Debates

A day after a debate in which they told Los Angeles voters their prime focus as mayor would be promoting job creation, Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti took up the topic Monday, while also continuing a furious debate over union influence in their runoff election. City Controller Greuel met voters at a Century City mall and handed out her glossy 35-page "Leading L.A. Forward" brochure, which includes a multipoint plan that she said would bring more jobs to Los Angeles. City Councilman Garcetti talked with business leaders in North Hollywood about efforts to expand the aerospace industry in Southern California, saying he would look for ways to help with marketing, job training and government regulation.

It's a new front in the long-running battle over reproductive rights, playing out this time as a clash between politics and science. Doctors say there's no medical reason to keep girls of any age from having easy access to the morning-after contraceptive known as Plan B. A judge's ruling last month would do away with current age restrictions. But the Justice Department appealed that ruling last week. The Obama administration wants to make the over-the-counter pill off-limits to girls younger than 15, unless they have a prescription.

Proposed legislation to remove junk food and sugar-loaded drinks from vending machines at California state office buildings and on government property is intensifying debate about when the battle against obesity becomes a gateway to "nanny state" tactics. Backers of the Assembly bill, AB 459, said California shouldn't condone the sale of fatty snacks and sodas in the workplace when taxpayers are already shelling out vast amounts to cover the healthcare costs of overweight government employees.

Despite bitter attacks in recent weeks, the two candidates for mayor of Los Angeles grudgingly conceded in a debate Sunday night that their rival was (mostly) honest and not so different on many of the plans they have for leading the city. That didn't mean City Councilman Eric Garcetti and Controller Wendy Greuel didn't find plenty of opportunity for attacks on each other's trustworthiness and independence. But they also laid out records that they said made them most qualified to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is leaving office June 30 after serving the maximum two terms.

Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel will square off at 5:30 p.m. Sunday for a mayor's race debate that will be live-streamed on latimes.com and broadcast on our sister TV station, KTLA-TV Channel 5. FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor Times reporters discuss the high stakes for the debate in the video above. Will the candidates ramp up the accusations and counter-accusations we saw last week over who approved those Department of Water and Power salary rates?

The two candidates for mayor of Los Angeles have another shot at engaging voters in a debate tonight at 5:30 that will be streamed live on latimes.com and broadcast on KTLA-TV (Channel 5). City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel will take questions from the audience at USC's Galen Center and two moderators - Jim Newton, a columnist and editor-at-large for the Los Angeles Times, and Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. The 90-minute session comes with a little more than two weeks left before the May 21 runoff election.

JULIAN, Calif. - To the outside world, this mountain hamlet in northeast San Diego County is best known for apple pie, snow during the holiday season and bed-and-breakfasts that cater to romantic flatlanders. For many of its 1,500 residents, however, the essence of their community is represented not by the delights that await tourists but by the dedication and heroism of the volunteer fire department that has guarded their homes and businesses for four decades. In Southern California's never-ending fight against backcountry, wind-driven brush fires, Julian is on the front lines.

MASHANG VILLAGE, China - The last time they saw their father, Hong Yunke, he was leaving home, hauling his wooden medicine chest, on a frigid December morning in 1967. "I'm going to treat a patient and collect money," Hong told his son, 12, and his daughter, 9. "I'll be back soon. " Hong was what the Chinese call a barefoot doctor, a self-educated healer who treated the sprained ankles of farmers for 20 cents, enough in those days for two pork buns. His wife, unable to endure the poverty, had left him to raise the children on his own. No matter.

Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power, whose primary union is the single biggest contributor to the mayoral race, is taking center stage in the contest with less than three weeks to go until election day. The Times reported that employees at the city utility earned an average total pay of nearly $100,000 in 2011, more than 50% higher than the average total pay of all other city employees, and the union representing most of its workers...

HOUSTON - On the morning of the first day of the National Rifle Assn. convention, before the doors opened, scores of visitors lined up outside the convention center, part of what organizers expect will be a record crowd. Among them was Tilman Hollifield, 63, a lifetime NRA member who drove 950 miles from Terre Haute, Ind., to support gun rights that he fears are more imperiled than ever since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. "There are so many people that are against guns," said Hollifield, who has worked in law enforcement, as an electrician and bricklayer.