Personal Safety

Video "CPR--Learn to Save a Life," Safety Features Inc. 40 minutes. $20. (877) CPR-VIDEO. This video is pricier than you might expect, but it's extremely thorough, careful and easy to follow. CPR instructor and paramedic Charles Procter gives adult viewers invaluable information, methodically guiding them through CPR, rescue breathing and the Heimlich maneuver in three segments, each pertaining to a different age group: adults, children and infants.

If you're among the 100,000 young people who soon may be heading to Mexico to party at a cool beach resort for spring break, the U.S. State Department has a bit of advice for you. "While the vast majority enjoys their vacation without incident, several may die, hundreds will be arrested, and still more will make mistakes that could affect them for the rest of their lives. " Already one life has been lost. USC senior Samuel Levine on spring break in Cabo San Lucas fell to his death from a sixth-floor balcony.

Volunteers are needed to teach personal safety classes to children, ages 4 to 12, and their parents. Interface Children, Family Services seeks instructors for "Taking Care of Little Me" and "My Body Belongs to Me," which teach sexual abuse prevention in age-appropriate lessons. The goal is to reach all Ventura County preschool and elementary school children. Time commitment can vary from a few hours a week to a few hours a month, and daytime availability is necessary.

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was making headlines Tuesday after canceling an appearance in Toronto , reportedly citing safety concerns. "Dick Cheney cancels Toronto trip, says Canada is too dangerous," bleated the headline in the National Post, which made the story a featured headline pick Tuesday on its homepage at www.nationalpost.com . Ryan Ruppert, president of promotions company Spectre Live Corp., which scheduled Cheney's April 24 appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, said Cheney and his daughter, Elizabeth, canceled citing safety concerns.

If you're among the 100,000 young people who soon may be heading to Mexico to party at a cool beach resort for spring break, the U.S. State Department has a bit of advice for you. "While the vast majority enjoys their vacation without incident, several may die, hundreds will be arrested, and still more will make mistakes that could affect them for the rest of their lives. " Already one life has been lost. USC senior Samuel Levine on spring break in Cabo San Lucas fell to his death from a sixth-floor balcony.

We who are past 50 find it hard to believe that so much crime has developed since the days when we never locked our doors. We tend to worry that we are vulnerable, that we are being taken advantage of more frequently than younger people. Most of us rely on the police and sheriff's departments for help in emergencies and protection against crime.

No one on the Reginald O. Denny beating trial jury threatened to "blow away" anyone else on the panel as an alternate claimed in a television interview, a juror said Wednesday. "I guess tensions, tempers got to a point where deliberations came to a halt," acknowledged the juror, a 23-year-old Latina identified only as Juror 251, during a telephone interview. "Jurors were making personal remarks about each other. Tempers were flaring.

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was making headlines Tuesday after canceling an appearance in Toronto , reportedly citing safety concerns. "Dick Cheney cancels Toronto trip, says Canada is too dangerous," bleated the headline in the National Post, which made the story a featured headline pick Tuesday on its homepage at www.nationalpost.com . Ryan Ruppert, president of promotions company Spectre Live Corp., which scheduled Cheney's April 24 appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, said Cheney and his daughter, Elizabeth, canceled citing safety concerns.

Los Angeles County officials are taking steps to keep secret the names and salaries of some highly paid county employees, saying they need more time to comply with public records law to protect workers who claim that disclosure could put them at risk. The response came after The Times asked for the identities and pay of county workers who earn $250,000 or more annually, a request made in the wake of the salary scandal in Bell, where eight current and former city officials face corruption charges of misappropriation of public funds.

I grew up in Pasadena, went to high school across the street from the California Institute of Technology, worked for the Pasadena Public Library system and know quite a few scientists at the nation's fourth-ranked research university. However, I am now a La Jolla resident and have seen my car and two of my neighbor's vandalized in my sodium-lit parking lot. I feel for CalTech's Palomar astronomers--but I fear for my personal safety more. GAIL D. FERNANDEZ La Jolla

My nominee for word of the year is "cautious. " It comes up in every discussion of current consumer behavior, particularly in regard to housing. The most recent usage to cross my desk popped up in a new report from Fannie Mae. The mortgage financing company's chief economist, Doug Duncan, used the word to headline his analysis of Fannie Mae's new national survey of public attitudes about housing. What it found shouldn't surprise anybody who has paid any attention to home sales: Consumers feel cautious about home buying.

Los Angeles County officials are taking steps to keep secret the names and salaries of some highly paid county employees, saying they need more time to comply with public records law to protect workers who claim that disclosure could put them at risk. The response came after The Times asked for the identities and pay of county workers who earn $250,000 or more annually, a request made in the wake of the salary scandal in Bell, where eight current and former city officials face corruption charges of misappropriation of public funds.

After aggressive paparazzi prompted police to escort Britney Spears to the hospital this week, Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine announced Friday that he plans to push for an ordinance that would create a minimum "personal safety zone" around individuals targeted by the media. Zine said the estimated $25,000 it cost for police to escort Spears to the hospital was necessary to protect the public from dangers posed by the horde of celebrity photographers pursuing the pop star.

Editors of the Watan newspaper Tuesday contradicted accounts by police officers who said three journalists had been shot to death in an ambush Sunday night in northern Iraq. The newspaper said the victims were bodyguards for the paper's top editor, not reporters. In an interview, editor in chief Hatam Mawlood Mukhlis said he had given his bodyguards press credentials because they occasionally gathered information for the newspaper.

In a "shoot first, ask questions later" approach to personal safety, state lawmakers are weighing a bill that would give Texans the right to use deadly force as a first resort when they feel their safety is threatened. The measure, which is in committee, is an early hit at the statehouse: Twenty-seven of 31 state senators have signed on as co-sponsors. In the House, 100 of 150 members support the bill.

Way back in the 1990s when he was a mere marshal, Mike Carona was a guy who could take a joke and roll with the punches. One of his more appealing qualities was how unpretentious he seemed. He was Everyman with a badge, a cop with savoir-faire and a hearty handshake. But Orange County's sheriff may never live this down: a team of bodyguards that drives him to speaking engagements and protects him in public? Code name Braveheart?

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider giving grants to two programs working to keep children safe, one by visiting schools to teach personal safety, the other by producing a video that offers youngsters alternatives to violence. The board will review a request by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for $1,000 to create "Kids and Company: Together in Safety," a classroom program that would teach personal safety to children in grades kindergarten through six.

Re "Demand to Free Pollard Builds Spying Evidence," Jan. 12: Jonathan Pollard is a traitor to world peace, our country and our personal safety. How many lives did his own "ideology" threaten and how many more billions will it take for our research and development to keep us secure? Instead of releasing him, we should consider capital punishment. The ideology and politics in our United States may not be perfect, but they're the best I've seen when looking at the world. We have a right to disagree here, which is more than you can say elsewhere.

Volunteers are needed to teach personal safety classes to children, ages 4 to 12, and their parents. Interface Children, Family Services seeks instructors for "Taking Care of Little Me" and "My Body Belongs to Me," which teach sexual abuse prevention in age-appropriate lessons. The goal is to reach all Ventura County preschool and elementary school children. Time commitment can vary from a few hours a week to a few hours a month, and daytime availability is necessary.

Susan Spano was wrong in her April 29 column ("Kauai Killings Remind Women That Avoiding Danger Is Up to Them," Her World). Happily, she was not dead wrong. In her timely cautionary tale, she alerts readers that, even on magnificent Kauai, paradise is getting lost. However, I take issue with her closing thought that "my safety is no one's responsibility but my own." In a world becoming increasingly irresponsible, it's nice that Spano bucks that trend. But under her reasoning, if she's standing on a sidewalk and a car jumps the curb and hits her, that's her responsibility too. That the tourism folks on Kauai were putting money before life and safety was unconscionable.