Pit Bull

Authorities on Wednesday raided a dogfighting operation that was being run out of a suburban Chicago day-care facility, arresting three people and seizing nine dogs that required surgery, authorities said. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said children "were playing on a swing set just 10 feet away from a vicious fighting dog and blood-stained floors. . . . To be engaged in this sort of activity is disturbing enough, but to take a chance with anybody's children is reprehensible." Dart said one dog was missing an eye and another had had its genitals nearly severed.

A 3-year-old Fullerton girl remained hospitalized Tuesday with severe injuries after her family's pit bull attacked her in their backyard, police said. The attack took place just before 7:45 p.m. Monday at the family's house in the 200 block of Costa Court when the girl and her mother took food to the dog, which was tied up in the backyard, said Fullerton Police Sgt. Mike MacDonald. The mother went back inside the house to wash dishes, leaving her daughter outside with the dog. Police are investigating the attack as a case of child neglect.

The route northward passes through El Naranjo, a Guatemala jungle town where I rode in a little boat that puttered along the flat water of the Umacinta river, past tall ceiba trees and the largely apathetic Mexican border patrol. And it ends in places like Compton, where there's a white stucco box of a house with the roof painted ominously black and bars on the windows.

An animal control officer lost half of her thumb Thursday when she was attacked by a pit bull. Officer Martha Muro, 26, remained hospitalized Thursday evening. Doctors were evaluating whether a recovered portion of the thumb could be reattached, said Capt. Aaron Reyes of the Southeast Area Animal Control Authority. Muro was making a follow-up visit to a house on Live Oak Street when two dogs escaped and broke through a hole in a front gate and a male pit bull attacked. -- Rich Connell

Despite fierce criticism, Lancaster officials have unanimously adopted an ordinance that will impose stiff penalties on the owners of "potentially dangerous" and "vicious" dogs, particularly those that law enforcement officials say are favored by gang members to intimidate rivals and others. Under the new law, dogs that are unprovoked and engage in aggressive behavior, may be found to be "potentially dangerous."

The city of Lancaster is considering adopting stiff penalties for owners of "potentially dangerous" and "vicious" dogs, particularly those that law enforcement officials say are favored by gang members and used for intimidation. The proposed ordinance would also require spaying and neutering of all varieties of pit bulls and Rottweilers, including mutts that have "predominant physical characteristics" of those breeds. "I want gangs out of Lancaster," Mayor R.

Re "Go with a pit bull PTA mom," Opinion, Dec. 16 I was stunned to read that the Los Angeles Unified School District turns down children's books because of an $18-a-book cataloging fee. My son's Mac laptop has a computer program that reads the bar code printed on a book with the tiny camera in the laptop screen. The title and description of the book are recorded. For the price of well under 100 book-cataloging fees, the district could buy a laptop and the program. I agree with Sandra Tsing Loh that the charlatan who is reportedly being paid in excess of $119,000 a year should be fired.

A Rubidoux man died Friday after he was mauled by two pit bulls, officials said. The 60-year-old victim lived with the dogs at the home where he was attacked, according to Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. The dogs -- a male and female -- belonged to a relative. "He was just sitting in the backyard smoking a cigarette and for some reason the dogs attacked him," Gutierrez said. The victim died at the scene. The dogs were signed over to the Riverside County Department of Animal Services by the owner and euthanized, said spokesman John Welsh.

In these last few minutes before the inevitable happens and Ramon C. Cortines is named David L. Brewer's successor as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, here is a modest proposal: How about a PTA mother for the job? PTA moms are the very opposite of the $500,000-golden-parachute bureaucrats Brewer has come to represent. PTA moms draw no salary. We work nights, weekends, holidays. We bring our kids' schools new resources every day -- whatever we can load into our minivans.

On election day, a smiling Sarah Palin touched down briefly on home turf at Wasilla City Hall to cast her vote, declaring how much she was looking forward to waking up in "transition mode" as vice president. Then she headed off to spend election night in Arizona with Sen. John McCain.