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The sound of applause has scarcely died down in the Capitol after last week’s vote to significantly expand Califoia’s requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Proponents who steered the groundbreaking legislation are still basking in the afterglow of an effort that—after seeming on the brink of defeat—deftly mustered unexpected support and reaffirmed the state’s inteational leadership on climate change. But such is the unsentimentality of politics: Someone has to pop the pretty balloons and sweep up the confetti. For all that was achieved by the passage of SB 32—extending the original 2006 law and setting a new target of reducing statewide emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels b...

STINSON BEACH >> The sleek, flapping salmon that fishermen hauled aboard the rolling Salty Lady charter boat near the Golden Gate Bridge were the survivors of the survivors. After five years of drought, the native Chinook salmon that the men were reeling in this past week were there only because state and federal agencies have stepped in to do much of the salmon-raising that Califoia’s overtapped rivers once did. Most of the fish were bo at the agencies’ hatcheries and carried in trucks for release downstream. As the men watched and waited for one of their fishing poles to dip sharply, Victor Gonella, president of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, remembered his childhood in the 195...

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...

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 “Beach Pantry,” stocked with caed beans, soups, grape juice and other goods, is a new resource at Cal State Long Beach for students who find themselves unable to cover the combined costs of study and meals. The pantry has been open since the Aug. 22 begiing of the campus’ fall term. Cal State Long Beach’s student govement, with help from a Lakewood charity called Food Finders, created the stash of nonperishable foods for students enduring short- or long-term difficulties. Food insecurity is actually a fairly widespread problem on Cal State University campuses; university officials reported in February that some 23 percent of students within the Cal State system experience food insecurity...

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...

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...

A man in his 40s was shot to death early Tuesday moing in Long Beach’s Zaferia neighborhood, according to authorities. Officers responded to the 1600 block of Hile Avenue around 4:45 a.m. when they got a call about a shooting that had just happened and ended with someone lying in the street, police said. When they arrived, officers found a man with a gunshot wound to the upper torso, Long Beach police spokesman Sgt. Brad Johnson said. The man was unresponsive, according to police. A Long Beach Fire Department crew determined the man was dead, Johnson said. Police said the shooting is still under investigation, and it’s unclear at this point if it was gang-related. No arrests have been made....

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...

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...

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...

SAN FRANCISCO >> Califoia’s $64 billion high-speed rail plan lacks reliable funding sources and is in danger of ending up with only one line that doesn’t coect to San Francisco or Los Angeles, members of a Congressional panel said Monday during a hearing. Proceeds from a state environment program that is supposed to help fund the project were far below expectations and private funding for the train has yet to materialize, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Califoia Republican, said. “Where is the money going to come from,” LaMalfa asked Dan Richard, chairman of the rail authority’s board. Richard said private firms have expressed interest in the system but want to see the first leg up and ruing. Th...

LOS ANGELES — Attoeys for a coalition of seven Los Angeles County cities will try again Tuesday to file a request for an accelerated hearing on a lawsuit filed last week on behalf of taxpayers conceing the ballot language for Measure M, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s proposed half-cent county sales tax ballot action. The Los Angeles Superior Court petition filed by the cities of Carson, Commerce, Norwalk, Torrance, Santa Fe Springs, Ranchos Palos Verdes and Signal Hill alleges that the ballot label for Measure M is misleading and does not include the actual 1 percent total rate of the tax to be imposed. Lawyers for the petitioners arrived too late to Judge Mary H. Strobel’s cour...

The concept of a “four-year university,” at least at Cal State University campuses, has long been something of a polite fiction for many students. The reality is, a majority of students still need at least six years of schooling to attain an undergraduate degree, and it’s something educators across the CSU system are being pressured to change. The CSU system has seen some improvement in graduation rates in recent years; during the 1980s and early 1990s, fewer than 10 percent of first-time freshman managed to graduate within four years. Just 19 percent of Cal State freshman who entered college in 2011 managed to ea a degree in four years, while 57 percent of those who started in 2009 graduate...

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...