Housing

WASHINGTON - The divide within the Republican Party over immigration reform was on full view Monday, as top party leaders made a case for overhauling the laws even as conservative senators argued that the Boston bombings showed the need to go slow. Momentum appeared to be on the side of the reformers. They have amassed an unusually robust alliance of business, labor and faith leaders that on Monday included the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who said "now is the time" to fix the immigration system.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has canceled its popular annual open house at its La Cañada Flintridge facility because of federal spending cuts. The event, scheduled for June 8-9, typically attracts crowds of more than 15,000 each day. "Everyone here is just horribly disappointed," JPL spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said. "This is an event we look forward to each year and we know the public really looks forward to attending it. " JPL has been reviewing its public outreach efforts amid pressure from NASA to cut costs to cope with federal spending reductions.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced this week that it has canceled its popular annual open house at its La Cañada Flintridge facility because of federal spending cuts. The event, scheduled for June 8 and 9, typically attracts crowds of more than 15,000 each day. "Everyone here is just horribly disappointed," JPL spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said. "This is an event we look forward to each year and we know the public really looks forward to attending it. " JPL has been in the process of reviewing its public outreach efforts amid pressure from NASA to cut costs to cope with federal spending reductions.

In the brutal cycles of California real estate, the Antelope Valley has been among the last to boom, the first to bust and the slowest to recover. But in the High Desert, separated from downtown Los Angeles by 65 miles and a mountain range, the housing market is finally gaining steam after the latest debacle, underscoring the strong recovery across the region. The reason is simple: Big new houses are selling in the $200,000 range, a mere fraction of home prices across much of the region.

California's economic recovery continued to outpace the nation's in March as its unemployment rate fell to 9.4%, the lowest in more than four years for the Golden State. The state increased its payrolls by 25,500 jobs and pushed down the jobless rate from 9.6% in February, according to data released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. But the economic picture was not all rosy. Although jobs were added because of a rising housing market and continued consumer spending, 14,900 people dropped out of the workforce, mirroring a national trend of job seekers who become discouraged and give up looking for work.

Singer Katy Perry 's fortress-like compound in Hollywood Hills West is for sale at $6.925 million. The double-gated Mediterranean-style house, built in 1925, sits on nearly 3 acres with a caretaker's apartment/carriage house and a guesthouse. Called Park Hill, the house features a baronial stone foyer with a sweeping staircase, a two-story living room, stained-glass windows and a carved fireplace mantel in the living room, a pub, a study and a media room. Including a four-room master suite, two guest suites and staff quarters, there are seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms and 8,835 square feet of living space.

Show houses are meant to provide inspiration and to reflect the latest trends, and the Pasadena Showcase House of Design opens Sunday with plenty of both. This year 28 designers transformed a 1941 Arcadia estate originally designed by Roland E. Coate Sr., adding color and texture that exude warmth while staying true to the home's Monterey Colonial style. In a long second-floor hallway, purple damask fabric applied to the wall in lieu of wallpaper adds an unexpected softness. Grass cloth and burlap appear on other walls, often used as backing for bookshelves.

I'm considering buying the Dodgers. New ownership seems wise at this point, though I will confess that my judgment may be impaired after wolfing down four Dodger Dogs the other night. Sodium poisoning soon set in, and then there was this 2-year-old billy-clubbing everyone around us with his little souvenir bat, sharp as an elbow. "Great, now he's armed," grumbled the guy next to me. I was with my peeps in the right-field pavilion. It's where the real fans reside, the working men and women of Los Angeles, plunking down $27 for admission and the all-you-can-eat buffet they serve in this part of the park.

Architect John Frane saw plenty of promise in the Venice Beach shoe box, a 1930s bungalow Spanish-ized with interior doorway arches, a tiled parapet and swirled metalwork on the windows and fence. "Ugly duckling is a good way to describe it," Frane said of the house, painted beige with maroon trim when he bought it in 2011 and, more important, hemmed in by apartments on all four sides. "The house has an urban side, and the big backyard had been paved over, but I saw it as potentially being a great private space.

French director François Ozon can usually be counted on for dark irony of the juiciest sort - his 2003 "Swimming Pool" of sexual provocations comes to mind. But the filmmaker has an especially deft touch when a dash of comedy is mixed in. He uses this to delicious effect in his latest, "In the House. " Adapted by Ozon from Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga's "The Boy in the Last Row," the literary conceit upon which this "House" stands required some maneuvering to open up the world of Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer)