Burbank

The legal battle to stop a Wal-Mart from opening in Burbank is scheduled to go to trial on Aug. 17, when a judge will consider an injunction seeking to halt renovations on the building that will house the new store. Three Burbank residents who filed suit seeking to stop the renovation of the former Great Indoors site are demanding that more be done to study the economic and environmental impact of the world's largest retailer moving in next to the Empire Center. In the motion, the trio say that Wal-Mart gave notice in a letter to its attorney that it planned to start improvements last week.

Burbank officials have announced plans to hire a new police chief, while the department's interim leader said he is considering whether to apply. Scott LaChasse, a 32-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, has held the title of interim chief since January 2010. His predecessor, Tim Stehr, who retired under a cloud of civil rights investigations and lawsuits, served from August 2007 to December 2009. City Manager Mike Flad said it's time to find a permanent replacement.

Bob Hope Airport in Burbank has reopened its gates to Hollywood for the first time in more than a decade, after prohibiting film shoots there since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The tragedy put the nation's entire air transportation system on high alert. In the weeks and months after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, security requirements put a heavy demand on the regional airport's staff. With safety the top priority, one of the restrictions that Burbank put into place at the time was a ban on all film production activity.

The class clown from Mr. Gadberry's high school art class has made good - and how. Rebecca Mieliwocki teaches seventh-grade English at Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank - but not next year. Instead, she'll be on the road as the National Teacher of the Year. It took her a long time to get to the classroom - she once worked as a floral designer, doing the flowers for Elizabeth Taylor's private jet - and eventually to the White House, where a fellow teacher, President Obama, crowned her as a national teaching treasure.

Authorities launched Burbank's largest manhunt in 20 years in search of a missing FBI agent who was believed to be suicidal and possibly carrying a handgun, officials said Saturday. More than 150 law enforcement personnel joined in a search that began Friday and fanned through the rugged Verdugo Mountains and other parts of Los Angeles County looking for Stephen Ivens, 35, a Los Angeles-based agent specializing in national security affairs. He was last seen Friday at his home in the 1700 block of Scott Road in Burbank.

To all the high school pitchers who keep winning games but get no love from the pro baseball scouts because they don't fit into the required mold (a.k.a, throw 90 mph), let me introduce you to your future hero, left-hander Daniel Starkand of Burbank High. "I'm a skinny kid," the 6-foot-4, 170-pound Starkand said. His fastball probably comes in at 83 mph on a good day. He hasn't given up an earned run in his last 46 innings. He ended Arcadia's Pacific League winning streak at 41 games by shutting down the Apaches, 3-0. He has a 4.25 grade-point average and will play for Chapman University next season.

For her work in a Burbank classroom, Rebecca Mieliwocki earned a trip to the White House. Mieliwocki, a seventh-grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School, was recognized Tuesday by President Obama as the National Teacher of the Year. She was cheered loudly at the event, which also honored the winners of each state's teacher of the year awards. Obama pointed out a particularly boisterous group. "This is Rebecca's crew right here, who are very proud. Auntie, cousins?"

Though she was raised by two teachers, Rebecca Mieliwocki never figured she'd end up in front of a classroom. She first aspired to be a lawyer, then worked in publishing. Unfulfilled, she decided to take up the family profession. And on Monday, after 14 years in the classroom, she was named the National Teacher of the Year. "I was not doing work that I felt was making a difference on the planet," she said. "It was shocking to me as anybody that being a teacher was absolutely the right fit. " Mieliwocki, a seventh-grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank, will be recognized by President Obama on Tuesday during a ceremony at the White House.

A new, long-awaited regional crime laboratory could begin processing vital ballistic analysis and DNA evidence for hundreds of unsolved property crimes in Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena as early as May, police said. The Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory, based in Glendale, will enable quicker processing of crime scene evidence, officials said. "We could use DNA early on to intercede as rapidly as possible," Glendale Police Chief Ron De Pompa said at a news conference last week.

Some days, the terminals at L.A./Ontario International Airport can be as quiet as a ghost town. The number of passengers using the airport - about 40 miles east of downtown Los Angeles - dropped to about 4.4 million in 2011 from 6.8 million passengers in 2007, according to federal statistics. In January, passenger traffic again dropped 7.4%, compared with the same month in 2011. Passenger numbers also dropped, although less dramatically, at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank and John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. In contrast, Long Beach Airport, about 20 miles south of L.A., continued to boom, serving more than 3 million passengers last year, a 7% increase over 2007, with growth continuing in 2012.