Arroyo

THE morning after a 19-year-old gang member was gunned down at a phone box at 103rd and Grape streets in Watts, his lifeless body lay in a pool of blood on the sidewalk as hundreds of children walked by, lunch boxes and school bags in hand, on their way to the 102nd Street Elementary School. A few months later, during recess, kindergartners at the school dropped to the ground as five shots were rapidly fired nearby, claiming another victim.

Filled with hollyhocks, wallflowers, pinks, bachelor buttons, cup-and-saucers and forget-me-nots, the cottage gardens of yesteryear were "immune to the fashion in flowers," as W. George Waters, the British-born editor of Pacific Horticulture, puts it. Their owners planting anything that came their way, these front-yard gardens "contained no pretense whatever." But when the gardeners came across something special, Waters says, "they tended to pass it around a bit."

Hundreds of Filipinos in Hong Kong demonstrated to demand the resignation of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as she arrived for an investment conference. The protesters, mostly domestic workers, gathered outside the five-star Grand Hyatt hotel, where Arroyo was expected to stay. They chanted slogans in the Tagalog language, saying, "Gloria Arroyo step down" and "Oust Arroyo."

A conference on "Revitalizing the Arroyo" has been scheduled for Saturday by the Arroyo Seco Council, a nonprofit group working to restore the riverbed environment along the western edge of Pasadena from the San Gabriel Mountains to South Pasadena. The 9 a.m. to noon session will include a talk on the history of the arroyo, plans by Browning-Ferris Industries to help finance improvements and a walking tour. It will be at La Casita del Arroyo, 177 S. Arroyo Blvd.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was hospitalized after reporting abdominal pain. Philippine officials blamed fatigue and said her situation did not appear to be serious. Police in the capital, in a heightened state of alert because of concerns of possible bomb attacks, were put on full alert after Arroyo fell ill, Manila Police Chief Vidal Querol said. Meanwhile, a car bomb killed five people in a southern town.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo lifted a moratorium on the death penalty and said the first executions would be of kidnappers. In a nationally televised news conference, Arroyo said criminals have been emboldened by her suspension of the death penalty after she took office in January. A crime watchdog group has counted 93 kidnappings in which 202 people have been abducted between January and September.

The Pasadena Freeway will be closed from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. today from Glenarm Street in Pasadena to Avenue 26 in Los Angeles for ArroyoFest. The festival will include a walk and bike ride.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo outlined ambitious plans Monday to fight poverty, corruption and crime, but her proposal for a year without political bickering didn't make it through the afternoon. "We don't intend to stop as we are in the opposition and we will criticize the government responsibly," said Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel after Arroyo's first state of the nation address.

As part of a statewide coastal cleanup campaign, volunteers will comb the Arroyo Seco for litter Saturday. "The trash and debris dumped on the streets and in the storm channels of Pasadena and our region flow all the way to Long Beach. They choke the Arroyo and pollute the ocean as well," said Tim Brick, who is coordinating cleanup of the county's only inland site targeted for the day.

The city's first tourist attraction, Arroyo Seco riverbed, will be transformed from a barren meadow dominated by a concrete drainage channel into a historic nature park, under a $4.4-million plan approved Tuesday by the Pasadena Board of Directors. Approval of the Lower Arroyo Master Plan means that $450,000 can be used within the next two years to clean and improve nature trails, replant native vegetation, and remove parking lots along the 1.