SPORTS
April 23, 2012 | By Dylan Hernandez
Maybe Juan Uribe isn't finished. He certainly looked that way last year, when he hit .204 in his injury-shortened first season with the Dodgers. He didn't change many minds in spring training, when Manager Don Mattingly talked about the possibility of replacing the top-heavy 33-year-old as the starting third baseman. But 17 games into the 2012 season, Uribe is batting .286. Uribe had his best game as a Dodger on Monday night, collecting four hits, driving in three runs and scoring two in a series-opening 7-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves at Dodger Stadium.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 23, 2012 | By Catherine Saillant, Los Angeles Times
Storm clouds hovered over the San Fernando Valley, but businessman Jack Engel was smiling as he pointed to a row of solar inverters at one of two commercial warehouses he owns in Sun Valley. Power was being generated despite the weather, no problem. His problem, he said, has been the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. "I like the idea of solar, but unfortunately my experience is that the DWP doesn't support it," said Engel, who has run a small manufacturing firm on Pendleton Street for four decades.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 21, 2012 | By Ari Bloomekatz and Dan Weikel, Los Angeles Times
As officials build mass transit lines at a rapid clip, Los Angeles County's oldest and most-used light-rail system has been breaking down with alarming frequency. The Blue Line from Long Beach to downtown L.A. — one of the nation's busiest light-rail routes, with 26 million annual riders — has suffered a rash of maintenance problems that have left commuters who rely on the service facing major delays. In January and February, Blue Line trips were late or canceled 858 times — roughly 14 times a day — compared with 428 times during the first two months of 2011.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 15, 2012 | By Lee Romney and John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times
When Garth Webb was sent to Napa State Hospital, his parents were relieved. The bellboy and amateur composer from Sebastopol had been in the throes of bipolar disorder when he was charged with threatening the lives of co-workers. His family encouraged him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, thinking that in a mental hospital he would get the treatment he needed. Instead, Webb and his parents say, he was repeatedly brutalized. His main tormentor, a patient in the room next door, assaulted him several times, wrapping him in a headlock and sexually abusing him. Soon after, the same man strangled a psychiatric worker on the hospital grounds.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 8, 2012 | Kurt Streeter
To think deeply and compassionately about South Los Angeles as we approach the 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots is to inhabit a middle ground between optimism and bleak defeat. A lot of good is going on in the inner city. But the last two decades have also underscored how many problems remain, as stubborn and persistent as a strangling weed. "It's been a schizophrenic journey, these 20 years," said John Mack, my tour guide to riot ground zero a few days ago. SHARE YOUR STORY: L.A. riots South L.A., Mack said, "is a mix of success and failure.
BUSINESS
March 31, 2012 | By Meg James and Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times
"A queen is not afraid to fail," Oprah Winfrey once said. "Failure is another steppingstone to greatness. " Now the television queen may have a chance to prove the adage. Her Los Angeles-based Oprah Winfrey Network has been hobbled by missteps, ego clashes, a revolving door in the executive suite and, most important, low ratings. OWN's stumbles suggest, at the least, that even in celebrity-obsessed America, fame alone doesn't guarantee success. PHOTOS: 25 great "Oprah" moments The network was born 15 months ago with high hopes of becoming the television equivalent of Winfrey's O magazine.