Gypsies

Fortified by muffins and coffee, the detectives gathered under the chandeliers in the hotel's Grand Ballroom. San Francisco Police Inspector Greg Ovanessian prepared to start his presentation. "Before I begin," he said. "Not all Gypsies or Rom are criminals." "Bull...!" yelled someone in the back. After the laughs died down, Ovanessian, a bespectacled, soft-spoken investigator, continued.

JERUSALEM - Growing up poor and motherless in the slums of Jerusalem's Old City, Amoun Sleem dropped out of school at age 7 after her teacher repeatedly singled her out as a Gypsy, inspecting her hair for lice in front of the class and calling her "Nawar," a derogatory Arabic term that means "dirty. " On the streets, she learned English by selling postcards to tourists, but soon realized that a life of begging was not for her. At 9, she reentered school and stayed until she got a degree in business administration from Ibrahimi College in Jerusalem.

Gypsies from across Europe will grapple with the problems of discrimination, assimilation and education at a European Union conference beginning Wednesday in Seville, which is called the cultural capital of Spain's estimated 700,000 Gypsies. Participants will come from the 12 EU countries plus Russia, Hungary and Romania. This is the first meeting of Gypsies sponsored by the European Union. Their population in Europe is estimated at 6 to 8 million.

Best known for his roles in the "Karate Kid," "My Cousin Vinny" and "The Outsiders," Ralph Macchio has decided to take a break from being in front of the camera and instead get behind it as executive producer of NatGeo's new reality series "American Gypsies. " Airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m., "American Gypsies" centers on the Johns family and sheds some light on the modern Gypsy way of life in New York City. Macchio talks about his new show, the Romani lifestyle and his role behind the camera.

Fifteen years after being immortalized as "King of the Gypsies" in a movie and best-selling book, Steve Tene says it is time for him to help Gypsies forsake their old ways for a piece of the American Dream. No more fathers selling teen-age daughters as wives, no more keeping Gypsy children out of school, no more of the cloistered existence that has fostered the Gypsy reputation for thievery and distrust. "Tradition has to be broken," declared Tene, who extolled the virtues of Americanization from his Laguna Beach home with an ocean view.

Pope John Paul II beatified a Gypsy for the first time in church history, taking a step to promote tolerance and understanding of the nomadic group. Several thousand Gypsies from all over Europe joined the crowd in St. Peter's Square to attend a Mass in honor of Ceferino Jimenez Malla and four other people beatified by the pope. Beatification is the last formal step before possible sainthood.

Twenty Polish Gypsies accused of burglarizing the homes of elderly people throughout Southern California last winter have been ordered to stand trial on burglary, conspiracy and receiving stolen property charges. After a 17-week preliminary hearing, Pasadena Municipal Judge Judson W. Morris Jr. ordered that the defendants be arraigned in Pasadena Superior Court on Sept. 23.

A Gypsy leader has denounced a Sherman Oaks fortuneteller who swindled four customers out of more than $40,000 and predicted that the fortuneteller would be blackballed by Gypsies nationwide. John Merino, leader of the Los Angeles-area Gypsy Council, testified in Van Nuys Superior Court that the clan has raised about $10,000 to repay the victims and he hopes to collect $20,000 more from fellow Gypsies.

In a case that has become a cause celebre for a group fighting prejudice against Gypsies, a Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered the resentencing of a convicted burglar who was described in a probation report as operating with "other weak-minded scheming Gypsies." Walter Larson, who is serving a 3-year federal sentence for bribery, was ordered by Long Beach Superior Court Judge Richard F. Charvat to return to court Oct. 5 for resentencing on the burglary charge.

Six elderly men, five of them from San Francisco, were apparently killed with the heart medication digitalis after being wooed for their money by younger women belonging to a San Francisco-based Gypsy family, authorities say. The five San Francisco victims died between 1983 and last year.

"American Gypsies" is a new reality series from National Geographic Channel, and perhaps the clearest indication yet that the magazine and the TV network that shares its name are operating on different principles and standards of veracity. Produced by Ralph "Karate Kid" Macchio, it takes whatever might be enlightening or moving about the subject and crams it into the standardized strictures of what has become the lowest form of television, however much you want to intellectualize your love of "The Real Housewives of Whatever.

As a certain British super-sleuth might observe, there was nothing elementary about the path that Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer took to bring Gypsy folk music into his soundtrack for "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. " Whether the score earns him an Oscar nomination or not, as the first "Sherlock Holmes" movie did two years ago, Zimmer hopes it will draw attention to the plight of one of the world's most maltreated and marginalized ethnic groups - the Roma people of Eastern Europe, more commonly (and pejoratively)

Kazuo Okawa's luckless career as a "nuclear gypsy" began one night at a poker game. The year was 1992, and jobs were scarce in this farming town in the shadow of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. An unemployed Okawa gambled and drank a lot. He was dealing cards when a stranger made him an offer: manage a crew of unskilled workers at the nearby plant. "Just gather a team of young guys and show up at the front gate; I'll tell you what to do," instructed the man, who Okawa later learned was a recruiter for a local job subcontracting firm.

One-Eyed Gypsy Where: 901 E. 1st St., L.A. When: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 5:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Price: Cocktails, $8 to $11 Info: one-eyedgypsy.com

Like concentric circles radiating outward from a pebble thrown into a pond, nouveau bars in downtown Los Angeles have spread from the safe confines of 4th and Main streets to the still-rough edges of the Arts District and beyond. The current maven of downtown's outer limits, Dana Hollister, has added a revamped holding to her growing bar fiefdom. It's called One-Eyed Gypsy, and it replaces the former Bordello, just a 500-meter dash from her successful Villains Tavern. However, where Villains — with its Moulin Rouge-inspired opulence — is very much a destination bar, pulling in weekenders from all over the Southland, One-Eyed Gypsy aspires to a less glitzy vibe.

She was the queen of the nights out by the river, when lights from the Ferris wheels and the shooting arcades glinted on the water, and the clatter of the old wooden roller coasters mingled with the tinkle of carousels on the warm breeze. It seemed on those nights anything might happen. In towns across America, a nickel would get pushed into the slot in her glass booth and her gypsy voice would rise. Her black eyes would become suddenly animated, ratcheting to and fro. Her papier-mâché teeth would click menacingly behind her frozen smile.

Jewelry, silverware and other valuables stolen from homes by what authorities say was a band of Polish Gypsies who preyed on elderly people will be returned to the owners today, Los Angeles police announced Tuesday. The property was released by Pasadena Superior Court Judge Gilbert Alston now that 16 of the 20 suspects arrested last March have pleaded guilty to burglary and conspiracy charges. The items will be available from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the property division at Parker Center, 150 N.

At least $500,000 in stolen property was recovered when nine members of a Gypsy band were arrested Thursday at Los Angeles International Airport as they tried to board a Chicago-bound jet, Los Angeles police said. Large amounts of jewelry and silverware had been taken, mostly from the homes of elderly residents, Lt. Doug Collisson said. The band had been in Los Angeles several months after traveling across the United States and Canada, Collisson said.

As Stephen Sondheim is the first to point out, it's the book writers of musicals who always get it in the neck. If they're not ignored entirely (as in "Sondheim's 'Sweeney Todd'" ), then they're usually held responsible for the work's shortcomings by critics, who tend to be more comfortable criticizing the story than the score. Arthur Laurents, who died Thursday as an exceptionally young nonagenarian, was one musical theater writer who was impossible to overlook. Dismiss him — and how could you dismiss the man who wrote the books for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy"?

Arthur Laurents, a Tony Award-winning playwright and director who wrote the books for the classic Broadway musicals "West Side Story" and "Gypsy" and later wrote the hit movies "The Way We Were" and "The Turning Point," died Thursday. He was believed to be 93. Laurents died in his sleep at his home in New York City after a short illness, said his agent, Jonathan Lomma. For his work on Broadway over more than six decades, Laurents won two Tony Awards — in 1968 as author of the book for best musical Tony winner "Hallelujah, Baby!"