Bridges

Two proposed bridges in Alaska that became symbols of the excesses of old-fashioned "pork barrel" politics would get the ax -- sort of -- under a deal emerging on a major transportation spending bill. One of the spans is the infamous $223-million "Bridge to Nowhere," proposed to link Ketchikan to an island where there is an airport and about 50 people. The other is a $229-million span near Alaska that was to be dubbed Don Young Way after the powerful Alaska Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee.

The Golden Gate Bridge turns 75 on Sunday culminating with a big festival from 11 a.m.-11 p.m. that day with fireworks, entertainment, exhibits and more. The Golden Gate Festival is free and will stretch along the waterfront from Fort Point to Fisherman's Wharf. Other tribute events happening all week and into summer to mark May 27, 1937, the day the bridge first opened to pedestrians. Here are some good bets for those heading to San Francisco next weekend: --A ferry cruise takes you under the Golden Gate Bridge in a two-hour loop that starts at Pier 43 1/2 and swings out around Angel Island.

Near hurricane-strength winds slammed into the North Carolina coast Friday, knocking out a bridge to the Outer Banks and leaving 5,000 people isolated on Hatteras Island. The storm, which moved northward with wind gusts of up to 92 m.p.h., prompted gale and coastal flood warnings along the state's Outer Banks or coastal islands. Seas were reported running as high as 16 feet. Wind gusts of 90 m.p.h.

Want to say happy birthday to the Golden Gate Bridge ? There's an app for that. OK, not quite, but the National Parks Conservancy had a free GoGGBridge app created to help celebrate the big day. (An Android version is to be released before the bridge's birthday on Sunday.) Here are some of its fine points and some of its lesser points. --A tap of the finger can make you a GG Bridge expert. The Nuts & Bolts facts include the bridge's length (1.7 miles long), weight (887,000 tons)

NATO--destroy as many bridges as you want in Yugoslavia, but please make one bridge for communication. SURINDER DHUPAR Placentia

The lonely heights of bridges have often been magnets for suicide -- San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, England, the Coronado Bridge in San Diego. The lure of a spectacular plunge to a speedy demise in a womb of water has proven irresistible for generations. In few of these places, though, are despairing jumpers in danger of becoming deadly missiles, threatening pedestrians below. That dubious honor is reserved for Seattle, where the 78-year-old Aurora Bridge runs 167 feet above the west end of Lake Union -- half of it over land.

A feel-good sports movie about a ragtag rugby team in Australia, complete with heart-swelling music and montages of cheering crowds, opens the Vietnamese International Film Festival today in Irvine. But underlying the story of the team's triumphs in "Footy Legends" -- as in many of the festival's films -- is the main character's deep ties to his past in Vietnam and the war that tore his family apart.

A modern cable-supported bridge will replace the stately concrete piers and graceful steel arches of the 6th Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River, the City Council decided Friday, when it voted to demolish the beloved, but fatally decaying 79-year-old span. The chance to build a new monument that reflects contemporary design won out over an appeal from preservationists to replicate at least the signature double arches. The bridge is one of a dozen historic river bridges built in grand style by an ascendant city in the early part of the last century.

The narrow lanes weave through the forest, past timber guardrails, low-slung bridges with stone facades and trees whose crimson leaves glisten in the fall sun. But take a closer look. Those log guardrails hide steel reinforcements. And some of the charming bridges have been swapped out for modern, sharp-edged models. On second thought, don't take a closer look; you might find yourself wrapped around one of those magnificent trees. The Merritt Parkway, known to many Americans as a speed trap for David Letterman, for 69 years has coursed through southwestern Connecticut, linking what are now some of its toniest suburbs to New York.

His pristine Ferrari 512 BBi "Boxer" sits in the middle of Holger Schubert's living room in Brentwood, right next to stylish furniture, a built-in bookcase and a flat-screen TV that slides on tracks past walls of glass that frame an ocean view. But Los Angeles officials are about to slam shut forever the garage door that leads to the city's most extravagant parking space City planners have withdrawn permission for Schubert to use a bridge to connect his Ferrari's third-floor resting spot with North Tigertail Road.

Tens of thousands of cycling, hockey and basketball fans will converge at Staples Center in a weekend packed with post-season games and the final stage of the 2012 Amgen Tour of California - events that authorities are warning will close streets and delay traffic in the downtown Los Angeles area. The biggest wrench in traffic will be crowds overlapping for the Kings game and the bike race Sunday. Street closures were scheduled to begin after the Lakers game Saturday night - along Figueroa Street from Pico to Olympic boulevards and on Chick Hearn Court/11th Street from Flower Avenue to Georgia Street - when two pedestrian bridges will be erected so Kings fans can cross the bike route Sunday morning for Game 4 of the NHL Western conference finals.

The sleepy Central Coast town of Arroyo Grande, population 17,000, is the ideal place to shut out the mayhem of city life for a few days. There's not much to do except relax, drink wine, read your book and take sunset strolls. The bed. House of Another Tyme Bed & Breakfast (227 Le Point St.; (805) 489-6313; http://www.anothertymebnb.net ; rooms for two, $120) is a remodeled Victorian home that dates to 1916 and contains three guest rooms. The B&B is run by husband-and-wife Jack Tiedemann and Judy Zwarg.

HILLSBOROUGH, N.H. -- Mitt Romney rounded out a week focused on what he views as overspending by the federal government with a critique of President Obama's stimulus program during a speech in front of what opponents call New Hampshire's "bridge to nowhere. " Romney has argued throughout the campaign that Obama's $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was a waste of money that did little to jumpstart the economy -- and he has charged that the federal government has inflated the job numbers associated with various projects.

Visitors to the Golden Gate Bridge often pose a strange request: They want some of the bridge's International Orange paint. During construction, consulting architect Irving Morrow chose the color. He thought it would reflect nicely off the waters of the Golden Gate Strait below and blend well with the Marin headlands to the north. "I get asked all the time, 'Can I have a little bit of that paint? I want to paint the fence in front of my house,'" said Mary Currie, public affairs director for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, which operates the bridge.

As its 75th birthday fast approaches, the Golden Gate Bridge is getting a little birthday present. Even though about 40 million vehicles cross it each year and visitors come in droves daily to admire and photograph it, the spectacular span has never had a visitor center. That is, until this month. "The bridge experience up to this point has just really been self-guided and a photo opportunity," said David Shaw, vice president of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. "Now there's this bridge pavilion, which is a really nice welcome center.

With an Amtrak Pacific Surfliner crossing over the new Trestles bridge on Monday morning, local transportation officials marked the completion of a multimillion-dollar project to replace the storied, but worn-down, wooden structure that has served as the gateway to a San Diego County beach regarded as a birthplace of Southern California's surf culture. The original Trestles, built in 1941, was an 858-foot stretch of wooden post-and-beam bridge. Although it remained strong, with more than 40 passenger and freight trains crossing per day, the trains were required to slow down to reduce vibration and wear and tear.

The long-planned pedestrian bridge to connect the two sections of South Coast Plaza across Bear Street in Costa Mesa is taking shape. The 611-foot walkway will stretch from an area near the second level of Macy's main store in the larger part of the center, to the middle of the third floor of old Crystal Court annex, which now shares the name South Coast Plaza. The bridge was originally envisioned as an 800-foot motorized walkway and was to be completed by this year's holiday shopping season.

It is with great pride that I will march with the longshoremen in San Pedro on Saturday to celebrate the 100th birthday of Harry Bridges (July 21). It will remind me of marching down Broadway (Pico Boulevard to First Street) in the '30s, holding my father's hand as his union local, the longshoremen and all the other Southern California unions celebrated Labor Day. Bridges' accomplishments in the '30s set the stage for what Cesar Chavez carried on from the '50s on. Let us honor Bridges for what he was--one of California's and America's great labor leaders of the past century.

Five men who called themselves anarchists were preparing to commemorate May Day, the international workers holiday, by taking violent political action. They planted what they thought were demolition charges on a bridge crossing the Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of downtown Cleveland and drove to a spot several miles away. There, they punched in the code that they thought would detonate the explosives, federal officials allege. But nothing happened. Instead, law enforcement officers from a variety of agencies including the FBI arrested the five Monday night, charging them with conspiracy and trying to bomb property used in interstate commerce.