20000 Year

IT was a nail-biter of a month. But at last the news is in: The idle chitchat, the intense speculation and competitive jockeying are over, and families throughout the Los Angeles area are either exulting in victory or wallowing in defeat. It's kindergarten acceptance time, the make-it or break-it moment when L.A.'s top private schools mail their acceptance and rejection letters, then conveniently take off on spring break to dodge the hysteria.

Tesla Motors Inc. said in its annual report Thursday that it has received federal approval to complete the repayment of its $465 million in U.S. Energy Department loans five years ahead of schedule. The Palo Alto-based car company run by billionaire co-founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk had received the loan to develop and build electric cars. Tesla spokeswoman Shanna Hendriks said that the company had been scheduled to complete repayment by mid-December of 2022 but had instead arranged to complete the task by the end of 2017.

The struggle to expand the Los Angeles Police Department to 10,000 officers has occupied three mayors over two decades. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has brought the department right to the verge of that benchmark - the force today numbers 9,824 - but an important budgeting decision a few years back has quietly whittled away at the achievement, undermining some of the LAPD's crime-fighting efforts and creating a growing long-term liability for the city...

Clad in a yellow gown, blue foot covers, hair net, face mask and latex gloves, Paula Cannon pushed open the door to the animal room. "I hate this smell," she said, wrinkling her nose. The stink came from scores of little white mice scurrying about in cages. Some of the cages were marked with red biohazard signs, indicating mice that had been injected with HIV. Yet, in some of the animals — ones with a small genetic change — the virus never took hold. Like mouse, like man?

Johnnica Hababag planned to take two classes this summer so she could transfer from Los Angeles Valley College to a four-year school. But those plans were upended when she learned that the community college had all but canceled its summer session because of budget cuts. Hababag, an anthropology major, now will have to return to the two-year school in the fall. "This is definitely going to delay my goals," said Hababag, 21. "For me, living in the Valley, it's hard to get to other campuses, and even if I could, they're not offering the classes I need either.

Using a new dating technique, researchers from Britain, Spain and Portugal have shown that cave art in Spain is the oldest in Europe, as much as 10,000 years older than some previously dated cave art in France. The oldest art they found was nearly 41,000 years old, which means it was produced about the same time that anatomically modern humans first entered Europe from Africa. That means either that the modern humans brought the technique with them from Africa, that their new creativity was inspired by conflict and competition with the Neanderthals, or that the art was done by the Neanderthals themselves, said archaeologist Joao Zilhao of the University of Barcelona.

Electric car company Tesla Motors Inc. is rapidly increasing its ability to turn out cars but is still losing money. The Palo Alto automaker said Monday that it lost $105 million in the third quarter compared with $65 million in the same period a year earlier.  But the company's revenue jumped 88% to $50 million as it starts to deliver its Model S luxury electric hatchback to customers. Tesla built just 350 cars and delivered only 250 to customers during the third quarter, but the company is now producing cars at its factory in Fremont at a rate of about 200 a week, or 10,000 annually.