Mayors

A four-letter word has enlivened an otherwise wonkish mayoral race between incumbent Jerry Sanders and businessman Steve Francis, attracting much more attention than the two Republicans' disputes over infrastructure needs and municipal financing. Annoyed by Francis' multimillion-dollar barrage of television commercials questioning his honesty and integrity, the normally low-key Sanders refused to shake Francis' hand after an Earth Day debate and instead said to him, ". . . you."

In the NBA and in life, Kevin Johnson always seemed the guy who would do the right thing. This was the kid who survived Sacramento's toughest neighborhood to study hard and set scoring records, graduating to matchups with Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. This was the man who returned to his old Oak Park neighborhood to work at restoring a place pockmarked by poverty.

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, as is the norm in political circles, has offered a wager to his counterpart in Boston, Thomas Menino, on the outcome of the Lakers-Celtics series. Villaraigosa's imaginative offer, from the mayor's website: "So here's my proposal: "If the Celtics win, we'll send you the best professional football team L.A. has to offer: the Arena League's Los Angeles Avengers. "If the Lakers win, we get the Patriots.

In a push to coalesce Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday huddled in a hotel conference room with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other influential city leaders who earlier had supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president. The private meeting occurred shortly before he addressed an overflowing ballroom at the U.S.

After a rough year marked by budget headaches and marital woes, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa strode back into the warm glow of the national spotlight this weekend and used it to urge the presidential candidates to reinvigorate federal anti-poverty programs. Villaraigosa, speaking to hundreds of city leaders at the U.S.

In the last few years, Pico Rivera has burnished a reputation as a city that goes hard after tagging. And much of the credit has gone to Mayor Ron Beilke, who has made eradicating graffiti and punishing young vandals priorities. Under his watch, the city instituted a global positioning graffiti tracking system, bulked up a vandalism enforcement team and began sending letters threatening to put liens on the homes of the parents of juveniles who have not paid restitution.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa raised $1.6 million for his 2009 reelection campaign in the first half of the year, a sizable bundle of cash in a race where, so far, the first-term mayor faces no well-funded challengers. Villaraigosa raised the vast majority of the money during a fundraising tear in June, when he held more than a dozen events and hopscotched across the country, according to campaign finance reports filed Thursday with the city Ethics Commission.

A Michigan judge sent Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick to jail Thursday after learning that the controversial official violated the conditions of his bond in a perjury case by going to Canada for a business meeting without clearing the trip with the court. Kilpatrick apologized to 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles for the unauthorized trip he made to nearby Windsor, Canada, and said, "I ran in, I made a presentation . . . and I ran back."

As a stream of walkers trickled through Lancaster's main park one recent morning, Marie Ann Nicholson fell into step beside Mayor R. Rex Parris. There was a boarded-up house on the street where her daughter lives in a "nice neighborhood," Nicholson told Parris. The property was vacant. The front lawn had dried up. "It's a total eyesore," said Nicholson, 71, a lifelong resident of Lancaster.

A prosecutor Monday accused Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick of violating his bond in an assault case by spending time over the weekend with his sister, one of 11 witnesses listed by authorities. Kilpatrick and Ayanna Kilpatrick were together at their mother's house Saturday, a day after he was released from jail after violating bond in a separate perjury case, said Doug Baker of the Michigan attorney general's office.