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MONTEREY PARK >> A memorial service for Mexican music superstar Juan Gabriel is scheduled for Tuesday at a Catholic Church in Monterey Park. The service is set for 5 to 9 p.m. at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church, 320 W. Garvey Ave. Gabriel, 66, whose inteational popularity spaed multiple generations, died of a heart attack Aug. 27 at his home in Santa Monica. He was known for his powerful ballads and a commanding stage presence punctuated by often-flamboyant costumes. His death came less than three days after he performed a two-hour set at the Los Angeles Forum as part of his sold-out “MeXXico Es Todo Tour.” Gabriel, whose real name was Alberto Aquilera Valadez, wrote more than 1,50...

FlyAway airport shuttle service between LAX and Santa Monica will be discontinued immediately after Labor Day weekend. The Santa Monica service will stop ruing at midnight on Tuesday. Airport commissioners voted earlier this summer to end service for the Santa Monica route due to low ridership, according to Los Angeles World Airports spokesman Charles Paunzio. FlyAway service will still operate out of Westwood, Long Beach, Hollywood, Union Station, Van Nuys and the Orange Line’s Woodley Station. FlyAway shuttle schedules are available at http://www.lawa.org/FlyAway/. Advertisement Let's block ads! بخوانید...

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. >> Tourist John Gleason crept through the grass, four small children close behind, inching toward a bull elk with antlers like small trees at the edge of a meadow in Yellowstone National Park. “They’re going to give me a heart attack,” said Gleason’s mother-in-law, Barbara Henry, as the group came within about a dozen yards of the massive animal. The elk’s ears then pricked up, and it eyed the children and Washington state man before leaping up a hillside. Other tourists — likewise ignoring rules to keep 25 yards from wildlife — picked up the pursuit, snapping pictures as they pressed forward and forced the animal into headlong retreat. Record visitor n...

The first bus fare decrease in the Orange County Transportation Authority’s history will go into effect along with its largest-ever service overhaul in October, board members voted this week. Fare reduction, approved 12-0 by the transportation authority board, applies only to the day pass, which will drop from $5 to $4 for six months starting Oct. 9, the same date as the bus service changes. The day pass decrease, recommended by OCTA’s consultant CH2M, is part of a fare study that is one of several initiatives aimed at boosting ridership. OCTA logged its peak ridership in 2007 with 69 million boardings, but dropped to 43 million boardings last fiscal year, a 37 percent fall-off, the authori...

When a building on the north end of Ports O’ Call Village comes down this fall, it will signal the start of what is expected to be a long process to redevelop San Pedro’s waterfront area. But as for the shops and restaurants that remain at Ports O’ Call, not to worry — none of them are going anywhere soon. The first phase of the plaed development includes just the northe portion of the village — Berths 78, 79 and 80 — that will be renamed the San Pedro Public Market. Businesses such as Ports O’ Call Restaurant and many of the other shops that are situated south of that, at Berths 75-77, will be part of a second phase and are not being affected in the initial demolition or construction. Succ...

SAN BERNARDINO >> BNSF Railway Co. shut down train operations through the Cajon Pass in both directions Tuesday as a result of the Blue Cut fire, said spokeswoman Lena Kent. More than 500 firefighters are battling a 5,500-acre brush fire that has forced evacuations in the Cajon Pass area. “We do have a train that is close to the fire that is in the process of safely being moved away from the area,” she said. The Associated Press reported that a freight train was stopped by the fire and its crew had to flee. The Blue Cut fire was reported just after 10:30 a.m near Kenwood Avenue in the Cajon Pass, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Winds are blowing to the north, pushing smoke into ...

Ellyn Mogford found the bus. It was a 1980s school bus repurposed into a rolling, blue-and-gold declaration of devotion to the St. Louis Rams, complete with hand-painted logos, 10 years worth of season parking permits tacked above the steering wheel and more than a dozen season schedules plastered above the ier windshield. • VIDEO: Grant Mogford takes the Rams fan bus for a spin After the family bought season tickets for the Rams’ retu to Los Angeles, Ellyn was looking for tailgating gear to give to her husband, Grant, shortly before Father’s Day. When she found the ad from a “disgruntled” St. Louis fan who wanted to unload the bus, she showed it to Grant as a passing oddity. “Of course, I ...

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia plans to present awards on Friday to 50 people working in the realms of both small and big business. Calling Friday’s event the inaugural “Mayor’s Long Beach Business Awards,” the ceremony may be considered something of a spinoff of the Go Long Beach Awards, which have provided recognition to Long Beachers who are active in a wide variety of pursuits, including education, religion, charity and the arts. Among Friday’s honorees: •Mario and John Molina, Molina Healthcare chief executive and chief financial officer, respectively •Michelle Molina, managing partner of Millworks, a firm that develops new uses for historic buildings •Steve Goodling, chief executive o...

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...

The Midtown Business Improvement District, an organization established about one year ago to improve business conditions in the Cambodia Town area of Long Beach, may have its first executive director on the job next month. Keeth McDonald, the executive director of Long Beach Transit who also chairs the business group’s board of directors, said a top officer may begin work as early as Sept. 8. Board members are collecting applications for prospective leaders through Sunday. The Long Beach City Council authorized the Midtown Business Improvement District in August 2015 and its territory en...

Results for the two-day vote should be finalized late Tuesday. Union workers interviewed Monday appeared pleased with the contract, especially the preservation of pension and health care benefits. “I’m satisfied. All we ask is that we be treated fairly,” said Celia Thompson, a 25-year floral supervisor at an Albertsons in Fullerton. Union leaders said ratification seemed imminent. “From what the reps were telling me, it looks like it will easily be accepted,” said Greg Conger, president of Local 324 in Buena Park. Negotiations with Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs have been ongoing since the union contract expired in March for 50,000 Southe Califoia grocery workers. The main sticking points have...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> A hauntingly familiar feeling came over Charmaine Caes on Thursday. In the moing news, Caes was confronted with a subject she knows all too well: gymnastic coaches sexually abusing young athletes. “My heart rate instantly started racing up,” she said, “and there was this feeling of anxiety. It was just heartbreaking.” A report that USA Gymnastics chief executive and his predecessor repeatedly failed to inform authorities of allegations of sexual abuse by coaches has upstaged the opening weekend of an Olympic Games whose first week had been expected to be dominated by a series of gold medal performances by Texas teenager Simone Biles and the U.S. women. USA Gymnastics...

BONITA, Calif. — Jonathan De Guzman, a San Diego police officer who survived a stabbing 13 years ago and shot at a gun-wielding man three years ago, will be buried Friday after being fatally shot in the driver’s seat of his patrol car after his partner approached a man on the street. The burial will follow the second memorial service in two days for the decorated officer, a 16-year veteran of the force who worked on an anti-gang unit. Gov. Jerry Brown plaed to attend the memorial at Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, which will follow a procession of law enforcement vehicles miles away at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium and include aircraft, bagpipes and a 21-gun salute. A smaller c...

Some 50,000 Southe Califoia grocery workers will walk into union offices on Monday to cast their vote on a tentative agreement that, if approved, would avoid another devastating strike. After intense round-the-clock negotiations this week, union workers and the three major supermarket chains – Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons – have agreed on terms for a new contract, which includes wage increases and affordable health care for supermarket workers, Ralphs spokeswoman Kendra Doyel said in a statement to Southe Califoia News Group. “We are able to give our associates pay increases, keep their health care very affordable, and a stable pension,” Doyel said. She said she could not reveal any more spe...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Should a collective sigh of relief echo across Maracana Stadium when the cauldron is lit at Friday night’s opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games, look no further than the VIP section. There, officials from the Inteational Olympic Committee, Rio organizing committee and Brazilian govement — not to mention NBC — will finally allow themselves to stop holding their breaths after the ugliest run-up to any Olympics in history. The suits will allow themselves a brief moment of relief should the cauldron actually work, no small feat given the embarrassing revelation that in recent months, Rio organizers couldn’t pay the utility bills or that exploding toilets still seem ...

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Police Protective League today demanded that Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the Rams, pay the full cost for necessary police services to ensure public safety at the team’s home games as long as it plays at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. “The estimated cost to provide police protection at Ram games is approximately $2 million a year,” LAPPL spokesman Dustin DeRollo said. “Thus far the Rams have not agreed to pay their fair share of policing costs and this will drain police coverage in other areas of our city,” DeRollo said. “The LAPPL is also urging Mayor Eric Garcetti to reject any requests for sweetheart deals funded by the taxpayers for the NFL team.” ...

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Police Protective League today demanded today that Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Rams, pay the full cost for necessary police services to ensure public safety at L.A. Rams home games as long as the team plays in Los Angeles. “The estimated cost to provide police protection at Ram games is approximately $2 million a year,” LAPPL spokesman Dustin DeRollo said in a statement. “Thus far the Rams have not agreed to pay their fair share of policing costs, and this will drain police coverage in other areas of our city,” DeRollo said. “The LAPPL is also urging Mayor Eric Garcetti to reject any requests for sweetheart deals funded by the taxpayer...

ATWATER >> A crash that nearly sliced a bus in half on a central Califoia highway killed four people, not the initial report of five, a local sheriff said Wednesday. Merced County Sheriff Ve Wake, who also serves as coroner, gave the new total after canvassing hospitals and checking with coroner’s officials in a neighboring county. He said he knew of no deaths among those taken to hospitals. Shortly after Tuesday’s crash, a Califoia Highway Patrol officer at the scene said five people died. The dead include a married couple from Mexico who were traveling to visit a daughter in Pasco, Washington, and a man from Avalon, Califoia, whose spouse was hospitalized, Wake said. A fourth victim...

ATWATER, Calif. — A charter bus veered off a central Califoia highway before dawn Tuesday and struck a pole that sliced the vehicle nearly in half, killing five people and sending at least five more to hospitals, some with lost limbs, authorities said. Rescuers pulled out “bags of body parts” from the survivors of the crash on northbound State Route 99, where the speeding bus carrying about 30 people hit the pole of a highway exit sign head-on, Merced County Sheriff Ve Wake said. It sheared straight through bus, stopping at the first rear axle “with a great impact,” he said. Emergency workers climbed in through the windows to pull out trapped passengers. Others were ejected and were lying i...

ATWATER, Calif. — A charter bus operated by an East Los Angeles company veered off a central Califoia freeway before dawn Tuesday and struck a pole that sliced the vehicle nearly in half, killing five people and sending at least five others to hospitals, authorities said. The unmarked white bus carrying about 30 people hit the pole of a highway exit sign, and emergency workers climbed in through the windows to pull passengers out. “The pole went through the center of the bus, and that’s where the injuries were sustained,” Califoia Highway Patrol Officer Moi Onsurez told The Associated Press. The bus was operated by an East Los Angeles company and driven by a 57-year-old Los Angeles man, KNX...