Fences Structure

JENNIFER and Appie van der Fluit had a dilemma. Eli, their toddler, was a quick little scamp and the frontyard in which he played faced a fairly busy street in Long Beach. The parents knew peace of mind would come only with a fence or wall. But what kind? Picket? Cinder block? Sandbags and razor wire? Inspiration came when Jennifer attended a lecture by garden guru Pat Welsh. The topic: mixed-media murals. Welsh's lecture sparked the idea for a succulent fence.

In a closely watched ruling, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government Tuesday to reroute a milelong segment of its West Bank separation barrier, in effect restoring hundreds of acres of agricultural land that had been taken from a Palestinian village to give to Jewish settlers. The decision set a precedent by rejecting the government's argument that the barrier's routing could be justified to protect homes in a settlement that were planned but not yet built.

If good fences make good neighbors, what do bad fences make? Inmates -- at least in Rolling Hills Estates. That's what Francisco Linares found out this week, when an L.A. County Superior Court judge sentenced him to six months in jail. His crime? Erecting a 180-foot-long fence while building his dream home in the horsy hills of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Never mind Paris Hilton and her 45-day sentence for serial probation busting.

In this small town of faded nightclubs and abandoned rooming houses in the Sonoran Desert, the old border and the new border exist side by side. Drive to the edge of Naco and the border is an imaginary line rising into the nearby hills. Only the occasional old stone monument announces that you have reached the "Boundary of the United States." But in the middle of town, a 10-foot-high fence rises from the sandy soil. Bright sodium lamps click on at nightfall on the U.S.

Technical issues are delaying the completion of a multibillion-dollar high-tech fence intended to reduce illegal entry along the nation's southern border, the government said. The first phase of the project involves building nine towers that would be along 28 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border, and that bracket the Sasabe, Ariz., port of entry. Boeing Co.

Los Angeles city parks workers fenced a gap in a cliff-top fence at Point Fermin Park in San Pedro this week amid safety concerns prompted by the Jan. 6 death of USC field goal kicker Mario Danelo. But preventing future falls and suicides at the steep oceanfront cliffs may be impossible, unless high fencing is installed across large sections of the rocky coastline, some city officials and residents say.

A volunteer border watch group has started erecting a mile of steel-mesh fence along the U.S.-Mexico border east of Naco. Minuteman Civil Defense Corps spokesman Al Garza said the fence will force illegal immigration traffic to the east and west. It also will "let the government know that it's not as difficult to secure the borders as they lead us to believe," he said.

Republicans pushing for tougher means to stem illegal immigration got a boost Wednesday when the Senate agreed to consider a bill that would build a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and the House approved a measure that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls. Republicans in both chambers said the steps were necessary to protect the United States from illegal immigrants entering the country or trying to corrupt the voting process.

The House on Thursday easily passed a bill calling for construction of lengthy sections of double-layered fencing along the U.S. border with Mexico, sending the legislation to a Senate that appeared inclined to approve that and other security measures.

More than $73 million was spent making Los Angeles Unified campuses safer this school year. But it's the $300,000 that wasn't spent on Nobel Middle School that makes students and teachers on the Northridge campus feel secure. While other schools lined up for money for guards and gates, Nobel -- unfenced for 44 years -- turned back a plan this spring to surround the school with a security fence. The rejection has some school board members shaking their heads.