Inglewood police seized 35 pounds of crystal methamphetamine with an estimated value of $1.7 million, authorities said Thursday night.
Two men were arrested Thursday on suspicion of narcotics trafficking in connection with the seizure, said Lt. Neal Cochran of the Inglewood Police Department.
The names of the men were not released. Crystal meth is a smokeable form of the powerful drug.
Cochran declined to provide additional details, citing an ongoing investigation.
Two people have been detained for questioning in connection with shots that were fired at two Los Angeles officers, but police were still searching the area where the attack occurred, authorities said Thursday night.
The two plainclothes narcotics officers saw two men spray painting a building about 7:25 p.m. near Oakwood Avenue and North Heliotrope Drive in East Hollywood, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
One of the men fired several rounds at the officers, but no one was injured, LAPD Officer Karen Rayner said.
It was unclear what, if any, role the two people being questioned may have had in connection with the attack. No other details were immediately available.
Pasadena police shut down a sophisticated marijuana-growing operation and seized more than 125 plants after serving search warrants in several cities, authorities said Thursday evening.
As part of a two-month investigation, officers discovered the growing facility in a Baldwin Park building that was outfitted with special lighting, watering systems and other equipment used to grow marijuana, the Pasadena Police Department said.
Police said Vahe Sargsyan, 25, of North Hollywood, and Hakob Javasarian, 35, of Pasadena, were arrested on suspicion of growing marijuana. The men were being held in the Pasadena jail in lieu of $30,000 bail each.
Officers served search warrants in Pasadena, North Hollywood and Baldwin Park.
A shallow magnitude 3.9 earthquake was reported Thursday evening one mile from Berkeley, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 8:16 p.m. at a depth of 5.6 miles.
According to the Geological Survey, the epicenter was three miles from Albany, three miles from Emeryville and 11 miles from San Francisco City Hall.
In the last 10 days, there has been one earthquake magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.
The two officers saw two males tagging a wall when one of them fired several rounds at the officers, said LAPD Officer Karen Rayner. The two males took off running.
Police saturated the area as a helicopter circled overhead while officers looked for the suspects. No other details were immediately available.
It was just after sunrise on Dec. 23, 1941, when the tanker Montebello was hit by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine just off the Central California coast, taking 3 million gallons of crude oil with it as it sank.
All 38 crewmen aboard the Union Oil Co. vessel survived and rowed their way ashore. But since the World War II attack -- just weeks after Pearl Harbor -- the tanker has rested 900 feet below the ocean surface off the Cambria coast.
In recent years, worries have mounted that if crude began to leak from the 440-foot vessel it could foul the state’s waters and shoreline, creating an environmental catastrophe. Past surveys have repeatedly shown no evidence of leaking.
But now, after nearly two weeks of the most advanced testing yet, a team of researchers has concluded that not only does the vessel pose no risk, the oil is long gone.
State and federal officials announced Thursday they had found virtually no evidence of oil inside the tanker’s cargo and fuel tanks and said the sunken vessel can be scratched off the list of possible threats to the California coast.
“It turned out to be the best possible news,” said Andrew Hughan, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game, whose Office of Spill Prevention and Response took part in the joint operation with the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“At the end of the day, the Montebello is filled with seawater.”
One mystery lingers: Where did the 3 million gallons of crude go?
The answer may never be known, but scientists have developed one scenario: Some of the oil leaked out and evaporated within the first few days after the boat went down. The bulk of it probably gurgled to the surface as the ship sank, drifting south and away from the shoreline, scientists suggested.
Whatever was left inside might have washed ashore but, scattered so widely, it probably went unnoticed.
The California Air Resources Board, after three years of contentious debate, on Thursday approved the nation's first state-run cap-and-trade program, which will for the first time put a price on carbon emissions.
The unanimous vote paves the way for the carbon trading market, which begins in 2013 and will eventually require 85% of the state's largest polluters to either emit less carbon or purchase credits on a market that the air board will regulate.
The market is projected to exchange about $10 billion in carbon allowances by 2016, which would make it second largest in the world behind the European Union.
The program is part of AB 23, the state's 2006 climate change law that mandates a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Said board Chairwoman Mary Nichols: "We've done something important."
In November 2005, I wrote an article about two teenage girls, raised in different families, who discovered they are the genetic children of the same sperm donor. The girls, JoEllen Marsh and Danielle Pagano, met through the Donor Sibling Registry, a Web site that has connected thousands of half-siblings conceived through donor insemination.
At the time, it seemed unlikely that the girls would ever meet their biological father — known to them only as “Donor 150 of the California Cryobank.”
But as it turned out, Donor 150 just happened to be reading a discarded copy of The New York Times that Sunday. He choked on his coffee when he recognized the name of the sperm bank and his donor number on the front page of the paper. Fifteen months later, he contacted JoEllen and Danielle.
It was a moment that they had fantasized about for a long time. That week, I wrote about their first phone call with the man who had supplied half of their DNA, now known to them by his actual name, Jeffrey Harrison.
At that point, I stopped following the story, in part because I had other projects to attend to. But it was also because it had become — well, complicated. Mr. Harrison, whose donor profile described him as a six-foot-tall actor who liked yoga and animals, lived in an R.V. in Venice, Calif. He had posed for Playgirl during his sperm-donor days, was an unabashed believer in a host of conspiracy theories and supported himself and his small menagerie with odd jobs.
I had written about the growing number of donor-conceived children who, grappling with questions of identity and health risks, are seeking out their donors and lobbying to prohibit anonymity in sperm and egg donation. Yet the case of Donor 150 and his offspring made me question the value of transparency. I felt protective of Danielle and JoEllen, who used to look at men who fit their donor’s description in train stations, restaurants — indeed, anywhere — and wonder if that was their biological father. I felt protective of Mr. Harrison, a gentle and kindhearted man who might be hurt by his unusual decision to reach out.
But the producers of “Donor Unknown,’’ a documentary being shown on “Independent Lens” on PBS, did not shrink from the situation’s complexity. The film, which had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, follows JoEllen, Danielle and three other offspring of Donor 150 as they get to know Mr. Harrison. If it does not provide a pat ending, it does show a range of ways to forge family with a biological parent who is not what you expected.
When she finally visits him in Venice, JoEllen is touched by the small presents Mr. Harrison offers. “Him coming forward and wanting to meet all of us and share his life with us means he’s more than just a donor,’’ she says.
Danielle, who visited separately, sees her own sense of adventure as coming from her biological father, but also a cautionary tale of what might happen to her if she doesn’t choose a clear life path.
Even Fletcher, one of the donor children who seems most adamant about holding Mr. Harrison at arm’s length (“I don’t think I’m going to carry on any sort of dad-son relationship with him,’’ he says) takes solace from the replacement of fantasy with fact about the other half of his genetic identity: “It’s not these crazy ideas that I created in my head anymore,” he says.
And Mr. Harrison, who rises to the occasion as his solitary life is suddenly filled during the visits, sprucing up the R.V. and giving beach tours, seems pleased to think of himself as a “fun uncle.’’
Wendy Kramer, the founder of the Web registry that made all this possible, says that Mr. Harrison is not typical of the sperm donors who have come forward on her site. Most, recruited on college campuses, end up in professional jobs, and many have families. But how to navigate such relationships, no matter what a donor’s life circumstances, is still very much new ground.
Perhaps most striking to me in the film was that, as the siblings sought to know a biological parent — the bond that seems most primal — it was their bonds with one another that emerged as unequivocally the strongest. One of the siblings, Roxanne, confesses that she “stalked” the others on Facebook while deciding whether to reveal herself to them.
“It’s not stalking if you’re just trying to see what your siblings look like,’’ another assures her.
Though they enjoy noticing the physical and personality traits they have in common — wide foreheads, easygoing natures, love of animals — there is a hint that it may not necessarily be the shared genes that tie them so closely.
“You’re the first sibs of mine that are donor-conceived that I’ve ever met,’’ one tells the others after a group meeting with Mr. Harrison. “But you’re also the first people that are donor-conceived that I’ve ever met. So it’s sort of interesting, just that shared experience.’’
Six years after their first, seven-hour phone conversation, Danielle and JoEllen still talk daily. Danielle, 22, has just graduated from college and is moving to Cairo on Monday to look for a job helping refugees. JoEllen, 21, who is still in school, is also studying Arabic. They are planning another of what they call a “donor one-five-oh reunion’’ with the other siblings in the coming year.
I was happy for the chance the film’s release gave me to get back in touch with them this week. I needn’t have worried. They’re doing great.
“Donor Unknown” will be shown nationally tonight at 10 p.m. (check local listings) and in New York on Sunday at 11 p.m. on WNET-TV.
A major study of nearly 360,000 cellphone users in Denmark found no increased risk of brain tumors with long-term use.
Although the data, collected from one of the largest-ever studies of cellphone use, are reassuring, the investigators noted that the design of the study focused on cellphone subscriptions rather than actual use, so it is unlikely to settle the debate about cellphone safety. A small to moderate increase in risk of cancer among heavy users of cellphones for 10 to 15 years or longer still “cannot be ruled out,” the investigators wrote.
The findings, published in the British medical journal BMJ as an update of a 2007 report, come nearly five months after a World Health Organization panel concluded that cellphones are “possibly carcinogenic.” Last year, a 13-country study called Interphone also found no overall increased risk but reported that participants with the highest level of cellphone use had a 40 percent higher risk of glioma, an aggressive type of brain tumor. (Even if the elevated risk of glioma is confirmed, the tumors are relatively rare, and thus individual risk remains minimal.)
The Danish study is important because it matches data from a national cancer registry with mobile phone contracts beginning in 1982, the year the phones were introduced in Denmark, until 1995. Because it used a computerized cohort that was tracked through registries and digitized subscriber data, it avoided the need to contact individuals and thus eliminated problems related to selection and recall bias common in other studies.
However, the major weakness of the study is that it counted cellphone subscriptions rather than actual use by individuals, and failed to count people who had corporate subscriptions or who used cellphones without a long-term contract. Those small details could have diluted any association between cellphone use and cancer risk, the investigators conceded.
An accompanying editorial noted that although the results are reassuring, they must be viewed in the context of about 15 previous studies on cellphones and cancer risk, including those that did detect an association between heavy cellphone use and certain brain tumors.
Anders Ahlbom, a professor of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and an author of the editorial, said in an e-mail that research on the subject should continue.
“Many stones have been lifted, but little has been found,” he wrote. “While there is little reason to expect anything to be found beneath the next stone, some uncertainty remains. We have learned that studies based on historical accounts of cellphone use are prone to bias. So a reasonable way forward seems to be to follow national statistics and prospective cohorts.”
This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.
The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday said it plans to file 250 criminal counts against a 31-year-old man accused of a rash of crimes that crisscrossed the region from Temecula to the Coachella Valley.
Sergio Nicolas Lopez is accused of committing 78 robberies from October 2010 to April 2011 at businesses throughout the county, said agency spokesman John Hall in a statement released Thursday.
Lopez’s favorite targets were shoe and clothing stores, hair salons, barber shops, delis and yogurt shops, the statement said. More than a dozen of the alleged crimes occurred in Hemet.
Lopez already faces a single count of robbery, which occurred at Anna’s Linens in Indio. Lopez allegedly evaded capture after a police chase. He also allegedly carjacked a vehicle in Cathedral City on May 4, after two other unsuccessful attempts, the statement said.
He was arrested on May 12, and is being held in lieu of $1-million bail.
[5:30 p.m.: The headline and first paragraph of the story initially said the suspect was to be charged with 250 "robbery" counts. But he is expected to be charged with various criminal counts.]
The California Highway Patrol declared a Sigalert for the busy highway shortly after 5 p.m. as rush-hour traffic was underway. The closure was expected to last about two hours.
The accident scene was just south of Topanga Canyon, the CHP said. Motorists are advised to use alternate routes.
A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy has been charged with committing lewd acts with a 15-year-old girl, authorities said Thursday afternoon.
Deputy Kenneth Alexander, 45, allegedly met the girl in 2010 while he was working on patrol duty out of the Marina del Rey station, the department said.
He is suspected of committing the lewd acts in View Park while he was off duty, the Sheriff's Department said in a statement.
An informant called the Los Angeles County child-abuse hotline and reported Alexander. He was arrested but was released after posting $15,000 bail, authorities said.
Alexander is scheduled for an appearance Nov. 10 at the Airport Courthouse.
President Obama awarded Presidential Citizens Medals on Thursday to three Angelenos for providing mental health services to veterans and creating a music program for gang members.
Judith Broder of the Soldiers Project, John Keaveney of the New Directions shelter and Margaret Martin of the Harmony Project joined 10 other recipients from across the nation for an awards ceremony at the White House.
Before awarding the medals, Obama spoke about how many honorees had mustered the courage to be a good Samaritan during their own time of pain and need.
“In these difficult times, it’s easier than ever to walk on by. We can tell ourselves: ‘I’ve got enough problems of my own.’ ‘I can’t make a big enough difference.’ ‘If my neighbors are less fortunate, maybe it’s their fault,’ ” said Obama, reiterating a theme from many of his recent American Jobs Act speeches.
“But as Americans, that’s not who we are. Because while, yes, we are a nation of individuals, we're also a community. I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. That’s a creed we all share.”
More than 6,000 people were recommended for the honor. Eight of this year's honorees are women.
“I notice that once again the women outnumber the men,” Obama said, prompting laughter. “I’m beginning to see a pattern here.”
Martin started the Harmony Project after noticing that gang members who stopped by a Hollywood market listened intently to a child playing Brahms on violin. In 2001, she founded the program, which provides instruments and free music lessons to thousands of children living in neighborhoods plagued with gangs.
Keaveney, a Vietnam War veteran who grappled with mental health issues for years, founded the New Directions shelter for homeless and disabled veterans in 1992. Since then, he has worked to provide veterans with clothes, a place to stay and an income.
Broder, who founded the Soldiers Project, has recruited more than 600 therapists who have provided more than 7,400 hours of free counseling to veterans and their families. The therapists work on reducing the disruptive effects of repeated deployments, as well as of post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, domestic violence and depression.
The Citizens Medal was established in 1969 to honor Americans who have performed exemplary deeds of service for communities large and small. This is the second year the nomination process, which opens in May, has been open to the public.
Photo: President Obama presents the Presidential Citizens Medal to Judith Broder, founder of the Soldiers Project. Credit: Astrid Riecken / McClatchy-Tribune
The temblor occurred two miles from Berkeley at 2:41 p.m., possibly along the Hayward fault. It was centered near the Golden Bear pool at UC Berkeley.
Berkeley students said the quake moved desks and prompted some students to leave class. "The whole room shook!" wrote one student on Twitter.
At Amoeba Music store on Telegraph Avenue, the shaking felt like "a real quick one, like a bunch of jerking back and forth. It was one strong tremor," said Ken Kubala, an employee.
But the shaking was not strong enough to toss items off shelves at Andronico's supermarket down the street, according to an employee there.
Two teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder after the bodies of a man and a woman were found in shallow graves in Long Beach and Norwalk.
A 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy were arrested late Wednesday night.
The victims may be a couple related to the girl. They were reported missing from their home in Compton on Tuesday "under suspicious circumstances," said Lt. Mary Leef of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The woman's body was found Saturday partly buried in a vacant lot in Norwalk after a passerby noticed a foul smell.
Remember when scientists who had cast doubt on global temperature studies boldly embarked on an effort to "reconsider" the evidence?
They have. And they conclude that their doubt was misplaced.
UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller and others were looking at the so-called urban heat island effect -- the notion that because more urban temperature stations are included in global temperature data sets than are rural ones, the global average temperature was being skewed upward because these sites tend to retain more heat. Hence, global warming trends are exaggerated.
Using data from such urban heat islands as Tokyo, they hypothesized, could introduce "a severe warming bias in global averages using urban stations."
In fact, the data trend was "opposite in sign to that expected if the urban heat island effect was adding anomalous warming to the record. The small size, and its negative sign, supports the key conclusion of prior groups that urban warming does not unduly bias estimates of recent global temperature change."
Researchers conclude that "[t]he trend analysis also supports the view that the spurious contribution of urban heating to the global average, if present, is not a strong effect; this agrees with the conclusions in the literature that we cited previously."
The literature they cite is the basis for the conclusion that the Earth has been warming in an unnatural way during the period of human industrialization.
The paper, made available Thursday, amounts to the second time that Muller et al have had to back away from a key plank of climate skeptics' argument that the Earth is simply on a natural temperature path and man-made greenhouse gases are not warming the atmosphere.
Several months ago, when called before a congressional panel that likewise has been skeptical of climate research, Muller acknowledged that his team was finding no smoking gun to indict climate scientists.
At the time, Muller told the House Science Committee that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is "excellent .... We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups."
A Fontana man died in a possible suicide, police said, after repeatedly stabbing his wife during a family fight that also involved their children, who tried to stop the attack.
Officers were called to the family’s home on the 16200 block of Ceres Avenue about 10:40 p.m. Wednesday, Fontana police said.
They found Jose Benitez, 36, and his wife, 35, whose name was not released, covered in blood from stab wounds.
Family members told officers Benitez and his wife had been having an argument. When she went to take a shower, he barged into the shower with a knife and began stabbing her, police said.
California is among dozens of states vying to win millions of federal dollars to develop and improve learning programs for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, officials announced Thursday.
The $500-million Race to the Top/Early Learning Challenge attracted applications from 35 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
A focus of the initiative is improving educational outcomes for low-income children, dual-language learners and those with other special needs.
Early childhood experts from across the country will review the applications. The highest-ranked applicants will be given grants ranging from $50 million to $100 million. The grant winners are to be announced in mid-December.
Actress Lindsay Lohan showed up almost two hours late for her community service at the county morgue and was turned away, coroner's officials said.
Though The Times initially reported that she had not shown up by 9 a.m., coroner's officials later said she arrived at 8:40 a.m. She was supposed to arrive at the mandatory 7 a.m. start time or would be considered a no-show, coroner's officials said.
On Wednesday, Lohan had been handcuffed and briefly jailed after a judge found that she had violated her probation.
Lohan's attorney Shawn Holley told the judge the actress would start Thursday to perform 16 hours of community service at the county morgue each week until a hearing next month to decide whether Lohan should be sent back to jail.
L.A. County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner said Lohan deliberately "blew off" the 360 hours of community service that she had been ordered to complete at the Downtown Women's Center, missing nine appointments and putting in just 21 hours.
The judge said Lohan eventually told a probation officer that the work at the women's shelter was "not fulfilling."
"Is that what a sentence is about?" Sautner asked. "It's to fulfill the defendant?"
The judge answered her own question: "No."
"We all can't be fulfilled by what we do," Sautner added.
Photo: Lindsay Lohan is handcuffed and jailed after a court hearing on Wednesday determined that she had violated her probation. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times
A man found dead of stab wounds in his Walnut house after an apparent fight with his wife was identified Thursday.
George Mora, 47, was pronounced dead at the couple's house on the 21600 block of Brookside Court shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday. Coroner's officials released his name Thursday.
Deputies were called to the house by Mora’s wife, reporting a domestic dispute. They found her sitting outside the house with stab wounds.
The woman, whose name was not released, was taken to a hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition, said Lt. Mary Leef of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.
Detectives are investigating Mora’s death as a domestic homicide, but no one has been charged in the incident, Leef said.
At a Target store in Northridge, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa crouched underneath a red shopping cart surrounded by government officials and news photographers.
At 10:20 a.m., an announcement came over the loudspeaker informing customers that there was a quake drill underway, instructing customers to crouch and protect their head and neck.
"Everyone one of us in Southern California knows the Big One is coming," the mayor said. "It could happen right now."
Officials said it was important to hold drills in public places such as stores. People may be familiar with how to react in schools, offices and homes, but perhaps not a supermarket. Officials said not to run because it would leave the head and neck uncovered -- and could result in being fatally struck by falling objects. Or it could result in tripping and breaking a leg. Instead, officials said people should drop down, cover their head and neck and duck underneath something sturdy if possible, and hold on.
In a store, that means immediately crouching into a ball, then waddling away from any shelves that might drop objects.
Joan Gigilione, a shopper at Target, said she thought the drill was a great idea. She crouched near the cosmetics aisle, and liked the fact she got advice on how to react in a store -- to get in the middle of the aisle to avoid falling objects.
"Get in the middle of the racks," she recalled hearing over the loudspeaker.
Shopper Molly Perdue saw the crowd of reporters and politicians on the floor during the drill, but kept on browsing for cleaning products, pushing her cart.
"I think it's good advice," she said, before confessing that she thought the idea of crouching in a Target as being silly. "I sort of just wanted to get in and out of here."
Photo: Robert W. Mackay, who builds seismic sensors in Mexico, dives under a shopping cart at Target in Northridge during an earthquake drill for the Great California ShakeOut. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
Sixty-four U.S. sailors have been caught illegally using or distributing the designer drug spice, the Navy announced Thursday in San Diego .
Of the 64 sailors, 49 were assigned to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, the Navy said.
All of the sailors are being either discharged or given non-judicial punishment, officials said.
Of the Vinson sailors, eight have already been discharged for drug use and three were discharged for other issues, according to the Navy.
Spice -- the so-called fake marijuana -- is made with synthetic cannabinoid compounds, some of which are so potent that they have been declared illegal by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Navy’s policy on drug use is simple and clear –- zero tolerance,” said Vice Adm. Gerald Beaman, commander of the U.S. 3rd Fleet.
Along with the Vinson, other sailors found to be using, distributing or possessing the drug were from the nuclear submarine San Francisco and the floating dry dock Arco.
“Our sailors must understand the dangers and consequences of using drugs -– substance abuse risks the lives of shipmates and erodes readiness," said Rear Adm. Frank Caldwell, commander of the submarine force of the Pacific Fleet.
Six people have been arrested in the kidnapping and killing of a Montclair man reported missing last week.
Upland police said the 22-year-old man, whose name was not released, was allegedly kidnapped by several people Oct. 5 from a parking lot.
The kidnappers allegedly beat him as they drove him to San Diego in his own car and left him for dead in a field near the 8 and 15 freeways, police said.
Two days later, the man’s girlfriend, who was unaware of the kidnapping, reported him missing, police said.
California has fallen behind Massachusetts as the country's most energy-efficient state, according to the 2011 Energy Scorecard released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy on Thursday. California had ranked first for each of the previous four years' scorecards.
While California and Massachusetts have both effectively implemented demand-side management plans, "Massachusetts regulators have sent a very consistent message that they want to ramp up their energy-efficiency programs. California has been staying even, and Massachusetts has been flooring it," said Steve Nadil, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
Part of Massachusetts' energy efficiency increase is due to long-term investment. In 2009, the state spent $61 per customer to improve energy efficiency, compared with $32 per customer in California, Nadil said. That investment is now paying off. In 2012, Massachusetts will reduce its electricity demand 2.4%, the report said, whereas California demand will decline by 1%.
The 2011 scorecard reported that 29 states had adopted or made significant progress toward adopting new energy-saving building codes for homes and commercial properties; just 20 states had done so in 2010. It also found that 24 states had adopted an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard, setting long-term energy savings targets for utility-sector investments in energy efficiency.
"More and more states recognize that energy efficiency is a way to reduce costs," Nadil said. "You reduce energy bills, but energy efficiency is less expensive than new power plants."
It was only a temporary reprieve from death row for about 5,000 chickens headed to a processing plant early Thursday morning in Northern California.
A big rig carrying crates with about 5,000 live chickens crashed into another big rig, tossing the crates and poultry onto Interstate 80 near Vacaville about 2 a.m., KTXL-TV Channel 40 reported.
The crash resulted in the closure of all westbound lanes for several hours as authorities tried to corral some of the escaped chickens who were –- yes, we'll say it -– trying to cross the road.
The driver of the chicken truck had apparently fallen asleep and was swerving on the freeway. The other truck, carrying jugs of water, was stopped on the shoulder with mechanical problems. He tried to radio the poultry truck driver to wake him up, but got no response. The trucks clipped each other, and one of the trailers carrying the chickens jack-knifed and spilled the chicken crates onto the road.
An elderly couple in an SUV swerved to avoid the chickens and debris on the road and drove into a ditch. They were taken to the hospital for treatment, the television station reported.
The California Coastal Commission last week voted down a housing project near the Bolsa Chica wetlands, putting a new wrinkle in a decade-long battle between the developer and environmentalists.
The ruling marks a significant victory for protectors of the wetlands, Councilwoman Connie Boardman said.
"I'm just really happy," said Boardman, who is also the president of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust. "I voted against the Shea project when I was on the council in 2002. I'm really glad the Coastal Commission has finally agreed with me."
The City Council originally approved Corona-based Shea Homes' 50-acre, 111-home project and related infrastructure, including roads and public access trails.
Hundreds of would-be volunteers filed into the Los Angeles Sports Arena early Thursday morning for the first day of a massive clinic that will offer free care by doctors, dentists, optometrists and other volunteers.
The clinic, organized by L.A.-based CareNow, will run through Sunday and expects to treat roughly 5,000 patients.
One of those patients, Arsie Taylor, 65, said she has Medi-Cal but does not have dental insurance and had not been to a dentist in about three years.
"It's a good opportunity for people who don't have insurance," she said.
Taylor sat down at a registration table, and a nurse asked her when she had last had a mammogram.
"I don't know," she replied. "I want to get a mammogram too."
Nearby, a nursing student took Paul Siebert's blood pressure -- 145 over 100.
"That's high," he said. "I'm on medication for it."
Actress Lindsay Lohan, who was handcuffed and briefly jailed Wednesday after a judge found that she had violated her probation, may be in more trouble after failing to show up at the morgue Thursday morning for community service.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner told Lohan to perform 16 hours of community service at the county morgue each week until a hearing next month to decide whether Lohan should be sent back to jail. Under the program, she is required to show up at the coroner's office at 7 a.m. to perform her eight-hour shifts.
Lohan's attorney Shawn Holley told the judge the actress would start on Thursday.
But by 9 a.m., she still had not arrived at the morgue and would be considered a "no show," coroner's officials said. Even if she does turn up, she will not be allowed to work because the 7 a.m. start time is mandatory.
It is unclear when Lohan plans to do perform the work.
Lohan earlier this year served 35 days under house detention at her home in Venice, in lieu of a 120-day jail sentence, because her misdemeanor shoplifting conviction was a nonviolent offense.
The Fullerton brothers accused of taking turns molesting young girls in their neighborhood gave their alleged victims candy and ice cream to keep them quiet, prosecutors said.
The Orange County district attorney's office said the brothers would allegedly show the girls pornography before sexually assaulting them.
They were charged this week with sexually molesting a 3-year-old girl and 7-year-old girl on repeated occasions.
The 7-year-old girl told a family member of the alleged abuse in August, prompted an investigation by Fullerton police. The brothers were arrested later that month.
Cristobal Ortiz Rodriguez, 35, and Eduardo Ortiz Rodriguez, 33, on Thursday will be in court to face allegations of lewd acts on a child, sexual penetration of a child and a sentencing enhancement allegation of committing a sexual crime against more than one victim.
Thursday marks the 20-year anniversary of the Oakland Hills firestorm, one of the worst urban fires in the nation's history.
The 1,520-acre blaze killed 25 people, injured 150 and destroyed more than 3,000 homes.
A series of commemorative exhibits and events were planned to mark the anniversary in Oakland and Berkeley.
Since the fire, state and local officials have introduced new regulations on vegetation and fire-resistant building materials and emergency preparedness.
On the anniversary of the blaze, officials reminded urban residents to prepare for a fire by creating defensible space around homes, cutting back tree branches and cleaning gutters.
They also should keep fire alarms and extinguishers operational and have family evacuation drills, officials said.
Photo: A burned-out car sits in front of a home destroyed by fire in the Rockridge neighborhood in Oakland in 1991. Credit: Nick Lammers / Oakland Tribune
Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in 13 L.A. neighborhoods, according to an analysis of LAPD data by the Los Angeles Times' Crime L.A. database.
Nine neighborhoods reported a significant increase in violent crime. Canoga Park (A) was the most unusual, recording 10 reports compared with a weekly average of 3.3 over the last three months.
West Los Angeles (J) topped the list of four neighborhoods with property crime alerts. It recorded 17 property crimes compared with its weekly average of 9.9 over the last three months.
Alerts are based on an analysis of crime reports for Oct. 11–Oct. 17, the most recent seven days for which data are available.
Two men are in custody for allegedly running a chop shop in Woodland Hills, sheriff's officials said.
Johann Cass, 20, and Mitchell Landau, 34, were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of operating a chop shop and were jailed on $50,000 bail each, according to jail records.
The alleged operation was discovered when the owner of a classic car that was stolen launched his own search for the vehicle.
The 1949 Ford Shoebox was stolen from the Woodland Hills area in May. Five months later, the owner found similar car parts listed for sale on Craigslist and contacted the seller, posing as a potential buyer.
After going to the seller's home and confirming the parts came from his car, the owner alerted the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.
Detectives from a regional auto theft task force posing as buyers went to the suspect's home on the 5300 block of Alhama Drive in Woodland Hills.
Along with the Shoebox parts, they allegedly found a Honda CR125 dirt bike reported stolen in May.
