Ontario

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday decided to oppose state legislation that would shift control of L.A./Ontario International Airport from the city of L.A. to an authority made up of Inland Empire officials. Council members voted 11 to 0 against a pending bill by Sen. Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga), that would transfer management responsibilities from Los Angeles World Airports to an authority made up of four directors from Ontario and three from San Bernardino County. As the proposal is written, Los Angeles would not have a representative on the authority's board, though the city would still own the airport.

It began with a foul-smelling trash can Carmen Montenegro was wheeling down an Ontario street. She reportedly abandoned it a block from her cousin's home Sunday afternoon when neighbors reported seeing a woman trying to dispose of the bin's suspicious contents. Inside the 30-gallon container, police officers said they discovered the dismembered body of a man, minus the arms and head. Investigators said they later determined the body of Montenegro's former boyfriend had been sawed into pieces, with the head placed in a flower pot and the arms in another.

Prosecutors filed a murder charge Tuesday against a woman found pushing a trash bin that contained human body parts, and detectives are examining whether the remains are those of the woman's ex-boyfriend, who recently disappeared. Carmen Montenegro, 51, remained in custody at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga and has refused to cooperate with detectives, authorities said. Montenegro was found Sunday in Ontario, rolling the trash can along Holmes Avenue, police said.

A 51-year-old San Bernardino woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after she was discovered on a city street pushing a trash can containing a man's dismembered body, Ontario police said Monday. Carmen Montenegro was taken into custody after Ontario residents in the 700 block of Holmes Avenue spotted her about 3 p.m. Sunday pushing a foul-smelling trash bin and alerted police, Det. Jeff Crittenden said. Body parts were found inside the bin, he said. After Montenegro's arrest, detectives began an exhaustive search of the home and yard of a relative on the same street, Crittenden said.

Not all the turbulence in the local air travel world is in the skies; there's quite a bit of it in the relationship between the cities of Ontario, where officials are fighting for control of their regional airport, and Los Angeles, where the agency that runs Los Angeles International Airport seems determined to hold on to the Inland Empire facility. It's a complicated issue, but we can't see a compelling reason for L.A. to keep running an airport so far away. No one denies that Ontario International Airport is hurting badly.

They pair a mastery of basketball skills with a sly humor that pokes holes into the ego of professional sports. The Harlem Globetrotters still have the best record in athletics and bring their virtuoso antics on a swing of Southland venues, including stops in Ontario, Anaheim and L.A. 7 p.m. Thurs., Citizens Business Bank Arena, 4000 E. Ontario Center Parkway, Ontario; 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sat., Honda Center, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim; noon Sun., Staples Center, 1111 S. Figueroa Ave., L.A..

It's always been an oddity that L.A./ Ontario International Airport (ONT) ? located 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in San Bernardino County ? has been operated by Los Angeles. That arrangement worked well for more than 40 years. But it doesn't now, and that must be fixed for the good of the entire region. While other secondary airports in Southern California have rebounded from 9/11, weathered the recession and increased market share, ONT has fallen on hard times. Today, it operates at passenger traffic levels not seen in nearly a quarter-century, and its market share continues to decline.

Poverty is increasing in the Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario areas at one of the nation's highest rates, a study released Thursday concluded. The poverty rate in those sections of the Inland Empire surged about 31% from 2007 to 2009, according to research from the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution. Companion research, also just released by Brookings, suggests that the social safety net in such fast-growing suburban areas is dangerously thin, compounding economic hardships.

Hoping to reverse a dramatic loss of airline passengers, Ontario city officials on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to wrest control of struggling LA/Ontario International Airport from Los Angeles, which, they say, has driven away air carriers by raising costs and failing to promote the facility. Under the plan, the Inland Empire city would manage and set policy for LA/Ontario International while Los Angeles would remain the owner and serve as an advisor to the airport's directors. City officials say their proposal is necessary to stop the dramatic decline of LA/Ontario, which used to be one of the fastest-growing regional airports in the country.

A Catholic priest from Ontario has been removed from active ministry after being accused of sexually abusing two adolescent boys, according to the Diocese of San Bernardino. The Rev. Alex Castillo, 57, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Ontario, was removed June 25, a day after the diocese received "credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors" from family members, diocese spokesman John Andrews said. The allegations were made public in a letter read during weekend Mass at the four churches where Castillo had served.