Los Angeles | featured news

The Democratic mayor of Los Angeles says Republican efforts to use Latino speakers at the GOP national convention to win over Latino voters won't work. Antonio Villaraigosa (vee-yah-ry-GOH'-sah) told reporters Tuesday that the GOP "can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname" and expect Latinos to vote Republican. He called that window dressing.

Ever since hundreds of earthquakes began rippling through southeastern California over the weekend, many asked the question: Could this be a precursor to the Big One?

In the latest attempt to cultivate a pedestrian lifestyle in Los Angeles, the City Council has approved plans to temporarily block off a few street parking spaces at four locations so they can be turned into tiny public plazas big enough to hold a bench or two.

The L.A. Community College District had imposed a moratorium to examine whether campuses had sufficient funding to support a planned 60% increase in new facilities, particularly in light of severe state cuts.

Irma Zamora ran into the electrified water at the Valley Village site and was killed. Another woman died trying to help her. Officials call them heroes. Irma Zamora's husband urged her not to get out of the car as they approached the scene of a spectacular traffic crash in Los Angeles' Valley Village neighborhood.

LL Cool J plays a special agent on TV's "NCIS: Los Angeles" and now he's caught an actual bad guy. Los Angeles police say the rapper grabbed and held a burglary suspect at his Studio City home Wednesday morning.

Paul Chapel III, a former third-grade teacher at Pacoima's Telfair Elementary, faces 25 years to life in prison, the L.A. County district attorney's office says. A former Telfair Elementary teacher pleaded no contest Monday to molesting 13 students at the Pacoima school and faces 25 years to life in prison, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said.

Phyllis Diller, the housewife turned humorist who aimed some of her sharpest barbs at herself, punctuating her jokes with her trademark cackle, died Monday morning in Los Angeles at age 95.

British-born filmmaker Tony Scott, director of such Hollywood blockbusters as "Top Gun" and "Crimson Tide," jumped to his death on Sunday from a bridge over Los Angeles Harbor, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said.

A cluster of earthquakes that began Tuesday night continued Wednesday in northern Orange County, keeping residents on edge but causing little significant damage. Photos emerged of bottles falling off a supermarket shelf in Anaheim Hills, but fire officials said they didn't get reports of anything more serious. At a news conference Wednesday morning, Kate Hutton of the U.S. Geological Survey at Caltech said there had been at least 30 quakes since last night, but only three could be felt by residents.