Jail

Jana Winter, an investigative reporter for Fox News, faces the prospect of serious jail time for being a good journalist. Seriously. Most of the accounts you may read won't describe her predicament quite that way. But make no mistake: A state judge could demand that Winter either divulge the names of confidential sources who gave her information she reported about last July's shooting rampage in a Colorado movie theater, or spend time in jail for...

Cathedral City Mayor Pro Tem Charles F. Vasquez, who was arrested and charged with stealing public funds, has been released from an Indio jail on $50,000 bail, officials said. The Riverside County district attorney's office alleged he used a program for computer purchases to buy MasterCard gift cards and other personal items. Vasquez, 52, was charged with three felony counts of misappropriation of public funds in excess of $2,000. The councilman was arrested at his Cathedral City home Monday about 9 p.m. by D.A. investigators.

Inmates at the Glendale city jail didn't just pay their debt to society 2012. They also paid about $96,000 to stay at the facility. For $85 a day, prisoners sleep in separate quarters from other inmates, have access to phones, showers and day-room areas. But they still must perform laundry and janitorial tasks inside the jail. They get two cold meals and one hot meal a day. The pay-to-stay program generated $96,475 in 2012, up from $67,995 in 2011, according to Glendale Police Department reports.

A 32-year-old Glendale police jail inmate was arrested after allegedly attacking a custody officer on Tuesday, officials said. The 43-year-old officer suffered a small cut on his right elbow from his incident with the inmate, Mohamed Mousa of Los Angeles, according to police. The officer was moving Mousa from the attorney visitation area to a holding cell when Mousa reportedly began staring at a female inmate in the next cell, police said. When the officer told Mousa, who was in custody on a warrant for domestic violence, to leave the female inmate alone, he suddenly starting yelling and flailing his arms, police said.

A mother charged with murder in the drownings of her two young girls in the bathtub of their South Los Angeles home committed suicide while in jail, an L.A. County sheriff's spokesman confirmed. The death of Lorna Valle, 33, was reported Feb. 23 at the Lynwood jail but was not made public by sheriff's officials. Los Angeles County coroner's officials said Valle, who was awaiting trial, died of asphyxiation after placing a bag over her head. Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Valle died at the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood but denied the department had anything to hide, noting jail officials do not routinely release identities of those who commit suicide while in custody.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is investigating a racially charged melee involving as many as 62 inmates that erupted Wednesday at the Twin Towers Jail in downtown Los Angeles. A Sheriff's Department spokesman said charges could be filed after the investigation is completed. The brawl between Latino and black inmates broke out at 12:10 p.m in the third-floor recreation area of Tower 1 and was quelled in about 90 seconds after deputies deployed sting balls and gas, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

The number of inmates hurt and needing medical treatment following a brawl along racial lines Tuesday at Los Angeles County Twin Towers Jail rose to six, officials said. Steve Whitmore, a sheriff's spokesman, said the number of inmates hurt during the altercation rose from four to six after investigators sorted out the incident. He said the investigation into the cause of the fight between Latino and black inmates is ongoing. The brawl broke out at 12:10 p.m in the third-floor recreation area of Tower 1 and was quashed in about 90 seconds after deputies deployed sting balls and gas, Whitmore said.

The Los Angeles County jail system is, in a way, two systems. There's the one Sheriff Lee Baca says he yearns for, a place where you do your time but also get help, a place enriched with educational and mental health programs. And there's the one under scrutiny by the FBI, a federal grand jury and others over allegations of brutality and mismanagement. Terri McDonald is now in charge of them both. After a quarter-century in the state prisons, from prison guard to manager of the massive "realignment" of prisoners, McDonald will be opening the investigatory and disciplinary books on the jail, with an eye to realigning it. In your new job, do you have the authority not just to make recommendations but to carry them out ?

A fight along racial lines involving as many 62 inmates erupted shortly after noon in Los Angeles County's Twin Towers Jail, leaving four of those in custody needing medical treatment. The brawl between Latino and black inmates broke out at 12:10 p.m in the third-floor recreation area of Tower 1 and was quashed in about 90 seconds after deputies deployed sting balls and gas, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. "We cannot say how many of the inmates were exactly involved, but 62 were in the area at the time," Whitmore said. The altercation left four inmates needing treatment at the medical center with cuts and bruises.

LAS VEGAS - A disgraced Nevada politician who just hours earlier had been expelled from the State Assembly in an unprecedented vote was arrested outside Barstow after a high-speed chase with police. Steven Brooks was being held Friday on charges that included resisting arrest and throwing objects. His arrest came after state lawmakers in Carson City, Nev., voted to remove him from office, calling him "potentially dangerous. " Officials say Brooks, 41, was arrested about 7 p.m. Thursday on Interstate 15 at Stoddard Wells Road.