Community

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

Los Angeles has made slow but significant progress toward ending homelessness, but the City Council is about to vote on a proposed law that could stop that momentum in its tracks. The Community Care Facilities Ordinance would threaten the well-being of thousands of people with disabilities, create a nightmare for property owners, cost taxpayers more, violate principles of fair housing and jeopardize access to federal funds. The proposed ordinance grew out of an effort to eliminate sober-living homes in residential neighborhoods.

Times are tough enough for Californians; they're even tougher for Californians' teeth. "One-quarter of all adults and 28% of children in California have untreated dental caries [cavities]," says Len Finocchio, a senior program officer at the California Healthcare Foundation, a health advocacy group. "Our research tells us that many people in California have been avoiding routine care that might have cost about $100 for a checkup and cleaning, and then find themselves in the emergency room, where they get only an antibiotic, a bill that can average over $600 and instructions to see a dentist."

Gigabit Squared, a start-up based in Ohio, announced it would bring gigabit broadband speeds to six communities across the country through a new program that has secured $200 million in funding. The Gigabit Neighborhood Gateway Program will be in partnership with Gig.

Distancing himself from Republicans on housing issues, President Obama pitched a $5-billion to $10-billion plan to help a key segment of struggling homeowners — those still making monthly payments, but on underwater mortgages. Obama proposed Wednesday to help about 3.5 million people with good credit who are unable to refinance at historically low rates because their homes are worth less than their mortgages. He argued that those homeowners — and the country — couldn't afford to let the housing market bottom out, as many Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have advocated.

The PSA test should be abandoned as a prostate cancer screening tool, a government advisory panel has concluded after determining that the side effects from needless biopsies and treatments hurt many more men than are potentially helped by early detection of cancers. At best, one life will be saved for every 1,000 men screened over a 10-year period, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. But 100 to 120 men will have suspicious results when there is no cancer, triggering biopsies that can carry complications such as pain, fever, bleeding, infection and hospitalization.

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

On summer nights in the mid-1960s, while black-and-white television crackled elsewhere in his Staten Island home with news of Southern violence and Vietnam, Bobby Lasnik would stretch out in his bedroom to let the righteous soundtrack of the civil rights movement waft into his impressionable teenage soul. Tuned in to WBAI-FM, coming across the water from Manhattan, he heard baleful laments about injustice that he would carry with him for a lifetime. "Suddenly there was someone speaking a certain kind of truth to you. You'd say, 'Wow!

Inside a Chinese restaurant on a narrow street, a grapevine grows. More than 50 years old, its thick, gnarled trunk sits in a courtyard beneath an open sky. At night, when strung with lights, the limbs make for a pretty canopy under which to dine. And dine they did at Mission 261. Foodies and restaurant critics and tourists once packed into the San Gabriel restaurant to feast on Peking duck and dim sum that came in fanciful shapes of birds and fish.

NEW YORK - Dharun Ravi had appeared stoic for three hours, but he broke down in tears as his mother sobbed beside him while pleading with the judge to spare her son from prison. She got what she wanted, up to a point: Judge Glenn Berman on Monday ordered Ravi to spend 30 days in jail for spying with a webcam on his gay Rutgers University roommate, Tyler Clementi, who killed himself days later. Ravi could have received a 10-year term for a crime jurors concluded was motivated by anti-gay bias.

MOSCOW - Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory. The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.

For a downtown once famous for emptying out with the evening commute, the raucous scene around Staples Center and L.A. Live as the Lakers, Kings and Clippers compete in playoff games stands as a testament to how much the central city's fortunes have changed. Thousands jam sidewalks. Crowded cafes and bars pulsate with music and laughter. The streetscape is so lively that a group of Christian evangelists descends on street corners with free Bible booklets. But travel a block or two in any direction and the crowds begin to thin out considerably.

LAFAYETTE, La. - Visitors to this oil town might be forgiven for wondering whether the BP oil spill and subsequent drilling moratorium ever happened. "Now hiring" signs are plastered on billboards around town, and hotels such as the Crowne Plaza are chock full of seminars training students to work on offshore rigs. Many offshore companies can't find enough workers for the jobs they're listing. This parish has the lowest unemployment rate in Louisiana, 4.8%. Such is the opportunity on the offshore rigs that Sheila Clark, whose husband, Donald, died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion two years ago, said her 22-year-old son recently asked her how she'd feel if he went to work on a rig. "I can't stop him," said Clark, who moved to Baton Rouge after her husband's death.

During the election cycle we tend to ask: What does America mean; where are we going? And then someone decides to check on the Indians to find out the answer, as though Indians represent America's soul hidden in the attic. And of course politicians have long stood next to their "souls" and posed for pictures on the campaign trail. Within the last year, Diane Sawyer and "20/20" did a special on the sorry conditions at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and the New Yorker featured a grim photo essay on Pine Ridge too. The New York Times published a piece on brutal crime at the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and another on the deep financial problems at Foxwoods, the Pequot-owned "world's largest" casino in Connecticut.

An Acton man convicted of building-code violations for constructing an elaborate home complex dubbed "Phonehenge West" was ordered by a judge Friday to perform two months of community service and repay Los Angeles County at least $83,488. Alan Kimble Fahey, 60, a retired phone company technician, was found guilty last June of a dozen building code violations because he did not obtain proper permits to construct the ornate Acton property, which many of his supporters considered a work of art. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Daviann L. Mitchell ordered Fahey to perform 63 days of community service, "of which a minimum of five days must be served at the L.A. County or Kern County morgue," Mitchell said.

Re "Gay Pride Confronts an Identity Crisis," June 24: Although I'm a 50-year-old libertarian gay man, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any "community." If people are astonished to discover that "the gay community has long experienced a certain amount of internal dissent," then they must not get out much. Imagine making the statement about an imaginary "women's community" or "adolescent community." Aside from the obvious us-versus-them factor, it seems that most of the confusion comes from equating the mythical gay community with the very real, self-righteous, naive, thought-police community.

I read the City Times article about USC and its community relations ("Walls and Bridges," March 21) and I am upset. Being a USC student, I have had many positive experiences with the community, but I have also observed a disturbing attitude coming from it. USC faculty and administration have tried very hard in the last few years to work with the community and encouraged students to do the same. But many people in the community seem to forget about the progress the university has made and insist on scolding USC for what it has not done.

A historic — and some say haunted — Los Angeles hospital that has been closed for two decades is set to be converted into apartments for low-income seniors in a $40-million makeover. Linda Vista Community Hospital is an imposing relic from the days when railroads took care of their sick and injured employees in company facilities. Originally known as Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital, it was built for employees of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway in Boyle Heights, a blue-collar neighborhood east of the city's rail yards and home to many railroad workers.

Kareen Sandoval was among the first to spot her tree, a skinny little thing about 9 feet tall with dark shimmering leaves. "Look how beautiful you are," she said, reaching for the trunk. "I want you to grow big and strong and never get knocked down. " Along 8th Street in Westlake on Saturday, volunteers planted 62 trees, but this was about more than mere beautification. Every tree honored a mother from the neighborhood, each one a woman whose volunteer work has made a difference in Westlake and Pico-Union, just west of downtown Los Angeles.