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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...

PARIS >> A fast-moving fire swept through a birthday party in the basement of a bar in the northwest French city of Rouen, killing at least 13 people and injuring six others, authorities said Saturday. More than 80 firefighters battled the early Saturday blaze at the downtown bar in the city in Normandy, Rouen Mayor Yvon Robert said after the blaze was extinguished. The fire was “totally accidental,” Robert told Europe 1 radio, mentioning a possible gas explosion “from the heat in a basement room doubtless too small for the number of people present.” It was not known how many people were partying at the Cuba Libre club. The area has been blocked off and Interior Minister Beard Cazeneu...

Plumes of fear rise from Rio de Janeiro almost hourly, as if the Olympics should be happening someplace organized and safe, like Falluja. The Australian athletes were greeted by standing water and dysfunctional showers in the Athletes Village. When they complained, Rio mayor Eduardo Paes said he’d try to find a kangaroo to comfort them. Media members were told to put minimal currency in cheap wallets to placate the thieves. Sewage and trash assumed their normal position in the bays and lagoons. Body parts washed up near the beach volleyball venue. Disgusted by lack of govement support, police have told tourists that they can’t be protected. Pre-Olympic hysteria is a common condition. Athens...

Plumes of fear rise from Rio de Janeiro almost hourly, as if the Olympics should be happening someplace organized and safe, like Falluja. The Australian athletes were greeted by standing water and dysfunctional showers in the Athletes Village. When they complained, Rio mayor Eduardo Paes said he’d try to find a kangaroo to comfort them. Media members were told to put minimal currency in cheap wallets to placate the thieves. Sewage and trash assumed their normal position in the bays and lagoons. Body parts washed up near the beach volleyball venue. Disgusted by lack of govement support, police have told tourists that they can’t be protected. Pre-Olympic hysteria is a common condition. Athens...

LOS ANGELES — The parents of “Star Trek” actor Anton Yelchin on Tuesday sued the makers of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, an SUV that was under recall when it crushed and killed the 27-year-old. Victor and Irina Yelchin filed the wrongful-death and product-liability lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler in Los Angeles Superior Court roughly six weeks after their son was killed. The suit contends that the gear selector in the actor’s Jeep was defective and poorly designed and manufactured. “Anton Yelchin was crushed and lingered alive for some time, trapped and suffocating until his death,” the lawsuit says. The actor’s Jeep rolled backward down the driveway of his Studio City home June 19, piing him betw...

Measure A made things easier. But not easy. The city released its 2017 budget proposal on Monday, and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia called it balanced, responsible and forward-looking, thanks in part to a burst of new revenue from the voter-approved sales tax measure expected to drum up $384 million over the next decade. With Fire Engine No. 8 sparkling in the background – one of the public safety additions expected to be funded by Measure A – Garcia and City Manager Patrick West stood inside the Belmont Shore Fire Station and laid out a list of highlights for the coming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, 2016 and runs through Sept. 31, 2017. The City Council over the next several weeks wil...

TOKYO >>Tokyo on Sunday elected its first female goveor to lead the city as it prepares to host the 2020 Olympics, as voters tued to a leader promising clean politics after two predecessors resigned over money scandals. Yuriko Koike was aounced the wier by Japanese media as soon as voting ended, based on her definitive lead in exit polls. She will take charge of a sprawling capital with a population of more than 13 million and an aual budget bigger than Sweden’s. “I am pushing for a Tokyo where people’s lives will be better, and everyone can shine — men and women, children and adults, the elderly and the disabled,” Koike said, appearing at her campaign office, bowing deeply and waving ...

Second District Councilwoman Jeaine Pearce is starting her first term on the City Council with a recommendation to hoist the rainbow flag, a universal symbol for LGBTQ rights, at City Hall year round. Pearce, who is in the first month of her four-year term, said the move would show support for the LGBTQ community both locally and nationwide as a fight for marriage equality continues. “While there has been significant progress in the LGBTQ community’s fight for equal rights in the last few years, there is much more that needs to happen for true equality,” she wrote in a report on the item. “Some states have enacted blatantly discriminatory laws in a backlash to marriage equality and national ...

Lawyers for the city of Los Angeles won a round in court Friday when a judge ruled that a former Harbor Division training officer for LAPD Officer Christopher Doer is not entitled to view all of the investigative reports and persoel records involving the late rogue officer. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Ste said the motion for the release of documents filed by attoeys for Sgt. Teresa Evans was supported by arguments that contained too much “hearsay, speculation, supposition and assumption.” The judge cited a swo declaration offered by one of Evans’ attoeys, Leila K. Al Faiz, which he said had more lines stating “upon information and belief’’ than he had ever seen in such a docume...

As Black Lives Matter protesters gathered inside City Hall this week to call for social justice and law enforcement reform, roughly a half-dozen Long Beach police officers on duty listened and stood silent. One by one, activists took the lecte and shared anger and frustration about a recent spate of officer-involved shootings across the country, including some in the city’s own backyard. Although no comments were made that evening by police, Police Chief Robert Luna on Wednesday talked about how disheartening it was to feel such hatred from the community. “They were essentially calling us killers and racists and, in a sense, stereotyping all of us as bad because we wear a uniform,” he said....

An effort to finalize plans to gradually raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 by 2021 has been placed on hold to allow time for the city to negotiate with its largest labor union. The City Council on Tuesday night nearly voted to exclude city workers from the ordinance because of a hitch in the bargaining process. Richard Suarez, spokesman for the Inteational Association of Machinists, then came forward and said union officials would be willing to meet in the next 30 days. “I don’t think it will take more than two to three (meetings) to reach an agreement,” he said. Outgoing Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, who made the motion to exclude city employees, said in response that there may have been a...

Years ago, Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal swore off ever ruing for public office. As an urban plaer, she said she was happier behind the scenes, envisioning future development. But she soon found the best way to tu her dreams into reality would be through local govement. “I think, just by nature, urban plaers have impact addiction,” she said. “A lot of us unfortunately see our plans languish on the drafting table or, at best, they sit on the shelf. But when you are in office in local govement, you take the plans and you build them. You can’t do that anywhere else.” • Photos: Suja Lowenthal delivers final address before leaving Long Beach City Council The Rose Park resident was first elected to r...

City officials will ask the City Council next week to spend another $1.6 million to help Mental Health America build a new service facility on Long Beach Boulevard. Long Beach leased MHA the buildings at 1955-65 Long Beach Blvd. in 2015 with an option to buy the property for $1 after 10 years. The city purchased the buildings in 2013 for $2.8 million. That purchase was to meet federal requirements for the transfer of the Schroeder Hall Army Reserve Center on Willow Street back to the city as part of the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) process. An accommodation for services to homeless people was required before the federal govement would transfer the surplus property. After choosing MHA...

City officials will ask the City Council next week to spend another $1.6 million to help Mental Health America build a new service facility on Long Beach Boulevard. Long Beach leased MHA the buildings at 1955-65 Long Beach Blvd. in 2015 with an option to buy the property for $1 after 10 years. The city purchased the buildings in 2013 for $2.8 million. That purchase was to meet federal requirements for the transfer of the Schroeder Hall Army Reserve Center on Willow Street back to the city as part of the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) process. An accommodation for services to homeless people was required before the federal govement would transfer the surplus property. After choosing MHA...

City officials Friday came one step closer to erecting a new $533 million Civic Center situated in the heart of downtown Long Beach. The project, which will include a new City Hall, Port Headquarters and a Main Library, is an idea 10 years in the making, Development Services Director Amy Bodek said at a groundbreaking ceremony Friday. Spearheaded by former Mayor Bob Foster and Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, the development has been described as the missing puzzle piece and a “jewel in the crown” of the downtown core. “It took a lot of chance and a lot of magic for this to happen,” Lowenthal said at Friday’s event. Mayor Robert Garcia called it a “historic” day for Long Beach, after recounting s...

City officials Friday came one step closer to erecting a new $533 million Civic Center situated in the heart of downtown Long Beach. The project, which will include a new City Hall, Port Headquarters and a Main Library, is an idea 10 years in the making, Development Services Director Amy Bodek said at a groundbreaking ceremony Friday. Spearheaded by former Mayor Bob Foster and Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, the development has been described as the missing puzzle piece and a “jewel in the crown” of the downtown core. “It took a lot of chance and a lot of magic for this to happen,” Lowenthal said at Friday’s event. Mayor Robert Garcia called it a “historic” day for Long Beach, after recounting s...

City officials Friday came one step closer to erecting a new $533 million Civic Center situated in the heart of downtown Long Beach. The project, which will include a new City Hall, Port Headquarters and a Main Library, is an idea 10 years in the making, Development Services Director Amy Bodek said at a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday. Spearheaded by former Mayor Bob Foster and Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, the development has been described as the missing puzzle piece and a “jewel in the crown” of the downtown core. “It took a lot of chance and a lot of magic for this to happen,” Lowenthal said at Friday’s event. Mayor Robert Garcia called it a “historic” day for Long Beach, after recountin...

In the wake the mass shooting June 12 in Orlando that left 49 people dead, more than 100 people – including Mayor Robert Garcia and those on both sides of the gun-control debate – attended a community forum on gun violence prevention Wednesday night at City Hall. The forum hosted by Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, tued raucous at times, with adversaries yelling at each other. “There is no longer any domestic tranquility in the United States and Congress had da-well (begin) to deal with it,” said Lowenthal, who participated with dozens of other Democrats in a sit-in June 22 in the House of Representatives. The forum was part of a “national day of action” called by Democratic lawmakers see...

A quarter of the trees in Long Beach are dead or in poor condition. Seven of 10 sports groups who use city fields say conditions expose players to injuries. And irrigation problems at local fields often cause flooding and water-logged turf. These are some of the findings in a scathing audit released this week by City Auditor Laura Doud, who studied operations of local parks over a two-year period. Despite additions to the city’s park inventory, Long Beach has not allocated any more funding to maintain them – putting a strain on contractors who have been unable to manage the workload, Doud said. Marie Knight, director of the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department, said the department genera...

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles City Council today directed city attoeys to draw up regulations that would limit the number of costumed street performers allowed along a touristy block of Hollywood Boulevard. Police and city officials say they are conceed about overly aggressive sales tactics and activities that takes up too much space along a lively stretch of the street between Highland Boulevard and Orange Drive. The block, which attracts millions of tourists and visitors a year, includes the Walk of Fame, TCL Chinese Theatres and Madame Tussauds Hollywood wax museum. The council asked the City Attoey’s Office to write rules that would require that street performers obtain one of a limited...