Los Angeles Harbor

The nation's largest trucking association filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday alleging that portions of a landmark program to upgrade a fleet of 17,000 old trucks servicing the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach place an "unreasonable burden on interstate commerce" and could harm the U.S. economy. Port authorities said they intended to proceed with the air quality initiative. "Truck pollution is a serious threat to public health, including the health of truck drivers," said Richard D.

A landmark pollution-control program at the nation's busiest port complex was launched Wednesday with an immediate ban on 2,000 of the region's diesel-spewing big rigs and few reports of backups or unusual delays in the flow of cargo. An estimated 95% of the trucks lining up for the starting 8 a.m.

Dive teams have raised a 26-foot boat from the ocean floor but have not found the couple believed to have been aboard -- the brother of two California congresswomen and his girlfriend. Divers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and Port Police used hard plastic balloons to raise the boat to just below the surface Wednesday. The crews plan to lift the wreckage onto another boat and bring it ashore. Coast Guard Ensign Stephanie Young said investigators believe the boat belongs to Henry Sanchez, 51, who has been missing since Oct. 2 along with his girlfriend, Penny Avila, 48. Investigators said the boat may have collided with a barge being towed near the entrance to Los Angeles Harbor.

What happened that clear, moonless night in the Catalina Channel is still very much a mystery. A Santa Ana couple were going for a midnight cruise to Santa Catalina Island, and a huge 128-foot barge was lumbering toward the Port of Los Angeles. Radar shows the two mismatched vessels colliding sometime between midnight and 12:20 a.m. Oct. 2. The impact smashed the small boat, but the pilot of the barge didn't even know an accident had occurred. Later that morning, the debris was found.

The shabby seaside Ports O' Call Village tourist spot would be demolished and replaced by upscale development as part of a long-awaited San Pedro revitalization project. That radical revision of the 42-year-old collection of stores and restaurants is outlined in a long-awaited report that is expected to be unveiled at a Port of Los Angeles hearing today.

The Federal Maritime Commission said Wednesday that it would ask a U.S. District Court to strike down parts of a landmark pollution-control program at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest international cargo complex. Elements of the ports' clean truck program "are likely, by a reduction in competition, to produce an unreasonable increase in transportation cost or unreasonable reduction in service," the commission said in a statement.

Union dockworkers are finding there isn't enough work to go around. Big cargo ships are joining the ranks of the unemployed. And yet, the people who run the nation's two largest container ports are convinced that now is the time to build for the future. And they're bracing for lots of objections. Los Angeles and Long Beach port officials see the signs of retrenchment in the shipping industry.

Retreating from his own dismissal order, a federal judge has granted a harbor-area activist the chance to reopen a lawsuit alleging that the Port of Los Angeles misappropriated $1.2 billion in government funds to build a giant cargo terminal. U.S. District Judge S. James Otero ruled this month that Stanley D. Mosler of Rancho Palos Verdes can resume his false-claims case if he withdraws an appeal and hires an attorney for the rest of the litigation.

Disney Cruise Line is poised to return to the West Coast in summer 2008, the company said. After its popular Mexican Riviera sailings during Disneyland's 50th anniversary in 2005, Disney Magic plans to return to the Port of Los Angeles for 12 consecutive seven-night cruises. Two 15-night repositioning cruises through the Panama Canal will also be offered. The ship typically departs from Florida. The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners is scheduled to vote on the plan today.

If it were a hub for ships instead of trains, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.'s Hobart rail yard would rank as the fourth-largest U.S. container port, behind Los Angeles, Long Beach and New York-New Jersey. The Hobart yard sits southeast of downtown Los Angeles on 245 acres of continuous movement. It's the busiest rail yard in the country for transferring cargo containers between trucks and trains.