Los Angeles

Patriotic Persian music blasted from the car that led thousands of demonstrators down Westwood Boulevard one recent afternoon, past Persian restaurants and bookstores. A plane hired by a local Persian TV station streaked overhead, flying a banner proclaiming: "We support freedom in Iran."

Circling Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, lost in suffocating, 100-degree heat, I'm wondering: What could possibly justify leaving my air-conditioned office to stumble around this too-familiar Southern California bleakscape of tire outlets, big box stores, nail parlors and fast-food joints? A few minutes later, I've finally limped into 101 Noodle Express, and the answer is at hand. It's the restaurant's beef roll, something like a crispy Chinese pancake, rolled around thin layers of savory beef and topped with a homemade bean sauce.

A key strategy in Los Angeles' battle against street gangs -- the use of court injunctions -- has come under attack by state lawmakers who are moving to strictly limit it. The state Senate has approved a measure that would allow suspected gang members who do not commit a crime for five years to be automatically removed from civil injunctions unless prosecutors can show they remain a public threat.

Frustrated by a slow and antiquated computer system, the city of Los Angeles is weighing a plan to replace its e-mail and records retention software with a service provided by Google, a move that could allow the Internet giant to retain sensitive records transmitted by the police and other municipal agencies.

A 4-year-old boy killed last month by his mother at their Highland Park home had been the subject of a botched child-abuse investigation, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina said Tuesday. The mother committed suicide after decapitating her young son with a kitchen knife, according to police.

In another sign of how deep the global recession has become, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Friday reported their worst combined import statistics for September in nine years. September is often the busiest month at the nation's biggest port complex, making it one of the best barometers of the health of the economy and international trade. The port of Los Angeles received 309,078 containers packed with imported goods in September, representing a decline of 16% from the same month last year and 27% from September 2006, L.A.'s best month ever for imports.

Porter Middle School administrators believed a boy was dealing pot on campus. So they allegedly sent a student to buy some. The sting worked -- to a point. The student successfully bought drugs and the administrators at the Granada Hills campus reported the incident to authorities.

It's no secret that many children growing up in the grittier areas of Los Angeles are at risk. For most, it is because their neighborhoods may not be safe. But for one boy, it is not having a neighborhood at all that could ultimately jeopardize his future. Quron Brunner, 8, hasn't had a place to call home for nearly two years. His mother, a single parent, lost her job and has been unable to provide them with a permanent residence since.

A coalition of Los Angeles business groups put forward an affordable-housing plan Thursday that its leaders said would lead to more apartments and condos for working people without imposing restrictions that could cast a pall over entrepreneurial efforts. Its centerpiece is a network of "housing incentive zones" where developers building housing with at least some workforce units would be allowed to relax height and parking requirements and receive expedited approvals.

Activists and Los Angeles city officials questioned Thursday how it was possible that an apartment building that collapsed Sunday was deemed in compliance by the housing department within the last year. "It's mind-boggling to me how it could have been passed just a few months earlier and now it has collapsed," said Albert Lowe of the tenants' rights group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.