Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Antolin Garcia-Torres makes a brief appearance in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday, May 24, 2012. Arraignment proceedings were postponed one week for Garcia-Torres, who is suspected in the kidnapping and probable murder of Morgan Hill teenager Sierra LaMar. (05-24) 20:07 PDT MORGAN HILL -- Sierra LaMar left her house outside Morgan Hill on the day she vanished and made it at least halfway down the block. Investigators are confident of that much. The 15-year-old girl would have been on her way to the bus stop where she always caught a ride to Sobrato High School, but on March 16 she never made it to class. When Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies put a trained ... Continue reading →
The state filed disciplinary proceedings Thursday against a prominent accounting firm that failed to detect any financial irregularities in Bell, where former city leaders now stand accused of looting the town’s treasury as it teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Mayer Hoffman McCann, which audited the books for dozens of cities in California, could be fined $1 million and lose its license to practice in the state. The firm has asked for a formal hearing before an administrative law judge. The accusation by the Board of Accountancy follows a December report from the state controller that excoriated Mayer Hoffman’s work in Bell, calling its audits little more than a “rubber-stamp.” The auditing firm repeatedly gave a clean bill of fiscal health to Bell, where eight ... Continue reading →
Despite strong objections and threats of legal action, Los Angeles County transportation officials on Thursday approved a plan to tunnel beneath Beverly Hills High School as part of a long-awaited Westside subway extension from downtown to the Westwood area. Beverly Hills city and school officials had argued against digging a tunnel under the high school as part of the Purple Line extension. The $5.6-billion rail project will extend 9 miles west from the existing Purple Line station at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to the Veterans Administration hospital. It will mostly run under Wilshire except for a segment where the line veers southwest below the high school and into Century City. "The subway extension is a critically needed mobility improvement that will create a fast, ... Continue reading →
The artist who installed the "sunbathers" in an empty lot in downtown L.A. has not formally stepped forward to take credit but wrote on his Facebook "haha made the news!" with a link to the post The Times published Wednesday. "LOL! That is amazing :D way to make people take notice and smile," one friend wrote in the comments, and others congratulated Calder Greenwood on being a successful "L.A. guerilla street artist." Greenwood, a New York native working in Los Angeles, according to his various social media accounts, called the sunbathers a "secret project" on his Facebook and posted a photo Tuesday with the caption "day at the beach," writing that "there was more water when we decided to do it, but the lack of ... Continue reading →
Welcome to our weekly live chat series, Lunchtime with Mr. Gold. Join in each Wednesday at noon for a live chat with Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold. You have questions? Say, where to find hand-pulled Uzbekistan noodles? Best ramen on the Westside? Craving a spleen sandwich? He'll be here at lunchtime to answer. Check back here each week; you can sign up for email reminders ahead of the live discussion. Continue reading →
At first glance, passersby thought they were real: a boy playing in the sand, a man and woman sunbathing on brightly colored beach towels in the fenced-in empty lot in downtown Los Angeles. "At first, I thought they were real and thought: Who would actually do that? I had to take a closer look," said Natalie Espinoza, 20, who stopped for a few minutes to try to get a good picture with her cellphone. "Now I'm thinking: Who would go to all that trouble to put in that art? It's funny." The life-size guerrilla art installation on Broadway between 1st and 2nd streets in downtown Los Angeles has been drawing attention since Tuesday, when it mysteriously appeared. Passersby rushing down 1st Street stopped their cellphone ... Continue reading →
