Long Beach Ca

A battle over what constitutes "overtly sexual" art unfolded on Long Beach's trendy main thoroughfare on Monday, with an artist demanding that two of her abstract nudes be put back up on the walls of a public exhibition organized by a program that deemed them offensive.

Long Beach is about to consider a rare step to ease anti-smoking rules. At a time when cities nationwide are banning smoking in public places from bars to beaches, the Long Beach City Council today will consider a proposed amendment to its no-smoking ordinance that would exempt cigar lounges and hookah bars.

Prospects are brightening for Boeing Co.'s once-threatened C-17 aircraft factory in Long Beach, where 5,000 workers could find themselves employed for several more years -- if not longer. The factory is home to the last major airplane production line left in Southern California. For decades, the region was the nation's bastion of aircraft manufacturing, with plants from Burbank to San Diego rolling out planes hourly.

Long Beach police are grappling with a string of officer-involved shootings in recent months, including three this week alone. Five people were injured in officer-involved shootings during a seven-hour period from Wednesday afternoon to early Thursday, authorities said. One of the victims was a police officer apparently struck by "friendly fire." So far this year, Long Beach police officers have shot nine people.

Just off downtown Long Beach, where freighters queue up to unload much of the nation's imported goods, a long wall of rock rises from the waves, encrusted with mussels and crawling with crabs. This is the Long Beach breakwater, a 2.2-mile vestige of World War II designed to shield the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet from stormy seas and enemy torpedoes.

Plans for the former Boeing Co. land north of Long Beach Airport originally called for an ambitious development that mixed office, retail and housing. But the 1,400 residences included in the massive Douglas Park project now appear to be a casualty of the sinking housing market. Developers plan to replace the homes with additional office space elsewhere on the 261-acre project site, as part of an aggressive push to bring more jobs to Long Beach.

Seventy-five years ago today, at 5:54 p.m., the Long Beach earthquake struck -- and Southern California is still feeling the aftershocks. Leo Vander Lans was riding in the family car down what is now Long Beach Boulevard when the ground began to shake. "I recall looking out the right-hand side of the car and this building, this brick building, collapsed," said Vander Lans, 82, a semi-retired attorney still living in Long Beach. "The bricks were falling, including on the car."

Prosecutors have long been shielded from lawsuits brought by people who were wrongly convicted. Even if a defendant is later shown to be entirely innocent, the prosecutor who brought the charges cannot be held liable for the mistake. The Supreme Court has ruled that "absolute immunity" is needed so that prosecutors -- and judges -- can do their jobs without fear of legal retaliation. But a California case that the high court is considering taking could open a back door for such lawsuits.

A Long Beach man who prosecutors say orchestrated an attack on the Cambodian government resulting in the deaths of three people and the wounding of several others was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury in Los Angeles of conspiring to kill in a foreign country. Yasith Chhun, president of the Long Beach-based Cambodian Freedom Fighters, was also convicted of three more conspiracy counts stemming from the Nov.

When news surfaced that Rep. Laura Richardson had lost her home through foreclosure, the Long Beach Democrat blamed the problem on her year-long rocket-ship rise from city councilwoman to Assembly member to congresswoman and the crumbling real estate market. "I understand that these homeownership issues are a reflection of what many Americans are going through as they fight to keep their homes and to remain financially stable," she said in a news release.