and pointing a gun at another’s head, Eimiller said.
At the first bank, the robbers displayed a device they said was a bomb and threatened to set it off if the tellers did not give them money, Eimiller said. At the second bank, they made similar threats, although they did not display a device, she said. No one was injured during either robbery, Eimiller said.
The robbers escaped with an unknown amount of cash and fled in a vehicle, escaping road blocks set up by police, FBI agents and California Highway Patrol officers, Eimiller said.
A Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad called to the scene used a robotic device to detonate the alleged bomb at the Citibank branch, according to police spokeswoman April Harding. Harding would not say whether the device contained explosives.
Investigators believe some of the same men used fake bombs to rob a U.S. Bank at 13071 Riverside Drive in Sherman Oaks on May 1 and First Bank in the 17000 block of Ventura Boulevard on May 29, Eimiller said.
Footage from the First Bank surveillance cameras shows two robbers who fit the description of the men who robbed the Citibank and U.S. Bank today, although they wore black and white shirts labeled “Security.” Surveillance footage from the May 1 robbery shows it was committed by a pair that included a man in his 50s, leading investigators to believe there may be a group at work, Eimiller said.
The bomb squad responded to both May robberies and detonated devices, which proved harmless, she said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators at (888) 226-8443.
When he enlisted in the Army in 2003, Robin Long supported U.S. policy toward Iraq. But by the time his unit was ordered to deploy to Iraq in 2005, Long had turned against the war.
"Just because I joined the military, I didn't give up my right to evolve intellectually and morally," he said Friday, the day after being released from the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego.
Long, now 25, fled to Canada and, after a fight that caused a political furor in Canada, was deported last year to the U.S. for court martial.
Convicted of desertion, Long was sentenced to 15 months and a dishonorable discharge. He served 12 months, with time off for good behavior. He plans to continue speaking out against the war and to attend a school in San Francisco to become a massage therapist.
In his first hours of freedom, Long went shopping, visited the beach, and adjusted to life without bars and razor wire.
California State University officials said today they will recommend a 20% additional student fee increase beginning this fall to help meet projected state funding cutbacks of $584 million. The Cal State chancellor had said earlier he was considering an extra fee increase of 15% to 20%.
The hike recommendation, which was released today, would be on top of a 10 % fee increase approved in May, and would bring average annual undergraduate fees to $5,499 a year. Teacher credential students would pay $5,475 and graduate students would be assessed $5,763.
Out-of-state students would also face added charges, for total annual fees of $15,987.
Cal State’s Board of Trustees is set to vote on the recommended increase July 21. The university, the largest four-year institution in the country, educates 450,000 students at 23 campuses stretching from Humboldt to San Diego.
Officials announced today that the state budget crisis has caused a delay in payments to school districts, but were hopeful that no school system would experience cash-flow problems as a result.
This delay marks the second time this year that the delivery of school funding has been postponed. A February legislative deal put off paying $2 billion that was due at that time so the state could keep its books balanced. But California’s worsening financial condition has resulted in an additional postponement applying to these dollars as well as another $2 billion that would have gone out to school districts today.
Instead, those funds, totaling about $4 billion, will be released July 30 to ensure that the state has sufficient cash on hand.
“I have no option but to delay payments and issue IOUs that push the state's problems onto schools, taxpayers, businesses and local governments," state Controller John Chiang said in a joint release with state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell.
Word of the latest delay was “a bit of a surprise,” said Ken Shelton, an assistant superintendent for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which oversees the financial condition of school districts in the county. “My big concern is the ability of school districts to meet payroll. This may not be overly significant. Most districts are OK for the moment.”
School systems can obtain short-term loans or borrow from other funds, including federal stimulus money, to cover the cash shortfall, which is presumably temporary. Over the last year, districts statewide have slashed programs and laid off thousands to offset state funding reductions.
Two cash-strapped county school systems, Wilsona and South Whittier, already had applied for a waiver that would allow them to receive their state funding sooner, Shelton said.
State income tax receipts continued to plunge in June, coming in nearly $1 billion lower than the already dismal projections made by California finance officials only a month before, according to State Controller John Chiang.
The drop in revenue adds to the state’s $26.3-billion deficit and comes as Chiang’s office is already issuing IOUs to state vendors and others because California lacks adequate cash.
“Our major sources of revenue have continued their trend downward,” Chiang said in a statement Friday.
His office is issuing IOUs in lieu of certain payments not given priority under state law, such as bills submitted by vendors, some welfare aid and student grants. But the controller said that if lawmakers and the governor fail to close the deficit by the end of September, he will be forced to stop making some of the protected payments.
Those include money owed to schools and paying off the state’s bond debt.
Updated 6:49 p.m.: Some banks stopped cashing California IOUs on Friday. But Citi said it would redeem them for one more week and Bank of the West said it would take them indefinitely.
Here's one the stories that KTLA Channel 5 News is planning for its 10 p.m. broadcast:
SERIAL PEEPER ARRESTED: Police have jailed a Pasadena man on suspicion of lewd acts for allegedly peeking at a woman in a store bathroom. The 46-year-old man was arrested Thursday after a police officer who had arrested him on a previous peeping offense recognized him on a surveillance video. The man was captured on video after he allegedly peered over a bathroom stall at a woman. The man left when he was confronted by a store employee. Authorities said the man has a history of peeping. They said that earlier this year, he was caught peeping in a women's restroom in a courthouse, where he was ordered to appear for a similar offense.
For those keeping track of potential Michael Jackson investigations, here are a couple of new requests to add to the list.
Los Angeles City Councilmembers Dennis Zine and Jan Perry are asking the city's administrative officer to review all city expenditures "made in response to the public reaction to the passing of Michael Jackson," and report on possible measures to offset those costs. They are also asking the city's budget and legislative analysts to come up with a policy that would create financial oversight and determine liability for "extraordinary, non-emergency, multi-departmental, large-scale events."
Zine, who shares City Controller Wendy Greuel's concern about a $48,826 boxed lunch order for 3,500 Michael Jackson first-responders from a sandwich shop in Wrightwood, has asked the city's chief legislative analyst to report back on how the city selects its vendors, particularly those outside city limits.
"The city's contracting requirements must not become so onerous that taxpayers are left footing exorbitant bills from non-local businesses," Zine said in his council motion.
While Zine has railed against the costs of the memorial, Councilwoman Janice Hahn offered a different view, saying the city benefited from the Jackson memorial. Today, Hahn introduced her own motion calling for a complete accounting of the tourism benefits derived from the memorial, saying it promoted Los Angeles as a global destination for Jackson fans.
“Los Angeles really looked good to the world,” she said.
Council members will take up the proposals later this month, and we hear there is more legislation in the works.
-- Maeve Reston and David Zahniser at L.A. City Hall
A San Bernardino County school district has canceled the remainder of a special summer session that it scheduled to make up for regular school days that were too short.
Chino Valley Unified hoped the extra 34-day session would satisfy state officials, who could impose a penalty of $5 million based on the number of both the missed days and the affected students. The mistake occurred at two elementary schools in the district of 34,000 students.
On Thursday, the state's Board of Education voted unanimously to reject the extra session as inadequate.
Chino Valley Interim Supt. Wayne Joseph said that the poorly attended supplemental classes would end Friday: “Why continue at more of a cost to the district?”
The full extra session had been projected to cost about $200,000.
A Navy midshipman has been charged with attempting to smuggle 300 pounds of marijuana into the United States from Mexico, Navy officials in San Diego announced today.
Juan Domingo Alonso, 24, of North Hollywood, a former enlisted sailor, was in San Diego for a Naval Academy summer training mission when he was arrested June 10 at the San Ysidro border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.
He has been charged with armed robbery, burglary, conspiracy, smuggling and conduct unbecoming an officer. He is being held in the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.
An Article 32 hearing, akin to a civilian preliminary hearing, will be held later this summer.
Los Angeles police were on the scene of two bank robberies in Woodland Hills and Encino that occurred today within minutes of each other.
The first was reported about 12:10 p.m. in the 22000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills and the second about 30 minutes later in the 17000 block of Ventura Boulevard in Encino, said Officer April Harding, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department.
The robbers left a package at one of the banks, she said. Further details were not immediately available.
California is eligible to receive $31 million in federal grants meant to fight potential cases of the H1N1 influenza virus during the fall flu season, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced today.
The grant is funded by a supplemental appropriations bill recently passed by Congress and signed into law last month by President Obama.
The announcement came a day after Sebelius hosted a summit on the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu. The meeting was attended by representatives from state, tribal, territorial and local governments from across the country.
Officials at the California Department of Public Health could not be reached for comment because of a state office furlough.
The future of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch is very much an open question (not to mention whether the King of Pop will end up being buried there). But it appears a second Neverland Ranch might soon be built on an island off Shanghai as a tribute to the late pop star. Details from Reuters:
Chinese developers are commemorating the late Michael Jackson by building a scaled-down replica of his Neverland Ranch on an island off Shanghai, a state-run newspaper said on Friday.
Investors in the project, which will cost about 100 million yuan ($15
million) to build, hope it will open on Chongming island ahead of next
year's Expo in Shanghai, the China Daily newspaper reported.
While they are not as popular as the Taiwanese and Hong Kong stars who dominate the music scene in China, Western artists are making inroads in the local market, thanks to young fans.
"By building a Neverland here in China, we want to pay tribute to him and at the same time offer the Chinese people an outlet for expressing their love toward him," the report quoted Qiu Xuefan, one of the investors, as saying.
Members of San Diego's gay community plan a candlelight vigil outside Camp Pendleton tonight in honor of Navy Seaman August Provost, killed while on sentry duty at the sprawling base.
Provost, 29, of Houston, was shot to death at the Navy's landing-craft compound adjacent to Interstate 5. His body was found about 3 a.m. June 30.
Navy officials have said there is no evidence that Provost was killed because he was gay or that the killing was linked to terrorism or gang activity. A sailor is being held, but no charges have been filed and no motive for the slaying has been revealed.
Tina Leight-Roades, a board member of the North (San Diego) County Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual Coalition, said the vigil is meant to show the military that "we are not going to let this one go until we have answers."
The vigil is set to begin at 7:30 p.m. outside the base at Monterey Drive and North Coast Highway in Oceanside. Provost was buried Friday in Houston.
Animal services officials are seeking homes for 26 cocker spaniels that were confiscated from a woman arrested on unrelated theft charges and accused of hoarding the dogs, authorities said today.
Nelli Olsen, 35, was arrested on grand larceny charges June 29 after law enforcement officials said she wrote bad checks to rent several properties in the Coachella Valley. Olsen was suspected of amassing a large pack of dogs at the homes.
“The dog owner kept moving the dogs from residence to residence,” said Betsy Ritchie, captain of field operations for the Riverside County Department of Animal Services.
Olsen lived at eight residences in Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage over two years, Ritchie said. She would typically rent a property and not pay the rent until she was evicted. When the first check Olsen wrote to her last landlord in Palm Desert allegedly bounced, the homeowner called police.
Animal control officer James Huffman and a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy finally caught up with Olsen two weeks ago, when they joined forces to serve her with an arrest warrant for an outstanding matter in Los Angeles County, officials said.
Federal authorities have issued 28 arrest warrants targeting members of two Venice gangs accused of distributing crack cocaine.
More than 200 agents and officers executed the warrants, which focus on the Venice Shoreline Crips and Venice-13 street gangs, according to the FBI. The investigation began in 2008 and involved a variety of local law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Culver City police departments. The Shoreline Crips have been considered a major supplier of cocaine for three decades.
According to an FBI statement, "some of the defendants accepted payment for brokering transactions between suppliers and buyers of crack cocaine, while other defendants supplied cocaine to buyers. Ten additional members associated with the gang, including juveniles, are named in state charges filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles, for their roles in the illegal drug distribution operation. Approximately 10 parole and probation searches were carried out and resulted in several additional arrests."
Among those arrested were Stefan Denser, 42, of Los Angeles, Dewayne Donelson, 55, of Los Angeles, Christopher Featherstone, 52, of Inglewood, and Geronimo Hernandez, 24, of Los Angeles.
Residents on a quiet street in Laguna Niguel awoke this morning to find that the American flags hanging outside their homes had been burned overnight, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
Four American flags were burned and one decorative flag was also destroyed, said Sgt. Sherrie Thompson. Another homeowner discovered that his flag, attached to a pole, was missing.
The neighbors, all in the 28800 block of Placida Avenue, had put up the flags in observance of the Fourth of July, Thompson said.
She said the vandalism appeared to have occurred about 1 a.m. Friday. The incident could have become serious, Thompson said, because one of the burnt flags hung near tall bushes, which were partly charred.
“We don’t know if there were kids creating mischief, or if somebody was a target,” she said. Not all the American flags on the street were destroyed, she said.
Most University of California professors and staff would be forced to take between 11 and 26 unpaid furlough days a year -- cutting their paychecks between 4% and 10% -- under a revised budget reduction proposal presented today by UC President Mark G. Yudof.
The UC Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on the plan next week, and approval is thought likely in response to anticipated deep reductions in state funding for higher education. However, agreement by labor unions would be needed for large segments of the university's workforce across its 10 campuses.
The proposed furlough days would increase in seven steps up the pay scale, from those earning less than $40,000 to those above $240,000. That is a major change from a controversial earlier proposal that divided UC employees into just two salary groups, and a retreat from an idea of possibly cutting pay without offering furlough days in exchange.
Faculty leaders said professors would not be allowed to take furlough time on days when they have teaching responsibilities. But between these pay cuts and numerous program reductions expected around UC, students will feel an effect, officials conceded.
"No way are we going to be able to look every student in the eyes and say the University of California is just the way it was yesterday," Yudof said.
He said, however, that UC would not follow the Cal State system in pursuing a second student fee increase in two months. UC in May raised undergraduate fees for next year by 9.3%, or about $662, to about $8,720, not including room, board and other expenses. While he ruled out another fee hike for the fall, Yudof today did not eliminate the possibility for the middle of the school year. "There could be one in January. It depends on how tough things get," he said.
In another change from his earlier plans, Yudof’s proposal would exempt from furloughs and pay cuts those UC professors and staff whose salaries are fully funded by federal or private research grants or other outside revenues. Many of those researchers protested an earlier version that would have included them in the cuts, even though that would not have helped the university financially. UC administrators said they still need to study how to handle employees whose pay is partly funded by outside grants.
L.A. artist Peter Shire has unveiled a colorful addition to the street art scene on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood, where his new public sculpture spells out "NoHo" and will be illuminated at night.
MTA officials hope a new partnership with Google Maps will make it easier for passengers to plan trips using the agency's buses and trains.
The MTA is the latest transit agency to join forces with Google to connect transit information on the interactive maps. According to the MTA, users will be able to get bus and train route information, schedules and stop locations using Google maps.
Passengers can type in dates, times and destinations into the map and get trip information, including transfer options and lists of landmarks along the routes.
“We have listened to our customers and have provided the Google transit planning resource they have requested,” MTA chief Art Leahy said in a statement. “As the third-largest transportation agency in the United States, it made perfect sense for us to join the Google phenomenon. We are extremely excited to now be a part of the most popular online mapping website in the world, and we have high hopes that a worldwide audience will now be able to more easily plan their Metro trips here in Los Angeles.”
[Updated at 12:45 p.m.: LAist has a roundup about other local transit agencies and their plans for Google Maps. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation is hopeful its DASH shuttles will be part of the MTA's bus feed, and other agencies including those in Santa Monica, Santa Clarita and Culver City are interested.]
Beginning Sunday, the fire danger level in the Angeles National Forest will be raised from “high" to "very high,” authorities said today.
The change comes as summer weather continues to dry out vegetation and the region experiences an increase in fire activity,” said Stanton Florea, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.
“Grasses growing below 4,500 feet elevation have cured and are especially prone to fire,” Florea said in a statement.
The assessed value of all L.A. County propertiesslips for the first time in 13 years.
Michael Jackson's medical history is so complicated, he had so many doctors, that it isn't easy for investigators to form a clear picture. (Make sure to take a look, by the way, at The Times' new interactive timeline of Jackson's life.)
California IOUs won't be accepted at big banks after today.
Ali Abdelhadi Mohd was cleaning anti-Arab graffiti off the walls of his family's vacated Yermo home when he was killed in an explosion. The FBI is investigating his death as a possible hate crime.
The Orange County Fairopens today -- and it's big, despite the economy.
Most state offices are closed today because of furloughs.
We'll bring you more news as we get it.
-- Nita Lelyveld
Leave us your comments here or follow @latimescitydesk on Twitter.
Four 18-year-old men were arrested today for allegedly blowing up several mailboxes in neighborhoods in the west San Fernando Valley, authorities said. No one was injured.
The Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad was dispatched in response to the first incident, which occurred at 9:25 p.m. Thursday in the 2300 block of Welby Way in West Hills, said LAPD spokeswoman Officer Tenesha Dobine.
There was no information on where the other incidents occurred or what was used to cause the explosions, she said.
A pedicab driver in San Diego arrested after the death of one of his customers has been released from jail without charges being filed.
Sukru Safa Cinar, 23, was released Thursday. But officials at the San Diego County district attorney's office said that the investigation is continuing into the July 4 accident and that charges may yet be filed.
Police arrested Cinar, a Turkish national, in the death of Sharon Miller, 60, a retired teacher from Illinois. Miller fell from Cinar's pedicab and struck her head on the pavement.
Witnesses said Cinar was driving unsafely and was in an area near the downtown convention center where pedicabs are forbidden. Also, his cab did not have seat belts as required by city ordinance, police said.
Police had said Cinar would be charged with felony vehicular manslaughter. Any felony charges must be filed by the district attorney.
The KTLA Traffic Blog provides regular updates of the Southern California traffic situation during the morning drive. This feed is live from 4 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday.
|
Permalink | Comments (0)
| Save/Share
Subscribe
