CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 24, 2013 | By Jack Dolan
Los Angeles elected officials ramped up pressure Tuesday on the city-owned Department of Water and Power to account for more than $40 million in ratepayer money paid to two nonprofits created to improve relations between agency managers and the largest employees' union. City Controller Ron Galperin offered new details on an audit he's launching, saying it will examine the nonprofits' travel expenditures, salaries and the "rather significant and un-detailed outlays" listed on the groups' federal tax forms.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 19, 2013 | David Zahniser and Maloy Moore
Spending in the hotly contested two-year race for Los Angeles mayor exceeded $33 million on Saturday, breaking previous records as unlimited outside money continued to play a dominant role in Tuesday's contest. Candidate super PACs and so-called "independent expenditure" donors, which do not have to abide by the city's campaign contribution limits, provided 41% of the $25.6-million total raised just for candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti since the contest began in March 2011, according to campaign reports.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 16, 2013 | By Seema Mehta and Maloy Moore
EMILY's List, a political organization dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women, has created an independent expenditure committee and seeded it with $400,000 to buoy Wendy Greuel's bid for Los Angeles mayor, according to documents filed with the City Ethics Commission on Tuesday. As long as it doesn't coordinate with a candidate, such an independent committee can receive unlimited donations, whereas candidate organizations are limited to accepting $1,300 per person or group.
WORLD
December 11, 2012 | By Emily Alpert
Impoverished and isolated North Korea has long invested heavily in its defense programs, even as its people suffer hunger and deprivation. North Korea's rocket launch Wednesday cost about $480 million, South Korean officials estimated before the launch. Although North Korea said it was sending up a satellite for peaceful purposes, the United States and South Korea suspect that it was actually testing its ballistic missile technology. In either case, the money is a staggering sum in light of some of the nation's other needs.
OPINION
September 4, 2012 | By Jeffrey Miron
In the Obama campaign's attack on the Romney-Ryan proposal to "voucherize" Medicare, one accusation is that the plan would force seniors to pay more of their healthcare costs: about $6,400 more per beneficiary, according to a recent TV ad known as "Facts. " Regardless of the "facts" in the ad, this attack takes as a given that any such outcome is undesirable. Yet asking seniors to pay substantially more is precisely the way to improve Medicare. Here's why. The purpose of insurance is to protect against large, unforeseeable expenses.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 9, 2012 | By Harriet Ryan, Los Angeles Times
Susan Strong Davis, an 87-year-old widow, spends the day inside her Palos Verdes Estates home, tended round-the-clock by nurse's aides. For company, relatives say, she has her dog, the television and, on increasingly rare occasions, memories of the glamorous socialite's life she once lived. "She definitely has some sort of dementia," said Viki Brushwood, a niece who visited from Texas in December. "I don't know if it's Alzheimer's or what. She is somebody who is not making decisions anymore.