Home Work

Capping a week of raids on garment makers and Vietnamese immigrants' homes, labor officials on Friday made what they described as the biggest-ever seizure of illegally sewn clothing at an Orange County house. Federal and state agents raided 28 locations, including 11 homes, in the county, said King Cheung, a state deputy labor commissioner. The last was a single-story stucco home in Santa Ana with peeling trim paint and dust-encrusted blinds.

Millions of Californians took part in one of the largest-ever simultaneous earthquake drills Thursday, sending students, hospital workers and even Target shoppers dropping for cover at 10:20 a.m. The annual ShakeOut drill, which attracted 8.6 million registrants in California, was intended to train the public on what to do the moment the shaking begins — dropping, covering your head, and holding on, rather than panicking and running, which would...

Three mornings a week, Rick Higgins chugs vitamins and orange juice, puts on a suit and, like many other Southern Californians, hops into his car for a 40-minute commute to an office in downtown Los Angeles. On the other days, the San Fernando Valley resident enjoys a leisurely breakfast and occasionally even a bike ride before work. Those are the days he telecommutes.

Some see telecommuting as a working mother's best friend. After all, having access to the office from home -- whether over the phone or through e-mail -- means Mom can be more flexible, fitting in family duties while also getting the workplace job done.  She can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan ... at the same time!   The only problem, a new study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior reports, is that performing this mighty feat may make her feel guilty.

They're a couple of high school teachers living in a condo so tiny that only they can fit into their U-shaped kitchen, and even that's romantic. What's more, the unit has one bedroom and one bath. "You practically have to go out in the hall to turn around," joked Century 21's Joan Cusack, the agent the couple engaged to sell their unit. But just because their condo is bantam-sized doesn't mean the pair will settle for less than it's worth.

Trustees of the Cabrillo Unified School District in the tiny coastal town of Half Moon Bay voted late Thursday before an audience of nearly 200 people to review their homework policies rather than abolish homework. With television cameras from around the country present, the board voted 3 to 1, with one abstention, to create a task force to review the district's homework policies, investigate how assignments are given and come back in January with preliminary proposals for change.

There's a star on the stage of the Great Western Forum. Immaculately dressed as always, 6-foot-1, tanned, not a hair out of place, he is a veteran of such very public appearances. In seminar after seminar, convention after convention, he has captivated thousands of people around the world with his charisma, sincerity and enthusiasm. But this appearance, on Feb. 19, 2000, is something special for Mark Reynolds Hughes.

James F. Blake, the Montgomery, Ala., bus driver who had Rosa Parks arrested in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, has died. He was 89. Blake died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in Montgomery. He had been in failing health for some time. The arrest of Parks for violating Montgomery's segregation laws was a galvanizing moment in the civil rights movement. It thrust a young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Two years ago, Peter J. Eichler Jr. was one of the most successful men in Southern California. His money management firm ranked among the largest in Los Angeles, with high-wattage clients such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. And he fashioned a lifestyle that was sumptuous even by the gilded standards of Wall Street. Eichler paid himself $33 million one year. He owned five homes. He had a fleet of luxury cars, including a $320,000 chauffeur-driven Maybach. He shuttled to and from Europe in private jets.

The tourists think big. Arriving in Southern California, they expect to conquer Disneyland and Hollywood, perhaps on the same day, in between the surfing and snowboarding. Then they get stuck in traffic. Then come the recriminations, the tears, the vows to visit an island next time. The locals think small. Tracing tight little loops between home and work, they dodge freeways and alien neighborhoods. There are Los Feliz people who haven't set foot in Venice since the latter Bush administration (I'm one)

In Santa Paula, art has always been everywhere and nowhere. For seven decades, the agricultural town's civic art collection has been scattered through municipal offices and public buildings, but not assembled in any one spot. People being rushed to emergency appendectomies at Santa Paula Hospital might get a glimpse of some California Impressionists in the hallways. High school students could eyeball landscapes as they chowed down in the cafeteria. Now, as some cultural institutions cut their hours or even shut their doors, a hometown group has opened a museum to display paintings that have become a source of local pride.

Looking to cut costs for his start-up software company, David Fishman moved his office into his Brentwood home and set up work in a corner of the master bedroom -- an arrangement that wife Lara says quickly became too claustrophobic for everyone. "He was getting cabin fever, and I was getting sick of his stuff overtaking our room," says Lara Fishman, an interior designer and owner of Storm Interiors/Designers Call. With two young children and no available space inside, Lara decided to push the boundaries of the live-work concept further -- right out the door, in fact, and into the garden.

When artist Jonathan Williams and writer Kim Pesenti bought their property in 2004, the couple were drawn to the vibrant street life of Echo Park but envisioned a rural retreat within, a home that responded to the landscape rather than conquered it. "We didn't want it to be imposing," Williams says of their 1,700-square-foot house. "We wanted it to be modest."

The Olivier Awards had more pizazz than usual this year. Must be that some glitzy musical producers were flown in from New York to give the telecast a big Broadway kick. Oh, excuse me, that was the Tony Awards I was watching Sunday? But then how do you explain all those foreign accents? No, I'm not talking about Geoffrey Rush's silky Australian twang (given a spry comic workout during his acceptance speech for his "Exit the King" performance award) or best special theatrical event winner Liza Minnelli's dialect from Mars.

Nearly two weeks after a smuggler's boat capsized and the bodies of nine Haitian migrants were found floating off the coast of Florida, three remain unidentified. But the local Haitian community says they will not go unclaimed. Fritz Gerald Duvigneaud and others want to see to it that all the victims have funerals, where people can remember their struggle. "These people have been through so much," said Duvigneaud, who owns a funeral home. "They deserve a proper burial."

It was May 2005, the giddy days of real estate, and Diane and Anthony Cordova had sold their 1,800-square-foot, two-bedroom town home in Westwood after just one open house. Their plan: to move into not one new home, but two -- a dream house they would build out in Palm Springs, and a one- bedroom pied-a-terre in the city. They had already pounced on the condo -- a rundown 1970s fixer in the heart of Brentwood -- a few months earlier.

It is always a marvel, the variety and volume of materials that make a house. Tons of cement, lumber, nails, pipe, wire, shingles, Sheetrock and joint compound are transformed into separate skeletal forms by workers from a dozen trades and crafts. Only gradually, and after countless adjustments, cuts and taps, do the pieces begin to come together, a slow-motion marathon ballet choreographed by a blueprint.

WITH A legacy that includes designs by Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson, Herman Miller has long produced office furniture that looked good enough to take home. Now, with more folks working from their residences, the company has launched the Lifework Portfolio, new desks and storage units for the home that coordinate with midcentury classics. The Airia desk (shown here, $2,199), designed by Kaiju Studios, is made from cast aluminum and walnut.

Contracts to buy previously owned homes fell in March, and businesses, faced with a slump in demand, slashed worker hours in the first quarter to increase productivity and safeguard profits, data Wednesday showed. The National Assn. of Realtors index, based on contracts signed in March, fell 1% to 83.0, the lowest since the index began in 2001, and was 20.1% lower than a year ago.