Permits

What started as a community debate over how many horses were too many for Orange Park Acres residents apparently turned into a potential countywide cap of eight per acre Wednesday as the Orange County Planning Commission voted to tighten restrictions on horse keeping in unincorporated areas.

The cables that allow hikers to ascend Yosemite National Park's iconic Half Dome will open for the season Friday. But all the permits required to use them from May through mid-October have been given out by lottery already, right? Not quite. The National Park Service on Tuesday announced a new daily lottery that will issue 50 hiking permits a day for the popular and strenuous 17 miles to the top and back. The lottery will be held two days before a desired hiking date.

The term "disabled" may evoke images of wheelchairs or crutches, but it is a far broader category -- particularly when it comes to getting disabled parking placards. More than one in 10 California motorists are disabled, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles. At the start of this year, the agency had issued about 2 million permanent placards, 158,000 temporary placards, 345,000 disabled person license plates and 17,500 disabled veteran license plates. In total, about 2.

Former Upland Mayor John Pomierski faces up to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty Thursday to bribery and admitting to accepting $5,000 to help a business obtain a permit. Pomierski, 58, became the third person to be convicted in the bribery scheme, in which he allegedly demanded about $70,000 in payments from the separate owners of a sports bar and a medical marijuana cooperative to help them obtain permits and eliminate other requirements beginning in 2007, according to federal prosecutors.

Former construction worker John Dutchover found his own tiny piece of Brentwood last year, staking out a space on San Vicente Boulevard for the recreational vehicle that -- with a bed, refrigerator and microwave -- also serves as his home. The Gulf War veteran said he picked the spot largely because it was close to the leafy Veterans Affairs campus, where he receives medical treatment.

Baggage complaints hit the right note Dave Carroll, the Canadian musician who won worldwide acclaim with his cutting, catchy song about baggage mishandling at United Airlines, last week released the third in his music video trilogy of rants. "United Breaks Guitars: Song 3: United We Stand…" is a bluegrass arrangement that includes moonshine-swilling hillbillies, fake beards, dorky square-dancing, extended mockery of United customer service, and a wicked solo by dobro master Jerry Douglas.

Builders broke ground on more homes in March than anticipated and took out permits at the fastest pace in more than a year, a sign of growing confidence that sales will stabilize. Housing starts climbed to an annual rate of 626,000 last month, up 1.6 percent from February's revised 616,000 pace, which was higher than initially estimated, Commerce Department figures showed Friday. Building permits, a sign of future construction, climbed to the highest level since October 2008. Builders took advantage of milder weather following the February blizzards as they rushed to have properties available for buyers seeking to qualify for a government tax credit that expires at the end of June.

U.S. housing starts hit their lowest level in eight months in June, further evidence the economy lost momentum in the second quarter, but a rise in permits offered hope that homebuilding was poised to pick up. The Commerce Department said Tuesday housing starts dropped 5.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 549,000 units, the lowest since October. It was the second straight month of declines in groundbreaking activity and was well below market expectations for a 580,000-unit rate.

The Environmental Protection Agency put hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits on hold Tuesday to evaluate the projects' impact on streams and wetlands. The decision by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson targets a controversial practice that allows coal mining companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands. Between 150 and 200 applications for new or expanded surface coal mines, many of them mountaintop removal operations, are pending before the federal government.

The cables that allow hikers to ascend Yosemite National Park's iconic Half Dome will open for the season Friday. But all the permits required to use them from May through mid-October have been given out by lottery already, right? Not quite. The National Park Service on Tuesday announced a new daily lottery that will issue 50 hiking permits a day for the popular and strenuous 17 miles to the top and back. The lottery will be held two days before a desired hiking date.

New building activity slowed to a five-month low in March, but fret not: U.S. builders still seem optimistic about the housing market, requesting the most permits for future residential projects in 3½ years. Permit requests last month for construction on single-family homes and apartments jumped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 747,000, up 4.5% from February and a whopping 30.1% from March 2011, according to the Commerce Department .   That's the highest number since September 2008.

Hunters in Texas will no longer be able to shoot down three endangered species of antelopes without a federal permit, a judge ruled Tuesday. A special federal exemption had previously allowed breeders of the scimitar-homed oryx and two other endangered African antelopes to sell and allow their animals to be hunted - at $5,500 a head. As a result, herds grew exponentially on exotic hunting ranches nationwide, especially in Texas. However this exemption of the Endangered Species Act disappeared Tuesday after a federal judge rejected a last-minute appeal by ranchers for an injunction.

WASHINGTON — Days after the Obama administration approved Royal Dutch Shell's oil spill response plan for drilling in Arctic waters off the Alaska coast, an independent federal report said that Shell's plan fails to take into account the risks unique to oil production in harsh, icy offshore conditions. After years of delays, Shell's plan to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea as early as this summer has gained momentum as it won necessary permits from the Interior Department.

Discount retail giantWal-Martoutwitted Los Angeles City Council members who sought to slow the company's expansion into Chinatown, securing permits for its store on the eve of a crucial vote on the topic. The council voted 13 to 0 on Friday to draft a law temporarily banning large chain stores from opening in the neighborhood. But minutes before that vote, the top official at the Department of Building and Safety revealed that a day earlier Wal-Mart had obtained permits needed to renovate its vacant commercial space.

Four weeks after Wal-Mart announced plans to open a grocery store in Chinatown, Los Angeles City Council members have proposed a law that would block an array of chain businesses from opening in the neighborhood. A temporary ordinance sought by Councilman Ed Reyes would prohibit building permits from being issued for new "formula retail" stores - those that have standardized facades, color schemes, decor, employee uniforms and merchandise. Wal-Mart is seeking to open a 33,000-square-foot market and pharmacy in a vacant ground-floor commercial space at Cesar Chavez and Grand avenues.

Economists brushed off a decline in new residential construction starts last month and instead looked at an increase in permits issued for houses and apartment buildings as a positive indicator that the real estate market is on the mend. Housing starts fell 1.1% from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000, the Commerce Department reported. That was a 34.7% surge from February 2011. Starts were down 5.9% from January in the West and 12.3% in the Northeast. They were up 1.5% in the South and 3.0% in the Midwest.

As active members of our Sherwood Forest Neighborhood Watch group, my wife and I (and our two daughters) have lived in a wonderful quiet residential neighborhood in Northridge for over 10 years. In April, to our dismay, we received a city notice informing us that Union Oil Co. of California (UNOCAL) had applied for a conditional use permit / variance for a liquor license and carwash that would be built practically adjacent to our home. If granted, we knew this would disrupt our peace and serenity.

More than half of states have now adopted laws recognizing the right of the law-abiding individual to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense. With 88% of violent crimes now occurring outside the home, more and more citizens are considering responsibly arming themselves--and they are demanding that their state lawmakers give them the legal means to do so. This legislation works. Since Florida's right-to-carry law took effect in 1987, the state's homicide rate has dropped 25% and the handgun homicide rate has dropped 29%. During the same time period, the comparable national rates have increased 15% and 50% respectively.

If you're hoping to hike Half Dome at California's Yosemite National Park this summer, you'll want to take action by March 31. That's because, under a new system, permits to reach the summit will be allocated by a lottery this month for the whole season, instead of month by month. Other changes may be coming too as the National Park Service considers overhauling management of the iconic granite dome, which rises nearly 5,000 feet above Yosemite Valley. Thousands each year make the grueling trek to the top, aided by a 400-foot-long cable system in place during warmer months.

Americans have long gone to China to adopt babies. In a twist, Chinese couples are now coming here to become parents — through surrogacy. China does not permit surrogate parenting, but that country's rising affluence has given many couples the option of coming to U.S. surrogacy clinics. California, with its large Chinese American community and its courts' liberal attitude toward surrogacy, is a prime destination. Jerry Zhu and Grace Sun of Beijing have so far saved $60,000 toward the expected $100,000 cost of surrogate birth.