Local Aid

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled a novel $50-million program Thursday to pay New York families cash for taking steps to lift themselves out of poverty by keeping their children in school, staying healthy and earning more. Under the privately funded two-year pilot program, called Opportunity NYC, 2,500 families will earn rewards of $50 to $300 for meeting goals such as attending a parent-teacher conference, visiting the dentist or getting job training.

Carmen Munoz ticks off the basic facts of her life in a quiet, neutral voice that belies the horrors she has known: Married at 12 to a man 10 years her senior. First-time mother at 14. Worked as a housecleaner while her husband spent his days idling, confiscating the few pesos she'd earned and burning her with cigarettes to keep her in line. "What he liked was money and beating me up," she says of her former spouse. "He enjoyed making me bleed."

A divided Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a proposal Tuesday to create a satellite county center in Westminster over objections that it was an attempt to build political capital by the board member who represents the area. Supervisor Janet Nguyen, whose district includes Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Midway City, requested the development of the service center during budget hearings last month.

City officials should consider turning down any future funding requests for the Children's Museum of Los Angeles, under construction in the San Fernando Valley, until museum officials come up with a workable financial plan, City Controller Laura Chick said Wednesday. At a City Hall news conference, Chick released an audit that she said "shows a troubling picture for the museum's future," concluding the museum does not have enough money to finish construction and open. In 2000, L.A.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to provide $8 million to a developer who is rehabilitating a 12-story residential hotel near skid row, infuriating homeless advocates who charge the developer is waging an illegal campaign to drive impoverished tenants out of another building nearby.

Orange County's largest transportation agency agreed Monday to pay $200,000 to help fund a rail improvement project in Placentia but rejected the cash-strapped city's request that it actually take over the project. Placentia asked the Orange County Transportation Authority to take the lead in the project, which began six years ago but has advanced slowly. The work -- which is expected to result in the silencing of train horns -- involves improvements to eight street crossings.

At least 50 Somali intelligence officers stormed a U.N. compound in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and seized the World Food Program's local chief of operations at gunpoint, prompting the agency to stop aid distribution. A government officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the arrest order came from the head of the national security service. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the arrest as a flagrant violation of U.N. immunity.

They weren't handing out energy drinks, offering massages or directing evacuees to self-help classes Thursday at the National Orange Show Fairgrounds in San Bernardino. This wasn't San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium -- the Ritz of evacuation centers -- this was its Spartan cousin, a place packed with tough mountain people not always comfortable in the flatlands. Not that they were complaining -- much. "It's too freakin' noisy, too many kids, but what can you do?

The city of Santa Ana has approved spending $5 million to help expand a Honda dealership at the Santa Ana Auto Mall and demolish a closed strip club that long annoyed city officials. Now, a divided City Council today will consider whether to allocate an additional $1 million for the dealer's legal fees incurred in a fight with the landlord of the strip club, which was known as Mr. J's.

The city of Santa Ana has approved spending $5 million to help expand a Honda dealership at the Santa Ana Auto Mall and demolish a closed strip club that long annoyed city officials. Now, a divided City Council today will consider whether to allocate an additional $1 million for the dealer's legal fees incurred in a fight with the landlord of the strip club, which was known as Mr. J's.