Articles
Browse all articles by category below.
Business & Defense
Wheel N’ Deal
Los Angeles Times
The recent phenomenon has been greeted by some with jeers, but agents say it’s an opportunity for prospective buyers.
The Full-Employment Act For Spies
Los Angeles Business Journal
In the six years since Richard Miller waddled into espionage fame by trading FBI secrets for a trench coat...
Some Ideas On What To Get A Pooch Who Has Everything
Los Angeles Times
Admittedly, the grinning busts of perestroika pals Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev probably aren’t on the tony...
Recession may forge a housing shift in California
Los Angeles Times
Tight financial times may have a lasting effect on home buyers and alter the state’s real estate landscape.
Not On His Watch
Los Angeles Times
Empty homes attract criminal and squatters, but communities are fighting back
Let’s Hear It For Tommy’s (Burp)
Los Angeles Business Journal
But don’t ever try to copy its original world famous hamburgers or tacky ambience.
Is Lockheed Corp. Working On A New Secret Stealth Plane?
Los Angeles Business Journal
Experts cite military need and hidden defense budget.
House Hunting? It’s Not a Buyer’s Market Everywhere
Los Angeles Times
The median price in Southern California may have plummeted, but in more desirable neighborhoods, home buyers are still engaging in bidding wars.
Earth, Wind and Wire: Going Beyond Solar Panels
Los Angeles Times
Here’s a look at three technologies that California residents are using to cut their energy bills and turn their homes into clean, mini-power plants.
Crusader Pushes For Simpler Inheritance Rules
Los Angeles Times
Determined senior battles for state approval of a one-page form to bequeath property without the need for courts and lawyers.
Environmental
MWD Paid Developer Millions
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Up in Smoke
Pasadena Weekly
Victims stunned by light sentence in multimillion-dollar smog-credit scam.
Troubled Waters
LA CityBeat
Chromium 6 is the same poison made infamous by Erin Brockovich. Now it poses a ‘clear and present danger’ to the water supply of Los Angeles.
Toxics Law May Have Swayed Lockheed Case
Los Angeles Daily News
Case involving state toxics law was ‘waiting to happen’
Smoke Screen
Pasadena Weekly
After five years, Anne Sholtz has yet to be sentenced for her role in multimillion-dollar smog-credit scam
Steam Plant Fueled Political Blow-UP
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Energized by Mideast oil shocks and the fledgling “green” revolution 15 years ago...
Smoke And Mirrors
Pasadena Weekly
A Pasadena firm comes under suspicion for allegedly misappropriating millions for L.A.’s smog credit trading industry.
Score One For The Trees
Los Angeles Times
To Keep the Mighty from Falling, L.A. Has Toughened Rules Protecting Oaks, Sycamores and Other Trees. Some Say It’s about Time. Other Predict Headaches for Homeowners.
Rockwell’s Flawed Environmental Record Questions Raised Over History of Infractions at Company Sites
Los Angeles Daily News
In the past decade, Rockwell International Corp. has seen the same cycle re-enacted around the country...
Rockwell Debacle: How Did it Start?
Los Angeles Daily News
Investigators Probe Waste Violations
Featured Articles
The Intimate Execution of America’s Youngest Mayor
Vicodin Thieves
They found him on the sidewalk, a block from his boyhood home...
The Last (Los Angeles) Picture Show
Vicodin Thieves
Suddenly he was there, inside a chic Lincoln Continental...
Got Your Back
LA CityBeat
Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center is a last chance for kids, gangsters, and other uninsured victims of severe spinal cord injuries. Now the county wants to shut it down.
Paul & Chuck
Los Angeles in the 1970s
Everybody, it seems, was watching the little white house on Bollinger Drive...
Return Of The Native
L.A. CityBeat
From barrio golden boy to bad example and halfway back again: the terrible rise, fall, and slow resurrection of onetime Latino power broker Richard Alatorre
Dear Rifle
Vicodin Thieves
The cosmic tumblers that align the universe must’ve required a factory...
Operation Bald-Headed Eagle
Vicodin Thieves
The remnants of Anne Sholtz’s old life are evident in the smaller things...
General Assignment & Political
State Of The Union
LA CityBeat
A series of recent sexual assaults have exposed the vulnerability of L.A.’s Union Station to terrorist attack.
Woman Makes Home For Holidays In Her Car
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Barring a holiday miracle, 71-year-old Beatrice La Page will be spending this Christmas...
Who Killed Stephen Ballreich?
Pasadena Weekly
After more than 14 years, recently disclosed evidence sheds new light on the unsolved murder of Alhambra’s former mayor
U.S. Scolds Pasadena Police Over Drug Funds
Los Angeles Times
Purchase of five cars for senior officer with $120,000 in federal narcotics-seizure money is seemed a violation. City officials downplay the matter.
Tunnel Vision
LA Weekly
The Rose Bowl’s long, narrow tunnels aren’t ready to handle a crowd crisis in a post 9/11 world.
Taking Care
Pasadena Weekly
Financial, emotional and physical pressures associated with caring for people take their toll in an increasingly needy society
Riordan’s Downtown Deal
LA Weekly
The mayor’s first brush with City Hall netted him a windfall
Pushing Out Pisano
LA Weekly
After an interminable 31 years, a controversial czar of planning is leaving
Prepare for a Quake? L.A.’s too busy
Los Angeles Times
Readiness is easy to achieve but residents remain complacent. Officials seek effective ways to educate
Pay To Play L.A.
LA CityBeat
A look at L.A. airport contracts reveals the same system of sweetheart deals that has dogged the last three mayors.
Profiles and Columns
My Fantastic Place
Squeeze was the sound I’d been waiting for from the black hole left by John Lennon’s murder and the shallow onslaught of hair-metal...Speedy guitar paired with mordant lyrics ... ignited something in me.
The Boom that Blew the Petals off the Rose City
South Pasadena Review
Square-jawed and persuasive, developer E.C. Webster, it was said, could’ve sold plots on Mars for a profit. Luckily there was Pasadena of the late-1880s
1979 L.A. True-Crime In Song
Medium
It was the faces that slayed you that year, when the only reason for a belly-laugh was a Robin Williams standup act. The expressions remain amber in memory ...
The Accidental True Crime Writer
The Los Angeles Review of Books
WHEN MY CITY EDITOR yelled out that she needed someone to help cover a shooting at the County General Hospital in East Los Angeles, I sunk low behind my computer, trying to be invisible.
Killing Machines: How Car Culture in 1970s Los Angeles Fueled a Terrifying String of Murders
CrimeReads
During the late-1960s, with Los Angeles’ skies still blotted by poisonous smog, an angry mother fastened a sign in her station wagon ... “This GM" ... “is a killing machine.” ... By the end of the next decade carried a more diabolical meaning
The Man In The Light
Medium
The baseball cracked off the bat, vanishing into the smoggy, gray sky over east Pasadena’s Eugene Field Elementary School.
Who’s Been Using My Bin?
Los Angeles Times
Few things unite a neighborhood like an open dumpster...
What if Republicans Closed the E.P.A.?
New York Times
In national politics, California may be seen as Exhibit A for over-regulating the environment.
What Does (Fidel Vargas) Want?
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
At 26, the nation’s youngest big-city mayor has assembled the beginnings of a formidable power base, hut he has left political observers and constituents alike wondering about his next move.
The Man Who Would Be King (Part I)
Pasadena Weekly
He’s been called everything from civil rights crusader to shameless ‘poverty pimp.’ Chip Jacobs goes in search of the real Danny Bakewell (Part I of II)
Redevelopment
History Of Hollywood Museum Reads Like Horror Movie Script
Los Angeles Daily News
It was an affair to remember, a swank black-tie gala for some 600 Hollywood luminaries...
The White Elephant
LA CityBeat
The Hollywood & Highland complex was touted as a return to Tinseltown glory, but it has proved unpopular and has already lost two-thirds of its value.
Pressure Reportedly Rising To Oust Wood As CRA’s Chairman
Los Angeles Business Journal
Man In The Middle
Pasadena Weekly
For Pasadena Planning and Development Department head Richard Bruckner, pressure comes with the territory.
Losses Strain CRA. Bad Deals Cost $50 Million
Los Angeles Daily News
In betting its financial clout can rejuvenate Los Angeles’ seediest areas, the city’s urban renewal agency has lost nearly $50 million...
CRA’s Forgiveness Pays
Los Angeles Daily News
Profit-making businesses among beneficiaries of agency’s pardonable loans
CRA Loans On Risky Ground
Los Angeles Daily News
Agency says repayment takes back seat to ‘public purpose’ of curing blight
CRA Cuts $50 Million Deal With Developer Of Hollywood Project
Los Angeles Business Journal
The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency will funnel up to $50 million to a private developer
City For Sale
Pasadena Weekly
Counting the casualties of Pasadena’s precision-guided building boom
Transportation
Transit Commision Auditors Cast Eagle Eye On Tutor’s Costs
Los Angeles Business Journal
Los Angeles County Transportation Commission auditors are questioning tens of thousands...
Tunnel Visions – Corridor of Shame
Pasadena Weekly
Caltrans may dig deep to find a way out of its 710 Freeway extension debacle
The Untouchables- Corridor of Shame
Pasadena Weekly
Slumlord Caltrans uses legal immunity to hold tenants and city at bay as long-needed repairs to homes the agency owns along the proposed 710 Freeway route drag on
Subway Tunnel Walls At Risk, Report Warns
Los Angeles Daily News
MTA officials say water-damage threat small
Some MTA Drivers Get Physical
Los Angeles Daily News
Attacks on riders not always punished
Problems Pile Up Along Metroline
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Report reveals 2,835 labor violations, lax supervision in new subway
Paper Trail Led to MTA Manager
Los Angeles Daily News
Contractor bills aroused suspicion of kickbacks; Sesay await sentence.
No Exit
Pasadena Weekly
Once stately properties that Caltrans bought 30 years ago to complete the still unfinished Long Beach Freeway stand as a testament of neglect by one of the most powerful agencies in California
MTA Spent Big To Sugarcoat Tunneling
Los Angeles Daily News
Critics say humbug to mitigation effort
Moving Down The Road
Pasadena Weekly
Caltrans’ 700,000 square-foot tower owes its existence to earthquakes, union muscle, and a tincture of politics.