“I am dying.” Those were the first three words of the e-mail Christine Lilly sent me. Read more

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday shelved at least temporarily a cost-cutting plan to shut all but one of the county’s healthcare clinics and reduce services at its six comprehensive outpatient health centers, ordering health executives instead to explore other ways to save money. As healthcare advocates for the poor applauded, four of the five supervisors questioned whether the proposal would hurt the indigent and uninsured people who depend on the county for their healthca Read more

The Southland is expected to stay soggy through the weekend, with intermittent rains lasting into Sunday, forecasters said today. A couple of low-pressure systems moving in over the next few days will bring sporadic light drizzle tonight; the heaviest showers could arrive Saturday afternoon through Sunday, said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. Read more

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan was back home in Bel-Air today after a two-day hospital stay following a fall, a family spokeswoman said. Reagan took a spill at home on Sunday morning and was taken to St. Read more

Tonight’s Super Lotto PlusJackpot: $80 million Sales close at 7:45 p.m.For Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008Mega MillionsMega number is bold1-38-42-55-56–Mega 34 Jackpot: $220 millionFantasy Five: 1-10-17-31-36Daily Three (midday): 7-1-4Daily Three (evening): 1-9-0Daily Derby:(4) Big Ben(8) Gorgeous Georg Read more

A former military contractor was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in federal prison for bribing former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham with cash, ritzy vacations and prostitutes in exchange for help in getting government contracts. Read more

The Santa Monica City Council delayed action late Tuesday on the drafting of an ordinance that would ban “single-use” plastic carry-out bags at all stores and restaurants within the city and would require retailers to charge a fee for paper bags. The measure, supported by Heal the Bay, an influential environmental organization based in Santa Monica, is aimed at accelerating a shift away from highly polluting plastic bags in favor of reusable canvas and other bags. Read more

Slaughterhouse workers watch every move of federal inspectors. They know when they take bathroom breaks. Read more

Prominent Los Angeles entertainment attorney Terry N. Christensen will be tried separately from private investigator Anthony Pellicano and his other co-defendants, a federal judge ruled today as final details began to fall in place for Hollywood’s big wire-tapping trial next week. The decision by U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer removes the only marquee name from the list of defendants in the long-awaited trial, which is set to start Feb. Read more

Over the objections of environmental, public health and labor organizations, the Long Beach harbor commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved a clean-air plan that continues to place the burden of owning and maintaining diesel big rigs on drivers rather than on shipping companies that hire them. Port authorities called the move a “victory for clean air” and a final element of a clean trucks program that will replace and modernize the entire fleet of trucks serving the Long Beach ports. Read more

Nine preschool students and three adults were injured when a car suspected of running a red light smashed into a school bus near a Chino intersection this morning, officials said. The bus, carrying children between 3 and 5 years old, was traveling south on Monte Vista Avenue when a white Infiniti traveling east on Eucalyptus Avenue crashed into it about 7:30 a.m., said California Highway Patrol Officer Jeff Briggs of the Rancho Cucamonga office. Read more

An Ontario father of three was beaten and kidnapped Monday afternoon by a band of men who police said had held his wife and children hostage for hours as they waited for his return home, authorities said today. Santiago Contreras, 34, was abducted at gunpoint about 2 p.m. Read more

Even as gentrification swept Venice in the last decade and the district’s once notorious gang activity dropped, the Venice Shoreline Crips kept a stubborn hold over the Oakwood Recreation Center, authorities say. According to authorities, the gang exerted a brazen influence over the facility, turning outsiders away and using it as an outpost for drug sales – particularly within the last several years. Read more

When investors laid claim to a wide stretch of Orange County beach property more than 100 years ago, they named it Pacific City in an idealistic pitch for what they thought could be one of the West Coast’s premier resorts. Instead, Huntington Beach became an oil boomtown and, later, a surf mecca. Read more

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other municipal leaders unveiled a green energy initiative Tuesday by the city’s utility that they predict will create as many as 400 union jobs over the next three years to install and maintain solar panels on city buildings and other structures around Los Angeles. Villaraigosa promoted the new effort as part of a larger clean-growth strategy during an appearance atop a Los Angeles Convention Center parking garage with solar panels as a backdrop. Read more

Natalia Bessmertnova, a legendary prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet for more than three decades, has died. She was 66. Read more

Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy A. Simon solicited donations from companies he regulates to help pay for a nonprofit conference on green energy hosted last month by one of his political patrons, documents and interviews show. Two weeks after the conference, the three most generous corporate donors to the Willie L. Brown. Read more

Yacht buyers will continue to benefit from a loophole that allows them to avoid sales tax on their boats, after Republicans in the Assembly blocked an effort to close it Tuesday. Closing the tax loophole – “sloophole” as it has come to be known by Democrats – takes a two-thirds majority vote in each house of the Legislature, which requires some Republicans to get on board. Read more

Three-quarters of California’s elected district attorneys refused to disclose how they choose defendants to face the death penalty, according to a report slated for presentation at a public hearing in Los Angeles today. In a report to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which is examining how the death penalty is applied in California, Pepperdine law school professors Harry M. Caldwell, Carol Chase and Christine Goodman said only 14 of the state’s 58 counties agreed Read more

Low-income community groups in five California cities launched a statewide campaign Tuesday to “fight at every turn” any global-warming regulation that allows industries to trade carbon emissions, saying it would amount to “gambling on public health.” The 21-point “Environmental Justice Movement Declaration” challenges the stance of Gov. Read more

Bob Howsam, a baseball and football executive who assembled the “Big Red Machine” in Cincinnati, helped put the St. Louis Cardinals in a World Series and co-founded the Denver Broncos, died Tuesday at his winter home in Sun City, Ariz. Read more

A 22-year-old Encino man, supposedly despondent over a break-up with his girlfriend, was arrested for severely injuring a pit bull puppy, Los Angeles police said today. . Steven William Butcher is accused of breaking the dog’s jaw, two rear legs and inflicting numerous other injuries, authorities said. Read more

Leona Wood, a painter, teacher and expert in Middle Eastern dance who co-founded the Aman Folk Ensemble – once the largest and best-known dance company in Southern California – died in her West Los Angeles home Feb. 7. Read more

Yacht buyers will continue to benefit from a loophole that allows them to avoid sales tax on their boats, after Republicans in the Assembly blocked an effort to close it Tuesday. The vote came hours after Gov. Read more

Hundreds of parents filled an Oxnard gymnasium Tuesday night to ask hard questions about why school officials didn’t intervene more aggressively in an escalating feud between two students, which ended last week with the shooting death of 15-year-old student Lawrence King. In orderly fashion, one parent after another asked for metal detectors on campus, more programs dealing with bullying and for stricter enforcement of the district’s uniform policy. Read more

A federal judge has set off a free speech tempest after shutting down a U.S. website for posting internal documents accusing a Cayman Islands’ bank branch of money laundering and tax evasion schemes. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Read more

Winston Hayes, the man who led Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on a low-speed chase through a Compton neighborhood three years ago, wept Tuesday as he testified about the night that 10 deputies fired 120 rounds at him. Using blown-up photographs of himself, Hayes listed his injuries: wounds to the face and neck that left him with a drooping left eyelid, a bullet that went through his arm, another that pierced a foot, one fingertip blown off, and six scars on his back, all from bullet wounds Read more

Lionel Mark Smith, a character actor who was one of David Mamet’s stock film and stage players and whose casting in the play “Oleanna” created controversy in Los Angeles theater, died of cancer Feb. 13 at his Inglewood home, said his friend Paula Fins. Read more

SACRAMENTO – In a crackdown under a new state law, inspectors have issued citations to five Southern California salons, putting them on probation for clipping toenails and soaking feet in unsanitary conditions, officials announced today. Salons in Huntington Beach, Anaheim, Buena Park and Santa Ana are among 10 cited by inspectors from the state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology. Read more

Developer and philanthropist Donald Bren on Tuesday reached beyond the Orange County communities he helped build and define, announcing an $8.5-million donation to benefit after-school programs in Santa Ana and east Los Angeles County. The gift will bolster Santa Ana-based THINK Together, an after-school program that extends the school day for children who need extra coaching with classwork or homework help, often because their parents are working or lack English skills. Read more

The Schwarzenegger administration collided head-on Tuesday with transportation officials from five Southern California counties over the governor’s proposal to use public funds to help two private railroads pay for a $198-million rail project at Colton crossing in San Bernardino County. Tensions rose at a two-hour public hearing in Los Angeles when Caltrans official Ross Chittenden asked the commission to invest public money to help eliminate a major bottleneck where the Union Pacific and Burlin Read more

West Hollywood leaders probably figured their request to the U.S. Postal Service had ended up in the dead-letter office. Since forming their 2-square-mile city in 1984 officials have waited for postal administrators to recognize residents by doing away with the “Los Angeles” name attached in big letters to the front of the community post office at 820 N. San Vicente Blvd. Read more

The lone surviving brother of the youth who shot and killed LAPD SWAT Officer Randal Simmons expressed his condolences to the officer’s family Tuesday and said his brother had been depressed. But Wilfredo Rivera, 27, said he could not explain the events that left his father, three brothers and Simmons dead. Read more

About 50 stern-faced mothers who work at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power confronted the agency’s board Tuesday and won the ability to keep using lactation services provided as a benefit of employment. Some members of the group, organized by their union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, lined the boardroom holding signs that read: “Mayor Villaraigosa’s appointee: Nick Patsaouras is anti-women.” Read more