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Thousands of Califoia’s foster care kids may be overdrugged with psychotropic medications, often without medical follow-up or a legally required approval from a judge or parent, according to a stinging report by the Califoia State Auditor. “The state and counties have failed to adequately oversee the prescribing of these medications,” wrote auditor Elaine M. Howle. The long-awaited report, released in August by State Auditor Elaine Howle, mirrors many findings of Bay Area News Group’s investigative series “Drugging Our Kids.” Those stories, which appeared in Southe Califoia News Group publications, including this one, highlighted how only 10 percent of the state’s 1,280 highest prescribers w...

HOLLYWOOD — Rock’s top-selling duo Daryl Hall and John Oates were honored with the 2,587th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today. • PHOTOS: Hall & Oates to receive Hollywood Walk of Fame star Music executive Jerry Greenberg joined Hall and Oates in speaking at the 11:30 a.m. ceremony in front of the Musicians Institute on Hollywood Boulevard. Hall and Oates formed their partnership in 1972, going on to record 21 albums, which have sold more than 80 million copies. They were recognized as rock’s all-time top selling duo in 1987 by the music industry trade organization the Recording Industry Association of America, a distinction they still hold. From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, they ha...

The fire buing in the Cherry Valley area was slightly bigger and further contained Wednesday moing, but firefighters remain conceed that winds and dry fuel could cause the blaze to explode. • PHOTOS: The Bogart fire bus brush in Cherry Valley “With any hot spots, that wind change is always a conce,” said Cal Fire Capt. Liz Brown adding that 20-mph wind gusts are expected throughout the day. Most of the vegetation buing is a combination of chaparral and short grasses, and it’s those tinder-dry grasses that are worrisome for fire officials. The Bogart fire, named for the park it started in, covered 1,250 acres and was about 20 percent contained by sunrise, officials said. Evacuations southeas...

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...

LOS ANGELES — A taxpayer lawsuit will be filed today against the city of Los Angeles alleging an unlawful “gift of public funds” to the Los Angeles Rams in the form of security at home games. The lawsuit will be filed by former Los Angeles City Councilmember Deis Zine and Los Angeles resident James Bibeau “to prevent the city from expending any additional taxpayer funds to provide over 200 LAPD officers free of charge to secure Rams home games,” according to a statement from the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “Rams owner Stan Kroenke has refused to pay in full for the police services necessary to ensure public safety at his team’s home games,” the statement said. “This free use of LA...

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...

LOS ANGELES >> Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein visited the Black Lives Matter encampment outside Los Angeles City Hall today where she said she agreed with the group’s demand that Mayor Eric Garcetti fire police Chief Charlie Beck. Stein pointed to the firing of police chiefs in other cities and said she came to Los Angeles City Hall today to “support the community that’s demanding justice by asking the police chief to step down.” “We need him to be replaced by someone who doesn’t simply dismiss death after death as being within police policy and refusing to even file charges,” Stein said. Beck in January did recommend that District Attoey Jackie Lacey file criminal char...

School starts Wednesday in most of Long Beach and it’ll likely be a hot day. Unbearably hot? Depends what you can bear. While we type this, the forecast is for a high of 86 degrees. We can, theoretically, bear that, coming from hardy pioneer stock. But we won’t. We will wake up in our air-conditioned home, make a mad sprint to our air-conditioned car and drive to our air-conditioned office. Hours later, we will do the whole thing in reverse. We don’t live in an average temperature. It’s 72 degrees all the time in our little world. Meanwhile, more than half the students in Long Beach in the K-12 grades will be sitting in classrooms without air conditioning, not made any cooler by 25-30 sweat...

Hamstrung by strict limits on political contributions, Califoia lawmakers have found a way to continue to extract large sums from some of Sacramento’s most powerful special interests. Increasingly, they’re using “ballot measure committees,” little-known and barely regulated accounts that are supposed to promote or oppose state and local initiatives but in practice are paying for consultants and polling firms, new suits and trips to Mexico. And the money for the politicians’ perks comes in the form of five-figure donations from the same special interests that state rules were intended to curtail. An analysis by Digital First Media, which includes this news organization, shows that the number...

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...

We’ve all gotten them. Like an unwanted plague, those aoying robocalls always seem to come just as we’re sitting down to dier or getting ready to watch a football game. The messages are varied but most have one thing in common: They’re trying to sell us something. Some robocalls are looking to steal our personal information Some implore us to buy solar panels or donate money to a political candidate, while others ask us to support a local charity or take a ride-share survey. And it gets worse. Some of these automated calls offer fraudulent credit card services or questionable auto warranty protection. In many cases, they’re simply trying to steal our personal information. They’re increasing...

Heal the Bay has upgraded its Beach Report Card website and app to include, for the first time, real-time pollution predictions in the surf zones at five Southe Califoia beaches. Until now, Califoia beachgoers had to rely only on water-quality testing results delivered weekly, with delays of a day or two for lab work, to find out if there were unhealthy levels of fecal bacteria or other health-hazardous pollution. The “nowcasts” are a feature on the site and mobile app currently available for only a handful of beaches — including Belmont Pier in Long Beach and Santa Monica Pier, but 20 more surf zones will be added by next year. The environmental nonprofit partnered with Stanford University...

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...

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...

Kathy Creighton was 16 when she landed what was her first summer job: squeezing oranges and working the cash register at the Orange Julius in San Pedro’s bustling Ports O’ Call Village. “We had these very ugly brown and yellow, itchy polyester uniforms we had to wear,” Creighton said. “We went home sticky and stinky.” But there were perks. The popular juice-and-burger spot was situated in a building constructed over the water, with wall-size windows on three sides. And the tourist helicopter pad was right next door. “We used to trade hamburgers for (free) helicopter rides,” she said. And, no, the boss never knew. The year was 1980. And Creighton, who moved out of state when her husband got ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Max Holt did a little bit of everything. At the net, digging balls from just off the floor, finishing points with big, leaping swings. He and David Lee stuffed the Italians with stellar blocking. Setter Micah Christenson contributed his own blocks and even a kill to end the third set. Matt Anderson, Aaron Russell and Taylor Sander provided power hitting from every coer. Mighty Italy just had a little more in a match that will surely become an Olympic volleyball classic. For nearly 2 1/2 hours Friday, the young, overachieving Americans stayed with an Italian group that U.S. coach John Speraw considers the world’s most talented and destined for gold in Brazil. The Amer...

A 21-year-old Reno woman spending her first day in Los Angeles plunged to her death Friday from a cliff at Point Fermin in San Pedro, police said. The accident occurred about 2:15 p.m. in the 500 block of West Paseo del Mar. The woman, who had just moved to Califoia from Nevada, asked her new roommate to take her to the beach. At Point Fermin, she climbed a 4-foot wall at the park’s edge to get a better view of the ocean, Los Angeles police Sgt. Bradley Hea said. Somehow, she slipped and fell to her death about 2:15 p.m. She landed on rocks below. “It was completely accidental,” Hea said. Coroner’s investigators and Los Angeles police responded. The woman’s name was not immediately released...

Rio de Janeiro >> In a sort of victory lap before the victory, Usain Bolt held up his left arm, his index finger extended into a wet night, as he walked slowly clockwise from a tuel entrance, around the Olympic Stadium curve to his blocks in Lane 6 and the start of the Olympic Games 200-meter final. Such audacity would have been laughable from any other sprinter. Then again there never has been any other sprinter like Bolt. Besides, the result Thursday night was never in doubt, even the most remote of chances for an upset vanquished before the race even hit the homestretch. Bolt once again reduced the rest the field at a major championships to spectators, racing to a 19.78 victory in ...

PARAMOUNT >>The Paramount Unified School District will ask voters in November to approve a $106 million bond measure to help fund upgrades and repairs across its 19-campus system, officials said Wednesday. Superintendent Ruth Perez said many of the 15,500 students enrolled in the district attend campuses equipped with aging facilities, some built over 50 years ago. While many campuses are in need of repairs and upgrades, she said, top priorities include replacing outdated portable buildings at Paramount High School and other large campuses, upgrading school security systems and facilitating access for disabled students and faculty. “Our local schools need basic safety improvements,” P...

SAN FRANCISCO >> Knock, knock, Google’s video chatting app has arrived. The app, dubbed Duo, represents Google’s response to other popular video calling options, including Apple’s FaceTime, Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook’s Messenger app. Duo isn’t much different from the other video chatting services, except that it gives a glimpse at who is making the call, helping the recipient decide whether to answer. Google calls this feature, “Knock, knock.” The new app, aounced in ...