Overhaul

The overhaul of domestic passenger facilities at Los Angeles International Airport gained momentum Thursday with the start of a $229-million renovation of the Delta Air Lines terminal. Plans call for a complete remodel and expansion of Terminal 5, including a private VIP check-in lobby, a renovation of the lounge facilities in the Delta Sky Club and a doubling in size of both the ticketing areas and security checkpoints. New baggage carousels also will be added to the terminal, as well as improved facilities to recheck international luggage and an array of new restaurants and shops that reflect the culture and lifestyle of Los Angeles.

For the last few years, Apple has announced the next version of its mobile operating system during summers. But a report Tuesday says the tech giant could be running late on the development of its next mobile platform, iOS 7. John Gruber, who blogs about all things Apple, posted that he's heard the Cupertino company has run into delays, so much so that it transferred some of its desktop operating system developers to work on the next version of...

Rather than do battle over a controversial parent-empowerment law, Los Angeles school officials earlier this year opted for collaboration. This week, that move started to pay dividends. A plan devised by the L.A. Unified School District and a charter school to improve 24th Street Elementary - a persistently low-performing school south of downtown - has been endorsed by leaders of a parents group. Under California's so-called parent-trigger law, parents could evict L.A. Unified from its own campus.

WASHINGTON - Labor and business leaders have agreed to a plan for setting wages for a new category of low-skilled immigrant workers, possibly ending a scuffle that delayed negotiations in the Senate over a sweeping plan to overhaul the country's immigration system, officials involved said. Senators drafting the bill are reviewing the compromise worked out Friday by representatives from the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But the breakthrough may put the bipartisan group of eight senators on track to unveil a bill soon after Congress returns from recess on April 8. "We are very close - closer than we've ever been," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Two key reform efforts intended to address the Los Angeles Fire Department's diminished resources and faulty performance tracking are being delayed, agency officials said Tuesday. Chief Brian Cummings told the city Fire Commission that he is pulling back an ambitious plan requested by the City Council that would boost the department's ranks and speed up lagging 911 response times. In addition, one influential member of the panel announced that a push to overhaul the department's much-criticized data analysis has fallen behind schedule and will miss an April deadline for completion of reforms.

WASHINGTON - President Obama plans to nominate the government's top-ranking civil rights lawyer as the new secretary of Labor on Monday, a key position as the administration prepares to take on immigration reform. Thomas E. Perez's nomination had been expected, but the administration said last week that the announcement was not imminent. If confirmed by the Senate, Perez would be the only Latino in Obama's second-term Cabinet. He is the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

WASHINGTON - The Republican Party is smug. Uncaring. Rigid. An immovable collection of "stuffy old men. " The assessment did not come from Democrats still gleeful about November's victory - the fifth time Republicans have lost the popular vote in the last six presidential elections. It came from the Republican Party itself. An unflinching analysis commissioned by the Republican National Committee and released Monday said female, minority and younger voters have been alienated by what they see as the GOP's stale policies and image of intolerance.

One criticism of the Medicare overhaul that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has championed is that it would shift more and more of the program's costs onto seniors. In the latest version of his plan, Ryan acknowledges that capping the growth of the program could, in fact, make health insurance more expensive for some retirees. But that's part of the point of the change, which would concentrate Medicare spending on the poorest and sickest seniors. This page has argued that Ryan's overhaul goes too far, threatening Medicare's fundamental promise of affordable health insurance for all seniors.

WASHINGTON - Eight senators who have spent weeks trying to write a bipartisan bill to overhaul immigration laws have privately agreed on the most contentious part of the draft - how to offer legal status to the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants. According to aides familiar with the closed-door negotiations, the bill would require illegal immigrants to register with Homeland Security Department authorities, file federal income taxes for their time in America and pay a still-to-be-determined fine.

Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown are at odds over how to implement President Obama's healthcare overhaul in California. As detailed in the Los Angeles Times , legislators and Brown disagree over how the state should expand Medicaid to more than 1 million low-income Californians, a critical component of the federal Affordable Care Act. Under proposals passed by both houses of the Legislature last week on mostly party-line votes, individuals...