Neighborhood

Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in 14 L.A. neighborhoods, according to an analysis of LAPD data by the Los Angeles Times' Crime L.A. database . Four neighborhoods reported a significant increase in violent crime. Hollywood Hills (A) was the most unusual, recording five reports compared with a weekly average of 0.8 over the last three months. Rancho Park (E) topped the list of 10 neighborhoods with property crime alerts. It recorded 10 property crimes compared with its weekly average of 4.3 over the last three months.

WATERTOWN, Mass. - With the Boston area jumpy from the deadly marathon bombings, a shooting that killed a police officer at MIT and a nearby carjacking triggered a massive police response. By early Friday, one suspect was in custody and police had cordoned off an area of the Boston suburb of Watertown, where witnesses reported loud explosions. Police followed the carjacked vehicle to Watertown, according to scanner traffic. It was unclear whether the incidents had anything to do with Monday's marathon bombings, but hours into the siege police issued an alert on the scanner for a white male wearing a gray hoodie, with black curly hair.

Businesses and residences near a Del Taco in Fullerton have been evacuated while authorities investigate “suspicious packages” in the restaurant's parking lot, police said. The area around Chapman Avenue and State College Boulevard has been shut down since about 8:30 a.m., police said, and the Orange County Sheriff's Department bomb squad has responded to the incident. The incident marks the latest in a string of bomb scares across Southern California this week, following the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday.

At a busy but nondescript intersection in Pacoima, a real estate developer is trying to help revive the San Fernando Valley neighborhood with an open-air market and retail complex aimed at small entrepreneurs. The complex on Van Nuys Boulevard at San Fernando Road will be called Zocalito of Pacoima, said developer Cary J. Lefton, chief executive of Sherman Oaks developer Agora Realty & Management Inc. Zocalito will have walkways and plazas similar to small towns in Mexico when it opens in the fall.

BOSTON -- Martin Richard, an 8-year-old victim of Monday's explosions at the Boston Marathon, loved to ride his bike and play with his older brother Henry and younger sister Jane, neighbors in Dorchester said Tuesday. Martin, who was at the marathon with his family, including father Bill, mother Denise and two siblings, was at the finish line when the explosions occurred. Martin was killed and his mother and sister were injured. Late Monday night, Bill Richard stopped by the family's blue Victorian-style house in the Ashmont neighborhood dressed in hospital scrubs, said Jane Sherman, 64, who lives next door.

The leafy and historic neighborhoods just north of downtown Los Angeles feature bungalows perched on steep hillsides, businesses huddled on commercial streets and an iconic baseball stadium. But all are dominated by Elysian Park, the 600-acre expanse that makes up the city's oldest and second-largest park and serves as a backyard for many neighborhoods around it. And near the edge of that park sits the venerable Barlow Respiratory Hospital, a clutch of historic cottages and buildings on a pastoral 25 acres.

John Galardi, a fast food entrepreneur best known for founding the Wienerschnitzel hot dog chain, has died of pancreatic cancer, his company announced. He was 75. Galardi died Saturday, according to the company release. Galardi opened the first Wienerschnitzel stand in L.A.'s Wilmington neighborhood in 1961 when he was 23, according to a company biography. It's now the world's largest hot dog chain, with 350 locations selling more than a 120 million hot dogs a year. PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2013 As his hot dog business took off, Galardi added the Original Hamburger Stand and Tastee Freez to his portfolio, all operated under the Galardi Group, based in Irvine, the bio said.

In a city still reeling from a shooting rampage that killed six and severely injured a congresswoman, contrasting giveaways are being proposed for a handful of its working-class neighborhoods. One would dole out free shotguns to poor adults. Another would hand out free school supplies to needy children. Talk of the gun giveaway has divided residents in the Tucson neighborhoods of Midvale Park, Pueblo Gardens and the Grant-Campbell area. These communities now find themselves thrust in the middle of a nationwide conversation about gun ownership after they were singled out by a fellow Tucson resident as high-crime neighborhoods that he believed could benefit from free firearms.