Government Officials

It has been 13 1/2 years since San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was gunned down, along with Mayor George Moscone, in San Francisco City Hall. But Milk's remains have yet to find a final resting place, and for the last six years the ashes of the first avowed homosexual elected to office in California have sat in an urn in a corner of a vault in the office of the Congressional Cemetery here.

U.S. hospitals are making major strides at clamping down on early deliveries of babies and instead letting Mother Nature take its course in response to growing pressure from employers, government officials and patient-safety advocates. The Leapfrog Group, an employer-backed organization that tracks hospital safety and quality, published data Monday showing a sharp decrease in early-elective deliveries since 2010 nationwide and in California. The rate of deliveries before 39 weeks without a medical reason fell to 4.6% last year compared with 17% in 2010 among nearly 1,000 U.S. hospitals that reported results.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's leading newsmagazine says one of its investigative reporters has been threatened with kidnapping and possible death by government officials in the coastal state of Veracruz. Proceso magazine, in a statement posted on its website, said journalist Jorge Carrasco was in Veracruz this week reporting on the killing of another Proceso reporter there when he learned of the threats. (link in Spanish) “We have received information over the presumed intention of officials and former officials of the Veracruz state government to attack the physical integrity of the journalist,” the magazine said.

Tens of thousands of tons of coal ash have spilled into the Dan River from a closed North Carolina coal plant since Sunday, but drinking water supplies have not been affected, according to municipal officials and the plant's owner, Duke Energy. Between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of ash have poured into the Dan River, which flows between North Carolina and Virginia, Duke Energy said. Corporate officials, who blamed a broken storm water pipe, said Tuesday that the utility was still working to stop the leak at the Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C. About 24 to 27 million gallons of basin water from a 27-acre coal ash reservoir at the retired plant also spilled into the river, Duke Energy said in a statement.

The number of swine flu cases continued its slow climb, reaching 263 in the United States and at least 937 in 19 countries worldwide, but both Mexican and U.S. authorities expressed cautious optimism Sunday that the outbreak may not be as severe as originally feared. U.S. officials continued to express confidence that the H1N1 virus was not unusually virulent, but they cautioned that the number of cases and deaths would rise. In Mexico, however, officials said the disease was on the decline.

Police who raided a birthday party thrown by a Chinese gangster got a surprise gift: 45 government officials among the guests. The raid targeted the leader of a gang implicated in a dozen killings and other crimes in Shaoyang, a city in Hunan province, according to police and the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily. Officials caught at the June 6 party thrown by Yao Zhihong for his son are suspected of protecting him, the report said.

Toyota Motor Corp. created a panel of former U.S. government officials to advise Japan's largest auto maker as it seeks to promote more women and minority managers and add minority-run dealerships in the biggest auto market. The seven-member North American Diversity Advisory Board will be chaired by Alexis Herman, Labor secretary in the Clinton administration, Toyota Senior Vice President Doug West said.

Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre's illegal City Hall intervention on behalf of a company founded by his wife "goes to the heart" of the reason voters approved a landmark ethics reform law seven years ago, a top investigator in the case said Thursday.

My Samedi is chairman of the Cambodian Red Cross and dean of the country's only medical school. But in addition to his service in humanitarian causes, he is fast becoming one of Cambodia's richest men by renting five private houses to foreign relief agencies.

Tribal leaders and government officials agreed Friday to draw up a plan to improve cooperation and reduce violence on the troubled Soboba Indian reservation near San Jacinto where three people were killed in the last week. "The escalation of violence has produced bad blood between myself and the Sheriff's Department," Tribal Chairman Robert Salgado said at the start of the meeting held on the reservation, at the Country Club at Soboba Springs. "As the leader, you have to hold your cool.

GENEVA - The United Nations canceled a scheduled afternoon round of Syria peace talks Tuesday after a second consecutive day of apparent stalemate and angry exchanges between government officials and representatives of the U.S.-backed opposition bloc. Negotiations were to resume Wednesday, Lakhdar Brahimi, the chief U.N. mediator, told reporters. “Nobody is walking out,” Brahimi said, after a fourth day of face-to-face meetings between the two rival camps. “Nobody is running away.” He said he hoped for a “better session” Wednesday.

Mike O'Connor, an experienced war correspondent who in recent years worked in defense of journalists in Mexico at a time when it had become one of the most treacherous countries for reporters in the world, died Sunday morning in Mexico City. He was 67. O'Connor suffered a fatal heart attack while sleeping in his apartment, according to his wife, Tracy Wilkinson, the Los Angeles Times' Mexico bureau chief. Since January 2009, O'Connor had worked as the Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit group, traveling to some of the most dangerous parts of the country to investigate the intimidation, murder and disappearance of journalists targeted by drug cartels or corrupt government officials.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Members of Nelson Mandela's family spoke for the first time Saturday of their grief at losing a "great man, a pillar of the family," who was always humble, despite his global fame. Mandela's family, deeply sensitive about the intense global media interest in his upcoming funeral, is walking a difficult line between a need for privacy to grieve, and the sense that Mandela belonged to to the world. The family is deeply concerned about the possibility of photographs circulating of Mandela lying in state, according to a spokeswoman for the Government Communication and Information System.

CAIRO - Egypt declared an end to its state of emergency Tuesday, nearly three months after it was imposed in the midst of nationwide protests that followed the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. The government announcement came after an Egyptian court ruled that the emergency decree issued Aug. 14 had expired. The government had previously announced that it would end two days later, on Thursday. The state of emergency was declared in the midst of a violent crackdown on two protest camps that were demanding Morsi's reinstatement as president.

BEIJING - A powerful Chinese government official who oversees state-owned companies is the latest senior Communist Party official to come under investigation in what appears to be a concerted effort by President Xi Jinping to consolidate his power and push his economic agenda. Jiang Jiemin, 58, is a former head of China National Petroleum Co. who in March became head of the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, a ministerial level position. A brief report released Sunday to the state media said he was under investigation for "serious disciplinary violations," which is code for corruption.

A woman who was until recently Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar's deputy chief of staff has filed a workplace discrimination and sexual harassment complaint against the city and her former boss, according to information from the state agency that receives such complaints. Fahizah Alim, spokeswoman for the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, confirmed that a complaint was filed June 7 against Huizar by Francine Godoy, who left his office four months ago. The complaint, also filed against the city of Los Angeles, preserves Godoy's right to sue in the future.

Cattle ranchers, conservationists, government regulators and others met for hours over two days, talking about how environmental issues could be resolved faster, cheaper and with less rancor. Some of the more than 250 people participating in the summit convened by the Western Governors' Assn. found common ground. Others didn't. "I saw skeptics come in. I see skeptics leaving," New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson said Saturday during a post-summit news conference.

It was the day after a particularly gruesome car bombing in downtown Baghdad and Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kubba was selling optimism. At a news briefing in the fortified Green Zone, the soft-spoken, British-educated Kubba asked Iraqi reporters to cover the country's progress as aggressively as they do the gore. "What will images of pools of blood or families suffering from the loss of a loved one prove?" he asked. Many of the reporters weren't biting.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown is poised to sign legislation that could reduce the public's access to basic government records that have long been used to scrutinize the actions of elected officials. The proposal, a late insert into the state budget that lawmakers passed last week, would allow local officials to opt out of parts of the California law that gives citizens access to government documents. Under that law, officials now must respond to a request for records from a member of the public within 10 days and are required to make the documents available electronically.

Ronald S. Calderon's knack for raising campaign cash and collecting gifts has attracted attention, often unwanted, since he arrived in Sacramento more than a decade ago. Now the Democratic state senator finds himself in the sights of federal investigators. Authorities are looking into the Montebello lawmaker's "income stream," a law enforcement source familiar with the case told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. Calderon's ties to the Central Basin Municipal Water District in southeast Los Angeles County appear to be part of the inquiry.