Good morning - here's what's happening 3.18.08

"A recipe for disaster." That's what critics are calling the confidential report that suggests changes in testing and training within the LAPD's elite SWAT unit that would make it more open to women. Joel Rubin has the full story.

After months of delays and in the midst of a serious real estate slump, developers gear up for the Grand Avenue Plan, a massive mixed-use development in downtown L.A. financed, in part, with $100 million from a Dubai fund. Cara Mia DiMassa explains.

Police shot  Maurice Leroy Cox as he ran away, as a grainy, shaky video now playing on YouTube purportedly shows. He died, and now his widow is suing for $10 million, Richard Winton reports.

Almost 20,000 are targeted for layoffs in schools statewide, even as class size increases and services are cut. It's all part of meeting California's $4.8-billion state funding shortfall. Jason Song runs the numbers.

The Resnick neuropsychiatric hospital at UCLA bans laptops and cellphones after a patient posts pix of other patients online. (Yes, it's the same place that's firing a bunch of people for looking at Britney Spears' records.) Details from Charles Ornstein.

A $65-million retirement package for outgoing Edison chief, John E. Bryson. Elizabeth Douglass explains.

A man took a photo of what he claimed was a UFO hovering above a power pole. Now the pole is gone, the man is missing and a pair of PIs from Capitola, Calif., are on the case. John Glionna spins the tale.

--Veronique de Turenne

Comments

[Ruby Jackson]

Who is going to benefit from looser requirements for SWAT? Only the women who want to join the force. This is just what happened to the fire department years ago. The women couldn't climb over the wall in training, someone complained, so they lowered the wall, and lowered the standards. Let me ask you, when your house is on fire, you've tripped in the dark and broken your ankle, who do you want to see coming to your rescue? A burly guy who can throw you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, or a woman who can barely carry the weight of her respirator?