Glendale Ca

They've been coming to Urartu Coffee for months, and every day it's the same. They sit. They sip. They smoke. It's hard to explain, the men say -- there's just something about the taste of tar joining java. But Jack Kakoyan, 28, and his friends may soon stop meeting at their usual table, where they spend hours socializing in the sun.

A brush fire along the Glendale-Los Angeles boundary Tuesday briefly threatened hillside homes, snarled freeway traffic and prompted voluntary evacuations before firefighters were able to bring the blaze under control. Firefighters made a stand in the evening along Glenoaks Boulevard in Glendale, beating back flames as they approached homes in a nearby canyon, said Capt. Vincent Rifino of the Glendale Fire Department.

By 3 a.m. Tuesday, the line for H1N1 flu vaccines began forming outside of the Glendale Civic Auditorium. By the time the doors opened 6 1/2 hours later, city officials said about 2,500 were waiting. Long lines at public flu clinics -- initially intended to primarily serve the uninsured -- are now commonplace nationwide, as doses of the vaccine remain scarce. Many clinics report seeing large numbers of people who have insurance but have been unable to get H1N1 vaccines from private doctors, who say they have either already run out or have yet to get any. The line at the Glendale clinic, the first to be held in that city since Los Angeles County received doses late last month, was the longest yet, said county Department of Public Health officials.

Glendale wanted a new image, something fresh that would attract new business. So last month it hired a marketing firm to help point city officials in the right direction. But the optimism of the undertaking was undermined days later when city officials received a report that showed the city has one of the most advanced drug problems in Los Angeles County. And though the city report cites 2005 figures, police officers who patrol its streets say there's little evidence that the drug problem has loosened its grip.

After years of legal wrangling, Metrolink has spent $30 million to settle most of the lawsuits arising from the 2005 Glendale train crash that killed 11 and injured about 180, plaintiffs' attorneys said Wednesday. Among those settlements are two injury cases, one for $5 million and the other for $3.8 million, and two wrongful death cases in which the heirs will receive $3.5 million for each claim, plaintiffs' attorney Jerome Ringler said. One of those cases involves payments to the family of James Tutino, a sheriff's deputy killed in the crash.