Los Angeles school officials once saw the January teachers’ strike as a calamity. Now they realize it created an opportunity. Angelenos opened their hearts to teachers who talked of poor conditions at schools — and now they will have the chance to open their wallets in a June 4 special election. …
By Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press One of the nation’s largest neo-Nazi groups appears to have an unlikely new leader: a black activist who has vowed to dismantle it. Court documents filed Thursday suggest James Hart Stern wants to use his new position as director and president of the National Socialist Movement to undermine the Detroit-based…
The sleek Hyundai Sonata was cruising westbound on the 405 when the driver suddenly smelled gasoline. Soon, dark smoke swirled from the hood. The driver, from Pico Rivera, took the next exit. “Get out!” screamed another driver passing in the opposite direction. The driver leapt out and, within minutes, the Sonata was shrouded in smoke…
Construction has started on the first of two projects in southwest Orange that will add nearly 1,000 housing units blocks from MainPlace Mall. On the north side of West Town and Country Road, the Ophelia Apartments started construction in December. The 262-unit apartment is targeted for opening open in late 2020, Toll Brothers Regional Director…
Sitting in a jail cell in Vietnam, Michael Nguyen probably will hear from his kids on Monday, when their letters are read to him aloud. “My letter will say that I miss him,” says Evelynn, who, at 8 years old, is the the youngest of Nguyen’s four daughters. “And I can play the piano now.”…
LAGUNA NIGUEL — Hayden Nieznanski was looking down, writing Chinese characters in a letter to his father — a Marine deployed to the Middle East and around the Horn of Africa — when he caught a glimpse of Marine Corps camouflage and boots. He glanced up in his Marian Bergeson Elementary School classroom — and…
An Orange County Superior Court judge has rejected an attempt by the union representing sheriff’s deputies to block the release of disciplinary records under a new state police transparency law. Judge Nathan Scott ruled Thursday that public accountability trumped the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs’ fight to protect the privacy of its members. Scott,…
Nearly four months after California’s most devastating wildfire swept through Paradise and surrounding towns, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has acknowledged that its equipment probably sparked the blaze that destroyed nearly 14,000 homes and killed 85 people, most of them elderly. The official investigation…
After a decade spent fighting the Mongols motorcycle club and its violent members in court, federal prosecutors appeared poised last month to deliver a decisive blow when a jury voted to strip the notorious club of trademarks it holds on its coveted logo. But a federal judge in Santa Ana Thursday…
André Previn conquered L.A. with his artistic genius not once, but twice — first as a four-time Academy Award winning composer of Hollywood movie music, then as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. But Previn was also a man of mixed feelings about L.A., as he expressed in his last major…
