Parking Lots

Security at Denver International Airport aims to protect cars from vandalism and theft, but there's a new threat at the its expansive parking lot. Ravenous rabbits. Officials say the animals are causing hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in damage to cars by devouring the wires under the hood. Officials with the U.S. Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services in the Denver area are removing at least 100 rabbits every month, but the problem persists. The airport is surrounded by prairie, and the rabbits are seeking warmth and food in the parked vehicles.

Steve Soboroff, the wealthy developer and civic leader, says the state should reject a proposed deal that would give USC a long-term lease of parking lots used by three public museums neighboring the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Soboroff said Wednesday that USC's proposal to assume management of the parking areas as part of the private university's plan to take control of the Coliseum could be "the end of the museums. " USC wants the option to use the lots for its students and employees.

All nine members of the Legislature's black caucus are urging state officials to scrap parts of a deal that would allow USC to run the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The lawmakers, who said they support the idea of USC managing the Coliseum, where the school's football team plays, object to the inclusion of nearby parking lots they say should be turned into parks in the South Los Angeles neighborhood. USC demanded the parking lots as part of the management agreement. "Your role is not to be boosters for the USC football program," said the letter from the caucus to Robert Stein, chairman of the California Science Center board, which owns the parking lots and the land on which the Coliseum and several museums sit, collectively known as Exposition Park.

A gunman at Fashion Island in Newport Beach apparently fired more than 50 rounds in a parking lot at the busy shopping mall Saturday before he was apprehended by police, authorities said. Marcos Gurrola, 42, of Garden Grove, was arrested in the parking lot near the Macy's department store shortly after allegedly firing the shots about 4:30 p.m., said Kathy Lowe, a spokeswoman for the Newport Beach Police Department. Officers on bike patrol apprehended Gurrola as he was standing by a white Honda.

Friday morning capped an amazing week for the Romero family of Norwalk. They spent almost a week camping outside the Best Buy store in Lakewood. Lining up for Black Friday shopping wasn't about the deals, they said, it was about the family time. One hundred sixty-four hours of family time. PHOTOS: The Black Friday rush Alicia Romero hopped out of her truck at 7:15 a.m. last Saturday to begin what has become a family tradition. "We started six years ago," she said, as she doled out shopping assignments to a flurry of nieces and nephews who gathered around her. "And the last four years we've been right here," Romero said.

On Black Friday, shopping carts aren't the only collision shoppers should worry about. Insurance company Progressive Corp. said that Black Friday is one of the worst days of the year for parking-related accidents. On the day after Thanksgiving last year, claims from parking-related accidents increased 37% when compared with other Fridays, the company said. A year before, claims were up 17%. PHOTOS: The Black Friday rush About 13% of Black Friday insurance claims were related to rear-end collisions, 11% from collisions with parked cars and 8% from drivers backing into another vehicle.

Make no bones about it. The location of Seabiscuit's burial is an issue. Friday and Saturday, as many as 100,000 horse racing fans will gather at Santa Anita to watch the Breeders' Cup. Some may wander to the paddock, where a bronze statue commemorates Seabiscuit and his legendary 1940 victory in the Santa Anita Handicap. Seabiscuit was an oft-injured thoroughbred whose gritty races caught the attention of an American public needing domestic heroes during the Great Depression and at wartime.

As he headed toward his truck barefoot in a Manhattan Beach parking lot, Lakers guard Steve Blake turned his head. Somebody called his name and Blake looked up. At that instant, Blake stepped on a spike strip that left a puncture in his left foot, an incident he described as an "unfortunate situation. " "When you step on something like that, it's pretty painful," Blake said. "All the blood made me realize something was wrong. It's unfortunate. You move past it and go from there.

WASHINGTON -- A parking attendant has pleaded guilty to stealing at least $400,000 in visitor parking fees by undercounting vehicles entering the lot at the Smithsonian Institution's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. Meseret Terefe, 36, an employee of Parking Management Inc., worked as a booth attendant at the Udvar-Hazy Center, which is the annex location of the Air & Space Museum. The center is home to the space shuttle Discovery. “Mr. Terefe admitted today to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from one of America's most revered institutions,” Neil H. MacBride, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement dated Friday, when Terefe entered his plea.

An Orange County sheriff's deputy has been cleared in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Marine after investigators with the district attorney's office concluded he acted with appropriate force. In a 13-page letter to Sheriff Sandra Hutchens released Friday, prosecutors said Deputy Darren Sandberg, a 15-year veteran of the department, acted reasonably and with sufficient force given the circumstances of the predawn incident in which Manuel Loggins Jr. was shot in a school parking lot after he refused to follow Sandberg's orders.