Lloyd Levine

Sacramento -- Enjoy fast food? Like to light up while you watch the waves? Forget to sock away money for your kids' education? Some California lawmakers want to change your ways. They've planted a crop of proposals this year -- "nanny" bills, as they're called -- that would: * Restrict the use of artery-clogging trans fat, common in fried and baked foods and linked to heart disease, in restaurants and school cafeterias.

Not long ago, being a skycap at busy Los Angeles International Airport was a coveted blue-collar job that brought the trappings of middle-class life. With ample tips plus a basic hourly wage, the curbside baggage handlers could buy comfortable homes and send their children to college. Handed from generation to generation, the attractive positions remained in families for decades.

Secession leaders said Wednesday that they have decided against filing a lawsuit to challenge the Nov. 5 election in which San Fernando Valley cityhood was supported by a majority of Valley voters but was overwhelmingly defeated citywide. The secession group Valley VOTE had considered challenging the state law that required approval both by a majority of San Fernando Valley voters and a majority of the total city electorate.

It's a tax loophole you could drive a Mercedes through, or a motor yacht or a Learjet, at a cost to the state of California of $55 million a year. Buyers of vehicles, from econobox cars to RVs costing as much as a house, can legally avoid the state sales and use tax by taking delivery outside the state -- in sales-tax-free states such as Oregon -- and parking them for 90 days. The exemption was meant to protect people who moved to California soon after buying a vehicle.

SACRAMENTO -- Adding a green twist to an old political tactic, an environmental group sent a mailer to 50,000 Los Angeles County homes Thursday urging residents to vote by mail to eliminate the "carbon footprint" they would leave by driving to the polls on election day. The mailer is being derided by some, while others are questioning whether it is improperly trying to influence a state Senate election in the West L.A.

Calling himself a "Johnny-come-lately" to the issue, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez announced Thursday that he will back a bill to allow terminally ill people to hasten their deaths with lethal prescriptions. Similar bills have failed in the last two years, but supporters say Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat, could make the difference. "We are more hopeful now than ever that we can get this bill signed into law," said the bill's author, Assemblywoman Patty Berg (D-Eureka).

World War II-era pilots and aviation buffs raised the curtain Friday on a colorful mural commemorating the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane, an aircraft that was a key to the expansion of the Southland economy and America's military victories. More than 10,000 P-38s were built by Lockheed Corp. in Burbank from 1941 to 1945. The 6-by-21-foot oil on canvas mural, commissioned by the P-38 National Assn.

The governor has signed a bill that requires the state to compile statistics for the San Fernando Valley separately from the rest of Los Angeles in an effort to help local leaders make better-informed decisions. The law, sponsored by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), makes the Valley the state's first separate non-city, non-county "statistical district," and comes more than a year after the Valley's failed effort to secede from Los Angeles. Gov.

California has heard a lot of anti-tax rhetoric since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, but the tirade reached an absurd level in Sacramento last week as tax foes tried to defend the yacht tax loophole that deprives the state of an estimated $55 million each year. It would be bad for the yachting business, they said, to require owners of expensive new boats to pay the sales tax on them.

A bill that would ban the sale of traditional, energy-hogging incandescent light bulbs by 2012 got the green light Monday in a first legislative vote. Replacing incandescent bulbs with high-efficiency compact fluorescent bulbs would be good for the environment and consumers' pocketbooks, said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), chairman of the Utilities and Commerce Committee. The proposal, AB 722, cleared Levine's committee on a 7-2 tally.