Complaints

How sweet is life when you live next to a celebrity in Malibu? Outside Bob Dylan's house, the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. That's what some of the singer-songwriter's neighbors are charging in an increasingly odoriferous dispute over a portable toilet at his sprawling ocean view estate on Point Dume. Residents contend that the nighttime sea breeze sends a noxious odor from a portable toilet on Dylan's property wafting into their homes.

John Bailey thought it was great when his neighbor was elected to the House of Representatives in 2007. "Not everyone lives next door to a congresswoman," he said. But two years later, he doesn't feel so lucky. The congresswoman's house is abandoned and in disrepair, "a blight on the neighborhood," Bailey said. He thinks the way that Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach) has treated her Sacramento home tells far more about her than her voting record.

The story was dead. The story came alive. After USC's final practice before flying to Ohio State on Thursday, Pete Carroll suddenly announced that his plane-catching players didn't have time to talk to the media. I had come to talk to Stafon Johnson. He jogged away quietly. It was perfect. For four years, attention has sought him, controversy has nagged him, bitterness has chased him. He has jogged away quietly. In the last two seasons here, among USC's running backs, he has been the most consistent, and consistently ignored.

Vowing "never to stop pushing" for condom use in porn, AIDS Healthcare Foundation officials said Wednesday that they plan to file complaints today with state officials against 16 California-based production companies they say have violated workplace safety laws. The complaints will mark the latest move by the Los Angeles-based advocacy group to pressure the porn industry and government regulators to do more to safeguard the health of adult-film performers. The foundation sued Los Angeles County last month alleging that public health officials had failed to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and to enforce laws requiring employers to protect workers against exposure to bodily fluids.

Ever since Miss California Carrie Prejean declared onstage last month at the Miss USA Pageant that she believed gay people should not have the right to marry, she has battled her critics in TV interviews, been championed by groups opposed to same-sex marriage and pretty much eclipsed the woman who beat her to become the reigning Miss USA. (Does anyone even remember what state the winner was from?) But that's nothing compared to what Prejean did to the Miss California organization.

A 6-year-old boy whose battered body was found on the floor of a South Los Angeles home was the subject of roughly a dozen calls to Los Angeles County's child abuse hotline alleging abuse or neglect, a county official briefed on the case told The Times on Friday. Dae'von Bailey had injuries that suggested blows or other trauma over an extended period of time, said Lt. Vincent Neglia of the LAPD's Abused Child Section.

A speech by President Obama has prompted accusations of "indoctrinating" America's youth and led to calls for "transparency" -- nearly a week before the address is scheduled to be delivered to the nation's schoolchildren. The U.S. Department of Education last week announced plans for the president to speak "directly to the nation's schoolchildren about persisting and succeeding in school," as Secretary Arne Duncan wrote in an e-mail to principals at more than 100,000 schools. The 15- to 20-minute address is scheduled for Tuesday, the first day of school for many districts, at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. It will be broadcast over the Internet, on C-SPAN and via satellite.

Slowly over the last few weeks, some of Barack Obama's most fervent supporters have come to an unhappy realization: The candidate who they thought was squarely on their side in policy fights is now a president who needs cajoling and persuading. Advocates for stem cell research thought Obama would quickly sign an order to reverse former President Bush's restrictions on the science. Now they are fretting over Obama's statement that he wants to act in tandem with Congress, possibly causing a delay.

If Kaiser Permanente's Fresno hospital had acted on complaints and kept a closer watch over its medical staff, two babies might still be alive, federal health inspectors concluded in a report released this week. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began investigating the hospital in October, two days after the Los Angeles Times reported that doctors and nurses had complained repeatedly to higher-ups about perinatologist Hamid Safari's medical and interpersonal skills.

Sharon Vaughan had been warned that cellphone reception was notoriously bad in this wealthy Central Coast town of art boutiques and touristy shops selling pottery and seashells. But the reality of cellularless living didn't really sink in until she moved to her first apartment in town two years ago. "The only place I could get a call out was on a wooden deck outside my apartment," said Vaughan, a restaurant manager at Cambria Pines Lodge.