Free Republic

TUSTIN – Tom Egan should have been home – his shift had ended at 7 a.m. – but he had lingered at the Tustin Marketplace Home Depot on Friday, talking to his employees and making sure things were in order...

ESCONDIDO -- Marking the division of a community, a shouting match erupted Wednesday night outside of Escondido City Hall after the City Council approved an ordinance barring landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. What started as a crowd of about 30 people before the meeting then grew into two raucous crowds totaling about 100 people. One was predominantly Latino, carrying religious symbols and picket signs. The other was predominantly white, carrying American flags and photos of officers the group said were killed by illegal immigrants. A line of about 15 law enforcement officers kept the two sides apart in front...

Regular listeners to Larry Elder's show are familiar with this story. For the rest of you, you can read about it by clicking on the link. However, you are risking apoplexy if you do.

SANTA YNEZ, Calif., September 26, 2006 - Southern California broadcasting pioneer Ralph Story has died. The Emmy award winning reporter and anchor lost a long battle today with emphysema. Story started in broadcasting in Buffalo in 1948 and went on to work at KNX radio in Los Angeles in the late 1940s. He then moved to CBS's sister TV station in Los Angeles, KNXT, now KCBS-TV in the early 1960s. Story was a part of "The Big News," one of the nation's first hour long local newscasts, working as the newscast's feature reporter. The popularity of his segments led to...

Six groups, including the Anaheim-based Council on American Islamic Relations in Southern California, filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday asking about suspected law enforcement monitoring of Islamic religious institutions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed the request on behalf of CAIR, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, area mosques and six leaders in the Muslim community. Four from Orange County include: Muzammil Siddiqi, imam of the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove. Hussam Ayloush, executive director at CAIR. Sabiha Khan, CAIR spokeswoman. Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of...

SAN DIEGO - A Chula Vista man suspected of leading a methamphetamine trafficking ring that used juveniles to sell or smuggle the drug was in federal custody Monday after being charged in a two-count indictment, authorities said. Jorge Arreola-Gomez was among 19 people named in the indictment unsealed Friday by the U.S. Attorney's Office alleging that the defendants used numerous couriers, many of them teenagers, to smuggle methamphetamine across the U.S.-Mexico border. An investigation led to the seizure of more than 140 pounds of methamphetamine, more than $25,000 in cash, a firearm and 20 pounds of pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant...

Per scanners and TeamSpeak, large brush fire in the area, threatening Anaheim Hills Area (Serrano). Large power outages in Anaheim, Orange, and other areas per Edison. OrCo Trunked TG2896....and 2704 166.675 Helos 271 and 301 122.575 Victor

LANCASTER - An apartment complex near Avenue K and Gadsden Avenue in Lancaster was cordoned off as deputies searched for a suspected sniper who is believed to have shot at three deputies Thursday night. A Lancaster Sheriff's Department team originally responded around 9 p.m. to a report of a shot fired that shattered a display window at the Lancaster Auto Mall's Suzuki Mazda dealership, in the 43000 block of Drivers Way. The dealership's employees called 911. Upon arriving, the trio of deputies sent onto the scene said there was no other evidence of any other shots fired. The rest of...

LOS ANGELES — A favorable turn of the weather helped thousands of firefighters battling a 16,200-acre wildfire that burned early Friday in the hills and canyons along the city's northwestern edge. Cooler temperatures, higher humidity and calmer winds had slowed the progression of the fire, which had burned nearly 26 square miles, forcing hundreds to evacuate and threatening upscale homes, officials said. Firefighters hoped to have the blaze 35 percent contained by day's end, said Los Angeles County (search) fire Deputy Chief Mike Bryant, the incident commander. The fire was 12 percent contained Friday morning, up from 5 percent the...

LOS ANGELES - Park visitors have gone from feeding ducks and fish to nourishing a scaly green creature more likely found in Amazonian swamps than a Los Angeles lake — a giant crocodile-like caiman. Since a gardener spotted it last Friday, people have tried to glimpse the 200-pound reptile wading and sunbathing at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park. Like many Angelenos, the animal is an immigrant who is quickly adopting to its new home. It has already acquired, for example, a nickname matching its Latin American roots and its penchant for tortillas tossed by visitors: Carlito.

Santa Monica Police Chief James T. Butts Jr. met with reporters this week and declared a potential homeland security threat. Police received a call last month from a citizen who had taken photos of "Middle Eastern individuals" as they shot video of the Santa Monica Pier and surrounding area in a manner that authorities said was "inconsistent with tourist documentary." ... (Councilman Herb Katz) said the three photos Butts showed the council during the closed session meeting left him with concerns. "There were three people taking pictures on a pier that's a tourist attraction," he said. "They were going under...

Dean Koontz book signing in Southern California Sunday, June 5, 2005 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm "Velocity" Bantam $27.00 Book Carnival 348 S. Tustin Avenue Orange, CA 92866 Phone: (714) 538-3210 Fax: (714) 538-3273 Toll Free (for orders only): 1-800-963-9266 Please not that although the store is normally closed on Sundays, it will be open for this signing and you can buy books at that time.

LOS ANGELES - The federal government announced the nation's largest conservation plan for 9.5 million acres of desert in Southern California that would protect wildlife but make development easier in fast-growing regions. The 30-year plan unveiled Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management seeks to balance an ancient landscape of rugged volcanic mountains, 11,000-year-old creosote bushes and more than 100 species, including the threatened desert tortoise and the Mohave ground squirrel, with developers' push for new homes and businesses. More than 10 years in the making, the plan covers parts of the Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree National Forest and...

PASADENA -- Despite its distance from a zone of the type that created the Sumatran disaster in December, Southern California faces a real tsunami threat, according to a speaker at a seminar sponsored by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Wednesday at Caltech. "I've been sort of a crusader to tell people in Southern California that yes, we do have a tsunami hazard,' said Mark Legg, president of Legg Geophysical in Huntington Beach. While he said he characterizes Southern California's tsunami risk as moderate to low, "people should be wisely concerned.' During his presentation, he said the notion that strike-slip faults...

Los Angeles Daily News Street vendors push it to the limit Though illegal, business is booming throughout the Southland By Rachel UrangaStaff Writer Sunday, March 06, 2005 - PACOIMA -- Like thousands of vendors working the streets of Los Angeles, Margarita Perez depends on the $50 a day she earns selling corn on the cob. Every day, she pushes a hand cart from the converted garage she shares with her husband and sister-in-law to a park in Pacoima, where she helps pay the rent by selling home-roasted corn for $1 apiece. "We don't want to bother people. We are only...

As the chair of Orange County’s Republican Party from 1984 until last year, Tom Fuentes distinguished himself by waging vindicative, sometimes bizarre campaigns against enemies real and perceived. As a trustee for the South Orange County Community College District (SOCCCD), Fuentes continues his GOP battle plan by launching a campaign against . . . Spain?! Sí: España. Fuentes unveiled his new crusade at the Feb. 28 SOCCCD Board of Trustees meeting, when he requested a discussion on Item 10 from the night’s consent calendar. The item would have allowed Saddleback College students to study abroad in Santander, Spain, during the...

CHINO, Calif. (AP) -- Herds upon herds of Southern California dairy cows are mired udder deep in a thick stew of water, manure and mud - a consequence of record rainfall that has brought economic disaster to farmers. Dairy farmers said this month's deluge in an important region of the nation's top milk-producing state has cost at least $38 million - or at least $2,000 per day per dairy - in lost milk production, dead and sickened animals and damaged infrastructure. The economic hit to the region is the worst since 1997, an infamous El Nino year when dairy farmers...

Commuter train derails in Glendale Associated Press GLENDALE, Calif. - A Metrolink commuter train derailed early Wednesday in this Los Angeles suburb, and firefighters were searching through the wreckage. Television reports showed smoke coming from twisted wreckage at the scene of the crash, where two separate trains could be seen derailed. The derailment in this Los Angeles suburb was near San Fernando Road and Chevy Chase Boulevard.

Michael Medved, whose syndicated radio talk show is heard daily in Southern California, on KRLA-AM 870, from Noon to 3, will be doing two Southern California book signings in the area, one in Burbank, the other in Orange. ----- Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio talk show host heard locally 12 Noon ­ 3:00 pm, film critic and best-selling author comes to Southern California January 24 and 25 to broadcast live, meet local listeners and sign his new book, the autobiographical "Right Turns." Michael Medved LIVE broadcast and book signing - BURBANK Monday, January 24th ­ Burbank Town Center 201 East...

PALMDALE -- A toddler died in a flooded desert wash after she fell into the fast-moving water as a helicopter was plucking her family from their partly submerged sedan. Two-year-old Jamaia Davis' mother had driven around barricades trying to get home Sunday night to Lake Los Angeles and drove into what firefighters said was water 3 or 4 feet deep where normally dry Little Rock Wash crosses Avenue N.