Long Beach

Long Beach Airport (LGB) this week will open a new parking structure, bringing all airport parking on-site and within walking distance of the main terminal building. But it will also shut down its cheapest lot. The new Lot B parking garage, under construction for more than a year near the terminal, holds about 2,000 cars. Airport spokeswoman Kim McMahon said the lot will open at 12:01 a.m. Friday. On the same day, remote parking Lot D at Lakewood Boulevard and Conant Street will be closed, although of course cars already parked there can remain until they exit, McMahon said.

In a match made in what's surely somebody's idea of musical heaven, the Long Beach Opera will take a sidelong look toward the Grateful Dead with a Sunday screening of Jim Kohlberg's "The Music Never Stopped." The film, which was an entry in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, acts as a sort of stage-setter for the company's production of Michael Nyman's "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," an opera based on the work of Dr. Oliver Sacks by the same name.

BMW has been striving to reconcile its dueling images for years. Best known for its luxurious, sport-oriented cars, the German manufacturer's motorcycles are only beginning to shed their reputation as wheels for safety-conscious old men, thanks to exciting new bikes like the S 1000 RR and K 1600 LT. At this weekend's International Motorcycle Shows event in Long Beach, BMW is likely to confuse its image even further when its first scooters make...

Long Beach Opera's new production of Osvaldo Golijov's "Ainadamar" comes at an important time. The opera is a meditation on the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca's murder by the fascists during the Spanish Civil War, which is ever relevant, especially in the way the work echoes the current situation in the Middle East. But there is another reason why this opera matters right now, despite LBO's somewhat slapdash production at Terrace Theater Sunday night. Golijov has been going through a bad patch, and we need to be reminded why the music world would be unwise to lose faith in him. He has missed deadlines, including for a violin concerto that was to have been premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic a year ago. He has also come under attack for plagiarism by "gotcha" critics who miss the larger context of his work and what makes it so culturally rich and pertinent.

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.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are bringing in a surprising new commodity: jobs. The first post-recession surge in employment at the nation's busiest seaport complex began this month and appears to be gathering momentum. There has been as much as a threefold increase in the number of longshoremen finding work on the docks in the first three weeks of February compared with the same period last year, a review of daily employment dispatches shows. Through the first three weeks there was an average of 2,679 longshore jobs a day during the usual three work shifts at the two ports, according to the summaries.

Ted's Clock Emporium said it acquired Westwood Clocks 'N Kits from California Time Service for an undisclosed price. Based in Van Nuys, privately-held Ted's is the nation's largest clock retailer, with nine outlets in Southern California and sales expected to exceed $7 million this year, the company said. Westwood Clocks is in Long Beach, as is California Time. Westwood makes kits for clocks, including grandfather clocks; Ted's will add the kits to its product line.

I love my country and will respect its laws. I will play fair and strive to win. --Part of the Little League pledge A year of cheating scandals has rocked its squeaky-clean, middle-class image and Little League baseball has been doing a lot of soul-searching this week.

Nobody foresaw the long-range ramifications when NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, moved its headquarters to Brussels, Belgium, in 1968. We're not talking military or political consequences. We're talking frites (pronounced freets ), or as they are known in this country, French fries. And we're talking about right here in Long Beach, where Belgian-style French fries are being served at Benita's Frites. Follow closely.

Nearly 400 police officers raided 24 homes in five cities early Wednesday, arresting six people believed to be associates of gang members suspected in the shooting death of Long Beach Officer Daryle Black, a police spokesman said. Authorities also believe that some of those arrested may have been involved in a recent spate of homicides in Long Beach, where 10 slayings occurred last month, said Officer David Marander, a spokesman for the city's Police Department, the lead agency in the sweep.

The Northwest in fall is a pretty place to be, and you'll save some green as well on a round trip from Long Beach to Seattle on Alaska and JetBlue for $160, which includes all taxes and fees. It is subject to availability for travel Mondays-Thursdays and on Saturdays between Sept. 25 and Dec. 15. Info: Alaska , (800) 252-7522; JetBlue , (800) 538-2583 Source: Airfarewatchdog

The Southern Section track and field championships will be held Saturday at Mount San Antonio College, with field events beginning at 10:30 a.m. and running events at 1 p.m. Sprinter Khalfani Muhammad of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, the second-place finisher in the state 100 and 200 last year, will be trying to win his first section title in the Division 3 100 and 200. There are lots of standouts in the boys' and girls' ranks, including Gardena...

Right-hander Luke Eubank of Newbury Park is 9-0 with a 1.08 earned-run average, six shutouts, three no-hitters and has given up only 10 walks in 65 innings. "It's the best pitching performance in the last 30 years that I've seen," Newbury Park Coach Matt Goldfield said. On Friday in his latest dominating performance, Eubank struck out six, walked none and finished with a two-hitter as the Panthers defeated Long Beach Wilson, 3-0, in a first-round Southern Section Division 1 playoff game.

Nothing seems to stop "Jungle" Jack Hanna. Facing down dangerous animals and persnickety late-night hosts, the congenial wildlife expert and dedicated conservationist in the trademark khaki suit has been TV fixture for the last 30 years. Now, despite having just undergone a double knee replacement, Hanna is doing a national theater tour that comes to the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach on Saturday. "As long as I don't have to run around too much after any animals I will be fine," he laughed by phone from his home in Montana, where he is recuperating.

The signs of penguins in love were unmistakable at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on Monday: puffing their chests, standing on tiptoes while clicking their beaks together, belting out donkey-like brays. The colony of 13 Magellanic penguins, which recently moved from holding pens to a new $1.5-million exhibit that opens to the public Thursday, has seethed with courting rituals since the arrival of breeding season. One pair is already tending to a newly hatched chick.

Construction of the Gov. George Deukmejian Courthouse reached a milestone last week when workers placed the last beam of the $490-million structure in downtown Long Beach. The new building, set to open on Magnolia Avenue in fall 2013, will replace the nearby Long Beach Courthouse, completed in 1959 and considered overcrowded and obsolete. The five-story Deukmejian building will house 31 courtrooms, as well as superior court administration quarters, Los Angeles County justice agencies, offices leased to the county Probation Department, a food court and a convenience store.

A veteran Long Beach police officer accused of stealing drugs from an undercover state narcotics agent pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to possessing six kilograms of cocaine with intent to distribute them. Julio A. Alcaraz, 36, who joined the department in 1989, faces a prison term that could range from 10 years to life. Sentencing is scheduled for June 23. The guilty plea was in connection with an incident Jan. 26.

Gov. Jerry Brown sat down in the captain's chair inside the cockpit of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet and gazed at an array of gauges and dials spread out before him. At one point he turned to Bob Ciesla, Boeing's C-17 program manager, and asked: "Is this where it's built?" Ciesla confirmed that Long Beach was the manufacturing site - and that the company has struggled in recent years to keep the plant operating. He didn't seem to mind that the governor did not know that the military's workhorse cargo jet has been built here since the early 1990s.

Nancy Eomurian was driving through a Long Beach church parking lot April 28 when she found a man covered in blood lying on the ground near the lifeless body of his 9-year-old stepdaughter. Next to the child she saw what appeared to be nonsensical scrawl written on the side of a container. "I first thought the scrawl was graffiti, then I realized it was blood," Eomurian said. "It was like time stopped. " Prosecutors allege that the man, 31-year-old Jacinto Zuniga Trujillo, killed the girl out of fear she would reveal that he had been molesting her. The L.A. County district attorney's office accused Trujillo of capital murder and molestation, alleging that he had abused the girl for months.

Junior left-hander Chris Castellanos of Long Beach Poly is a 16-year-old "pitching savant. " So says his coach, Toby Hess. "He's been amazing," Hess said. What has happened to Castellanos in a week's time is nothing short of extraordinary. Castellanos beat Chase DeJong of Long Beach Wilson and Shane Watson of Lakewood — staff aces, USC signees and potential first-round draft choices — in consecutive games. He threw a perfect game, retiring all 21 batters in order, to defeat DeJong a week ago, 1-0. And on Tuesday he threw a complete game, escaping a bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the seventh, to defeat Watson and Lakewood, 3-2. "It's an honor to beat those guys and a privilege to pitch against them," he said.