Crackdown

OAKLAND - A day after federal prosecutors moved to shutter the country's largest medical marijuana dispensary, city leaders and other officials came to the defense of Harborside Health Center, warning of dire economic and social consequences if Oakland's carefully regulated industry is quashed. "We cannot afford the money, we cannot afford the waste of law enforcement resources, and we cannot afford the loss of jobs that this would entail," City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan said Thursday at a news conference as dozens of Harborside Health Center patients stood by. Co-founded in 2006 by Executive Director Steve DeAngelo, Harborside has in many ways set standards for the medical marijuana industry.

Concerned about growing welfare costs, Los Angeles County officials are considering additional measures to root out fraud and impose tougher sanctions on aid recipients who fail to comply with program rules. The proposed changes are supposed to ensure that scarce taxpayer dollars go only to those who meet residency and work requirements of the county's general relief program, which serves as a final safety net for indigent adults who don't qualify for state and federal aid. But advocates for the poor contend the crackdown would end up denying help to some of the region's most destitute residents who are eligible for assistance.

Several violent incidents, including the shooting of a 13-year-old boy, have sparked worries of renewed gang activity in a northeast Los Angeles neighborhood where city authorities have invested many resources to combat a notorious gang. Years after a largely successful effort to clear a subgroup of the Avenues gang from Drew Street in Glassell Park, authorities say it appears that rival gangs are looking to exact revenge on, or humiliate, a once powerful and predatory enemy. "I think there's payback a little bit there," said LAPD Lt. David Kowalski, supervisor of the Northeast Division's gang unit.

The owners of the Battle of the Dance dinner show had hoped to catch the wave of tourists from nearby Disneyland with family-friendly entertainment boasting European dancers and a gourmet meal of smoked salmon salad, filet mignon and a "decadent" dessert. But when the paying customers failed to materialize in the numbers foreseen, they cut the number of dinner shows, amped up the volume and turned to a different crowd. There was a "topless DJ," go-go dancers and an appearance by an adult film performer to entertain late-night partygoers in Anaheim's manicured resort district.

WASHINGTON - Doctors, nurses and social workers from across the country, 107 in all, were charged in what federal officials in Washington called a "nationwide takedown" of medical professionals accused of fraudulently billing Medicare out of nearly half a billion dollars. The amount of bogus Medicare claims, totaling about $452 million, was the highest in a single raid in the history of a federal strike force combating rising fraud in the medical industry, according to the Justice Department.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court and the Obama administration are set for another politically charged clash Wednesday as the justices take up Arizona's tough crackdown on illegal immigrants. It will be a rematch of the attorneys who argued the healthcare case a month ago, and another chapter in the partisan philosophical struggle over states' rights and the role of the federal government. And once again, President Obama's lawyers are likely to face skeptical questions from the high court.

The Vatican has ordered an overhaul of the most important group of nuns in the United States after an investigation found what Roman Catholic Church officials called "radical feminist themes" that questioned official positions on homosexuality and the ordination of women. In a bluntly worded report, the Vatican's watchdog of orthodoxy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, found what it called "serious doctrinal problems" with some of the comments and actions by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, based in Silver Spring, Md. The Vatican on Wednesday named Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle to oversee changes in the group, a process that could take up to five years.

CHONGQING, China — Change has come quickly to this sprawling city of 30 million people since the charismatic local party chief, Bo Xilai, was fired last month by the national Communist Party leadership in China's most high-profile political shake-up in 20 years. Signs in public squares now ban gatherings to sing "red songs," a prominent element of Bo's effort to revitalize Mao-era values. Advertising has replaced propaganda messages on television. Bo's supporters say some old problems — be it the nuisance of unwanted leaflets or a bigger issue like prostitution — are creeping back.

A crackdown on Venice Beach homeless encampments and renegade vendors is pitting longtime residents and merchants against homeless advocates and younger transients. The Los Angeles Police Department enforcement efforts, begun almost two months ago, were spurred by mounting complaints from waterfront residents and business owners who said aggressive, intoxicated transients and violent disputes over vendors' spaces had made the boardwalk an increasingly lawless, frightening place.

China launched an Internet crackdown Friday amid its worst political crisis in decades, shuttering more than a dozen websites, limiting access to the country's largest micro-blog providers and arresting six people for spreading rumors about a coup attempt in Beijing. The measures represent the strongest attempt yet to quash speculation that the nation's top leadership is wracked by infighting after the ouster of Bo Xilai, the controversial Communist Party chief of mega-city Chongqing.