Gang

Not long after a fatal bullet pierced Hadiya Pendleton's back, her round face -- its espresso eyes and easy smile -- had become a national symbol of innocence robbed.  The slaying of the Chicago sophomore who had recently performed as a majorette at President Obama's inauguration drew a senator's demand for gun control, the president's condolences and national hand-wringing over the violence that claimed the life of an innocent teenager in...

Six candidates are running for Los Angeles' 3rd Council District seat ; five showed up to a forum last Tuesday hosted by the Woodland Hills Property Owners Assn. They shook hands, embraced, in a couple cases offered each other pecks on the cheek. Who was missing? Don't worry about it, candidate Cary Iaccino told the group. “I think we've got the best ones here tonight.” Candidate Joyce Pearson seemed to agree. “All of the candidates that are running with the exception of that one have jobs,” she said.

There are plenty of reasons right here at home to support President Obama's effort to reform the nation's gun laws. But if Congress requires additional arguments, it should consider that easy access to guns is also undermining the United States' avowed goal of combating drug trafficking and transnational gangs abroad. The U.S. has sent nearly $2 billion in aid to Mexico since 2007, much of that as part of the Merida Initiative, a counter-narcotics program designed to provide aid and equipment for that country's drug war. Yet that assistance has been undermined by lax U.S. gun laws, which allow members of the drug cartels and their associates to buy weapons here and smuggle them across the border.

The trouble began soon after they arrived. The black family - a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy - moved into a little yellow home in Compton over Christmas vacation. When a friend came to visit, four men in a black SUV pulled up and called him a "nigger," saying black people were barred from the neighborhood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. They jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes. It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave.

NEW DELHI -- Minutes after the suspects were whisked past reporters into a closed court, the high-profile trial of five men accused of the rape and murder of a 23-year old physiotherapy student opened Thursday. The woman and her 28-year-old male friend, both officially unnamed, were attacked last month after they watched the film "Life of Pi" in a glitzy shopping mall and boarded what they assumed was an ordinary commuter bus heading home. The curtains were then reportedly drawn and the two victims were beaten with metal rods.

Los Angeles Councilman Bernard C. Parks unveiled six security cameras at Jackie Tatum Harvard Recreation Center on Thursday, an issue that stalled in the City Council for months until a youth volunteer was gunned down in the park. The installation of the cameras marks the second phase of a multi-year project to revamp the South L.A. park, once a popular hangout for a Bloods street gang. Parks started pushing for cameras last year after he discovered reputed gang members were intimidating park workers, blocking residents from using the city-owned space and shooting music videos in the park after it was supposed to be closed.

A leader of the Azusa 13 street gang and his son were sentenced in federal court Monday to lengthy prison terms after pleading guilty to conspiring to attack blacks and force them to leave the city. Santiago "Chico" Rios was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison by U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess. His son, Louie "Lil Chico" Rios, who is hearing-impaired and required a sign-language interpreter, received a 10-year sentence. Both Rioses have "Azusa" tattooed above their upper lips.

NEW DELHI - The 23-year-old physiotherapy student was a woman with a dream. Her tuition paid from the sale of ancestral land, she studied hard, got good grades and was on track for a successful career. The horror of her brutal rape and subsequent death - after she and a 28-year-old male friend were assaulted last month by six attackers upon boarding what they assumed was a commuter bus - has sent shock waves across India. Over the weekend, another gang rape of a bus passenger, in the northern state of Punjab, was reported, along with the arrest of six suspects.

Deliberating what punishment befitted the man before him, the judge mulled over the twists and turns in Isaac Guillen's 52 years of life. There was his induction into gang life at age 11, spending years in and out of juvenile lockup. He got himself off the streets and into UC Berkeley, then UCLA, graduating with a law degree and becoming a criminal defense attorney. Then came the choices that led him back to the wrong side of the law, doing the bidding of a powerful Mexican Mafia member.

The number of homicides in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's patrol areas fell to its lowest level since 1970, with 166 killings in 2012, Sheriff Lee Baca announced Wednesday. The number of killings was four less than in 2011, a 2.3% drop. But serious crime increased 4.2% and all types of crime jumped 3%. Violent crime - rape, robbery, aggravated assaults and murder - climbed 3.5% from 2011. Property crimes across the sheriff's areas rose 4.3%. "This is really historic," Baca said, referring to the low homicide rate, during a news conference at sheriff's headquarters in Monterey Park.