Los Angeles County

Facing forecasts of wet weather that could flush tons of urban trash out to sea and onto local beaches, Los Angeles County authorities scrambled Thursday to reinstall a boom across the outlet of the Los Angeles River to keep debris out of Long Beach Harbor. The boom had been decommissioned Monday because the county Department of Public Works ran out of money to keep it operating.

It was the day of the brainiac. Across California, nearly 10,000 students -- pencils in hand, minds reeling after hours of study -- battled in a series of academic contests Saturday that, unlike previous years, all landed on the same date. More than 100 high schools faced off in two regional decathlons at USC and UCLA, while 25 more competed in a science bowl at Caltech. And in a low-slung county district office in East L.A.

Air quality has improved to "good" and "moderate" levels in Los Angeles County after clouds of smoke from the nearly three-week Station fire prompted health officials to caution residents and warn against strenuous outdoor activities. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has not issued a smoke advisory since Thursday and has since reported that most unhealthy air in the Los Angeles Basin is not attributed to the fire, said spokesman Sam Atwood. "There is a small possibility where there could be some unhealthy air quality in areas that are directly impacted by smoke, but we just haven't seen that occurring in the San Gabriel or San Fernando valleys the last couple of days," Atwood said.

Two women who brutally abused a 5-year-old boy will go to prison to serve lengthy sentences under a plea deal reached Friday. Starkeisha Brown, 26, the child's mother, and 22-year-old Krystal Denise Matthews, Brown's live-in girlfriend, pleaded no contest to corporal injury, dissuading a witness and great bodily injury to a child under 5. Prosecutors dropped other charges of child abuse, conspiracy, conspiracy to dissuade a witness and...

California Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson lives in St. Helena and calls city officials there by their first names. The Napa Valley town also is home to a vineyard owned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and her husband. Yet the town spent about $150,000 during the first six months of this year on a Washington lobbyist, more than Philadelphia or St. Louis. St. Helena is just one of the cities, counties and states that have ramped up spending on lobbying as they look more to Washington for help in easing budget problems and getting a leg up on the competition in the scramble for federal funds.

Home prices are way down in Southern California. But the real estate information service Zillow.com says the median values in Los Angeles and Orange counties may not have fallen quite as much as is often reported. That's because the median sale price -- which provides a quick market snapshot and is reported each month in the Los Angeles Times and other media -- can exaggerate the extent of a market downturn, economists say.

The aroma of deep-fried chicken and funnel cakes drifted across the Los Angeles County fairgrounds. The gleeful shouts of teenagers on carnival rides filled the air. But Kyle De La Cruz and his sister Jenny did not come to the fair for high-cholesterol treats or carnival thrills. They came to shop. The siblings arrived early on a recent weekend to find a deal on a barbecue island they would share at their adjoining homes in Glendale. And they got it. The salesman, selling spas, hot tubs and outdoor kitchens under a tall awning, cut $1,000 off the price of a $5,000 barbecue and even offered free shipping.

A delegation of Los Angeles County political, business and labor leaders were in San Francisco on Thursday to urge the University of California to become a partner in reopening the Martin Luther King Jr. hospital in Willowbrook, near Watts, by 2012. Speaking to UC's governing board, the county officials offered strengthened plans to protect UC financially and tried to allay fears among the regents that the university might get too enmeshed in county politics. The regents are expected to vote in November on a plan to jointly reestablish the hospital, which was closed to in-patient services two years ago after repeated failures to provide adequate care, and errors that resulted in deaths.

The northern portion of the Newport-Inglewood fault, which appeared to rupture in Sunday's magnitude 4.7 quake, is believed to be less prone to large, destructive earthquakes than the fault's southern portion, USC professor James Dolan said Monday. The Newport-Inglewood fault, counting its southern continuation, known as the Rose Canyon fault, is about 150 miles long and runs from Baldwin Hills to the Mexican border.

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday approved a multiagency pilot program to combat gang activity in four targeted communities -- Duarte-Monrovia, Florence-Firestone, Harbor Gateway and Pacoima. County Chief Executive Officer William T. Fujioka and Sheriff Lee Baca said the plan focuses on improving coordination of services, such as law enforcement, probation and social services, for at-risk youth in those areas. If the pilot program succeeds, it could be expanded countywide.