Morgan Arevalo, 28, told officers that she had been at the Costa Mesa hotel voluntarily, the Newport Beach Police Department said.
She was reported missing from her home Sunday night.
ALSO:
Anti-violence resolution approved by L.A. Unified
Grandmother drove drunk with grandsons in car, police say
Borrego Sun editor, husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide
— Robert J. Lopez
Photo: Morgan Arevalo. Credit: Newport Beach Police Department
Two shooting victims told officers Tuesday night that they were shot by a gunman on a bike as they drove in their vehicle in South Los Angeles, police said.
The victims, two adult males, were in the vehicle with a woman when they flagged down a California Highway Patrol officer near Crenshaw Boulevard and West 57th Street in Hyde Park and told him about the shooting, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
One of the men was wounded in the thigh, and the other was struck in the arm, Officer Karen Rayner said.
She said both men were taken to hospital, where they were being treated for the non-life-threatening injuries.
The Los Angeles Police Department, which was handling the incident, said no other information was immediately available.
ALSO:
Anti-violence resolution approved by L.A. Unified
Grandmother drove drunk with grandsons in car, police say
Borrego Sun editor, husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide
-- Robert J. Lopez
twitter.com/LAJourno
Image: Map shows crimes reported near the area where the gunshot victims flagged down a California Highway Patrol officer. Credit: Los Angeles Times' Mapping L.A.
A new California law is expected to boost funds for health testing to protect swimmers from contaminated beach water.
The state Water Board will have the authority to provide up to $1.8 million a year for water quality tests at hundreds of beaches across the state until mid-2016 through a bill written by state Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) and signed into law last week by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The water board is likely to pay for the tests starting next year by increasing fees it collects from agencies that discharge waste water into the ocean. Drawing from those fees is considered more reliable than the state’s general fund, where the money has come from in the past.
The measure could mean a brighter, cleaner future for California’s beaches, which bring in an estimated $12 billion in tourism revenue each year.
A 1999 law requires local health officials to test beaches for illness-causing pathogens at least once a week during the long summer beach season and post advisories to warn swimmers when they don’t meet health standards. But state and county budget cuts have led beaches up and down the coast to scale back monitoring and in some places halt testing for months at a time, putting swimmers, surfers and divers at a greater risk of getting sick.
California officials have struggled to pay for beach testing since 2008, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated the $1 million the state had given the Department of Public Health each year to administer the program. Stimulus and bond money that has kept the tests going since then are set to run out by the end of the year.
The new law, which transfers more responsibility to the state Water Board, could lead to more consistent beach monitoring on popular stretches of coastline like Los Angeles County, where the tests have for years gone underfunded.
“In fact, we'd like them to expand testing,” said Justin Malan, executive director of the California Assn. of Environmental Health Administrators, which backed the legislation, “because in Southern California, the beaches are really year-round.”
ALSO:
Surfer who died off Camp Pendleton had heart attack
Chinese American food purveyors object to law banning shark fins
Coral reef preservation has a long history
--Tony Barboza
Photo: Children play in the water at Baby Beach in Dana Point in 2010. Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times
A man was shot dead in southeast Los Angeles County, authorities said Tuesday night.
The shooting occurred shortly before 6 p.m. in the 2300 block of Walter Street, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said.
Deputies were looking for at least two suspects. Late Tuesday, homicide detectives were at the scene gathering evidence.
The name and age of the victim were not released. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Since January 2007, at least 121 homicides have been reported within two miles of the shooting scene, according to a Times Homicide Report database.
Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at (323) 890-5500. Anonymous tips can be left at (800) 222-8477.
ALSO:
Anti-violence resolution approved by L.A. Unified
Grandmother drove drunk with grandsons in car, police say
Borrego Sun editor, husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide
— Robert J. Lopez
A reputed Santa Ana gang member was pistol-whipped with his own handgun and stabbed in the back by one of his victims in a foiled robbery attempt, police said Tuesday night.
The suspect, described as a juvenile, attempted to rob three residents after bursting into a home with another alleged gang member in the 400 block of South Parton Street in Santa Ana on Tuesday afternoon, police said.
"Where's the gold? Where's the gold?" the attackers shouted as they attempted to take gold, cellphones and other items from the victims, said Cpl. Anthony Bertagna of the Santa Ana Police Department.
As he looked for items, the juvenile fell while trying to climb a stepladder in a closet and dropped his gun, which accidentally fired a round into a wall. That prompted someone to call 911, police said.
One of the victims, meanwhile, grabbed a steak knife and stabbed the youth in the lower back. The two began to scuffle over the gun, and the attacker was struck at least twice in the head with the weapon, Bertagna said.
The two attackers attempted to flee and were apprehended in their car outside the home by officers who had responded to the 911 call.
ALSO:
Anti-violence resolution approved by L.A. Unified
Grandmother drove drunk with grandsons in car, police say
Borrego Sun editor, husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide
— Robert J. Lopez
Map shows location where the reputed gang member was stabbed and pistol-whipped. Credit: Google Maps
A inmate who slipped out of his handcuffs was found by deputies clinging to the undercarriage of a bus as it was leaving the Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center near Castaic, authorities said Tuesday night.
The deputies noticed that inmate Gamaliel Martinez, who had been handcuffed to three other prisoners, was missing early Tuesday morning, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said.
The deputies found Martinez under a department transportation bus. He had removed his blue jail shirt and was wearing a white T-shirt, the department said.
Martinez is serving a three-year sentence at Wasco State Prison for a robbery conviction and had been in the county jail while awaiting a court hearing Tuesday morning regarding additional robbery charges.
ALSO:
Anti-violence resolution approved by L.A. Unified
Grandmother drove drunk with grandsons in car, police say
Borrego Sun editor, husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide
— Robert J. Lopez
A Pasadena City College program that teaches Chinese language and culture is growing in popularity and prestige.
Once consisting of only four classes, the college’s Chinese Language Program now offers 18. The school plans to further expand the program next semester to include study abroad opportunities and a special course on doing business in China.
PCC is also the only school in Southern California authorized to administer the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, an international Mandarin Chinese proficiency exam required by the People’s Republic of China for those who wish to work or study there.
China’s growing influence in the global economy appears to be driving intense local interest in learning Mandarin — especially among older students who are professionals in various fields, Professor Cathy Wei told the Pasadena Sun.
--Joe Piasecki, Times Community News
ALSO:
Burglars report victim's pornography to police
Man used gun fiancee gave him to kill her, prosecutor says
Federal officials begin major crackdown on marijuana operations
Photo:Michelle Tang, 18, from fourth left, and other students take a Chinese calligraphy class at PCC in Pasadena on Wednesday, September 28, 2011. The class is part of PCC's Chinese Language Program (CPL). (Credit: Cheryl A. Guerrero)
The Australian government's goal of implementing a carbon tax passed its toughest test today as the lower house of Parliament overwhelmingly approved a package of bills that institutes a phased-in carbon tax, to be followed by a carbon-trading system.
The 18 bills now go to the Senate, where the law is all but assured of passage in mid-November.
According to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the system will reduce Australia's carbon emissions by 159 million tons by 2020. Australia is the largest per-capita carbon polluter, with an economy deeply dependent on coal.
The first phase of the law will tax carbon at $22.90 a ton beginning in the middle of next year. The surcharge will rise modestly until mid-2015, when the carbon-trading system will take effect. Other bills call for a national emissions caps, exempting farming and other agricultural sectors.
The tax will not extend to the price of gas for consumers, although rail, shipping and large trucking businesses will pay the tax indirectly on fuels such as diesel.
Australia’s biggest carbon emitters -- power companies, mining companies and industrial manufacturers -- immediately attacked the legislation, and the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, vowed a “pledge in blood” to repeal the law should he become prime minister.
The Australian law would go well beyond what the California Air Resources Board is considering. The board voted in August to reaffirm its cap-and-trade plan, which put the nation's first state carbon-trading program back on track.
California's on-again, off-again rules have been years in the making and are meant to complement AB 32, the state's landmark climate-change law that mandates a reduction in carbon pollution to 1990 levels by 2020. The air board adopted a preliminary carbon-trading plan in late 2008 but was sued by environmental justice groups in 2009.
The state plan calls for capping greenhouse gases at more than 600 industrial plants and allowing companies to buy and sell emissions permits. It is modeled on Europe's 6-year-old cap-and-trade system. California is considering whether to work with Canada under the Western Climate Initiative, a collaboration involving the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
California's program would be North America's biggest carbon market, three times larger than a utility-only system in 10 Northeastern states. By 2016, about $10 billion in carbon allowances are expected to be traded through the California market.
ALSO:
Clean natural gas? Not so fast, study says
Rising sea levels could take financial toll on California beaches
EPA scolded on greenhouse gas report review process
-- Julie Cart
Photo: People walk across the frozen Songhua River near smokestacks at Jiamusi in China's Heilongjiang province in 2005. Credit: Greg Baker / Associated Press
A new round of layoffs could be required at Los Angeles City Hall next year if estimates of future returns on pension fund investments are reduced, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa warned Tuesday.
The City Employees’ Retirement System pension board met Tuesday to consider decreasing the assumed annual rate of return for its $11-billion investment portfolio from 8% to 7.75%. The decision was postponed, however, after Villaraigosa and four City Council members sent a last-minute letter warning that such a move could cost the city budget $50 million next year.
“If the [pension] board adopts the proposed … change, the city’s deficit will likely increase to $300 million, necessitating the need for mitigation measures which would almost certainly include employee layoffs,” wrote the city’s Executive Employee Relations Committee, which is made up of Villaraigosa and council members Eric Garcetti, Bernard C. Parks, Jan Perry and Paul Koretz.
The civilian pension board, which has a majority of its members selected by Villaraigosa, will reconsider the proposal in two weeks.
Villaraigosa and the four council members sought the delay. They also asked for the cost of any downgrade in investment projections to be phased in over five years, reducing the effect on next year’s budget.
During Tuesday’s meeting, two pension board members – Elizabeth Greenwood and Ken Spiker – tried without success to kill the plan for downgrading the investment return. That move was rejected on a 5-to-2 vote.
Greenwood represents current employees, while Spiker represents retired employees.
ALSO:
Anti-violence resolution approved by L.A. Unified
Grandmother drove drunk with grandsons in car, police say
Borrego Sun editor, husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide
- David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall
A Boston-based private equity firm was fined $67,000 by L.A.'s city Ethics Commission on Tuesday for laundering campaign contributions during the 2009 election.
Investigators found that between June 2008 and September 2009, Alcion Ventures reimbursed employees thousands of dollars after they wrote checks to four politicians: Councilman Jack Weiss, who was running for city attorney; Ron Galperin and Chris Essel, who both waged unsuccessful campaigns for City Council; and the office-holder account of Councilman Richard Alarcon.
The reimbursements violated city law, which limits donors to $500 per candidate in council campaigns and $1,000 in citywide races.
Had the commission imposed the maximum penalty, Alcion would have been fined $125,000. That amount was reduced because the company came forward to admit wrongdoing, cooperated with investigators and had its employees give back the money, according to the commission’s report.
Alcion invested in a 12-story condominium project planned for Wetherly Drive and 3rd Street, according to the Ethics Commission report. That project, which has not yet been built, was a controversial issue in the 2009 race to replace Weiss.
The commission handed Alcion the penalty on the same day that it issued a fine of nearly $184,000 – the maximum available – to a donor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. That donor, Koreatown developer Alexander Hugh, has been charged with conspiring to commit campaign money laundering, forgery and procuring false documents.
ALSO:
Anti-violence resolution approved by L.A. Unified
Grandmother drove drunk with grandsons in car, police say
Borrego Sun editor, husband found dead in apparent murder-suicide
-- David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall
The latest review of water pollution data in California shows substantial jumps in toxic and pesticide contamination, the number of dirty beaches and tainted fish. But federal regulators attribute the rise to improved monitoring and data collection by the state rather than a tide of new pollution.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, states are required to monitor water quality and periodically submit the results to the Environmental Protection Agency. California's 2010 list, which the EPA finalized Tuesday, shows a number of dramatic increases compared with the 2006 list.
--Waters with toxic pollution increased 170%.
--Locations in which bacteria levels were unsafe for swimmers climbed 90%.
--Waters fouled by trash jumped 76%.
--The number of waterways tainted by pesticides increased 36%.
--The number of waters inhabited by fish unsafe to eat was 24% higher. Mercury contamination was up the most.
Although many of the more remote streams, rivers and coastline lack monitoring data, EPA Water Division Director Alexis Strauss said “California has done a a superb job" of assembling pollution information. The state used 22,000 data sets to compile the new tally, seven times the number reviewed for the previous listing.
More than 1,000 waterways are deemed "impaired" by pollution of one kind or another. “To me it was fairly shocking,” EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld said of the new figures. "That really does speak to the enormity of the problem in front of us."
ALSO:
Heal the Bay: Long Beach water quality improves dramatically
$4.4-million settlement reached for San Gabriel Valley cleanup
California toxic waste case settled
--Bettina Boxall
Photo: A man wades between Surfrider Beach and Malibu Lagoon in Malibu. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times
Two new studies add to the growing body of evidence that taking extra doses of vitamins can do more harm than good.
A study of vitamin E and selenium use among 35,000 men found that the vitamin users had a slightly higher risk of developing prostate cancer, according to a report published Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. A separate study of 38,000 women in Iowa found a higher risk of dying during a 19-year period among older women who used multivitamins and other supplements compared with women who did not, according to a new report in The Archives of Internal Medicine.
The findings are the latest in a series of disappointing research results showing that high doses of vitamins are not helpful in warding off disease.
“You go back 15 or 20 years, and there were thoughts that antioxidants of all sorts might be useful,” said Dr. Eric Klein, a Cleveland Clinic physician and national study coordinator for the prostate cancer and vitamin E study. “There really is not any compelling evidence that taking these dietary supplements above and beyond a normal dietary intake is helpful in any way, and this is evidence that it could be harmful.”
The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial, known as the Select trial, was studying whether selenium and vitamin E, either alone or in combination, could lower a man’s risk for prostate cancer. It was stopped early in 2008 after a review of the data showed no benefit, although there was a suggestion of increased risk of prostate cancer and diabetes that wasn’t statistically significant. The latest data, based on longer-term follow-up of the men in the trial, found that users of vitamin E had a 17 percent higher risk of prostate cancer compared with men who didn’t take the vitamin, a level that was statistically significant. There was no increased risk of diabetes.
The dose being studied in the Select trial was 200 micrograms of selenium and 400 international units of vitamin E. By comparison, most multivitamins contain about 50 micrograms of selenium and 30 to 200 international units of vitamin E.
Among the women in the Iowa study, about 63 percent used supplements at the start of the study, but that number had grown to 85 percent by 2004. Use of multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc and copper were all associated with increased risk of death. The findings translate to a 2.4 percent increase in absolute risk for multivitamin users, a 4 percent increase associated with vitamin B6, a 5.9 percent increase for folic acid, and increases of 3 to 4 percent in risk for those taking supplements of iron, folic acid, magnesium and zinc.
“Based on existing evidence, we see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements,” the authors wrote.
Everyone needs vitamins, which are essential nutrients that the body can’t produce on its own. But in the past few years, several high-quality studies have failed to show that high doses of vitamins, at least in pill form, help prevent chronic disease or prolong life.
A January 2009 editorial in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute noted that most studies of vitamins had shown no cancer benefits, but some had shown unexpected harms. Two studies of beta carotene found higher lung cancer rates, and another study suggested a higher risk of precancerous polyps among users of folic acid compared with those in a placebo group.
In 2007, The Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed mortality rates in randomized trials of antioxidant supplements. In 47 trials involving 181,000 participants, the rate of dying was 5 percent higher among the antioxidant users. The main culprits were vitamin A, beta carotene and vitamin E; vitamin C and selenium seemed to have no meaningful effect.
The Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to sweeping revisions in the way it teaches students who are learning English as well as black students, to settle a federal civil rights investigation into whether the district was denying the students a quality education.
The settlement closes what was the Obama administration’s first civil rights investigation launched by the Department of Education, and officials said Tuesday it could serve as a model for other school districts around the country.
“What happens in L.A. really does set trends for across the nation. More and more school districts are dealing with this challenge,” said Russlynn Ali, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights.
The Department of Education launched the probe last year, at first to determine if ESL students, most of whom are Latino, were receiving adequate instruction. The nation’s second-largest school system has more students learning English, about 195,000, than any other in the United States -- about 29% of the district’s overall enrollment. Later, investigators widened the probe to include black students, who make up about 10% of the district’s enrollment.
The settlement does not accuse the district of discriminating against the students. But it requires a top-to-bottom revision of the district’s Master Plan for English Learners. The goal is to let the district develop the details, under continuing oversight from the Department of Education.
Under the settlement, the district for the first time will examine the proficiency of students who are judged to have successfully learned English. Many of these students subsequently flounder academically. The district will also focus more on students who have reached high school without mastering the English skills necessary to enroll in a college-preparatory curriculum.
The district also agreed to provide ESL and black students with better teachers as well as technology and library resources.
Focusing specifically on black students, federal officials are demanding the LAUSD “eliminate the disproportionality in the discipline imposed on African American students” and to “minimize subjectivity” in school discipline, according to the settlement.
“I was aghast at how disproportionately African American students are disciplined in this district,” Ali said.
ALSO:
Earthquake: 3.1 quake strikes near Mecca
Endeavour astronauts talk about shuttle coming to L.A.
Pot brownies sent to memorial were favored by man who passed away
--Howard Blume
Any occupation force needs to be resupplied, and so the organizers of Occupy San Diego have put out a plea for items needed by the several hundred protesters camped out behind City Hall.
Food (vegetables, fruit and instant coffee, mostly), bedding materials, and things to make signs and posters are listed as necessary supplies on the Occupy San Diego website.
And for needed medical supplies, the website lists hand sanitizer, Benadryl antihistamine, and condoms.
RELATED:
Full coverage: Protests around the nation
Anti-greed protesters march to Rupert Murdoch's place
Wall Street, slammed by protests, may soon feel job-loss pain
--Tony Perry in San Diego
Photo: Occupy San Diego protesters at City Hall plaza. Credit: Tony Perry / Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday to create programs in high schools that would teach students about healthy dating and how to avoid abusive relationships.
Although the board voted in favor of the program and said it would allocate money for it, no funds have been designated yet.
Board member Steven Zimmer said the program could cost about $2 million per year.
Patricia Giggans, executive director of Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit organization that provides anti-dating violence programs in some district schools and worked with Zimmer in drafting the resolution, said its work would not be over until the program is funded.
Thank you: A man sits for a portrait in Pershing Square in this Sept. 18 photo by Derriel Almario.
Every day of 2011, we're featuring reader-submitted photos of Southern California Moments. Follow us on Twitter and visit the Southern California Moments homepage for more on this series.
Jurors in the Michael Jackson case saw an autopsy photo of the singer's body Tuesday as a medical examiner testified that the singer probably could not have given himself the lethal dose of the surgical anesthetic blamed for his death.
The testimony of the medical examiner, Dr. Christopher Rogers, contradicts what attorneys for Dr. Conrad Murray have told jurors in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter trial –- that Jackson awoke while his doctor wasn’t looking and gave himself propofol, the anesthetic, causing his own death.
Murray's statement to police that he was gone for a mere two minutes before returning to find Jackson not breathing made it unlikely that the singer administered the drug himself, Rogers said.
Conrad Murray witnesses: Who's who
"You’d have to assume that Mr. Jackson woke up, although he was at least to some extent under the influence of propofol and other sedatives, he was able to somehow administer propofol to himself," Rogers testified.
Given the time it would taken for the drug to make its way through Jackson's body and take effect, Rogers said that scenario was "less reasonable" than the possibility that Murray mistakenly gave Jackson an excessive dose.
The editor of the Borrego Sun and her estranged husband were found dead in their home in Borrego Springs late Monday in an apparent murder-suicide, officials said Tuesday.
Judy Winter Meier, 61, and her husband, James Meier, 59, were found dead after the San Diego County Sheriff's Department received a call from a newspaper employee asking to check on the couple.
Judy Meier was found dead in the kitchen, her husband on a couch in the living room. The couple, married for nearly 40 years, had recently filed for divorce.
Authorities believe Jim Meier, a former ranger at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, killed his wife and then commited suicide.
Judy Meier had been editor of the paper for more than two decades, when it was owned by the Copley Press and then when it was bought by Borrego Springs resident Patrick Meehan, who serves as the newspaper's publisher.
Published twice a monthy, the newspaper has a circulation of approximately 4,000.
Meier prided herself on being an "old-school journalist." She still used a manual typewriter.
"Get your facts, get 'em quick and get 'em accurate," she once said when asked to describe her journalistic credo.
Borrego Springs, which is 100 miles northeast of San Diego in the Borrego Valley, is surrounded by the Anza Borrego Desert State Park. The area has a year-round population of approximately 4,000, but the population swells in the winter when "snowbirds" arrive to enjoy the warm weather.
ALSO:
'Austin Powers' actor allegedly kills sex offender in prison
Michael Jackson autopsy photo shown to jurors during testimony
Rand reconsiders pot-shop study after L.A. city attorney complains
--Tony Perry in San Diego
A San Juan Capistrano city councilman who was accused of plagiarism in several columns for an online news website has been dismissed from his job as political science instructor at a local college, according to published reports.
It’s unclear why Derek Reeve was released from his teaching job several weeks into the semester at Concordia University in Irvine, the San Juan Capistrano Patch reported.
Since winning office last year, Reeve has become controversial for proposing the open carrying of unloaded weapons in San Juan Capistrano parks and for naming his dog after Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.
Concordia did not return a Times phone call and, when asked about the Concordia job, Reeve wrote in an email to The Times: “I am not at liberty to comment. Hopefully that will change in the coming weeks.”
Reeve has been accused by the Patch, owned by AOL and the Huffington Post, of lifting large chunks of several blog posts from other sources without attribution.
In a Sept. 26 column, San Juan Capistrano Patch editor Jenna Chandler said she found “dozens and dozens” of lifted paragraphs. In one case, she wrote, “an entire post submitted by Reeve matched content from other publications. In others, as much as two-thirds of Reeve's essays were a patchwork of paragraphs identical” to material published elsewhere.
Chandler said the Patch had ceased publishing Reeve’s blog columns. His published posts remain up, but include the disclaimer: "Patch has learned that many of the paragraphs in the blog appear to be lifted from other publications without attribution."
Reeve referred The Times to a column he wrote for the Orange County Register.
In it, he wrote that he “carelessly submitted previously published material” for a Patch blog post.
“This was a blog worthy of Facebook, not a formal article, yet now the editor has the chutzpa to compare this to a student's thesis, which is like comparing apples to gorillas,” Reeve wrote.
ALSO:
Earthquake: 3.1 quake strikes near Mecca
Endeavour astronauts talk about shuttle coming to L.A.
Pot brownies sent to memorial were favored by man who passed away
-- Sam Quinones
The Los Angeles City Ethics Commission on Tuesday fined a Koreatown developer $183,750 -– the maximum penalty allowed -- for his role in an alleged money laundering scheme carried out in support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s reelection campaign.
The Ethics Commission determined that Alexander Hugh collected $1,000 checks for Villaraigosa’s campaign from 18 contributors and then reimbursed each of those donors. That effort violated the city’s fund-raising law, which limits such donations to no more than $1,000 to a citywide candidate.
Hugh’s lawyer had asked for leniency, saying his client had contributed to the city’s economy by building “numerous” real estate projects and had suffered financial setbacks in recent years. That request did not persuade Commissioner Valerie Vanaman, who described the case as “egregious.”
“This is about as blatant a money laundering scheme as I think I’ve encountered to date,” she said.
Prosecutors said they had no evidence to show that Villaraigosa, who was reelected easily in 2009, had any knowledge of Hugh’s activities. Hugh took part in the mayor’s trade mission to Asia in 2006. The City Council approved a hotel project planned by Hugh’s company the following year and in 2008, Hugh raised money for Villaraigosa’s reelection.
A defense attorney representing Dr. Conrad Murray on Tuesday questioned a Los Angeles Police Department detective about the agency’s early investigation into the death of Michael Jackson.
Attorney Ed Chernoff asked Det. Scott Smith, the lead investigator on the case, about how forthcoming Murray was during his police interview two days after the pop star’s death.
Smith, along with a second detective, spoke to Murray at a Marina Del Rey hotel. A recording of the interview was played over two days concluding Tuesday morning.
Conrad Murray witnesses: Who's who
“Did Dr. Murray make any statement about the things he didn’t want to talk about?” Chernoff asked.
“No,” Smith responded.
“Any question was wide open for you to ask?” the attorney asked.
“Yes,” the detective said.
In today’s 18 and Under column, Dr. Perri Klass writes about new science of bilingualism and how scientists are teasing out the earliest differences between brains exposed to one language and brains exposed to two.
The learning of language — and the effects on the brain of the language we hear — may begin even earlier than 6 months of age.
Janet Werker, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, studies how babies perceive language and how that shapes their learning. Even in the womb, she said, babies are exposed to the rhythms and sounds of language, and newborns have been shown to prefer languages rhythmically similar to the one they’ve heard during fetal development.
In one recent study, Dr. Werker and her collaborators showed that babies born to bilingual mothers not only prefer both of those languages over others — but are also able to register that the two languages are different.
In addition to this ability to use rhythmic sound to discriminate between languages, Dr. Werker has studied other strategies that infants use as they grow, showing how their brains use different kinds of perception to learn languages, and also to keep them separate.
To learn more read the full column, “Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language,” and then please join the discussion below.
If Monday night was any indication, it’s hard to get much sleep at the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall.
Well past midnight, 100 or more campers were still holding a spirited conversation about a skirmish in Boston, where dozens of their compatriots were arrested late Monday night by police in riot gear.
As I dozed off in my tent, pitched under L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s office, I heard a drumbeat echo off downtown buildings as occupiers circled the block chanting “Solidarity with Boston, End Police Brutality.”
Ten days into the local demonstration, its leaders admit they’re still trying to harness all the angst, disillusionment and anger they feel and turn it into a lasting movement that changes the culture and the economic and political processes.
It’s a tall order, for sure. But I got the very clear impression from organizers of Occupy Los Angeles that the rebellion has only just begun. I’ll have lots more in my column on Wednesday.
In the meantime, feel free to weigh in here on corporate wealth, widening economic disparity, political paralysis, etc., all of which are talked about constantly -- and even through the night -– at Occupy Los Angeles.
RELATED:
Several hundred protesters continue 'Occupy San Diego'
Hundreds of protesters take over downtown intersection
Los Angeles lawmakers cheer on protesters outside City Hall
-- Steve Lopez at City Hall
Photo: Signs at the Occupy Los Angeles encampment. Credit: Steve Lopez / Los Angeles Times.
David Considine, 47, an employee of the Simi Valley Unified School District since August 2005, was arrested Oct. 6 in connection with the Sept. 29 robbery of a 7-11 store in Simi Valley, KTLA-TV reported.
Police say Considine took an unknown amount of cash from the store and fled in a vehicle. No one was injured.
He was being held at the Ventura County Jail on a charge of felony second-degree robbery, with bail set at $50,000.
Considine was placed on administrative leave, KTLA reported.
ALSO:
Earthquake: 3.1 quake strikes near Mecca
Endeavour astronauts talk about shuttle coming to L.A.
Pot brownies sent to memorial were favored by man who passed away
-- Abby Sewell
An apparently naked man who ran onto the 10 Freeway and was killed was identified as Evan Andrew Dooley, 25, of Los Angeles, coroner’s officials said Tuesday.
Dooley was killed about 4:45 a.m. Monday just east of La Brea Avenue.
A California Highway Patrol incident log showed reports of a naked man running on the roadside at about the time of the accident.
Several people called the CHP beginning at 4:39 a.m. to report a man removing his clothes and walking into lanes of traffic on the freeway.
CHP officers found the man had been struck by a pickup truck. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
ALSO:
Man with knife shot by LAPD officer in Mar Vista
Endeavour astronauts talk about shuttle coming to L.A.
Pot brownies sent to memorial were favored by man who passed away
-- Abby Sewell
Amber Miller, a veteran marathon runner, did not have much time to celebrate after finishing the Chicago Marathon on Sunday: She had a baby to deliver.
Ms. Miller, 27, had competed in two smaller races while 17 weeks pregnant. But on Sunday she combined two major events in one day. Running while 39 weeks pregnant, she finished the marathon in 6 hours and 25 minutes, then gave birth to a baby boy about seven hours later. The race was the easier of the two, she said at a news conference on Monday. As the Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Miller said she didn’t feel any ill effects from her 6-hour and 25-minute effort during the marathon, except sore feet and a few blisters. She set an easy pace, running two miles, then walking the next two — finishing three hours off her personal best for a marathon.
“I don’t feel anything from the marathon, but I do feel what’d you expect after giving birth,” she said during a Monday press conference.
She said some other racers did double takes when they noticed the visibly pregnant runner in the white T-shirt jogging along, but many offered encouraging comments.
Medical workers and race volunteers along the course seemed startled to see her.
“They were all watching me, I did notice that,” said Miller.
While she experienced some contractions during the race, she’s not sure she actually was in labor because she typically feels some contractions when she runs while pregnant.
Ms. Miller is not the first woman to combine pregnancy and marathon training. Paula Radcliffe, the world record holder in the women’s marathon, ran throughout her pregnancy in 2006 and has trained with Kara Goucher, another elite marathoner who kept up a training schedule while pregnant. Ms. Radcliffe ran twice a day during the first five months of her pregnancy in 2006, then cut back as she approached her due date. While there have been no studies looking specifically at the effects of intense training on pregnancy, guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services say that women can sustain the level of physical activity they engaged in prior to pregnancy.
Women are generally encouraged to exercise during pregnancy, but those who have not previously been very active should stick to light activity like walking, said Dr. Mary Rosser, an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at Montefiore Medical Center who has counseled many patients who were pregnant athletes. Dr. Rosser said Ms. Miller, the Chicago marathoner, was a conditioned athlete who was aware of the risks and took precautions, like walking through parts of the race instead of running.
“It should be individualized,” Dr. Rosser said. “The woman needs to be in tune or aware of her body and her baby and communicate openly with her doctor. Most women I’ve seen are not at that level of conditioning. She’s used to running long distances, and she didn’t just start doing it. She set realistic goals, so it may be O.K. for her, but maybe not for the average everyday pregnant woman.”
To learn more about Ms. Miller’s experience, read the full story, Woman Gives Birth After Running Chicago Marathon, and then please join the discussion below.
A Los Angeles police officer shot and wounded a man with a knife after a traffic stop Tuesday morning in Mar Vista.
The shooting took place about 2:15 a.m. when an officer stopped a driver at Washington Place and Centinela Avenue, said Officer Rosario Herrera.
During the stop, the man grew combative and wielded a knife, police said.
The officer shot and wounded him, Herrera said.
He was taken to a hospital in stable condition, she said.
It was unclear how many officers were involved in the confrontation, she said, but no officers were injured.
ALSO:
Three unsuspecting seniors eat pot brownies
Two pit bulls killed after attacking retired fire captain
Several hundred protesters continue 'Occupy San Diego'
-- Abby Sewell
Photo: Scene of officer-involved shooting in Mar Vista. Credit: KTLA-TV.
A 41-year-old Pasadena woman was arrested Sunday after police used a global positioning system to track her to a stolen cellphone, officials said.
Yesenia Sanchez, according to the Glendale News-Press, was arrested and cited after admitting to finding the $525 phone outside a yard sale in La Crescenta and not asking its owner whether it was on sale because she was “afraid they would lie to her and keep it for themselves,” according to Glendale police reports.
The owner told police she placed her Motorola Droid 3 cellphone on top of a storage bin inside her garage as she tended to customers at her yard sale, but noticed it was missing about 2:45 p.m.
The cellphone owner helped police track it down by using an application used to locate lost or stolen phones, eventually tracing it to a home on the 1700 block of North Allen Avenue in Pasadena. The tracking system selected the same address three times, but then the phone appeared to be turned off. Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said the cellphone’s owner gave officers permission to access the tracking system.
ALSO:
Three unsuspecting seniors eat pot brownies
Two pit bulls killed after attacking retired fire captain
Several hundred protesters continue 'Occupy San Diego'
--Veronica Rocha, Times Comunity News
A shallow magnitude 3.4 earthquake was reported Tuesday morning eight miles from Ludlow, CA, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 3:12 a.m. Pacific time at a depth of 3.1 miles.
According to the USGS, the epicenter was 13 miles from Bagdad, 33 miles from Twentynine Palms Base, 40 miles from Twentynine Palms and 111 miles from Las Vegas, NV.
In the past 10 days, there have been two earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.
Read more about California earthquakes on L.A. Now.
— Ken Schwencke
Image credit: Google Maps
The outcry among many physicians and patients over a government panel’s recent announcement that healthy men should no longer receive P.S.A. blood testing to detect prostate cancer is rooted in a long and impassioned history among cancer screening advocates that early detection must always save lives. But as science has taught us, that’s not always the case.
As early as 1913, physicians and laypeople formed the American Society for the Control of Cancer, which later became the American Cancer Society, bearing this hopeful message: “With early recognition and prompt treatment, the patient’s life may often be saved.” The idea had some scientific basis. Patients whose cancers appeared to be less extensive at diagnosis lived longer, on average, than those whose cancer was more widespread. The organization put this philosophy in action, publicizing a series of “danger signals” that suggested possible early warning signs of cancer, including breast lumps, irregular bleeding, sores that did not heal and persistent weight loss. “Delay kills!” posters bluntly warned.
Early detection achieved perhaps its greatest triumph with the introduction of the Pap smear in the 1940s. Annual scraping of a woman’s cervix detected precancerous cells that could be eliminated before actual cancer emerged. Thanks in large part to Pap testing, deaths from cervical cancer fell sharply.
Armed with this example, cancer society officials and cancer specialists after World War II began exploring other technologies that could find cancers earlier, like breast self-examination and mammography for breast cancer and rectal examinations to pick up cancerous lumps in men’s prostates.
Yet around this same time, research emerged that questioned the cancer society’s original assumption that cancer was a local disease that spread in a gradual and orderly fashion. Scientists had found cancer cells in the blood of patients with seemingly tiny, localized cancers, suggesting that cancer cells could spread silently early in the course of disease. In that case, so-called early detection might not really be early, or of much value. Researchers coined the term “biological predeterminism” to underscore how the cellular makeup of a given cancer — rather than when it was found — was most important in determining survival.
This was not a message, however, that people wanted to hear. The “war on cancer,” which was formally declared in the 1970s, was predicated on the optimistic message of early detection and treatment. How could it be reconciled with the idea that nothing could be done to better one’s chances of survival?
Patients whose cancers had been detected by new screening strategies like mammograms and Pap smears, and then cured, were particularly upset. To many, the notion that their proactive efforts had not saved their lives — that they would have done just as well if their cancers had been picked up later — defied sense.
In recent decades, we have learned just how complex and variable cancer may be. In some instances, malignant or precancerous cells disappear by themselves. Cancers of the same organ, whether it’s the breast, prostate, lungs or otherwise, can be very sensitive — or stubbornly resistant — to the same treatment.
Some screening tests, too, are better than others. Physicians had long obtained chest X-rays and sputum samples to screen for lung cancer in healthy patients, but studies in the 1960s showed that these tests did not lower mortality from lung cancer; researchers are now studying whether CT scans may be a better screening option. Routine colonoscopy, on the other hand, has been shown to lower the death rate from colon cancer in people over age 50. Earlier is sometimes better, sometimes not.
So where do we go from here? During my training as a physician, I learned the early detection mantra. I have ordered mammograms for women in their 40s and P.S.A. tests for men in their 50s. The notion that there might be undetected cancer in any of my patients makes me uncomfortable.
But it would be wrong to ignore the government task force’s conclusions. Given that slow-growing cancers may not need to be detected early to be cured, and that fast-growing ones may be fatal regardless of when they are found, the fact that its review of the available epidemiological data shows that P.S.A. testing does not save lives from prostate cancer should not come as a huge surprise.
Dr. Arthur I. Holleb, a surgeon and medical director of the American Cancer Society in the 1960s and ’70s, and a staunch defender of early detection, once memorably wrote that epidemiology was “the practice of medicine without the tears.” He was frustrated because he had seen so many unscreened patients die, while patients who were screened were saved. To him, forgoing screening, even when large-scale studies showed that screening may not work, seemed unconscionable. But his logic was based on anecdote, and falsely assumed that cure was necessarily linked to screening. Prospective randomized clinical trials, like those done for P.S.A. testing, seek to avoid this type of bias.
We all wish that finding prostate cancer earlier would lead to better outcomes. But as I will tell my patients, that is no reason to keep on ordering the P.S.A. test.
Dr. Barron H. Lerner, professor of medicine and public health at Columbia University Medical Center, is the author of “The Breast Cancer Wars” and, this month, “One for the Road: Drunk Driving Since 1900.”
