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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...

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...

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...

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — It was a very busy, very lucrative weekend for Hillary Clinton in the summer playground of the East Coast’s moneyed elite. She brunched with wealthy backers at a seaside estate in Nantucket, snacking on shrimp dumplings and crabcakes. A few hours later, she and her husband dined with an intimate party of thirty at a secluded Martha’s Vineyard estate. And on Sunday afteoon, she joined the singer Cher at a “LGBT summer celebration” on the far reaches of Cape Cod. • RELATED STORY: Nearly 15,000 new Hillary Clinton emails gleaned in FBI probe By Sunday evening, Clinton had spoken to more than 2,200 campaign donors. But what she told the crowds remains a mystery. Clinton ha...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Matthew Centrowitz, gold medal around his neck, was still trying to find his bearings at the dizzying height of the top step on the Olympic Stadium medal podium Saturday night when he was approached by Lord Sebastian Coe. Coe, the president of the track and field’s global goveing body and two-time Olympic 1,500-meter champion, was presenting gifts to the medalists as part of the medal ceremony. As the pair shook hands, Coe smiled and leaned close to Centrowitz. “Welcome to the club,” Coe said. Centrowitz, Maryland-bo, Oregon-bred, became the first American to join global distance ruing’s most exclusive club in more than a century, wiing the Olympic 1,500 final with a...

PHELAN >> For years, residents of Phelan, Wrightwood and the West Cajon Valley area have made the Mountain Top Cafe a gathering place. “Sometimes a bunch of us retired law enforcement guys get together here some moings and just talk,” said John Gress of West Cajon Valley. “We’ve been coming here for 30 years,” his wife, Mary Gress, chimed in. On Tuesday, the popular eating spot became a hub for residents, firefighters and other emergency persoel escaping the devastating Blue Cut fire. • More coverage: Blue Cut fire bus into 3rd day, 15 Freeway reopens as some evacuations lifted The Mountain Top Cafe sits on the southe coer of highways 138 and 2, making it an ideal place for people to ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> This time, the devil wore red, white and blue, the bad guy being our guy. In a battle so theatrical that the only thing missing was a pair of dueling light sabres, everything right about track and field Sunday collided with everything wrong about these Olympics. Naturally, good triumphed, just like in those movies about super heroes, this one again as golden as the shoes that carried him to victory. Usain Bolt, accepted to be as clean as he is fast, beat Justin Gatlin, who twice has been busted for PED use and now is ruing faster than ever despite also being older than ever. “Somebody said I can be immortal,” Bolt explained after successfully defending his 100-meter ...

LOS ANGELES >> The death sentence of the “Grim Sleeper” serial killer last week put to rest a case that spaed more than three decades, but it left another mystery wide open. Police are still trying to identify 33 women whose snapshots were found in Loie Franklin Jr.’s home after his arrest. The images were part of a chilling discovery of nearly 1,000 photos of women or teenage girls — many nude and some who appeared to be unconscious or dead — hidden in Franklin’s house. The collection included photographs of several victims, which leads police and prosecutors to believe Franklin left behind many more. Detective Daryn Dupree said Franklin is one of the most prolific killers and could ...

Four convicted killers drew 16 year-to-life prison terms Wednesday for the 2012 Jurupa Valley-to-Long Beach slaying of a man who was shot in the head, beaten with a sledgehammer and strangled. But the motive for the brutal murder of 24-year-old Orange resident Hector Jauregui Campos remains a mystery. “We don’t know for certain the reason for the attack,” Los Angeles County District Attoey spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said hours after the sentencing of Jurupa Valley residents Jose Duenas, 23, and Rafael Antonio Porales, 25, Long Beach resident Christopher Arevalo Ramirez, 24, and 25-year-old Rafael Bravo, whose hometown was unavailable. All four were convicted July 25 of second-degree murder ...

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...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> American Ibtihaj Muhammad looked like all the other fencers when she stepped on the piste, save for the non-descript black scarf covering her head. With that small gesture, Muhammad made history. Muhammad became the first American athlete Monday to compete in the Olympics with a hijab, which she wears to adhere to the tenets of her Muslim faith. Muhammad, ranked eighth in the world in sabre, beat Ukranian Olena Kravatska, 15-13, in her first match before falling to France’s Cecilia Berder, 15-12, in the round of 16. Muhammad will compete again Saturday in the team sabre event. “I feel like it’s a blessing to be able to represent so many people who don’t have voices, ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Brazil was letting him hear it now, the boos descending from above as surely as the gaze does from that nearby statue Christ the Redeemer. Of course, this was beach volleyball, which is something of a religion around here, too. So, for his Games debut Saturday, Casey Patterson experienced the fans being quite Olympian in their own right — louder, lustier, throatier. And his response to all the negative noise? He danced to it. “I was trying to be the hotter girl on the dance scene, you know,” Patterson explained later. “‘Hey, I’m over here. I’m looking at you, too.’ We’re out there playing for medals, but we still want the fans to enjoy themselves.” This is a man who ...

Disney officials confirmed Friday that there have been staff reductions this week at Walt Disney Imagineering, the arm of the Walt Disney Co. that designs its theme parks. The reductions were accomplished at the Glendale-based company through a combination of voluntary departures and layoffs. Imagineering increased its staff while working on Shanghai Disneyland, which opened in June. It employed more than 2,000 designers and engineers around the world before the reductions. “Walt Disney Imagineering is a project-based organization, and we continually evaluate and adjust our resources to support the design and development of Disney theme parks, resorts and experiences around the globe,” said ...

KNBC/4 8-10:30 a.m. - Rowing; Men’s cycling; Men’s water polo (U.S. vs. Croatia) 10:30-11:30 a.m. - Men’s cycling; Swimming 2:30-4:15 p.m. - Rowing; Men’s beach volleyball (Gibb/Patterson-U.S. vs. Jefferson/Cherif-Qatar) 4:15-6 p.m. - Women’s volleyball (U.S. vs. Puerto Rico) xxxx 8 p.m. -midnight - Men’s gymnastics; Men’s swimming; Women’s swimming; Women’s beach volleyball (Walsh/Jeings-Ross-U.S. vs. Artacho del Solar/Laird-Australia) 12:30-1:30 a.m. - Men’s gymnastics 1:30-5 a.m. - Primetime encore NBCSN 6-9 a.m. - Men’s archery; Women’s shooting; Beach volleyball 9-10 a.m. - Women’s rugby (U.S. vs. Fiji) 10 a.m.-1 p.m. - Men’s basketball (Australia vs. France); Beach volleyball; Men’s wa...

An 18-year-old Long Beach man was sentenced this week to eight years in county jail after he was convicted of nine counts of forcible theft and assault after snatching purses and other belongings from women while riding his bike. Long Beach Prosecutor Doug Haubert in a statement described the crimes, which took place between March and June, as “serious thefts – on the verge of being strong-armed robberies.” Haubert’s office said that in one case, Flint took a cellphone out of a woman’s hand while she was pushing her infant child in a stroller down Ocean Boulevard. In another, he snatched a cellphone from a woman who was exiting a Metro train platform at Long Beach Boulevard and First Street....

An 18-year-old Long Beach man was sentenced this week to eight years in county jail after he was convicted of nine counts of forcible theft and assault after snatching purses and other belongings from women while riding his bike. Long Beach Prosecutor Doug Haubert in a statement described the crimes, which took place between March and June, as “serious thefts – on the verge of being strong-armed robberies.” Haubert’s office said that in one case, Flint took a cellphone out of a woman’s hand while she was pushing her infant child in a stroller down Ocean Boulevard. In another, he snatched a cellphone from a woman who was exiting a Metro train platform at Long Beach Boulevard and First Street....

RIO DE JANEIRO >> When the Inteational Olympic Committee awarded Riou2009de Janerio the 2016u2009Olympic Games on Oct.u20092, 2009, in Copenhagen, Brazil’s then-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t stop sobbing, spending much of a post-aouncement press conference with his face buried in a white handkerchief. “You catch up quickly to what this means for the city, for the country, for the continent,” Carlos Arthur Nuzman, head of the Rio bid organizing committee, told the president. The question as the first Olympicu2009Games held in South America open Friday is whether Rio’s 17-day center stage tu in the global spotlight will have the same m...

The number of teenagers finding summer jobs surged in June to a three-year high, according to a new report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Employment among teens ages 16 to 19 increased by 691,000, the report said. That was up 13 percent from the 609,000 teen jobs that were added in June of 2015, and it was the biggest boost for that month since 779,000 teens secured summer work in June 2013. Teen hiring for May and June — the first two months of the three-month summer hiring period — outpaced hiring for the same period last year. A total of 847,000 teens were hired in May and June of this year, a 7.1 percent increase over the 791,000 who were hired during the same t...

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...

HOLLYWOOD — Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who guided the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences through some major changes prompted by a controversy over its lack of diversity, was re-elected as the organization’s president, the Academy aounced Tuesday night. Boone Isaacs was re-elected to her fourth one-year term as president by the organization’s Board of Goveors. In June of this year, the Academy aounced that it had invited a record 683 people to become new members, with 46 percent of the invitees female and 41 percent minorities. This came after an outcry when the Academy’s signature event, the aual Oscars, featured an all-white slate of acting nominees for two consecutive years. Boone Isaa...