Monterey Park hospital to settle federal sexual harassment suit

Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park will pay $530,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency said Wednesday.

"The hospital allowed a male emergency room admitting representative to harass a class of female employees by subjecting them to inappropriate touching, propositions for sex, graphic discussions of  sexual activities, obscene pictures and comments regarding female body parts, including those of underage patients," the agency said in a statement.

The hospital ignored worker complaints about the alleged harassment, which began in 2007, and fired an employee who lodged a complaint, the agency said in statement. Other employees quit because they were unable to bear the hostile environment.

As part of the settlement, the hospital entered into a consent decree that sets aside money for victims and provides for training and tracking of complaints, among other measures. The agency filed the lawsuit in August 2010.

ALSO:

Ex-porn star Sasha Grey slams media coverage of school visit

More than 14 tons of marijuana seized in cross-border tunnel

Police in riot gear face down Occupy San Francisco protesters inside bank

-- Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Chapman University ups its bid for the Crystal Cathedral

Chapman University has upped its bid for the bankrupt Crystal Cathedral to $59 million, almost $2 million more than the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, court documents filed Wednesday show.

The Garden Grove property has become the subject of a a bidding war between the university, which would like the use it as a satellite campus, and the diocese, which would like to use the church as its cathedral.

A hearing to decide on a buyer for the church founded by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller is scheduled at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in Santa Ana.

In setback for veterans, mental health ruling is withdrawn

A federal appeals court Wednesday withdrew its May ruling that ordered sweeping reform of the Department of Veterans Affairs to care for those returning from combat with post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological injuries.

The full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will reconsider the case brought by two veterans advocacy groups alleging systemic failures to treat mental health injuries and help lower a suicide rate that takes the lives of 6,500 former service members each year, according to court records.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski had dissented from the May ruling by a three-judge panel, arguing that “much as the VA's failure to meet the needs of veterans with PTSD might shock and outrage us, we may not step in and boss it around.”

Man on mini-bike slain in South L.A. shooting, LAPD says

Two men on mini-bikes in South Los Angeles were shot in an apparent gang-related attack that left one of them dead and the other wounded, police said Wednesday night.

The shooter was in a green Ford Taurus that pulled up to the bikers Wednesday afternoon near South Normandie Avenue and West 84th Street, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

The victims were believed to be in their 20s. One died at a hospital and the other was in stable condition, the LAPD said.

Since January 2007, at least 188 homicides have been reported within two miles of Wednesday's slaying, according to the Times Homicide Report database.

ALSO:

Ex-porn star Sasha Grey slams media coverage of school visit

More than 14 tons of marijuana seized in cross-border tunnel

Police in riot gear face down Occupy San Francisco protesters inside bank

-- Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Graphic: Map shows homicides reported within two miles of killing scene.

Credit: Times Homicide Report

2 men arrested in harassment of youths on Orange County buses

Two men who make lewd remarks or harassed underage youths on Orange County buses have been arrested, authorities said Wednesday.

Keith Edward Froman, 48, allegedly made comments to a boy about drugs and romance at a bus stop in Anaheim. The boy walked away, but Froman is suspected of following the boy onto a bus and sitting next to him, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

Froman was arrested after investigators used his bus pass to trace his movements and obtain security video of his actions, authorities said. He was being held at the Orange County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail.

New poll shows rising worries about cost of California colleges

A strong majority of Californians think that the rising tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities is a big problem and is keeping some qualified students from attending, according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. Sentiment is in favor of shifting state funding from other programs to help higher education but against paying more taxes to stabilize tuition at the community colleges, Cal State and UC campuses, the survey found.

The annual poll by the nonpartisan think tank in San Francisco shows that 62% of Californians consider overall affordability of higher education a major worry, up from 53% in 2007, when tuition was significantly cheaper. And 70% of the 2,503 survey respondents said they believe tuition levels are barring some qualified and motivated young people from attending a college or university.

Showing how important they consider higher education, 59% want the cash-strapped state government to spend more on public campuses even if it means less for all sorts of other programs, according to the poll. A slim majority, 52%, don’t want to pay higher taxes to support the colleges and universities, although 45% said they would.

Even with all the money problems they face, the state’s campuses retain a good reputation, the institute said. Ratings of good or excellent were given to community colleges by 62% of Californians, to the Cal State campuses by 56% and to UC by 59%.

-- Larry Gordon

Trial set to begin in 2007 deaths, beating of O.C. family members

Two men are scheduled to stand trial Thursday for their alleged roles in a 2007 revenge-murder and attempted-murder conspiracy involving three members of an Anaheim Hills family.

Jaypraykash Dhanak, 56, and his daughter, Karishma Dhanak, 20, were slain and set on fire. Mother Leela Dhanak, who was 54, was beaten and stabbed in the attack but survived, the Orange County district attorney's office said.

Prosecutors allege that Iftekhar Murtaza, 27, stormed the Dhanaks' home in May  2007 with Vitaliy Krasnoperov and Charles Anthony Murphy Jr., both 26.

The men are charged with beating and repeatedly stabbing the father, whom they put in a bathroom while they waited for other family members to arrive. The men then beat and stabbed Leela Dhanak and forcibly detained Karishma Dhanak, the district attorney's office said in a statement.

Villaraigosa wants a more livable L.A., with 50 pocket parks

In a speech to lay out his record and his vision on making Los Angeles a more livable city, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Wednesday that he wants to build 50 pocket parks in the next two years.

Villaraigosa, who grew up in City Terrace and recalls playing on hills that are now industrial areas, highlighted the dearth of parks in Los Angeles. He noted that his administration has added 650 acres of new ball fields, picnic areas and playgrounds in six years, more than in the previous dozen years.

But the mayor said city workers have been scouring Los Angeles to find locations to create small parks, especially in some of the most densely populated neighborhoods.

He made his remarks at UCLA in an address to the Mayoral Housing, Transportation and Jobs Summit, which was sponsored by the Los Angeles Business Council.

Officials search for pit bull involved in slaughter of 42 goats

Animal control officers Wednesday were still looking for a fourth pit bull involved in the deadly mauling of 42 goats in the Lake Los Angeles area.

Four pit bulls killed the goats Monday night at a property at 164th Street and Avenue Q, said Aaron Reyes deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control. Three of the dogs were captured at the scene.

Reyes said animal control officers were patrolling the area and a nearby school in search of the missing dog.

The three captured pit bulls were at an animal shelter in Lancaster. A woman came forward Wednesday saying that one of the dogs may be hers, Reyes said.

"Our hope is that we will have a responsible owner show up for all of them," Reyes told The Times.

Anyone with information about the dogs or the incident is asked to call animal control officials at (661) 974-8358.

ALSO:

Ex-porn star Sasha Grey slams media coverage of school visit

More than 14 tons of marijuana seized in cross-border tunnel

Police in riot gear face down Occupy San Francisco protesters inside bank

— Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Photo: Captured pit bulls. Credit: Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control

Tree rings document ancient Western megadrought

Researchers say they have found new evidence of prolonged drought in parts of the West, suggesting megadroughts are not the rarity Westerners would like them to be.

Analyzing corings taken from ancient living and dead bristlecone pines in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, University of Arizona scientists found signs of extreme drought in the 2nd century that matches or exceeds the better-known droughts of the medieval period.

The composite tree-ring chronology, extending from 268 BC to AD 2009, shows that the longest dry periods in the entire record occurred during the first four centuries AD. The most pronounced drought lasted for about five decades in the second century.

Comparing their findings with two other tree-ring studies, the researchers concluded that the 2nd century drought was regional, extending from southern New Mexico north and west into Idaho.

Paleoclimatologist Connie Woodhouse, a co-author of the study that will be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, said scientists have wondered if the severe Western droughts that occurred between 900 and 1400 were unique.

The new tree ring record indicates they weren't -- and could occur again. “There is no good reason that we shouldn’t expect to have those,” Woodhouse said.

She added that researchers are not sure of the causes of the megadroughts but speculate that above-average temperatures and persistent La Nina ocean conditions may have contributed to them.

ALSO:

The energy, and expense, of bringing water to the Southland

Bounty at Lake Powell follows record dry stretch

For water researchers, an atmosphere full of questions

--Bettina Boxall

Photo: University of Arizona geoscientist Cody Routson takes a tree ring sample from a bristlecone pine. Credit: Mark Losleben / University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research

Crazy Sexy Thanksgiving

Delicious no-meat recipes for your holiday table.

Kris Carr is a self-described “wellness warrior,” a cancer survivor best known for her upbeat advice about a “healing” lifestyle that includes a plant-based diet and spiritual sustenance.

Ms. Carr was 31 when she learned she had Stage IV epithelioid hemangioendothelioma, a rare form of vascular cancer that had generated tumors on her liver and lungs. Ms. Carr had a less aggressive form of the disease and, determined to keep it from progressing, set out on a total “lifestyle upgrade” that included adopting a vegan diet, daily shots of green juice and a posse of positive, irreverent young women she calls “cancer babes.’’ A documentary about her cancer experience, called “Crazy Sexy Cancer,” led to books, blogging, wellness workshops and now the best-selling book “Crazy Sexy Diet,’’ a collection of the nutrition and lifestyle tips that formed the blueprint for her personal cancer makeover.

Ms. Carr’s commitment to healthful living never wavers, but she concedes to loosening up a bit around the holidays. “It’s not the healing, cleansing diet, but it’s still plant-based and absolutely delicious,’’ she says. “Thanksgiving or any traditional holiday I look at as a great opportunity to try dishes that are so far out of what I normally cook, and I try to make it festive. I like to see people’s expressions when they bite into these foods they never imagined they could prepare without animal products.’’

For the Well Vegetarian Thanksgiving series, Ms. Carr has offered her own Crazy Sexy Thanksgiving menu. It includes pumpkin bisque, roasted brussels sprouts and a fennel salad from her next book, “Crazy Sexy Kitchen,” a collection of recipes she’s developing with the vegan and raw-foods chef Chad Sarno. Her Thanksgiving menu also includes a dish from one of her favorite vegan restaurants, Candle 79 in New York City.

And for Ms. Carr, no meal, Thanksgiving or otherwise, would be complete without a favorite green juice. She offers a cucumber and kale combination that she says is a good starting point for those new to juicing.

“With a dinner like this that’s all plants, but predominantly cooked foods, I would probably serve a Thanksgiving cocktail of green juice,” she said. “If you’re new to juicing and you start using more heavy medicinal greens, that’s when people turn up their nose a bit.”

Visit Well’s interactive recipe collection to see more Vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes; we will be adding new dishes daily.

Crazy Sexy Kitchen’s
Pumpkin Bisque

2 cups pumpkin, butternut squash or sweet potato
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cup white onions, diced
3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
5 cloves roasted garlic
1/4 cup sherry wine
1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Cracked black pepper, to taste
Toasted pumpkin seeds for garnish (optional)
Pumpkin seed oil for garnish (optional)

1. Steam or boil the pumpkin or squash until tender.

2. Sauté onions over medium heat in olive oil until translucent.

3. Using a high-speed blender, combine pumpkin, onions, stock, garlic, wine, maple syrup and spices and blend until smooth.

4. Warm soup in saucepan. Serve hot, garnished with pumpkin seeds and a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings.

Crazy Sexy Kitchen’s
Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Pistachios and Cipollini Onions

3 cups brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved
1 cup cipollini onions or shallots, peeled and quartered
1/2 cup raw pistachios
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of chili flakes
3 tablespoons sherry wine (or vegetable stock if omitting alcohol)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine brussels sprouts, onions and pistachios in a bowl and toss with spices, olive oil and wine.

2. Roast brussels sprout mixture on sheet pan for 12 to 15 minutes, shaking pan about halfway through to ensure even cooking. Serve hot.

Yield: 4 servings.

Crazy Sexy Kitchen’s
Shaved Fennel and Apples With Wine-Pickled Onions, Toasted Pecans and Mandarin Vinaigrette

Wine-Pickled Onions:
2 red onions, peeled and sliced paper-thin on mandoline
1/3 cup red wine or merlot vinegar
3 tablespoons apricot paste (dried apricots blended with water to paste consistency, or substitute agave nectar)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon course sea salt

1. Prepare the onions in advance. Toss all the ingredients and gently massage. Allow to pickle for a few hours to overnight. Store in a jar and chill.

Mandarin Vinaigrette:
1/2 cup muscatel vinegar or white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons apricot paste (dried apricots blended with water to paste consistency, or substitute agave nectar)
1/4 cup mandarin orange segments, diced
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives
2 tablespoons finely chopped mint
2 tablespoons orange zest
Ground black pepper, to taste

1. Whisk all the ingredients together. Makes about 1 cup.

For the salad:
2 cups fennel (about 2 to 3 bulbs), sliced paper-thin, preferably using a mandoline
2 cups baby arugula
2 apples or pears, sliced paper-thin, preferably using a mandoline
Drizzle of Mandarin Vinaigrette (see recipe, above)
1/4 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup Wine-Pickled Onions (see recipe, above)

1. To prepare the salad, gently toss the shaved fennel, arugula and apples or pears (reserve a few slices for garnish) in a bowl with the vinaigrette.

2. To serve, plate salad and garnish with a few slices of shaved apple or pear, toasted pecans and pickled onions.

Yield: 4 servings.

Candle 79’s
Seitan Piccata

6 seitan cutlets (about 1 1/2 pounds; see recipe below)
Whole-wheat flour, for dredging
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup minced shallots
1/4 cup finely sliced leek, white and pale green parts
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup capers, drained
2 cups vegetable stock or water
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley, plus 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley for garnish (optional)
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Caper berries, for garnish
1 lemon, thinly sliced, for garnish (optional)

1. Dredge the cutlets in the whole-wheat flour, shaking off any excess.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large sauté pan over high heat. Add the cutlets and cook until crisp and golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes per side. Place the cutlets on individual plates or a platter.

3. Heat the remaining 4 tablespoons of olive oil in another sauté pan over medium heat. Add the shallots, leek, salt and pepper and sauté until soft and translucent, 5 to 7 minutes.

4. Add the all-purpose flour and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, to make a roux. Add the wine to deglaze the pan and stir well to incorporate the flour.

5. Add the capers, stock, bay leaf, minced parsley, thyme, turmeric and lemon juice and cook over medium heat until the sauce becomes slightly glossy, about 10 minutes.

6. Spoon the sauce onto serving plates, and place the cutlets atop the sauce. Garnish with the caper berries and the optional chopped parsley and lemon slices. Serve at once.

Seitan Cutlets
7 cups unbleached bread flour
3 cups whole-wheat bread flour
4 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
8 cups vegetable stock or water
1/4 cup tamari
1 piece of kombu
1 piece of wakame

1. Put the flours in a bowl. Mix the water and salt together and add to the flour. Stir until the mixture forms a ball of dough. When you have a nice ball, cover with water and let stand for 1 hour.

2. Pour off the water and rinse the dough under cold running water until the water is almost clear. Divide the dough into 2 balls.

3. Put the stock in a large soup pot and bring to a boil. Add the tamari, kombu and wakame and decrease the heat. Add the balls of dough and simmer, uncovered, for 2 hours, until they are firm and slice easily.

4. Drain the stock from the pot, reserving the stock if not using the seitan right away. Transfer the seitan to a bowl, add enough cold water to cover, and let sit for about 10 minutes.

5. Drain and slice the seitan into 1/2-inch-thick cutlets.

6. If not using the seitan at this point, store it (sliced or unsliced) in 4 cups of the reserved stock, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. Alternatively, the cutlets can be frozen (without the stock) for up to 3 months.

Yield: 6 to 8 cutlets, about 1 1/2 pounds.

Crazy Sexy Kitchen’s
Make Juice Not War Green Drink

2 large cucumbers (peeled if not organic)
Large fistful of kale
Large fistful of sweet pea sprouts
4 to 5 stalks celery
1 to 2 big broccoli stems
1 pear or green apple (optional)
1 inch of ginger (or less), peeled

1. Wash and cut ingredients and put them through your juicer. You can pull the pump from the catch basket and put the ingredients through a second time for more yield.

Yield: 6 servings.

Practicing on Patients

My hospital recently decided to ask nurses, rather than the phlebotomy team, to handle blood draws. This wasn’t a big deal, except that I’d never done it before, and to learn, I would have to practice on patients.

Surprisingly, drawing blood is not something they teach you in nursing school. I signed up to learn at one of our outpatient testing centers, and the night before I felt nervous. I have always had trouble with moments in health care when we hurt people in order to help them, and now, as I learned how to stick a needle into someone’s vein, I would most certainly end up hurting a few people.

When I arrived in the morning, I met my teacher, who I later learned was called “the master’’ by our patients. He started my instruction by putting a tourniquet on my arm and having us look together at my veins. Then I put the tourniquet on him and looked at his. He gave me a diagram of the usable veins in the arm and talked to me a little bit about which veins are better than others, and how the needle should go in.

My first patient was a retired steelworker who talked interestingly about political demonstrations and union work while I slowly set out the needle I would use and organized my alcohol wipes, colored lab tubes, plastic access device, gauze and tape. With a little help from my instructor, I got the needle far enough in, got the labs I needed, undid the tourniquet before taking out the needle, and applied the gauze and tape quickly enough to keep the blood from dripping. The patient never complained, never once questioned my obvious lack of expertise.

Other patients weren’t so sanguine. One woman gestured to my instructor and asked, point-blank, “Why is he sitting there watching everything you’re doing?” And an older gentleman looked at my instructor, who had drawn his blood many times, and then at me, and flat-out refused to let me try.

In the book “Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science,” Dr. Atul Gawande describes the unique challenge health care workers face in honing their skills. “Like the tennis player and the oboist and the guy who fixes hard drives, we need practice to get good at what we do,” he writes. “There is one difference in medicine, though: It is people we practice upon.”

Dr. Gawande described how he practiced on patients to learn how to put in a central line, a potentially risky procedure that involves inserting a catheter into the neck or chest. Although the procedures I’ve learned on patients aren’t as technically complex, there have still been many “first times,” like the first time I inserted a urinary catheter, the first time I gave a blood transfusion, the first time I changed or maintained a patient’s drainage tubes. All of those were lessons learned on patients.

We don’t usually tell patients when we are practicing on them because it makes them hesitant and nervous, but they often figure it out anyway. If they ask, we don’t lie, but we try to answer in a way that puts them at ease. To the patient who asked why someone was watching everything I did, my instructor explained that I was a nurse, and that we were just “reviewing peripheral sticks.”

I wish I could say I remembered all of my patients from that day perfectly — those from whom I managed to draw blood effortlessly and those from whom I didn’t. The truth is, I was there for eight hours, and the day was a blur of talking about veins, looking at veins, thinking about veins and the final feeling of accomplishment when, at the end of the day, I had a pretty good idea of what to do to get blood out of someone’s arm.

During my next shift on the oncology floor, I was ready to try out my new skill. My first patient was having horrible nausea and felt terribly weak and spent most of her days lying in bed with the lights off. She was also diabetic, which meant her veins weren’t easy to access. I didn’t tell her that I was practicing on her, but my slowness, and my need for guidance from a more experienced nurse, tipped her off that I was still a novice.

Despite my obvious inexperience, and how horrible she was feeling, she agreed to be my guinea pig. “Everyone has to learn sometime,” she said.

Reader photos: Southern California Moments Day 320

Short crosse: Alessandro Caso, 10, stands alone at Westchester Park during a foggy evening lacrosse practice in this Oct. 26 photo by Drew Carolan.

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.

San Diego may allow chickens, goats in backyards

San Diego city officials are considering easing farming rules for people living in residential areas, allowing them to grow more crops and keep some types of livestock.

The proposed rules would allow some residents to sell crops they grow in their backyards and keep such livestock as chickens and goats.

Officials said 15 chickens and two pygmy goats would be the maximum livestock allowed in backyards.

ALSO:

Student gunman shot by UC Berkeley police dies

Man high on meth skins bobcat, eats it, authorities say

Ex-porn actress Sasha Grey slams 'sanctimonious media' after her school visit

-- Jamie Chambers, Fox 5 San Diego

Turkey shot with an arrow eludes capture near Davis

At least one turkey may have something to celebrate this Thanksgiving.

The state Department of Fish and Game said a turkey with an arrow stuck in its backside is wandering around near Davis, west of Sacramento.

Authorities received calls about the injured bird, found it and snapped a few pictures. But the turkey took off before they were able to catch it, Fox 40 Sacramento reported.

The bird apparently was shot with a practice arrow -- not a hunting arrow -– perhaps by someone trying to scare it away, officials said.

Police arrest Occupy San Francisco protesters inside bank

Police in riot gear have begun arresting Occupy San Francisco protesters who took over the lobby of a Bank of America in the city’s financial district Wednesday afternoon.

After a two-hour standoff, more than a dozen officers began arresting protesters sitting on the floor in the lobby of the California Street bank about 3:50 p.m. Police used plastic handcuffs to arrest demonstrators, who shouted back at the officers, “You’re the 99%!”

Dozens of protesters remained in the bank, and the arrests proceeded in a peaceful and orderly fashion.

Some of the demonstrators included university students, who joined Occupy San Francisco demonstrators to denounce tuition increases.

Occupy San Francisco protesters take over Bank of America lobby

Occupy San Francisco demonstrators and student protesters have taken over the lobby at a Bank of America branch in the city’s financial district, chanting “We are the 99%!”

Dozens of protesters jammed the bank lobby at 50 California St. about 2 p.m., with some standing on desks, waving signs and chanting “Banks got bailed out; We got sold out!” Nervous-looking bank employees retreated behind a counter.

Police officers stood nearby, but no arrests were made. There also were no reported incidents of vandalism.

“I respectfully ask you to protest outside,” a bank official told the protesters, while shooing away a customer who tried to deposit a check. Some protesters left, but many remained.

Police in riot gear face down Occupy protesters inside bank

Police in riot gear warned Occupy San Francisco protesters who took over the lobby of a Bank of America in the city’s financial district Wednesday that they would be arrested if they did not leave the premises.

About 20 officers with helmets and batons entered the bank on California Street about 2:45 p.m. and warned protesters sitting in the lobby that they would be arrested and cited. Organizers circulated fliers advising protesters what to do if they were taken into custody.

Some demonstrators left the bank, but about 75 remained, chanting, “We shall not be moved!” Others taunted police: "You're sexy, you're cute, take off your riot suit!"

Some protesters set up a tent in the lobby while nervous looking bank employees huddled behind a counter.

Tree that crushed woman showed no signs of disease, official says

The city-maintained tree that fell and crushed a motorist in September showed no signs of disease, Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff said.

Kiff made the statement amid newly released records that show that many of the other blue-gum eucalyptus trees are infected by sulfur fungus, which causes root rot and the eventual collapse of trees.

"On the tree that fell, there were no external signs of disease — no fungus, no conks, no fruiting bodies, no lifting of the roots, no visible signs of trouble in the leaves, roots or on the trunk," Kiff wrote in an email to the Daily Pilot.

Newport's trees are regularly inspected by city-employed arborists and the city's tree-maintenance contractor, West Coast Arborists.

Last week, the city released records indicating that West Coast Arborists knew some eucalyptus trees on Irvine Avenue were infested by bugs and showed signs of decay, although the notes did not specifically flag the doomed tree.

After that tree fell and killed Tustin resident Haeyoon Miller on Sept. 15, the city has directed the emergency removal of about 140 trees.

ALSO:

Video: 70,000-pound house hoisted atop a 7-story building

No shock here, but L.A. a leader in congested U.S. freeways

Man who died after police Tasered him was mentally ill, mom says

-- Mike Reicher, Times Community News

Photo: A tree fell on a car, fatally crushing the woman inside, in Costa Mesa on Sept. 15. Credit: Don Barletti / Los Angeles Times

Man charged with molesting two girls he met at Anaheim church

A Santa Ana man has been charged with sexually assaulting two girls, ages 9 and 12, after meeting them at an Anaheim church and offering to provide them keyboard lessons.

David Elifar Verduzco was a parishioner of Agape House of Prayer in Anaheim when he met the two alleged victims' families. During the keyboard lessons this year, he is accused of kissing one girl on the cheek and inappropriately touching the victim's thigh.

He also allegedly sent the second girl inappropriate text messages.

After befriending the 9-year-old's family in August, Verduzco escalated his acts, prosecutors said. While babysitting the girl and two other girls while her parents were at the hospital, Verduzco allegedly molested the girl in her bed.

Hollywood slashings allegedly followed comments over costume

The man arrested on suspicion of slashing a couple with box cutters at a Metro Red Line station in Hollywood approached one of the victims before the incident and berated her for wearing a provocative Halloween costume, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said.

Lang David Dunbar, a 25-year-old transient on probation for felony forgery, was charged Tuesday with  two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of mayhem in connection with the assault on the early morning of Nov. 1.

Investigators from the sheriff's Transit Services Bureau will be bringing Dunbar, who has waived extradition, back from Ohio.

Sheriff's investigators said the victims -- a man and woman -- were waiting on the mezzanine level of the Hollywood-Western subway station when they were approached by a man with a box cutter. 

"The suspect accused the female victim of being a prostitute because she was wearing a provocative Halloween costume," sheriff's officials said in a statement. "An altercation ensued and the male victim came to the aid of the female.  Both victims were slashed by the suspect who fled on foot."

A witness dressed as a clown came to the aid of the couple, who were both seriously injured in the attack.

Los Angeles County sheriff's Transit Services Bureau deputies reviewed video surveillance footage and, with information from the victims, witnesses and a street source, said they were able to identify Dunbar as the suspect.

Detectives said Dunbar fled to Cleveland, where he was arrested. 

With Dunbar's capture, sheriff's officials said they have now made three arrests in connection with recent attacks on Metropolitan Transportation Authority subways or at stations.

-- Andrew Blankstein

Twitter.com/anblanx

No shock here, but L.A. a leader in congested U.S. freeways

This isn't exactly breaking news: Los Angeles' freeways are among the most congested in the country.

In a study of 328 stretches of highway across the United States, Los Angeles snagged seven of the 10 most congested spots, according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University.

The slowest portion of highway in the country is the three-mile stretch of the 110 Freeway downtown near Dodger Stadium, the study said.

The report estimates that 1.4 million hours of delay per mile are are spent each year by commuters sitting in traffic on the 110 Freeway between Interstate 10 and Stadium Way, wasting 2.1 million gallons of gasoline.

The second-worst highway is also the 110 Freeway in the area just south of the 10 stretching to the 105 Freeway.

Third place went to the 405 Freeway from the 105 Freeway to Getty Center Drive on the Westside.

The study also identified three freeways where commuters waste the most gas: the southbound 101 Freeway between Woodland Hills and Downtown L.A., the northbound 405 from LAX to Getty Center Drive, and the eastbound 91 Freeway from Anaheim Hills to Corona.

ALSO:

Man high on meth skins bobcat, eats it, authorities say

Ellen DeGeneres, others help family after their U-Haul was stolen

Six former Bell council members want corruption charges dismissed

-- KTLA News

Man pleads not guilty to abducting and killing Moreno Valley teen

The Long Beach man charged with abducting and killing Moreno Valley high school student Norma Lopez in the summer of 2010 pleaded not guilty in Riverside County Superior Court on Wednesday morning, court records show.

Jesse Perez Torres, 35, is charged with one count of murder with special circumstance of kidnapping. He will be eligible for the death penalty. His next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 6.

Investigators linked Torres to one of the crime scenes by DNA evidence, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.

At the time of the killing, Torres lived in a suburban home across the street from the high school, close enough to see Lopez, 17, walking off campus. Torres moved to Long Beach in August 2010.
Lopez was abducted in broad daylight on July 15, 2010, as she walked across a vacant lot after attending a summer school biology class at Valley View High School. Her body was found five days later near a remote wheat field on the eastern edge of Moreno Valley.

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Shooting at UC Berkeley computer lab caught on video

Man high on meth skins bobcat, eats it, authorities say

Twins born conjoined going home 2 weeks after separation surgery

--Phil Willon

Student gunman shot by UC Berkeley police dies

A student shot by UC Berkeley police as he brandished a gun in a computer lab at the Haas School of Business has died of his wounds, officials said.

Berkeley officials said the man, who died Tuesday evening, was a senior at the business school and had transferred to UC Berkeley. His name was not released by authorities.

He was conscious when he was taken to Highland Hospital, where he underwent surgery.

He entered the business school Tuesday afternoon and walked into an elevator with a female employee of the school, said UC Police Chief Mitch Celaya.

He pressed the button for the third floor and the woman for the fifth floor, Celaya said.

Occupy San Diego: 9 arrested in sweep of homeless encampment

Nine people were arrested early Wednesday in San Diego as police and county sheriff's deputies moved to remove tents, sleeping bags and other property from a homeless encampment adjacent to City Hall.

The encampment is an outgrowth of the Occupy San Diego protest movement that was ousted from Civic Center Plaza in a police sweep on Oct. 28, resulting in 51 arrests.

Dozens of police and deputies in riot gear arrived around 2 a.m. Wednesday to order persons to remove the tarps, tables, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows and mounds of clothing and trash that had accumulated along a street adjacent to the civic theatre, just outside the Civic Center Plaza.

The area is being cleaned by city workers. After the cleaning, the grassy area will be open for use by protesters and others, but not as a place for private property, police said.

Most of the arrests were for resisting arrest and refusing to disperse.

Occupy San Diego leaders planned a march to protest the police action. "You can't evict an idea," said Frank Gormlie, an Occupy San Diego leader and local journalist.

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Three pit bulls that slaughtered 42 goats captured

Shooting at UC Berkeley computer lab caught on video

Twins born conjoined going home 2 weeks after separation surgery

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: Homeless encampment in downtown San Diego, before police sweep. Credit: Tony Perry / Los Angeles Times

Human leg, foot found in Banning area wash

Riverside County detectives are investigating the origins of a human leg and foot discovered in a wash near a correctional center in Banning.

Deputies recovered the human remains Sunday in Smith Creek wash, just west of Smith Correctional Facility, and homicide detectives and search teams extensively combed the area Monday but found no other body parts.

Riverside County Coroner's officials are examining the remains.

Detectives are asking anyone with information to call Investigator Nelson Gomez of the Central Homicide Unit at (760) 393-3500 or Investigator Robert Pierson at the Cabazon Station at (951) 922-7100.

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Shooting at UC Berkeley computer lab caught on video

Man high on meth skins bobcat, eats it, authorities say

Twins born conjoined going home 2 weeks after separation surgery

-- Richard Winton

twitter.com/lacrimes

 

Man high on meth skins bobcat, eats it, authorities say

A Santa Clara County man high on methamphetamine killed and skinned a bobcat, then ate it, authorities said.

Henry Arnibal, 38, of Morgan Hill was charged Monday with killing a bobcat without a permit, Santa Clara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Lowney told the San Jose Mercury News.

Eating a bobcat is not illegal, but killing one without a permit is a fish and game violation.

Arnibal was arrested last week after deputies found 50 roosters and cockfighting spikes that attach to roosters' legs. They also discovered the bobcat's preserved carcass, which Arnibal told authorities had eaten five of his roosters.

The newspaper reported that he killed the animal with a .22-caliber rifle.

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Three pit bulls that slaughtered 42 goats captured

Shooting at UC Berkeley computer lab caught on video

Twins born conjoined going home 2 weeks after separation surgery

-- Kimi Yoshino

$50,000 reward offered in Brentwood town house arson

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a $50,000 reward in a fire that destroyed a Brentwood town house development.

The fire at 12315 W. Gorham Ave. on Thursday consumed a six-unit complex under construction that required 160 firefighters to extinguish.

Though no one was hurt in the blaze, flames and heat from the fire damaged several homes and vehicles nearby.

Investigators later determined the cause of the fire was arson.

Those with information are asked to contact the Los Angeles Fire Department's arson counter-terrorism section at (213) 893-9800.

ALSO:

Three pit bulls that slaughtered 42 goats captured

Shooting at UC Berkeley computer lab caught on video

Twins born conjoined going home 2 weeks after separation surgery

 -- Sam Quinones

twitter.com/samquinones7

Photo: L.A. city firefighter Will Jun puts water on hot spots of a town house complex under construction that was destroyed last week by an arson fire. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times.

Shooting at UC Berkeley computer lab caught on video

The shooting by UC Berkeley police of a man brandishing a gun in a computer lab at the Haas School of Business on Tuesday was caught on security video, and officials said they will review it.

The suspect, who appeared to be in his 20s, was taken to Highland Hospital, where he was in surgery Tuesday afternoon. University officials said they did not know if the suspect was a student. The man was conscious when he was taken to the hospital.

The suspect entered the business school Tuesday afternoon and entered an elevator with a female employee of the school, UC Police Chief Mitch Celaya said at a news conference. The man pressed the button for the third floor and the woman for the fifth floor, Celaya said.

The suspect then looked at the woman, pulled out what appeared to be a gun from a backpack and put it back, police said. After leaving the elevator, the staff member told her boss and both went to the computer lab. They saw the suspect there and called police.

Police received a 911 call at 2:17 p.m. and three officers responded two minutes later.

7 Occupy S.F. protesters arrested outside Bank of America

A small group of Occupy San Francisco protesters were moved from outside the Bank of America early Wednesday while Occupy Cal protesters set up tents on Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley.

Police arrested seven people outside the bank in downtown San Francisco.

Protesters at the main San Francisco encampment at Justin Herman Plaza remained in place and were planning to meet Wednesday morning with Mayor Ed Lee, the Oakland Tribune reported.

Berkeley protesters, meanwhile, set up encampments on the school’s main plaza. They had been evicted from the site last week by campus police, who tore down their tents on orders from UC Berkeley President Robert Birgeneau, the Oakland Tribune reported.

Church targets young skateboarders with skate park sermons

It was sundown in a mostly deserted parking lot tucked off Westminster Boulevard. The skateboarders had stopped, as they do every Thursday, to listen to the man with the Bible.

A single lamppost shone over the makeshift skate park, where ramps and wooden ledges sporting the words Gravity Youth covered the parking spaces. Two dozen or so skateboards lay on the ground as their owners sat on the curb. Aaron Morgan asked how many people had come for the first time. One hand shot up.

"All right, guys," Morgan said. "This is skate church, so whether you like it or not, I'm going to preach the word of God to you."

A stack of pizza boxes sat at the end of the curb, but Morgan, the youth leader at the Sanctuary in Westminster, made it clear they wouldn't be opened until he finished speaking. As the sky went from hazy to dark, he held forth about hypocrisy, free will, Jesus' sacrifice and the perils of apathy.

Morgan guessed that most of the teenagers were congregation members of the Sanctuary, a church with heavy ties to the skateboarding world. He would welcome more newcomers without ties to the church. He told the boys to each bring a friend next time.

As the pizza disappeared and a few riders returned to their boards, Senior Pastor Jay Haizlip stood on the curb and watched his endeavor expand — another Thursday evening, another convert.

Haizlip, a Huntington Beach resident and former professional skateboarder, founded the Sanctuary in Huntington in 2002. He is quick to note that his project is not a "skateboarding church." The staff boasts three current or former professional skateboarders among its pastors, and it uses events like the Thursday skate park to attract youth.

But Haizlip is mostly intent on spreading the Gospel, and if it takes a few ramps and boards to entice people inside the church, he'll do it.

I don't hang up my Christianity in the closet and go skateboard and ... [then] put my Christianity back on," he told the Huntington Beach Independent. "I'm just who I am."

— Michael Miller, Times Community News.

Photo: Skateboarders listen as Aaron Morgan gives a sermon at a makeshift skate park behind the Sanctuary, a church in Westminster run by a former pro skateboarder. Credit: Steven Georges / Times Community News

Occupy protesters move to California universities

UC Berkeley had emerged as a new hot spot in the occupy protest movement.

On Tuesday, more than 1,200 singing, sign-waving students and faculty members rallied for much of the day on Sproul Plaza, site of the 1960s Free Speech Movement.

At one point, the demonstrators chanted "Hey, hey, ho, ho, police violence has got to go," a reference to an incident last week in which baton-wielding police officers stopped an Occupy camp from being set up on the campus. Dozens of protesters were arrested in last week's confrontation and several were injured.

Tuesday's Berkeley rally was peaceful but tensions surged in the afternoon when campus police shot and wounded a man who, they say, appeared to be carrying a weapon in a computer lab at the Haas School of Business half a mile from the protest site. Four students were in the lab at the time but none was hurt and the unidentified man was taken to a local hospital for treatment. Officials said the incident remained under investigation but did not appear to be related to the protests or the Occupy movement.

PHOTOS: Occupy L.A.

After nightfall, the number of protesters had doubled and some began pitching tents on the campus plaza, defying a decision by Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau to bar any new attempt to camp on school grounds. Campus police did not take any immediate action but said they were studying how to proceed. Among the crowd were about 300 Occupy Oakland activists who marched to the UC Berkeley campus — one day after police had closed the Oakland encampment.

Officials said the great majority of UC Berkeley's 35,000 students went to their classes Tuesday, but some were canceled and others were held outdoors.

To the south, about 200 students demonstrated at Cal State Fullerton and other protests took place at Cal State Los Angeles, UCLA and elsewhere.

--Maria L. LaGanga and Carla Rivera

Cal State Fullerton sophomore Claudio Soria leads fellow students in a protest over tuition hikes. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times / November 15, 2011)

The Right Reasons to Stretch Before Exercise

For an article being published in next month’s issue of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia reviewed dozens of recent studies of stretching, hoping to determine whether the practice prevents people from getting sore after they exercise. The authors found 12 studies completed in the past 25 years that looked directly at that issue. Most were small and short-term. But each produced essentially the same result, the review authors write, showing that “stretching does not produce important reductions in muscle soreness in the days following exercise.”

That does not mean that you shouldn’t stretch, the study’s authors add, but it does indicate that stretching may not provide the benefits that many of us expect.

Write about fitness, and you soon learn that stretching is one of the more contentious and emotional issues among people who exercise. Those who regularly stretch tend to assume that the practice will prevent soreness and injury. Those who do not stretch frequently claim, with equal fervor, that stretching is a waste of time.

A slowly growing body of science suggests that each group has some evidence backing it up, although reliable information about stretching remains hard to come by, in part because stretching is difficult to study.

Most of us, when we talk about stretching, mean the practice of assuming a pose, like bending over to touch our toes or leaning against a wall to stretch our hamstring muscles, and holding that position until the stretching feels uncomfortable, usually 30 seconds or so. This routine is known as static stretching, and it’s widely practiced by people before or after many types of activities. In one of the studies included in the new review, about 54 percent of the 2,377 active adult participants said that they regularly performed static stretching, and most added that they stretched in large part to avoid muscle soreness.

But in that study, which was conducted by Robert D. Herbert, a professor at the George Institute for Global Health at the University of Sydney, who also wrote the comprehensive review, the rates of reported muscle soreness were similar regardless of whether the volunteers completed a standard 15-minute program of static stretching. About 32 percent of those who didn’t stretch reported sore muscles the day after a workout. About 25 percent of those who had stretched reported the same.

Other studies have produced comparable data, with one experiment cited by Dr. Herbert finding that static stretching before or after endurance exercise reduced volunteers’ self-reported muscle soreness the next day by a grand total of just half a point on a 100-point scale of discomfort.

“Our interpretation of the data is that, on average, stretching really does reduce soreness, but the reduction is tiny,” Dr. Herbert told me, probably too small to be meaningful in practical terms. Most of us wouldn’t notice much difference in our muscle soreness regardless of whether we stretched.

This finding jibes with other, related science suggesting that static stretching is not particularly good at reducing injury risk, either. In the same randomized study by Dr. Herbert, those who stretched experienced about the same number of sports-related injuries as those who didn’t.

But most experts caution that it’s difficult to interpret these results, because no studies of stretching meet the scientific gold standard of being both randomized and blinded. You can randomly assign people to groups that stretch or don’t stretch, of course, but you can hardly disguise from them whether they’re stretching or not. At the same time, volunteers’ subjective opinions about stretching seem to affect study outcomes, too. In Dr. Herbert’s experiment, those volunteers who “strongly agreed” at the start of the study that stretching is important rarely reported sore muscles if they were assigned to the stretching group. If, on the other hand, these stretching enthusiasts were assigned to not stretch, they were more likely than other volunteers to feel that their muscles were now growing sore.

So what does all of this intriguing but still muddled science about stretching mean for those of us who regularly exercise?

“It does not mean that you should not stretch,” said Dr. Michael Fredericson, a professor of sports medicine at Stanford University and the chief physician for that school’s cross-country and track-and-field teams, who recently completed an online report about stretching. So-called dynamic stretching regimens, during which you move while lengthening muscles and connective tissues, could be more effective than static stretching at reducing injuries and soreness, he says. Try substituting jumping jacks for toe touches before a run, he says. “And if you feel frequent tightness” in certain muscles or tissues, like in the iliotibial band that runs along the outside of your knee, a common occurrence in distance runners, “then stretch those particular muscles after exercise to lessen your chances of serious injury.”

If you’ve never stretched, though, don’t feel obligated to begin now, Dr. Herbert says. “There is little evidence that stretching does anything important,” he says, “but there is also little to be lost from doing it. If you like stretching, then do it. On the other hand, if you don’t like stretching, or are always in a rush to exercise, you won’t be missing out on much if you don’t stretch.”