Construction Site

A laundromat operator hands over her life savings to a company supposedly building Rose Parade floats. A married welder falls for a beautiful woman, who beats him up because he won't give her $60,000. An old lady is left empty-handed after she pays $100,000 for a chest of gold nuggets she's told have been unearthed on a construction site. In the insular Chinese world of the San Gabriel Valley, swindlers find easy prey in the steady flow of new immigrants, vulnerable to the predators lurking in their midst.

For the second time in two months, the Obama administration has interjected itself into a dispute over a proposed Islamic center, warning local officials that opposing the mosque could violate the civil rights of its members. The Justice Department filed court papers Monday in support of construction of a Murfreesboro, Tenn., mosque, saying local Muslims were protected by the 1st Amendment right to free exercise of religion and disputing opponents' claims that Islam is not a valid religion.

In the labor market's pecking order, Chen Xiulan is at the very bottom. She is female, middle-aged and from the countryside and stands barely 5 feet tall. (Height requirements are common with Chinese employers.) Yet when the nearly 60-year-old grandmother from Sichuan province showed up in Shanghai last fall looking for work on the construction site of the sprawling World Expo, nobody laughed. Chen was handed a hard hat and a broom and put to work with the crew that sweeps up debris.

The FBI has arrested an environmental activist in connection with the attempted arson of unfinished town homes in Pasadena in 2006, authorities said today. Stephen James Murphy, 43, was arrested without incident Wednesday at his home in Arlington, Texas, after being named in a criminal complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. According to the complaint, the Pasadena Fire Department responded to a construction site on Sept. 19, 2006, and found what it described as a "crude incendiary device" made from cigarettes that had failed to ignite.

Detectives are investigating the fatal shooting of a man whose body was found at a construction site. The victim, described by police as a man in his 40s, was discovered at dawn Saturday in the 6000 block of Bristol Parkway. In a statement, police referred to the shooting as a crime and said they were probing possible motives. "All I can say is it's an ongoing investigation and we are working all leads," Det. Ryan Thompson said. The man was not identified, pending the notification of relatives.

A 34-year-old construction worker at the Platinum Triangle urban village was killed Thursday when a backhoe loader tipped over and struck him with its scoop, authorities said. The man, who was not identified, was standing on the ground under the machine in the 1500 block of Katella Avenue when its bucket struck him about 11 a.m., said Maria Sabol, a spokeswoman for the Anaheim Fire Department. He was part of a six-man crew putting stucco on a condominium project. The worker was taken to UCI Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Sabol said.

A fire that raged through a five-story condominium complex under construction at Warner Center in Woodland Hills on Monday was accidentally sparked when a piece of molten metal fell from a welder's torch and ignited tar paper, authorities said. The blaze, on the 21300 block of Erwin Street at the 191-unit Ascent at the Warner Center complex, was battled by more than 200 firefighters, said Brian Humphrey, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. The fire was reported about 8:40 a.m.

Before leaving his Paris apartment every day, designer Karl Lagerfeld sorts through a large platter filled with chunky silver rings, deftly slipping his selections onto his fingers until his hands begin to resemble medieval armored gloves. He likes the smell of construction sites, buys iPods like other people pick up paper towels and can sleep only if he's hugging a security pillow to his stomach.