BUSINESS
July 5, 2011 | By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
Bob Kahl slips in through a side door of the vast, abandoned hangar and looks at what's left of the assembly plant where he worked for nearly 40 years. He remembers the hum of power tools, the biting aroma of cutting oil, swarms of workers plugging away on a labyrinth of yellow scaffolding. All that's left is a few piles of broken concrete and a sea of colorless dust that coats a Palmdale factory floor the size of two football fields. "Welcome to the birthplace of America's space shuttle fleet," said Kahl, 60, smiling.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 15, 2012 | By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Television Critic
In ABC's new thriller "Missing," a former CIA agent whose child has been kidnapped springs out of retirement with guns, martial-arts skills and primal parental passion blazing. If that sounds familiar, well, it was also the plot of the 2008 film "Taken," which had Liam Neeson tearing through Paris to extricate his daughter from the clutches of a sex-trafficking ring. In "Missing," the gender roles are reversed. When Michael (Nick Eversman), a student studying abroad in Rome, goes missing, his mother, Becca Winstone (Ashley Judd)
WORLD
September 26, 2011 | By Rajneesh Bhandari and Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
Two Americans were among 19 people killed Sunday in Nepal when a small plane carrying tourists to view Mt. Everest crashed as it tried to land in rain and dense fog, police said. The crash of the Beechcraft 1900D aircraft operated by Buddha Air went down in Kotdanda, about 10 miles from the capital, Katmandu, killing everyone aboard just minutes before its scheduled return to Tribhuvan International Airport. The $140 Buddha Air "Everest Experience" package flies tourists from Katmandu around the world's tallest mountain and back.
BUSINESS
December 19, 2011 | By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
Capt. Jeff Haney was headed back to base in his F-22 Raptor fighter jet, ripping through the frigid Alaskan night beyond the speed of sound at more than 1,000 mph, when things started going terribly wrong. Packed tight in cold-weather gear to protect him from the bitter temperatures, the Air Force pilot pulled back on the control stick at about 38,400 feet to gain altitude. Then Haney saw his plane was beginning to fail him. A caution light glowed green through his night vision goggles, alerting him that a section of the aircraft was overheating.
BUSINESS
March 14, 2012 | By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
Gov. Jerry Brown sat down in the captain's chair inside the cockpit of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet and gazed at an array of gauges and dials spread out before him. At one point he turned to Bob Ciesla, Boeing's C-17 program manager, and asked: "Is this where it's built?" Ciesla confirmed that Long Beach was the manufacturing site - and that the company has struggled in recent years to keep the plant operating. He didn't seem to mind that the governor did not know that the military's workhorse cargo jet has been built here since the early 1990s.
NEWS
February 18, 2012 | By Judi Dash, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Anything that makes flying with children easier is worth a look, although this one is pricey. The QuickSmart Backpack Stroller features a streamlined design, with a lightweight but sturdy aluminum frame, five-point safety harness and retractable hood but few other bells or whistles. It folds down to about 23-by-12-by-13 inches. Stashed in the included backpack, the 11-pound stroller meets most airlines' carry-on dimension limits, fitting in the overhead bin, although smaller commuter planes may be an exception.