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A group of students at Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead have created a stir for displaying Confederate flags, staked into the beds of their pickup trucks, in the school parking lot. On Friday, two Ford pickups, parked side-by-side, sat parked in the school parking lot, one Confederate flag and one American flag displayed in the bed of each truck. The black pickup also sported stickers from Patriot Alliance, an online retailer of clothing, National Rifle Association, and Donald Trump campaign signs. Also on Friday, Ruing Springs resident Jeifer Celise-Reyes, whose daughter began her freshman year at the high school last month, said she sent emails to school board president Cind...

Rishi Sharma is hoping local veterans will help him with his mission to interview combat veterans of World War II. The 18-year-old Aguora Hills resident has completed more than 100 interviews and is shifting his attention to the Inland Empire. The recent high school graduate has decided to defer his college education so that he can conduct daily interviews. “When I first started, I was an armchair historian about WWII. I knew more than the average person, but delving into this, there’s an amazing amount of raw information,” he said. “After each interview, the picture becomes slightly more clearer of what they faced.” Through his nonprofit, Heroes of the Second World War, Sharma is conductin...

The mother of Syed Rizwan Farook has denied in a court document that she had any knowledge and did not participate in the San Beardino Dec. 2 terrorist attack by Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik that killed 14 people and wounded 22. Neither Rafia Farook nor her daughter Saira Khan took took part “in any way with the tragic attack,” the court document said. The statement was included in a claim of interest filed Wednesday in federal court for the $280,756.17 in life insurance benefits left behind by Syed Farook, who died with Malik in a shootout with law enforcement a few hours after the deadly, Islamic State-inspired attack. The disputed money has not been paid out. It is in the custody of th...

Thirty years ago today was a Sunday, the heart of the Labor Day weekend, and just as two planes were about to collide a mile and a half above the young city of Cerritos, things in the suburban town were quiet, as you’d expect. That’s how many people described the day up until 11:56 a.m.: quiet. If anyone had any plans for the day, they weren’t ambitious. Some residents were in church, some were shopping for groceries for backyard barbecues. Then-Plaing Commissioner George Ray, who today is the mayor of Cerritos, was doing some work at home on his dining room table. Ray, an executive for a Santa Fe Springs-based manufacturing firm that makes parts for airplanes and the space program, heard wh...

An estimated 75,000 students will retu to classes in Long Beach Unified today, and police are urging motorists and pedestrians to be safe out on the road. Drivers, police say: Yield the right of way to pedestrians in crosswalks, do not pass cars that are stopped for pedestrians, obey speed limits, stop for school buses with red lights flashing and don’t drive distracted. Pedestrians: Yield to vehicles if you are outside the crosswalk, and do not cross between intersections controlled by traffic signals. And finally, parents: Do not double park in front of school, follow school drop-off procedures, and teach your child to always cross the street at a crosswalk. It is equally important for pe...

Seven southe Los Angeles County cities are suing Metro over its proposed half-cent sales tax increase on the Nov. 8 ballot, arguing the language is misleading and the agency didn’t specify most of the transportation projects it would fund. The ballot description takes a kitchen-sink approach, saying Measure M is needed “to improve freeway traffic flow/safety; repair potholes/sidewalks; repave local streets; earthquake retrofit bridges; synchronize signals; keep senior/disabled/student fares affordable; expand rail/subway/bus systems/ improve jobs/school/airport coections; and create jobs ...” But it doesn’t mention that the vast majority of transportation improvements won’t touch the southe...

May 2014: The Teachers Association of Long Beach distributed surveys to its members to determine how many classrooms in Long Beach Unified experience stifling heat. TALB received 200 responses from teachers with mixed results. September 2014: The district asked schools to curtail physical activity and canceled all nonleague and league competition for two days. Additionally, Long Beach Unified communicated with parents about “hot weather precautions, including the need to stay hydrated.” Parents, meanwhile, attend a school board meeting, pleading with the district to do something about the lack of air conditioning in older buildings across the district, which they say creates an unhealthy lea...

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 ...

ISTANBUL >> One Turkish soldier was killed and eight others wounded in two separate blasts Sunday in the country’s Kurdish-dominated southeast, and Kurdish militants launched a rocket-propelled grenade at a civilian airport, officials and the state-run news agency said. The Anadolu Agency said one soldier was killed and three were wounded after a roadside bomb was triggered remotely by rebels linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in the Hakkari province. In another attack, five civilian village guards were wounded in Siirt province after their van hit an improvised explosive device on a road, the news agency said, blaming PKK for the blast. Earlier Sunday, Kurdish rebels, ap...

For many people heading to the 13th aual FYF Fest at Exposition Park, the train was the way to go. The Metro Expo trains coming from Santa Monica were ruing about five minutes apart as they headed to the concert today. And that was a nice surprise for Westside residents like Emily Diaz and Tony Lopez, who were coming from Palms. • Related: This is the best way to get to FYF Fest They missed one train as they bought their one way tickets but were surprised by how quickly another arrived shortly “That’s pretty awesome that they’re coming this fast, that’s probably why they’re not packed,” she said as she boarded the train shortly after an aouncement from Metro over the speakers at the station...

PIGEON PASS >> Want to know what it cost to buy more than two-dozen acres for the DonkeyLand wild-burro rescue operation in Reche Canyon? It’s no trick question. Just ask Bob Barker. The former “Price is Right” host donated $400,000 from his DJ&T Foundation to help the small animal-rescue operation run by Amber Levoe and her father, Phil Saavedra, acquire land of its own. The two work tirelessly on behalf of DonkeyLand, an organization they and others founded about five years ago on rented land, in a secluded area north of Moreno Valley, with no identifying sign. When orphaned baby burros are brought to them, and Saavedra, 67, stays up all night, feeding them a special milk-replac...

Between 1999 and 2013, Califoia’s Academic Performance Index boiled everything about the state’s K-12 public schools down to a single number between 200 and 1000. That’s going away in a new, more nuanced system that’s now under construction. In the old model, the desirability of neighborhoods or even whole communities in large part hinged on their API score. Careers were made or lost based on how far a school or district was from the magic 800 target number. And under the federal No Child Left Behind law, failure to steadily increase an API score — even an already high one — could mean dire trouble for a school or district. But the API was only based on the results of standardized tests tak...

Detectives have waed the public of a sudden increase in tire and wheel thefts from late model Chevrolet trucks in the Harbor Area, releasing a photograph of a man in a ski mask captured as he loaded stolen wheels into a van. Residents have reported 12 crimes in the last month in Wilmington, San Pedro, Harbor City, and Harbor Gateway, Los Angeles police Detective Carmine Sasso said. “They kind of made their rounds,” Sasso said. “It’s just crazy.” Thieves primarily targeted Chevrolet trucks parked on the street. Using cinder blocks, bricks or wood blocks to prop up the vehicle, they take all four wheels and tires. “A good crew can prop them up on cinder blocks and remove all four tires and wh...

As part of a wide-ranging bust focused on mail-related crimes in Southe Califoia, federal officials said Friday that they’d charged 33 people — including one from Long Beach and one from Lakewood — with committing crimes including stealing cellphones from a mail-processing center and hoarding almost 50,000 pieces of undelivered mail. The charges span 28 separate criminal cases, according to the U.S. Attoey’s Office in Los Angeles. Authorities have so far issued arrest warrants for six of the 33 defendants. Most of the suspects are U.S. Postal Service employees or contractors. About half are facing charges for mail theft or possession of stolen mail, but other cases include charges of conspi...

Organizers behind the inaugural Music Tastes Good festival pledged that they will try to solve potential problems relating to parking and business owners’ abilities to serve their customers while the event takes place over the course of three late September days in the East Village area of Long Beach. “No one is going to be blocked out of their home or business,” event organizer Josh Fischel said Thursday moing, during the first of two plaed meetings between festival plaers and conceed members of the public. Materials handed out during the meeting reported that Music Tastes Good plaers will foot the parking bills for anyone who loses access to a paid parking space while street closures are ...

GORMAN — A search continued outside Califoia today for a couple wanted in coection with the shooting death of a Fresno mother as Los Angeles Sheriff’s detectives work to determine the motive for her slaying and the subsequent kidnapping of her children. The three children of 26-year-old Kimberly Harvill, whose body was found two weeks ago in unincorporated Lebec in Ke County, were found safe Wednesday in a motel outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the care of a good Samaritan who notified local law enforcement, said Deputy Kimberly Alexander of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s Information Bureau. Their alleged kidnappers, Harvill’s 22-year-old sister, Brittany Humphrey, and her friend, 27-y...

Los Angeles, San Feando Valley, Santa Monica area American Cinematheque at the Aero: Jerry Lewis Movies: “The Nutty Professor” (1963) and “The Ladies Man” (1961), 7:30 p.m. Aug. 26; “The King of Comedy” (1982) and “Fuy Bones” (1995), 7:30 p.m. Aug. 27; “Artists and Models” (1955) and “Hollywood or Bust” (1956), 7:30 p.m. Aug. 28. “My Inteship in Canada” (2015), 7:30 p.m. Aug. 29. Most tickets $11; $9 seniors and students. 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. 323-466-3456. www.americancinematheque.com Beverly Cinema: “The Knack...and How to Get It” (1965), 7:30, with “Petulia” (1968), 9:25 p.m. Aug. 26-27. “Kill Bill: Vol. 2” (2004), 11:59 p.m. Aug. 26. Kiddie Matinee: “Safety Last!” (1923), 2 p...

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...

Plaing beach days may be a little easier thanks to a new water quality prediction tool that forecasts bacteria levels at a handful of Califoia beaches — and Long Beach is one of them. Heal the Bay, known for its aual Beach Report Card, offers daily “nowcasts” based on various environmental conditions, such as rainfall, waves, tides and past bacteria concentrations. The information is available via a free mobile app or through Heal the Bay’s website. Created in collaboration with Stanford University, UCLA and Heal the Bay, spokesman Matthew King said the “nowcast” system makes predictions during the summer months (April 1 to Oct. 31) at five beaches: Belmont Pier in Long Beach; Doheny State B...