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LOS ANGELES Authorities are offering a $50,000 for information in the drive-by shooting death of a U.S. Navy reservist outside an El Sereno liquor store in 2007. Jesus Guevara, 24, a U.S. Navy reservist, was walking from the liquor store at 3:15 p.m. on Aug. 18, 2007 toward his parked car when someone fired at him from a dark-colored, mid-size car, wounding him in the back, police said. He died three hours later at a hospital. "It's not fair to lose him, to not have him around," Guevara's aunt, Maria Corona said. "We miss him terribly every day.... The irresponsible...

The council plans to ban plastic carryout bags in the city's stores by 2010, unless the state imposes a 25-cent fee on those who request them.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Los Angeles shoppers soon won't hear the question, "Paper or plastic?" at the checkout line. The City Council voted Tuesday to ban plastic shopping bags from stores, beginning July 1, 2010. Shoppers can either bring their own bags or pay 25 cents for a paper bag. The council's unanimous vote also puts pressure on the state, which is considering an Assembly bill that would ban plastic bags in 2012 and charge at least 15 cents per paper bag. "We've gotten to a point where we need to act as a city, where we can have real...

LAPD Police Chief William J. Bratton has come out -- in favor of gay marriage. As a wedding gift to friend and celebrity publicist Howard Bragman and his longtime partner, Chuck O'Donnell, Bratton made it official: He and his wife, former Court TV diva Rikki Kleiman, strongly believe that gays have a right to marry. And in honor of Bragman and O'Donnell, who wed this past week in Norwalk, the chief and Kleiman have made a donation to Equality California, a group seeking to stop a state ballot measure this November that would ban same-sex marriages. "The Constitution guarantees life,...

A late-game brawl Tuesday in the Los Angeles Sparks' 84-81 Women's National Basketball Association win over the Detroit Shock saw three players an assistant coach ejected. The incident began after a made free throw by Los Angeles, when Sparks rookie sensation Candace Parker got tangled with Shock's Plenette Pierson and both fell to the floor.

A proposal that would place at least a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a broad swath of neighborhoods, mostly in South Los Angeles, won unanimous support from a Los Angeles City Council committee Tuesday. If approved by the full council and signed by the mayor, the law would prevent fast-food chains from opening new restaurants in a 32-square-mile area, including West Adams, Baldwin Village and Leimert Park. The moratorium would be in effect for one year, with the possibility of two six-month extensions. The measure, proposed by Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose 9th District includes much of South Los...

The number of foreigners landing in Los Angeles Immigration Court has surged in recent years, while the number of judges has remained about the same, causing crushing caseloads and lengthy delays. Expanded immigration enforcement, including the ongoing search for illegal immigrants in county jails, is causing much of the rise, according to judges, attorneys and experts.

Exiling the Happy Meal Los Angeles Lawmakers Want to Escalate The War on Obesity (And Fast Food) By SARAH MCBRIDE July 22, 2008 Despite its health-crazy reputation, parts of Los Angeles are plagued by obesity rates that rival any city in America. Now, the city may join a growing roster of local governments aiming to put their residents on diets by cracking down on the fast-food industry. Jan Perry, a Los Angeles city-council member, is spearheading legislation that would ban new fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC from opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of the city, including her district. The...

Two years ago, newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vowed to put 1,000 more cops on the city's dangerous streets and proposed to raise trash collection fees to provide the money. "Every new dollar residents pay for trash pickup," the mayor promised in a city news release, "will be used to put more officers on the streets." Residential trash collection was boosted from $11 a month to $26. The new fees generated $137 million, but the city hired only about 400 more cops, according to a recent report from City Controller Laura Chick, and they cost about $42 million....

Sunday July 20 9PM PST For gang members in South Central Los Angeles, the "hood" is a brutal war zone, where streets and reputations are vehemently defended, often to the death. NGC goes into this violent world for four months -- a period in which more than 60 L.A. residents are killed or wounded in gang shootings. Watch an emotional funeral, see 11-year-olds brandishing their weapons, and hear the stories of those entangled in this chilling cycle of bloodshed. In 1970s and 80s Los Angeles, loosely affiliated African American street gangs wage a 20 year turf war. Born of the...

LOS ANGELES -- American Airlines Flight 725, scheduled to fly nonstop from Boston to Los Angeles on Friday, was diverted to Oklahoma City after a disruptive passenger took his clothes off and had to be subdued.

First, from the top of the Democrat Party, we had Howard Dean banning fried food at the Democrat Convention and authorizing only approved food colors. Of course, the caterers correctly thought Dean was a moron, and told him so. Now the Left Coast chapter of the Fraternal Order of Oral Limitations (FOOL), which enforces food consumption regulations as well as speech control laws, has decided that people in South-Central are too fat and unhealthy so they want a moratorium on any new fast food joints.

Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller resigned today after a 21-month tenure that included the departure of two Times editors and plans for the sharpest staff and production cuts in the newspaper's history amid a continuing slide in advertising revenue. Tribune Co. -- which owns The Times and other media assets, including the Chicago Tribune and KTLA-TV Channel 5, and the Chicago Cubs baseball team -- named no successor to Hiller. Hiller was the third Times publisher named since the newspaper was acquired in 2000 by Chicago-based Tribune. He succeeded Jeffrey M. Johnson, who lost his job after publicly resisting...

At a time when many Los Angeles County residents are grappling with the squeeze of an economic downturn, dozens of top county government officials are tooling around in "unjustified luxury vehicles" costing taxpayers as much as $50,000 each. More than 1,400 county workers are given take-home cars, even though some don't have official authorization to drive them, and at least 30 employees aren't paying the required taxes on the vehicles. Meanwhile, county employees were involved in 1,852 accidents in their take-home vehicles over the past few years - with 830 accidents in 2005-06 alone that cost taxpayers $6.7 million. The...

The nation of road movies, freeway freedom and dreams of endless horizons is waking up to the reality of soaring fuel prices. Paul Harris in Riverside, California, reports that people are leaving their gas guzzlers in the garage It is known as the Inland Empire: a vast stretch of land tucked in the high desert valleys east of Los Angeles. Once home to fruit trees and Indians, it is now a concrete sprawl of jammed freeways, endless suburbs and shopping malls. But here, in the heartland of the four-wheel drive, a revolution is under way. What was once unthinkable is...

In officiating at the June 17 “marriage” of the same lesbian couple he had joined in dubious wedlock four years ago, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom beat Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the punch. But Villaraigosa, like Newsom a potential contender for the Democratic nomination for governor, was not to be bested. On June 23, Villaraigosa united Hollywood producer Bruce Cohen with his five-year-long male companion, art consultant Gabriel Catone. And, the previous week, the Los Angeles mayor voiced his warm support for legalized same-sex marriage. "The California electorate is coming into a new age realizing that [gay] marriage...

Glassell Park -- Hundreds of police and federal agents swept through the city's northeast area Wednesday, raiding homes and serving search warrants on members of a notorious gang that authorities say has long terrorized the neighborhood and was involved in a deadly police shootout in February. The raid in Glassell Park was aimed at members of the Drew Avenue clique of the Avenues gang. A federal grand jury indictment returned June 12 and released Wednesday accused 70 people of racketeering, murder, attempted murder of police officers, drug and weapons trafficking, witness intimidation and other crimes. Police Chief William Bratton compared...

In a sweeping crackdown on a notorious street gang, more than 500 federal, state and local investigators, including 10 SWAT teams, swarmed northeast Los Angeles before dawn this morning to arrest dozens of alleged members of the Avenues gang. The focus, authorities said, was on the gang's Drew Street clique, which has kept tenacious control over a Glassell Park neighborhood despite a series of efforts by federal and local law enforcement agencies over the years. This is a major case and a major takedown this morning," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office. By 8 a.m., authorities arrested...

A man who planned attacks on military installations and synagogues in the Los Angeles area for an Islamic terrorist cell was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison today for conspiring to wage war against the United States.

Walter Moore is a fiscal conservative, anti-corruption and anti-ILLEGAL immigrant candidate for mayor of Los Angeles in next year's election. He's having a rally in the San Fernando Valley next Saturday, June 28.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) June 18, 2008 -- Is the prosecution guilty of ethics violations in the Jamiel Shaw murder case? Full Disclosure Network® presents an eight minute Video News Blog featuring family members of murdered high school football star, Jamiel Shaw, II who was gunned down just three doors from his home by an alleged illegal alien gang member who had been released early from the L.A. County jail after serving four months for weapons violations and assault against a police officer. * D.A. Steve Cooley removed Deputy DA Michele Hanisee from the case just days prior to his...

Parker Center  --  It was an unusually deadly weekend in Los Angeles County, with at least 12 people murdered, many of them in gang-related crimes, compared to two or three homicides on an average day. In Panorama City, one person was killed and another injured this afternoon in an apparent gang-related shooting, police said. Around 2 p.m., a suspect on a bike approached both victims in the 8400 block of Greenbush Avenue, near Roscoe Boulevard, said Los Angeles Police Officer Sara Faden of the Media Relations Section. The suspect asked the two about their gang affiliations and then shot them....

Today's Savage thread.

Gay Pride Parade to Bring Out Hundreds of Thousands June 7, 2008, 12:42 PM PDT WEST HOLLYWOOD -- More than 400,000 people are expected to line Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood Sunday for the 38th annual LA Pride Parade, which celebrates the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. The parade will begin at 11 a.m. at Crescent Heights Boulevard and head west to Robertson Boulevard. It will feature more than 125 entries, including floats, bands, marching community advocacy groups and convertibles with honored guests, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Radio talk show host Stephanie Miller will serve as grand marshal....

Low water pressure hampered efforts today to fight a fire that raged through the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City, destroying a soundstage, the theme park's King Kong attraction, a video vault and sets such as the Courthouse Square seen in "Back to the Future" and the New York street scape from "Bruce Almighty." As the equivalent of two city blocks burned -- firefighters were still dousing hot spots 10 hours after the blaze began in predawn darkness -- a mushroom-like cloud of smoke drifted over surrounding neighborhoods, raising some health concerns. A large explosion near the video storage building...

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — Firefighters are fighting a massive blaze that broke out on a lot at Universal Studios Sunday morning, that has left at least one firefighter injured. Los Angeles fire Capt. Frank Reynoso told FOXNews that over 100 city and county firefighters have been called to battle the fire, which was reported just before dawn Sunday on a sound stage on a back lot. "We are using a 3rd alarm assignment," said Reynoso, who said at least one explosion was reported during filming, which was going on at the time. Thick columns of smoke have been seen rising...

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (AP) — A massive fire raged on a back lot at Universal Studios early Sunday, devouring several movie sets, including mock New York and New England streets. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Daryl Jacobs said at least one building had burned and as many as three blocks of movie facades were destroyed. Though the fire was contained, it was still raging, Jacobs said. "The facades are constructed of heavy timber and they tend to burn quite freely," he said. The blaze broke out just before dawn on a sound stage,...

The mayor's proposals also include seizing cars used in gang activity and helping landlords evict people who illegally possess guns and ammunition. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday unveiled plans to target gangs and guns -- including confiscating cars used in gang-related crimes -- with a series of new city ordinances. The mayor proposed giving landlords the power to evict tenants convicted of using and possessing illegal weapons and ammunition. And he promised to push other new laws to regulate the purchase of ammunition and storage of weapons. The proposed ordinances include banning .50-caliber, military-style ammunition; licensing ammunition vendors;...

When her neighbor's roosters and chickens persisted in running through her yard, G. Stone took matters into her own hands. She marched next door and issued a warning: Do something about the uninvited guests or the birds "were going in my pot." The incursions stopped. But Stone, a retired Los Angeles County librarian who lives northwest of Watts, shook her head in exasperation as she recalled the incident. "I've lived here for 50 years," she said. "All of a sudden, there's an influx of chickens. You're not supposed to have chickens in the city." For many, the image of South...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says agents have arrested more than 900 people in California on immigration violations during a three-week sting targeting people who ignored deportation orders. The agency says 495 of the 905 people arrested were targeted in the operation. The other 410 just happened to be on the scene when agents arrived. Northern California accounted for the most arrests, with 441. The Los Angeles area followed with 327 arrests. The San Diego area accounted for the other 137. ICE agents increasingly have been tracking people who ignore deportation orders. When authorities visit a...

Three Valleys Municipal Water District Director Javier Alvarez was asked to resign by Director Brian Bowcock Wednesday May 21, 2008 during the boards monthly meeting. ((Will Lester/Staff Photographer) ) • Photo Gallery: Alvarez asked to resign• PDF: Alleged lies told by AlvarezCLAREMONT - A local water representative Wednesday called for the resignation of Director Xavier Alvarez, who has pleaded guilty to falsely claiming he won the Medal of Honor.At a meeting of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District, Director Brian Bowcock called Alvarez a "disgrace," read from a lengthy list of what he called Alvarez's lies and urged him...

KABC talk show host Al Rantel appeared on Larry Elder's show on Friday. He announced that he will return to the air on Tuesday, May 27. He has been receiving treatment for lymphoma and has been off since January. Older threads: Vanity Question: What Happened to Al Rantel? (to L.A. radio listeners)KABC Host Al Rantel Diagnosed With Lymphoma

In a time when tele-evangelists seem to inundate the airwaves with their own cable channels and are just another stop in an evening's channel surfing, it's easy to forget an earlier time, when revival meetings were as exciting as the circus coming to town, and evangelists were treated like rock stars. For Los Angeles, the premiere evangelist of those days was Aimee Semple McPherson. She was born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy in 1890 in Ontario, Canada. As a child, she traveled with her mother Minnie, who worked for the Salvation Army. Aimee's first husband, Robert Semple, was a Pentecostal missionary who...

A Fight broke out at the Jamiel Shaw Rally today. It was pretty serious. Muslim headgear guy ended up on the ground with what might have been a broken nose. A member of our group was repeatedly assaulted in the face. The police were called and they asked "Do you seen any weapons? and "Is it an equal fight or is a bunch of people on one"? Finally, a car came out briefly but no one was arrested and no report was taken. Now we know why the crime rate is down in Los Angeles - the police don't take...

MIDI - DRINK, DRINK, DRINK

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Department of Water and Power are expected to announce on May 15 a revised water use and management plan for this city that includes using recycled wastewater to recharge drinking water aquifers, according to a May 15 Los Angeles Times article. The new plan allocates about $1 billion for the proposed reclamation system, also known as “toilet-to-tap” or “sewer-to-spigot.” The city would recycle about 4.9 billion gallons of treated wastewater to drinking standards by 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported on May 15. Villaraigosa, who less than a decade ago opposed such...

SOUTH LOS ANGELES Four people were arrested and a school went on lockdown after a fight between black and Hispanic students raged, according to authorities. Police were sent to Locke High School shortly after 1 p.m. Friday afternoon. The fight allegedly involved some 600 students.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A fight at a troubled South Los Angeles high school escalated into a campuswide brawl involving as many as 600 students before it was quelled by police officers in riot gear. The melee, which students said was between rival black and Hispanic gangs and started around noon on Friday, forced the authorities to shut down the school, Locke High, and keep students in their classrooms. After restoring order, they rounded up those involved and separated them, holding Hispanic students in the gymnasium and black students in another room.

A fight between rival groups of black and Latino students at Locke High School quickly escalated into a campus-wide melee Friday, with as many as 600 students brawling until police restored calm with billy clubs. The troubled campus in South Los Angeles was locked down after the fight broke out at 12:55 p.m., as students returned from lunch to their fifth-period classes. Overwhelmed school officials called Los Angeles police for help, but students and faculty said it took about half an hour before dozens of officers, many in riot gear, restored order. "The kids were crazy, running from place to...

LOS ANGELES -- Four people were arrested Friday after a fight involving more than 400 teens broke out at a South Los Angeles high school, resulting in a campus lockdown, officials said.

LOS ANGELES — Rana Parker tells pudgy police they have the right to remain chubby, but it can and will be used against them on the streets of Los Angeles. The dietitian lays down the law for recruits, veterans and top brass, letting them know that eating right can help them do a better job and could even save their lives.

In numbers that were notably light, immigrant workers and their supporters gathered in downtown Los Angeles this afternoon for a May Day march to demand legislative reforms and an end to blanket raids on work sites. Two years ago, the May Day march drew more than 500,000 supporters registering their protest of recently scuttled plans to make being an illegal immigrant a felony. Last year, the crowd was estimated at 35,000 and today police estimated about 8,500 protesters from two main marches converged on City Hall in the late afternoon.

Think traffic in southern California is bad now? We haven’t seen anything yet, according to National Public Radio President Kevin Klose. Klose was a panelist at the forum “Covering a Changing Climate: The Media Challenge” held at Harvard University in Boston, Mass., on April 30. He said the effects of climate change will include migration from the south and cause a U.S. population boom of 100 million people. Klose told the audience this would be the subject of a series on NPR. “We’re going to do a unique one-week series called ‘The Next Hundred Million,’ because in the next 30...

Asked about the recent dismantling of a high-profile unit in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles that specialized in public corruption cases, an office spokesman provided what some saw as a curious justification: Eliminating the public integrity and environmental crimes section, spokesman Thom Mrozek said, would actually enhance the effort to prosecute such cases. He explained that the unit's 17 lawyers would be farmed out to other sections in the office and that those types of cases would now be handled by a larger pool of attorneys, instead of by a select few. But in interviews with The Times,...

2007 Demonstration Turned Into Mêlée, More Than 250 Hurt LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles police have been drilling with mock protesters to prepare for Thursday's immigrant-rights demonstration in an attempt to avoid clashes like last year. Police with "extraction units" will be trained to remove unsavory people from the crowd expected to converge on downtown as part of rallies organized by groups such as Latino Movement USA, the Los Angeles Times reported. "Is everyone clear on chain of command?" Deputy Chief Michael Hillmann asked the officers during a recent training session in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium. A few...

A third of immigrants have not graduated from high school and 60 percent do not speak English fluently, the Migration Policy Institute found. These immigrants make up half the Los Angeles workforce. It said this left immigrants ill-equipped to fill California's fastest-growing occupations. The organization said that as the so-called baby boomers reach retirement age, a similar pattern will spread across the U.S. Ernesto Cortes, of the Industrial Area Foundation, a think-tank that specializes on social change said "The question is are we going to be a 21st century city or a Third World city with an elite group on...

Amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, there exists another world, an underground world of illicit trade in-not drugs or sex-but bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Street vendors may sell you an illegal bacon dog, but hardly anyone will talk about it, for fear of being hassled, shut down or worse. Our camera caught it on tape. One minute bacon dogs are sold in plain view, the next minute cops have confiscated carts, and ordered the dogs dumped into the trash. Elizabeth Palacios is one of the few vendors willing to speak publicly. "Doing bacon is illegal," she explains. Problem...

Dodgers owner Frank McCourt unveiled plans today for a historic makeover of the club's 275-acre Dodger Stadium site in Chavez Ravine, describing new features designed to transform the ballpark into a year-round destination for dining, shopping and recreation that will be fan- and environment-friendly...

Los Angeles is becoming a "Third World city" with immigrants making up half its workforce, says a new study. A third of immigrants have not graduated from high school and 60 per cent do not speak English fluently, the Migration Policy Institute found. It said this left immigrants ill-equipped to fill California's fastest-growing occupations, such as computer software engineering and nursing. The organisation added that as the so-called baby boomers reach retirement age, a similar pattern will spread across the US. Ernesto Cortes Jr, of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a think-tank that specialises on social change, claimed Los Angeles was...

Los Angeles debates the treatment of illegal immigrants. Sometimes a solitary tragedy can weave all the tangled threads of a far-ranging debate into a sharply focused picture, one that only the willfully blind can claim not to see. Here in Los Angeles, one such tragedy has been the murder of Jamiel Shaw, 17, a high-school student and star athlete who was shot to death on March 2 of this year. Pedro Espinoza, a 19-year-old gang member, has been charged with Shaw’s murder. More than 100 people have been murdered in Los Angeles so far this year, and if this was...