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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — For one day, a mother says, she didn’t have to worry about her autistic son eating lunch by himself. A small gesture of kindness by Florida State University wide receiver Travis Rudolph — captured in a photo and shared on Facebook — had tears streaming down the face of the sixth-grader’s mother, Leah Paske. “I’m not sure what exactly made this incredibly kind man share a lunch table with my son, but I’m happy to say it will not soon be forgotten,” she wrote. “This is one day I didn’t have to worry if my sweet boy ate lunch alone, because he sat across from someone who is a hero in many eyes.” Rudolph was among several FSU players visiting Montford Middle School in Tallah...

TARZANA >> Los Angeles police responded to Chris Brown’s residence in Tarzana Tuesday and later served a search warrant on the home as the singer took to social media to deny any wrongdoing and to condemn police. At a news conference Tuesday afteoon, LAPD Lt. Chris Ramirez said police were serving a search warrant on the home, and an unknown number of people were exiting the residence. The house is located in a posh, hillside neighborhood of one-and two-story homes that are nearly all protected by locked iron gates. A call initially came at 3:11 a.m. from the 5000 block of Corbin Avenue, police said earlier. “It came out as a female requesting help,” Officer Drake Madison of LAPD’s Me...

ONTARIO >> The once-vacant and quiet Meredith property between Vineyard and Archibald avenues began bustling with commercial activity Monday as officials dedicated QVC’s first West Coast distribution center with an opening ceremony. The 1-million-square-foot QVC warehouse was filled with a sea of empty shelving racks Monday, but trucks bringing inventory had arrived and officials expected to begin shipping product out from Ontario this week. They expect to ramp up the operation by the holiday shopping season. The new facility should shrink delivery times up to four days, Jim Reid, vice president of customer logistics, said. “We want to speed that process up for our West Coast customer...

A Labor Day tradition, this year’s Conquer the Bridge Race over the Vincent Thomas Bridge will get a cadenced sound track this year as hundreds of sailors in town for LA Fleet Week join the challenge. “They’ll run as part of teams and formations, they’re supposed to be in cadence,” said Michael-Patrick Hogue, producer of the aual Labor Day race now in its eighth year. Also participating Monday along with the Navy will be members of the Coast Guard and Marine Corps. Online registration ($50 entry fee) remains open until Thursday night at www.active.com and, after that, will be available through Road Ruer Sports, 25359 Crenshaw Blvd. (across from Mimi’s Cafe) Torrance, (310-326-8530, Ext. 2) a...

Long Beach’s Plaing Commission will decide Thursday whether to allow plans and permitting for the Belmont Beach and Aquatic Center to move forward. If all the approvals are granted, the $103 million project would move on to the City Council, then the state Coastal Commission. The center is designed to replace the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool, which was to down after engineers determined the natatorium was in danger of collapse in the event of an earthquake. The proposed replacement, designed by architect Michael Rotondi, includes two Olympic-sized pools (one inside a structure, the other outside), an indoor diving well, a recreational pool and other amenities. If approved, a transparent oval ...

A tank exploded Friday at the Tesoro refinery in Wilmington, spewing hazardous sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide vapors into the community and causing massive gridlock along nearby roads. Refinery officials said the lid of the tank was somehow breached at about 1 p.m., causing a chemical explosion that set the tank’s insulation on fire, said county fire and Tesoro officials. The refinery along South Alameda Street, which borders densely populated neighborhoods in Carson and Long Beach, alerted the community to “shelter in place” while an investigation took place. A fire in the sulphur tank was quickly extinguished. “There is a visible steam plume over the unit, which responders are workin...

Flanked by his wife and two daughters, Kobeu2009Bryant gried wide Wednesday as the Losu2009Angeles City Council declared Aug.u200924 to be Kobeu2009Bryant Day. Bryant’s wife, Vanessa, is pregnant with the couple’s third daughter, and the retired Lakers superstar told his other two girls, Natalia and Giaa, they would need to help explain to their sister why Bryant had a day named in his honor. • PHOTOS: City of LA celebrates Kobe Bryant Day in council chambers “She’s going to have no idea that I was actually an OK basketball player,” he joked. Bryant retired from the Lakers in April, after 20u2009seasons, five championships and rising to No.u20093 on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. Aug.u200...

MINNEAPOLIS — The disclosure that some pills found at Prince’s Paisley Park home and studio were counterfeit and contained the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl strongly suggests the pills came to the superstar musician illegally. But exactly how Prince obtained the drugs is still unknown, four months after he collapsed in an elevator on April 21 and died of an accidental fentanyl overdose. Authorities have so far revealed little about their investigation, saying it’s active and moving forward. Former prosecutors and defense attoeys who are familiar with drug investigations say it’s likely someone will be prosecuted, whether or not Prince knew he was consuming illegal drugs. “They will not...

LAS VEGAS — Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor really don’t like each other. Or apparently press conferences for that matter. Just five months after their press conference for UFC 196 broke into a wild melee, the pair and their camps hurled insults, profanities and drinks at each other Wednesday at the UFC 202 press conference at the David Copperfield Theatre at the MGM Grand. Diaz and McGregor are the main event Saturday in a welterweight rematch of their scintillating March showdown, shockingly won by Diaz via a second-round rear-naked choke. McGregor arrived nearly 25 minutes late to the presser Tuesday, which also featured UFC President Dana White and light heavyweights Anthony Johnson and Gl...

Quality affordable healthcare and holding elected officials accountable for their decisions are among the highest priorities for Hispanics in the U.S., according to a new Harris Poll survey. Seventy-seven percent of Hispanics surveyed rated quality affordable healthcare as “absolutely essential/extremely important” to improving opportunity in their community while 76 percent rated holding elected officials accountable as “absolutely essential/extremely important,” said Abigail Golden-Vazquez, executive director of The Aspen Institute’s Latinos and Society Program, at the institute’s second aual America’s Future Summit on Tuesday at the Califoia Endowment in downtown Los Angeles. The Washing...

More than 150 people gathered on June 16 in the Harborview Ballroom of The Reef on the Water to mark the 40th Aual Awards Dier of the Disabled Resources Center. The proceeds from the event, themed “The Road to Ruby,” support DRC’s critical work as a nonresidential Independent Living Center. Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe received a Special Lifetime Service Award for his long-standing support and dedication to the cause of persons with disabilities. Five other awardees included: Cathy Parsa, Community Service Award; J. Cacilia Kim, Civic Leadership Award; Cynde Soto and Jerry Stein, Independent Living Award; Westly Ward and Andrew Swinton, Volunteer of the Year Award, named in memory...

CLAREMONT — A small liberal arts college near Los Angeles is denouncing a Facebook post made by a black student who was seeking out a non-white roommate. The Claremont Independent reports Pitzer College student Kare Urena asked in the post that only people of color apply to live in her off-campus residence, adding that she didn’t “want to live with any white folks.” Pitzer President Melvin Oliver calls the post “inconsistent with our mission and values.” He says the college wants to engage “complex intercultural issues, not to isolate individuals on the basis of any protected status.” The Washington Post reports a roommate was found and the post has been removed, but Urena and another roomm...

SAN FERNANDO >> A Long Beach man convicted of murdering a Cal State Northridge student from Saudi Arabia who had placed an online advertisement about a car he was trying to sell is scheduled to be sentenced this moing. Agustin Rosendo Feandez, now 30, was convicted June 9 of first-degree murder for the stabbing death of Abdullah Abdullatif Alkadi, whose body was discovered along a freeway in Palm Desert in 2014. Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations that the 23- year-old engineering student was murdered during the commission of a robbery and carjacking, along with an allegation that Feandez used a knife as a deadly weapon. The Los Angeles County District Attoey’s...

Four convicted killers drew 16 year-to-life prison terms Wednesday for the 2012 Jurupa Valley-to-Long Beach slaying of a man who was shot in the head, beaten with a sledgehammer and strangled. But the motive for the brutal murder of 24-year-old Orange resident Hector Jauregui Campos remains a mystery. “We don’t know for certain the reason for the attack,” Los Angeles County District Attoey spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said hours after the sentencing of Jurupa Valley residents Jose Duenas, 23, and Rafael Antonio Porales, 25, Long Beach resident Christopher Arevalo Ramirez, 24, and 25-year-old Rafael Bravo, whose hometown was unavailable. All four were convicted July 25 of second-degree murder ...

Rio de Janeiro >> As a dark and wet moing on South America’s Atlantic coast slipped into a darker, wetter afteoon, Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellara sliced his way across a demanding Olympic Games time trial course of rain-slicked roads, a red, white and black blur of power and efficiency streaking through the gloom. Miles away from Rio’s Olympic venues, both the iconic and the expensive, miles away from the tourists and the foreign network TV compounds along the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, Cancellara rocketed through one final convincing reminder that he has been the greatest rider of his generation against the clock. Cancellara recaptured the Olympic Games time trial gold medal he...

A new health center offering free and low-cost services to LGBTQ residents in Long Beach and the surrounding area marked its official grand opening Wednesday inside the St. Mary Medical Center campus. Funded in part by a $650,000 grant from the federal Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration, the 7,000-square-foot Long Beach Health Center, which will serve more than 5,000 people each year, is one of the newest neighborhood centers opened by the nonprofit AIDS Project Los Angeles, and APLA Health. The center offers medical, dental and behavioral health care services to the LGBTQ community, including disease prevention counseling, HIV testing, scre...

Los Angeles, San Feando Valley, Santa Monica area Beverly Cinema: “Superman II” (1980), 6:30, with “Superman III” (1983), 9:05 p.m. Aug. 12-13. “Kill Bill: Vol. 1” (2003), 11:59 p.m. Aug. 12. Kiddie Matinee: “Invisible Agent” (1942), 2 p.m. Aug. 13-14. “The Clan of the Cave Bear” (1986), 11:59 p.m. Aug. 13. “Royal Flash” (1975), 6:30 p.m. Aug. 14 and 7:30 p.m. Aug. 15, with “How I Won the War” (1967), 8:40 p.m. Aug. 14 and 9:40 p.m. Aug. 15. “The Boss” (1973, Italy), 7:30, with “Mister Scarface” (1976), 9:40 p.m. Aug. 16. “Fun on a Weekend” (1947), 7:30 p.m. Aug. 17-18, with “Sensations of 1945” (1944), 10 p.m. Aug. 17-18. Most tickets $8. 7165 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. 323-938-4038. www.t...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> In coaching national teams from two countries at a total of 11 Olympic Games, a career that spans nearly a half-century, U.S. national team director Martha Karolyi has cried only twice. The first time was when her first prodigy, Romania’s Nadia Comaneci, registered a perfect 10.0 at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. She cried again Tuesday night when, after Team USA delivered the retiring Karolyi a golden going away present in the form of the most dominant performance in Olympic gymnastics history, team members informed her that their new designation was a tribute to her. The Final Five. • PHOTOS: Team US...

Summer attendance at Walt Disney Co.’s domestic theme parks was down but the company’s Parks and Resorts division still eaed record revenue for the quarter. In Disney’s third fiscal quarter, which ended July 2, revenue for Disney’s Parks and Resorts division increased 6 percent to $4.4 billion and the operating profit was up 8 percent year over year to $994 million. The increases were “all-time records for the quarter,” said Christine McCarthy, Disney’s chief financial officer, during Tuesday’s investors’ conference call out of Burbank. Disney’s domestic parks attendance at Walt Disney World, Disneyland and Disney Califoia Adventure dropped 4 percent, but McCarthy said the decrease was beca...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Team USA repeated as Olympic women’s team gymnastics champion with a performance that was beyond fierce. The U.S. presented a convincing case as the greatest team in history at the Rio Olympic Arena Tuesday, rolling up 184.897 total points, more than the U.S. squad, the self-proclaimed Fierce Five put up in wiing the gold medal in London four years ago. The U.S.’ final gap over ruer-up Russia (176.688) also exceeded the 2012 team’s 5.056 margin of victory. China was third at 176.003. • PHOTOS: Team USA on Tuesday at the Rio Olympics The result was really not in doubt after the opening rotation f...