McCain, Obama court Hispanic voters
WASHINGTON—Presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama on Saturday vied for the support of Hispanics, beginning a four-month courtship of a pivotal voting constituency by vowing to revamp immigration policy.
“I come from a border state, my dear friends. I know these issues,” McCain told Hispanic elected officials. The Republican senator from Arizona said overhauling the country’s broken immigration system, not just securing its borders, “will be my top priority.”
Appearing later before the same audience, Obama accused McCain of walking away from comprehensive immigration reform. The Democratic senator from Illinois said: “We must assert our values and reconcile our principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation . . .
Brokaw needles Schwarzenegger on spending, economy
SACRAMENTO — — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, usually a darling of the national media, found himself being told by the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” that if he ran a private company the way he has run the state, he might have been fired by now.
Tom Brokaw, who will be moderating the program through the presidential election, put a series of confrontational questions to the governor in an interview taped in California and aired this morning.
“When you ran for governor in 2003, you ran as a fiscal conservative who would change the system, who would bring business-like techniques,” Brokaw said. “Now, you are facing a $15-billion deficit here in California. Unemployment is running at about 6.8%; you’ve got the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. If you were the CEO of a public company, the board would probably say, ‘It is time to go. . .
Judge orders Minutemen road sign to be reposted
A federal judge has ordered Caltrans to repost the San Diego Minutemen road sign on a two-mile stretch of Interstate 5, a victory for the anti-illegal immigration group.
The Minutemen were granted a northbound stretch of the highway near the Border Patrol’s checkpoint south of San Clemente in November as part of the Adopt-a-Highway litter cleanup program.
They were reassigned to state Route 52 near Santee in January after complaints to the agency about the group’s controversial nature and the location near the checkpoint. . .
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Audit finds DWP chief’s yard to be overflowing
As city leaders urge residents to trim energy and water usage amid the sweltering summer months, a home audit of the chief of L.A.’s Department of Water and Power has found that even the champion of conservation is not doing enough to cut back.
Auditors last month found that lawn sprinklers at General Manager H. David Nahai’s 6,000-square-foot Deep Canyon Drive home had come on every single night for more than a year - summer or winter, rain or shine.
The watering resulted in about a foot of subsurface moisture and boosted the general manager’s average water consumption - 36,185 gallons a month, or 1,190 gallons a day - higher than most of his neighbors. . .
When the Bully Sits in the Next Cubicle
An eye roll, a glare, a dismissive snort — these are the tactics of the workplace bully. They don’t sound like much, but that’s why they are so insidious. How do you complain to human resources that your boss is picking on you? Who cares that a co-worker won’t return your phone calls?
Bullying in the workplace is surprisingly common. In a survey released last fall, 37 percent of American workers said they had experienced bullying on the job, according to the research firm Zogby International.
Unlike the playground bully, who often resorts to physical threats, the work bully sets out on a course of constant but subtle harassment. It may start with a belittling comment at a staff meeting. Later it becomes gossip to co-workers and forgetting to invite someone to an important work event. If the bully is a supervisor, victims may be stripped of critical duties, then accused of not doing their job, says Gary Namie, founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group based in Bellingham, Wash. . .
One big drug test for L.A.: sewage analysis
Which city uses more cocaine: Los Angeles or London? Is heroin a big problem in San Diego? And has Ecstasy emerged in rural America?
Environmental scientists are beginning to use an unsavory new tool — raw sewage — to paint an accurate portrait of drug abuse in communities. Like one big, citywide urinalysis, tests at municipal sewage plants in many areas of the United States and Europe, including Los Angeles County, have detected illicit drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana.
Law enforcement officials have long sought a way to come up with reliable and verifiable calculations of narcotics use, to identify new trends and formulate policies. Surveys, the backbone of drug-use estimates, are only as reliable as the people who answer them. But sewage does not lie. . .
States do fed’s jobs on immigration
Immigration reform has become persona non grata in this town ever since comprehensive bill failed last spring. But as silent as lawmakers here are on the subject, the louder it’s getting in the states.
And if you look back to other major issues, maybe that’s what has to happen for lawmakers here to actually do something on the issue.
In the 1990s, the drumbeat for welfare reform didn’t lead to federal action until state after state passed the kind of welfare-to-work laws that President Clinton finally signed. States were beginning to demand concrete educational standards long before the Bush administration championed No Child Left Behind. . .
Friday, June 20th, 2008
Woodland Hills breaks record with 109 degree heat
LOS ANGELES — Southern California roasted Thursday in a record-breaking, end-of-spring heat wave that sent temperatures soaring past 100 degrees in many areas, posing hazards for anyone who ventured outside.
Firefighters worked in extreme heat to corral small brush fires as a strong high-pressure system cooked the air from the Central Coast south to Los Angeles and San Diego.
The National Weather Service warned people to take precautions for heat that could quickly kill children or animals left in cars. Forecasters said “red flag” warnings for fire danger would remain in effect until Saturday night because of northerly winds and low humidity levels. . .
LA mayor, Obama to meet in Miami
LOS ANGELES—Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans to meet with Barack Obama this weekend to discuss what role the mayor might take in the presidential campaign, his office said Thursday.
Villaraigosa was a national campaign co-chair for Hillary Rodham Clinton, but he quickly embraced Obama’s candidacy after the New York senator pulled out of the race.
Villaraigosa and Obama will meet behind closed doors Saturday in Miami, where the U.S. Conference of Mayors is holding its four-day annual meeting. Obama is scheduled to address the group over the weekend. . .
California measure targets texting while driving
Newest target? Texting.
Call it a loophole, perhaps, but California’s ban on driving while talking on a hand-held cell phone does not extend to text messaging.
Put simply, adult motorists who can’t hold a phone to their ear beginning July 1 can use the same device to type out messages.
But they’d better hurry.
Legislation proposed Thursday by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, would add texting to the cell phone ban he championed. . .
GET SMART
Just for the record, I saw this one here in Burbank, and stumbled out of the theatre into the 100 degree heat, which when accompanied with the blindness caused by being in the dark for two hours, can be quite disorienting. I was overwhelmed – as for this movie, well let’s just say I’m at least glad I hung in there and stayed for the whole thing.
I’m not what you call a “big fan� of the original TV series, but I watched it as a kid, and when I got my first VCR in the mid-1980’s, I recorded show after show. I’m just not one of those guys who can recite all the episodes. I’m never that way about anything.
Good for me, because the only things this movie brings back are the obvious ones about the show – the lines “sorry about that chief�, “would you believe�, and “it’s the old blah blah blah trick�. Oh, there’s also the phone booth, the hall of closing doors, and a few other things, but the odd thing about this movie is that Steve Carell in playing the role of Maxwell Smart, is mostly not the character you remember, even if you’re only a casual fan of the show (more. . .)
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
Witnesses testify in killing of L.A. teenager
Two witnesses gave dramatic accounts Wednesday of how a high school football star was gunned down earlier this year near his Los Angeles home, opening a tense courtroom hearing packed with relatives of the victim and the alleged gunman.
Jamiel Shaw II, 17, was talking to his girlfriend on a cellphone when she overheard a voice ask him “Where are you from?” the teenage girl testified. There was no response and then the line went dead, she said.
Another witness testified that she watched a lone, hooded gunman approach Shaw on the street near his Arlington Heights home and fire a single shot. When Shaw fell, the gunman walked around him and delivered a final close-range shot to his head, she said. . .
Portland is home of ex-L.A. pedophile
A year ago this week, self-proclaimed pedophile Jack McClellan alarmed Southern California mothers who discovered that his Web site was listing prime locations to ogle little girls.
Although he never technically broke the law, McClellan was essentially run out of town within three months.
Fleeing to Portland, Ore., for its liberal, tolerant climate, McClellan told reporters that if he couldn’t make it there, he wouldn’t make it anywhere. . .
Students, parents aghast at Tesoro High cheating allegations
LAS FLORES – For as long as there have been tests and homework, there’s been cheating, say many students, parents and educators.
Whether it’s a student peeking over the shoulder of a classmate, or another copying the next day’s class assignment from a friend, students have always tried to cheat.
But charges that two Tesoro High seniors committed a slew of serious crimes in an attempt to cheat on tests and change school grades have shocked classmates, parents and authorities. . .
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Federal prosecution of illegal immigrants soars
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has sharply ratcheted up prosecutions of illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in the last year, with increases so dramatic that immigration offenses now account for as much as half the nation’s federal criminal caseload.
In the widening crackdown, administration officials prosecuted 9,350 illegal immigrants on federal criminal charges in March, up from 3,746 a year ago and an all-time high, according to statistics released Tuesday. Those convicted have received jail sentences averaging about one month.
The prosecutions are among the most visible steps in a larger effort that includes work-site raids, increased border patrols and the use of technology and fences. Often controversial, the patchwork of measures represents the administration’s response to failed congressional attempts last summer to overhaul federal immigration laws. . .
L.A. County supervisors demand report on child torture case; a third woman is arrested
Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday demanded an immediate investigation into why a 5-year-old South Los Angeles boy suffered “unbearable” abuse for two years without detection by authorities or social service agencies.
And, on the same day, Los Angeles police announced the arrest of a third suspect in the case — a 26-year-old babysitter who they say disfigured the boy’s hands by burning them on a stove.
Police say that La Tanya Monikue Jones also conspired with the boy’s mother, Starkeisha Brown, 24, and her live-in girlffriend, Krystal Denise Matthews, 21, to hide the abuse. . .
L.A. business leaders urging an increase in the state car tax
Lobbying in Sacramento this week, Los Angeles business leaders are calling on state officials to look at a combination of spending cuts and tax increases - including boosting the car tax - to balance the state’s projected $15.2 billion budget shortfall.
In a survey of its members, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce said the vehicle license fee - which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rode as an issue to the recall of former Gov. Gray Davis - should be reinstated to bring in an estimated $6 billion to help the state balance its $144.3 billion budget.
“What our members recognize is the magnitude of the problem calls for us to support something like this,” said board Chairman Tim McCallion, who led a delegation of business leaders on a lobbying trip to the Capitol this week. . .
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
State Republicans seek to roll back curbs on greenhouse gas emissions
SACRAMENTO — California has a huge deficit, a looming cash crisis, an angry public and pressure to raise taxes — and in this dismal state of affairs, the state’s minority Republicans see opportunity.
GOP lawmakers hope to use their leverage over the state budget, which cannot pass without some of their votes, to roll back landmark policies implemented by Democrats and the governor. Among them are curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, regulations banning the dirtiest diesel engines and rules dictating when employers must provide lunch breaks for workers.
None of those laws has any direct connection to the state budget; changing them will do nothing to close California’s $15.2-billion deficit. And the Democrats who control the Legislature already have rejected Republican proposals to delay or eliminate the laws through the regular legislative process. . .
Mexican farmers angry over FDA salmonella probe
MEXICO CITY — Farmers are mad enough to throw, well, rotten tomatoes at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is focusing heavily on Mexico as a potential source of the fruit that has sickened hundreds of people in the United States with salmonella.
Mexican tomatoes are putrefying in warehouses south of the border. Producers say they’re losing millions of dollars in export sales even though U.S. health officials haven’t discovered the pathogen in any of the Mexican samples they’ve tested.
“This situation is terrible,” said Antonio Ruiz, general manager of Agricola Caborita, a firm in the western state of Sinaloa that sells tomatoes to the American market. “We have hundreds of canceled orders. . . . We’re worried and angry because we know that our product isn’t to blame, yet we’re paying the consequences. . .
L.A.’s mayor orders report on illegally dumped trash
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered a comprehensive report Monday to find out why illegally dumped refuse has been allowed to sit for weeks in alleys in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
“The mayor’s view is that people should not have to wait for weeks to have trash picked up,” said Gil Duran, a spokesman for Villaraigosa, who was traveling in Israel.
Documenting the conditions in photographs and videos, The Times reported Monday that refuse — including dead animals — festered for weeks in some South Los Angeles alleys. At the same time, arrests for illegal dumping by investigators with the Department of Public Works, which is responsible for maintaining alleys, dropped from 359 in 2002 to just three so far this year. The officials blamed budget cuts for their inability to crack down on violators. . .
