Lighting

Los Angeles police will not pursue through the courts scores of motorists with unpaid tickets from the city's defunct red-light camera program. The city Police Commission voted this week to end its contract with the company that operated L.A.'s cameras until they were shut off last summer. And authorities are now planning to reassign a small group of officers who regularly appeared in court to testify in contested photo enforcement cases. With the cancellation of the contract, officers will no longer have easy access to the photo and video evidence that courts require.

As the war on drugs has spread from Mexico to Central America, so has the U.S. role in Honduras. Pentagon contracts are helping to fund new military bases in remote regions of that country, and U.S. troops and special Drug Enforcement Administration agents have been deployed to train local security forces and assist in counter-narcotics operations. It's a delicate partnership, and one that is already causing controversy. Last week the Obama administration confirmed that DEA agents were with Honduran security forces aboard a U.S. helicopter during a botched May 11 operation.

Bob Brickman spent months fighting a ticket he got last fall from a red-light traffic camera at Wilshire and Sepulveda boulevards in West Los Angeles. The 61-year-old from Playa Vista eventually decided to give up the fight and fork over the $476 fine. Now he's regretting paying every penny. City officials this week spotlighted a surprising revelation involving red-light camera tickets: Authorities cannot force violators who simply don't respond to pay them. For a variety of reasons, including the way the law was written, Los Angeles officials say the fines for ticketed motorists are essentially "voluntary" and there are virtually no tangible consequences for those who refuse to pay. The disclosure comes as the city is considering whether to drop the controversial photo enforcement program, with the City Council scheduled to vote on the matter Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - More than 2,000 people have been freed from prison since 1989 after they were found to have been wrongly convicted of serious crimes, according to a new National Registry of Exonerations compiled by University of Michigan Law School and Northwestern University. Its sponsors say it is by far the largest database of such cases, and they hope it will help reveal why the criminal justice system sometimes misfires, prosecuting and convicting the innocent. "The more we learn about false convictions, the better we'll be at preventing them," said Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor.

As warehouses go, there are few like Skechers USA Inc.'s new 1.82-million-square-foot distribution center. This warehouse is so big that it takes half a minute to drive from one end to the other at 60 miles per hour. The setup is so advanced that human hands will hardly touch the cargo as it is unpacked, categorized, stacked and prepared for delivery. The building is so green that it uses prevailing winds for ventilation instead of air conditioning. For its new North American operations warehouse, the nation's No. 2 footwear company chose the Inland Empire's Moreno Valley.

There's so much to praise in the blissful Broadway revival of "Follies," which opened Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre on the heels of its numerous Tony nominations, but let's pay homage first to the sheer sophistication of the show itself. After experiencing "Follies" again - an adult entertainment if ever there was one - I flat-out refuse to accept any more jukebox substitutes. One doesn't often talk about architecture when writing about musicals, but the most impressive thing about "Follies," beyond Stephen Sondheim's bejeweled score, is the ingenious way it is constructed.

Lighting designer Jennifer Tipton met Sardono W. Kusumo, an Indonesian dancer and choreographer, in 2008 at a workshop she was giving in Java. Tipton, one of this country's preeminent designers, had participants reverse their usual roles: Lighting designers made dance pieces; choreographers lighted them. Returning to Jakarta later that year, Tipton discovered a different kind of artistic shift. Sardono, known for his intense physical style, had begun painting. He was producing massive canvases, up to 30 feet high.

Finding fixtures and lamps for period-influenced interiors can be just as important as choosing the furniture. "The biggest misconception I hear is that ‘I can't afford period lighting,' " Lara Spencer says. "But the truth is you can find really nice vintage fixtures for the same as or not much less than some mass-market reproductions if you just know where to look." She thinks of lighting as the "jewelry" that finishes a room — "a fun way to make a big statement," she says.

This photograph by Seth Dominick looks like a composite of the night sky and an airport walkway, but it's actually an art installation. The Waltham, Mass., resident shot it in December in the concourse between the East and West buildings of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Created by artist Leo Villareal, it consists of 41,000 LED nodes programmed to light sequentially to create changing abstract patterns. Dominick used a Nikon D80 to capture the twinkling scene.

Question: Our condo homeowners association is debating whether to buy new lighting for all the hallways, which would cost just under $200,000, or repair the existing lights at a cost of about $15,000. In each case, should funds come from operating or reserve funds? How is the decision reached as to which path to take? Answer: Operating funds are collected to meet the association's day-to-day operating expenses, including utilities, gardening and routine maintenance such as replacing lightbulbs.

The effect of Sunday's solar eclipse was slightly evident at Dodger Stadium in the fifth and sixth innings, the day's fading sunlight growing even dimmer across the ballpark's right-field corner. Then matters suddenly brightened for the Dodgers when rookie Scott Van Slyke slugged a pinch-hit, three-run home run that erased a St. Louis Cardinals lead and led the Dodgers to a 6-5 victory and a sweep of their three-game series. Van Slyke homered in only his ninth big league at-bat and after getting the green light from Manager Don Mattingly to swing at a 3-and-0 pitch from reliever Marc Rzepczynski.

Upcoming films produced by Megan Ellison "Lawless" A Prohibition-era bootlegging drama based on the novel "The Wettest County in the World. " Director: John Hillcoat ("The Road") Stars: Jessica Chastain, Tom Hardy, Shia LaBoeuf, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, Mia Wasikowska Debuts: May 19 (Cannes Film Festival); Aug. 31 (in U.S.) "Killing Them Softly" Gritty drama about a mob enforcer. Based on the novel "Cogan's Trade. " Director: Andrew Dominik ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford")

ATLANTA - On the night George Zimmerman fatally shot unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, a witness said he saw some of the scuffle - and described a black man in a dark hoodie on top of a white or Latino man, punching him repeatedly, "mixed martial arts style. " Then there was a pop, the witness told police, according to documents made public Thursday in Zimmerman's second-degree murder case. Soon, he said, the man in the hoodie was "laid out in the grass. " The detail, one of many in a trove of discovery records released by prosecutors, could bolster Zimmerman's contention that he acted in self-defense on the night of Feb. 26, after he called police and reported Martin as a suspicious character in his neighborhood.

When the Angels placed outfielder Torii Hunter on baseball's restricted list, it focused attention on a rarely used vehicle available to clubs in the major leagues. Unlike the more commonly used disabled list, which is used for injuries and requires a player to sit out a specified minimum number of days, the restricted list offers the broadest and most flexible option for a team and player. "It's meant to be a convenience for both the club and the player — the club not to play short-handed and the player to tend to his circumstances," MLB spokesman Mike Teevan said.

WASHINGTON -- Osama bin Laden's personal notes and letters, which were seized a year ago in the U.S. raid on his compound in Pakistan, show a leader removed from day-to-day operations of the terrorist organization he founded and increasingly frustrated with the new generation of managers who were rising in the ranks. A declassified selection of the vast trove of material -- large enough, officials say, to fill a college library -- will be published online Thursday by the Combating Terrorism Center, a think tank at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

It's been a long time since wearing sunglasses was just about shading the eyes from the glare of the sun. Just as often, that pair of Wayfarers, cat-eyes or aviators is used to create an air of inaccessibility and mystery. That's especially true among the celebrity set seeking a disguise and rock musicians trying to cultivate an anti-establishment vibe behind impenetrably inky or mirrored lenses. But, thanks to the latest celebri-trend - custom-made, lightly tinted lenses in light neutrals or pale pops of color - sunglasses are no longer an accessory that looks cool at the beach or behind the wheel but affected indoors and elsewhere.

You can get great pictures from a phone or a point-and-shoot, and Kathy Pyon of the L.A. Times photo staff will tell you how. In a talk at the L.A. Times Travel Show, which she will repeat at 12:30 on Sunday, she told show attendees that the photos they were about to see were not enhanced. "Everything you see is from my phone or from my point and shoot," she said. So how do you get great photos out of the littlest gadgets? Three basic principles, she said: lighting, composition and moments.

Recently you published an editorial titled "Arrogance and Ignorance" (Sept. 15) dealing with the proposed lighting system at Lawrence Welk Village. As a friend of Palomar, I applaud your stand in keeping the light factor down. However, we are faced with another serious lighting addition to this area at the proposed "Water Park" to be constructed about a mile from Welk Village. Besides the added traffic hazard, it would seem that adding adequate lighting for such a large facility would be many times brighter than the increased lighting wanted by the management of Welk Mobile Home Park.

Cuningham Group Architecture's office is situated a few blocks from the water in Marina del Rey, where some workers like to run, bike or skateboard to work. In June the firm will be moving seven miles inland to an office compound in Culver City. The draw? The nearby Expo Line station. "We wanted to be in Culver City because of the rail line," said Jonathan Watts, a firm principal. "We end up being in downtown Los Angeles a lot dealing with the city and permitting, and we have a number of employees living east of downtown.

Behind the action of Simon Armitage's marvelous translation of the Middle English epic "The Death of King Arthur" (W.W. Norton: 306 pp., $26.95), there's an unmistakable mood of bitterness. It has nothing to do with Arthur's fate — yes, there's plenty of bitter sorrow after Arthur's last battle against Mordred, but that's not what I'm talking about. There's another, different bitterness here that belongs to the anonymous maker of this poem, which appeared long before Thomas Malory ever celebrated the legendary warrior-king in his prose "Le Morte D'Arthur.