Awards

Pacoima produced three of the four winners at the fifth annual Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles Spelling Bee on Saturday. The winners will get a free trip to Washington, D.C., where Rep. Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills) will take them on a tour. Karina Bedolla, 9, of Pacoima Elementary School; Emilio Fuentes, 13, of Maclay Middle School in Pacoima; and Vanda Ayrapetian, 12, of Guardian Angel Catholic School are the Valley winners headed to the nation's capital April 30.

A company headed by cellphone pioneer Craig O. McCaw asked the California Supreme Court to reinstate a $603-million fraud and breach-of-contract verdict against Boeing Co., alleging that two appellate justices had conflicts of interest. ICO Global Communications, a subsidiary of Pendrell Corp., said in its appeal filed Wednesday that two state 2nd District Court of Appeal judges considered Boeing's petition to toss out the trial court verdict even though they owned stock in Boeing.

Failure no longer colors Eric Arevalo's identity. For five years, the 17-year-old spray-painted freeway overpasses from Orange County to San Francisco with his moniker, Fale, chosen because the Santa Ana youth had felt like a failure all his life. Now he works with canvas and clay, creating seascapes, masks and watercolors through the art program at Santiago Creek School in Santa Ana.

There's a flicker of uncertainty in Danny Burstein's friendly brown eyes as he greets a reporter backstage at the Ahmanson Theatre, as if he half-expects her to step around him on her way into the dressing room of one of his "Follies" costars. "When I heard that The Times wanted to talk to me, I said, 'Are you sure?'" he says, after being persuaded that he, and not Ron Raines, Victoria Clark, Jan Maxwell,Elaine Page,or any of the show's other big guns, is meant to be the subject of this interview.

"It was a very messy situation--and a very unfortunate time," said Burt Bacharach. Looking back on the 10-year hiatus during which he only talked "through attorneys" with Hal David and Dionne Warwick, his hit-making collaborators of the '60s, Bacharach's primary desire was to put the past to rest. "Look, there's no point in going over all the gory details," he said this week, as he and David recalled the estrangement that began in the late '70s. "It's all over now.

Three thousand poets have arrived in Washington, and most of them are winners. World of Poetry, a for-profit California organization, is holding its fifth annual convention this weekend, its first in Washington. Bob Hope will perform, there will be a "Balloonathon," and literally thousands of awards will be presented. But then, in the World of Poetry, it's hard not to be a winner.

Recycling company Looney Bins will be honored at an event today for its efforts to reuse and recycle surplus materials from Hollywood sets. The Sun Valley-based recycler will receive the CalMAX Connection of the Year Award for customer service and the amount of materials recycled this year. The award is sponsored by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, an agency that manages about 56 million tons of the state's solid waste annually.

'It gave us a chance to work with young people--both men and women--who need a second chance in life.' Sophia Ramos glanced at the computer screen with a practiced eye. Her fingers roamed confidently across the keyboard. "I've been here a year and four months, and I've learned a lot," the 18-year-old South Gate resident said, pausing briefly between lessons at the Job Corps training center on South Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles. "They're really concerned about you here," she said.

An arbitration panel on Thursday awarded $860,000 to two former Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery owners who accused the self-proclaimed "Painter of Light" and his company, Media Arts Group Inc., of fraudulently inducing them to invest in the business -- and then ruining them financially. While not singling out Kinkade in its finding of fraud, the panel ruled that the Morgan Hill, Calif.-based company and one of its executives, Richard F.

Axl Rose wasn't the only musician who didn't show up to perform Saturday at the 27th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, but it was illness that kept Rod Stewart from reuniting with the Faces and Adam Yauch from joining with the Beastie Boys. Rose's boycott of the 51/2-hour event generated the most sparks, however, because of his very public shunning of the ceremony and his decision not to join with his former bandmates as they became members of the Hall of Fame, which also inducted singer-songwriters Donovan and Laura Nyro and both incarnations of the British rock group the Small Faces and Faces.

For 18 years, Dora Sanchez Hernandez has fiercely protected her son. From the time Erik Esequizel was born prematurely at just 24 weeks, she has been there for him. Through 50 surgeries and two near-death episodes. Through the daily demands of feeding, bathing and dressing. Through abandonment by his father and advice from doctors to pull the plug. Now - in what L.A. County Superior Court Judge Michael I. Levanas called a "celebration of family" - Hernandez and 14 other families have been granted limited conservatorships over their disabled children.

For several moments, Pau Gasol began to tear up.He was talking about how winning the NBA's J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award "means a lot" and is a "great honor" and it was obvious those were more than just words as he began thinking about all the sick children he's visited on various trips as a UNICEF ambassador.

A person familiar with the decision has told the Associated Press that Miami's LeBron James will be announced Saturday as the NBA's most valuable player, the third time he has won the award in the past four seasons. James is expected to be presented with the trophy Sunday by Commissioner David Stern before Miami hosts Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Indiana. James will become the eighth player to win the award at least three times, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone.

Oklahoma City Thunder guard James Harden won the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award on Friday, receiving 115 of a possible 119 first-place votes. Harden, who came off the bench in 60 of 62 games, led all reserves in scoring by averaging 16.8 points on 49% shooting. He helped the Thunder finish with the third-best record in the league (47-19). In the playoffs, Harden averaged 18.3 points a game in the Thunder's Western Conference first-round series sweep of the Dallas Mavericks.

This is tough way to go, not that anyone around Chavez Ravine is complaining. Tim Lincecum keeps pitching very well against the Dodgers and keeps losing. That's a difficult combo to pull off, but the Giants' two-time Cy Young winner has been pulling it off with great regularity. Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, Lincecum stumbled for one inning, and it led to a 6-2 Dodgers victory before an announced crowd of 33,993. In his last six starts against the Dodgers, Lincecum has a 2.52 ERA -- and is 0-4. Lincecum has been having issues well beyond the Dodgers this season (2-3, 5.89 ERA)

The Dodgers beat Tim Lincecum again on Wednesday night. But the 6-2 victory at Dodger Stadium was nothing like their four victories against him last season, when Clayton Kershaw repeatedly edged the two-time Cy Young Award winner in a series of stirring pitchers' duels. Lincecum's fourth-inning implosion allowed the Dodgers to overcome an uninspired start by Chad Billingsley and claim their second victory in the three-game series. Pinch-hitter Tony Gwynn Jr. capped a four-run fourth inning with a bases-clearing triple and Scott Van Slyke drove in a run in his first major league at-bat, as the Dodgers improved to 20-11, including 12-3 at home.

Be Kind to Animals: "Babe" may not have won the best picture Oscar last week, but the movie about an endearing pig took home the award for best feature film at The Ark Trust's 10th annual Genesis Awards, which honor positive portrayals of animal issues in the media, on Saturday at the Beverly Hilton. No, Babe didn't show up to accept, but a celebrity look-alike pig named Murray was there. "Planet of the Apes" received the film classic award.

The Los Angeles Times won Newspaper of the Year for 2011 among the state's largest daily newspapers and a total of 20 journalism awards as part of the annual Better Newspaper Contest, officials announced Saturday. The Times won first-place awards among newspapers with a circulation of 150,000 or more in the following categories: local government coverage, investigative reporting, sports, and arts and entertainment. The paper also received second prize for design and general excellence in the contest sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn., a nonprofit trade group.

It is in the nature of politicians to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, especially if they're the kind of mistakes favored by the lawmakers' key financial backers. So the award of an important rail car contract Monday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board to a company that submitted the best bid for the job - but isn't the most politically connected - was a rare and encouraging event. Rail cars are a touchy subject in Los Angeles. That's because in 2009, the MTA board awarded a $300-million contract for 100 cars to AnsaldoBreda, an Italian company with a terrible track record.