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CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Nov. 29, 2005) -- While many 19-year-olds juggle a busy college class load or their first part-time job back in the United States, one peer carries the responsibility of ensuring his battalion’s weapons are prepared for battle here. “It is an awesome responsibility,” said Lance Cpl. Christopher Ruiz, 19, battalion armorer, Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD). “I don’t know too many 19-year-olds back home who can say the same thing about what they are doing.” Ruiz, whose unit is based out of Marine Corps Base, Hawaii, has been in Iraq...

Police say Black Muslims may have warned business owners not to sell alcohol to African Americans OAKLAND — Abdul Saleh has just one question for the men — suspected by authorities to be Black Muslims — who trashed his corner store late Wednesday, terrorizing his 17-year-old son and another clerk and causing thousands of dollars in damage. Why? "I don't know why they tried to destroy my life," said Saleh, who has owned San Pablo Market and Liquor in West Oakland since 1986. "We came here for a better living, not to make war with anybody." About a dozen African-American...

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Traffic is so bad along the eastern rim of Los Angeles' suburban ring that regional planners are considering the once unthinkable — an 11-mile tunnel through a mountain range in earthquake country. Critics question the logic of building a multibillion-dollar project in a region so prone to earthquakes that an alternate proposal for a double-decker highway was deemed too dangerous. The tunnel would begin barely a mile from a fault that produced a 6.0-magnitude earthquake about a century ago. "It's absolutely absurd to have a tunnel 700 feet below ground in earthquake country," said Cathryn DeYoung,...

BARWANA, Iraq (Nov. 10, 2005) -- Being an infantryman and standing security posts go hand in hand when in Iraq. While some are in security positions and others are regulating traffic, these posts are an important part of keeping Marines safe here. Standing many hours on these posts keeping his fellow Marines with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, safe is Los Angeles native, Lance Cpl. Steve Nuno. The automatic rifleman spends hours everyday manning the entry control point and other security position at the base here. His job while spending time on these mostly uneventful posts is to...

BARWANA, Iraq (Nov. 10, 2005) -- Just days after Company L, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment arrived here, an early morning patrol left their firm base Oct. 26 to learn more about the community. Corporal Ralph E. Arzate of Victorville, Calif. led the census patrol from house to house as they gathered basic information about each family in the community. Arzate, some Marines with the company, and an interpreter went to each house in a three-block area, meeting the people and gathering information like names, the number of people in the family, weapons in the house, occupations and vehicles they...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - America's growing appetite for exotic sushi may help preserve vanishing beds of seaweed seen as an important part of the ecosystem along the California coastline. Diners in sushi restaurants are eating ever greater amounts of sea urchin roe, known as Uni, creating a $23 million industry in California for harvesting the creatures, the California Sea Urchin Commission said this week. The spiny echinoderms, a potential peril to swimmers stepping on rocks, feast on kelp, which is dwindling along California's coastline. Divers in the state now harvest 800,000 pounds of Uni annually, the Sea Urchin Commission said,...

AR RAMADI, Iraq (Oct. 21, 2005) -- Lance Cpl. James Loomis joined the Marine Corps for a number of reasons. While some people join for adventure or college money, others join for the chance to travel and experience other cultures. Loomis, a machine gunner from Orange County, Calif., enlisted in the Corps for all those reasons and more. Loomis, who is with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, grew up in southern California and always knew that the world had more to offer than the odd jobs he worked before enlisting. “I didn’t have any scholarships for college and...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A spectacular series of thunderstorms rolled through Southern California, bringing walnut-sized hail and bursts of heavy rain that triggered mudslides and shut down the main highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Parts of the region remained under a severe weather watch early Tuesday. Interstate 5 was closed for about five hours Monday in both directions about 65 miles north of Los Angeles, because of mudslides and up to four feet of standing water on the road, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Johnny Fisher. "There's a few feet of mud all over the roadway," Fisher said....

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (NNS) -- Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 40 began deploying a detachment of 125 personnel to Gulfport, Miss., Sept. 1 to provide humanitarian assistance and conduct debris removal in the aftermath of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. The detachment will lend support to the 22nd Seabee Readiness Group in disaster recovery operations. Twenty-seven NMCB 40 Seabees comprised the first group to deploy to the Gulf Coast, with the remaining Seabees scheduled to deploy sometime during the same week. NMCB 40 is currently at its homeport for a 10-month training period.

CHP Revises Policy on Pot Seizures Sacramento -- The California Highway Patrol has ordered its officers to stop confiscating medical marijuana during routine traffic stops, a victory for patients hoping to win broader acceptance of the controversial medicine from balky police departments around the state. Highway Patrol officials sent out a bulletin last week to field commanders spelling out the policy shift, which would allow patients to travel on California's highways with up to 8 ounces of marijuana as long as they have a certified user identification card or documented physician's approval. Patient advocates say the change will make the...

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Agents have seized more than $2.6 billion worth of marijuana plants this year, already surpassing last year's season total by 20 percent, authorities said. The state Department of Justice's annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP, is still a month away from wrapping up operations after the season peak at the end of September. The raids, many in remote, forested terrain, pit agents against often heavily armed guards protecting their marijuana plots. About three weeks ago, a grower was shot dead and a state Fish and Game warden was wounded during a raid on a 22,000-plant pot farm...

We rendezvoused with the Siths at 2:45 in the hills over Tehran. We were waiting for another car full of them to join us. A police station to our left, the armed sentry paced, nervous about our growing convoy across the street. The third car joined us, and we snaked up the road, like a cruise into the Oakland hills. We came to a guard station, our arrival was announced, the traffic bar raised and we were allowed on to the estate. It wasn't clear to me at the time, but this was a private road under military guard, on...

CAMP KOREAN VILLAGE, Iraq (August 17, 2005) -- Lance Cpl. Silvio J. Davilaruiz can often be found in his 7-ton truck rolling through the desert sands of Western Iraq, where his fellow Marines from 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion work to rebuild the country. Davilaruiz, a motor transport operator with Headquarters and Support Company, is often out in his 7-ton truck conducting various types of operations to provide support to his infantry counterparts deployed here in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “We take supplies, such as food and water, to the Marines at the FOBs (forward operating bases). We also...

LA protesters call for the release of Iranian political prisoners - Sunday, August 14, 2005 Los Angeles (AP) -- Hundreds of demonstrators called for the release of student leaders held since 1999 by the Iranian government during a rally Sunday at the Federal Building in West Los Angeles. The protesters marched in support of Manoucher Mohammadi and Akbar Ganji, who were arrested in a crackdown on anti-government protests at Tehran University in July 1999 and who have recently embarked on a hunger strike. The government jailed about 1,200 people during the crackdown. Most were freed soon after, but Iranian authorities...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California's Coastal Commission is not an illegal agency, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday, a move that keeps officials from reconsidering four decades of land-use decisions along the 1,100-mile coastline. The justices were reviewing two lower-court rulings that said the 12-member commission was unlawfully formed by the Legislature in 1976. The lower courts ruled that because the agency carries out the will of the Legislature, lawmakers who appoint eight members have too much power over the agency and governor. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that the agency did not breach the so-called separation of powers...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday turned in thousands of petition signatures supporting ballot measures he wants to put before voters in a November special election. But Schwarzenegger said he is still interested in reaching compromise solutions with Democratic leaders before a mid-June deadline for calling the election. "Our doors are open for negotiation," he said. The move comes as Schwarzenegger's popularity has hit new lows and Democratic opposition to his proposals have grown in strength. The governor and his supporters are pushing three constitutional amendments that would put new limits on state spending, lengthen the time...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A legislative committee Tuesday approved a measure modeled after an Oregon law that would allow the terminally ill to end their lives with a doctor's assistance. The bill cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee after more than a dozen hours of testimony and debate spread over three hearings. It now moves to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and finally to the floor. The Senate would then have to take up the legislation. Supporters said the measure would give people with no more than six months to live the choice to end their lives with a self-administered drug prescribed...

SAN FRANCISCO – From the soaring cliffs of Big Sur to the teeming wetlands of Bolsa Chica, California has one of the world's most pristine and protected coasts, drawing millions of people each year to its sandy beaches and rugged shores. Conservationists say that's no accident – it's the result of a voter initiative passed more than 30 years ago that created the California Coastal Commission, the powerful government agency charged with protecting and restoring the state's 1,100-mile coastline. The California Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case that will determine the future of the commission, which has made...

ESCONDIDO, Calif. - Laid out in rows stretching longer than a football field, 1,513 pairs of black military boots gave a sunsplashed park the quiet, somber mood of a cemetery. The traveling exhibit, a reminder of the U.S. troops lost in Iraq (news - web sites) , arrived on the West Coast this week as divisive as the war itself — especially for the families of the fallen men and women. To some of the families, it is a cathartic, fitting memorial in a nation they say seems largely anesthetized to the pain of a distant war. For others, it's...

WASHINGTON (AP) - California's U.S. Senate race between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Bill Jones cost a total of $19.1 million, according to final campaign finance reports made public this week. Spending by Boxer, the winner Nov. 2, accounted for fully three-quarters of that amount. Jones ended the race owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to consultants, airplane charters, lawyers, and even his own daughter, who did work for the campaign, the Federal Election Commission documents show. Jones' low spending made for one of the cheaper recent statewide contests. Boxer's 1998 victory over Republican Matt Fong cost more, as did...