Koreatown Los Angeles

The owner of an apartment building that collapsed Sunday in Los Angeles' Koreatown, injuring four people, was convicted last fall of numerous fire and health code violations and agreed to sell all of his roughly 150 rental properties as part of a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid jail time, records show. Frank McHugh, 82, of Marina del Rey was given three years to sell his apartment buildings in an agreement approved by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Spurgeon Smith.

Sun Ok Ma looked at a photo of the charred exterior of the sport utility vehicle in which her ex-husband allegedly burned her two children to death, hid her face behind her hair, and wept. The breakdown came as Ma took the witness stand in Los Angeles Superior Court to testify against Dae Kwon Yun, 56. After a two-day preliminary hearing, Yun was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on two counts of murder for the April 2006 deaths of Ashley, 11, and Alexander, 10.

The way Jack Shin sees it, he's selling the city's cheapest vacation. Spend $4.95 for a cup of drip coffee and drink it in his 100-foot-long model of the Titanic, which he built on a busy stretch of Western Avenue, and Shin guarantees you'll come away refreshed. "Everyone is working and making money to pay bills and they're very tight. One coffee here and they feel like they've been on a cruise and they're relaxed," Shin said.

A Los Angeles city councilman has proposed the creation of a new billboard district in Koreatown, one that would run 17 blocks from east to west and take in major corridors such as Wilshire and Olympic boulevards. With a separate downtown billboard district scheduled for a vote next week, the proposal by Councilman Herb Wesson has alarmed anti-billboard activists. They said the city should not allow any more outdoor signs until it can show that it is cracking down on the illegal ones.

For years, the boxy office building housing the Chinese Consulate on Shatto Place in Koreatown maintained a low profile. Its only major brush with the news came nearly two decades ago after the Tiananmen crackdown prompted Chinese Americans to hold protests there. But after this month's deadly Sichuan earthquake, the consulate has emerged as an unlikely galvanizing force for Southern California's thriving ethnic Chinese community.

Two men were charged Wednesday with the shooting deaths of a man and his 17-year-old daughter on New Year's Eve. Matthew Koontz, 33, faces two counts of murder, including the special circumstance allegations of multiple murder and murder during a burglary, which could make him subject to the death penalty if convicted. Jonathan Blackwell, 26, also was charged in the slayings. Koontz was arrested a few hours after the shooting. Blackwell remains at large.

Koreatown's charms have caught on with Jay Yeun, who moved there more than a year ago. "You have everything here," Yeun said. The 30-year-old Seoul native had lived in Fullerton for 10 years before moving to City Heights, the area's largest apartment complex. Now, most of his friends live nearby, and he frequents a 24-hour diner on Wilshire Boulevard for late-night tofu. Plus, he said, "in Koreatown, you don't have to speak English." Executives at Kennedy Wilson Inc. are similarly charmed.

Jews and Koreans have been neighbors for nearly four decades in the area that has become Los Angeles' Koreatown, but for the first time, Asian immigrant leaders on Tuesday ventured inside the landmark Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Southern California's oldest Jewish congregation.

Five Yorkshire terriers, including four puppies offered for sale, were dognapped at gunpoint from a Koreatown home, authorities said Thursday. The home-invasion robbery was captured on video by the family's home security system. Detectives released the tape Thursday in hopes of apprehending the two robbers, who got away with puppies valued at $2,500 each and the family's grown Yorkie, Tang-ja, said Lt. Paul Vernon of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Two men were charged with robbery and grand theft Tuesday for allegedly stealing four Yorkshire terriers at gunpoint in a home invasion robbery last month. Troy Cabral, 23, and Ryan Jason Betton, 19, surrendered earlier this month after a videotape of the robbery at the Koreatown home aired on TV news and Internet sites. Police recovered the terriers and reunited them with their owners.