Property Damage Los Angeles

For 23 years, the MEND Center has revived residents of the Northeast San Fernando Valley with distributions of food, clothing and medicine. Now, the nonprofit organization is getting ready to celebrate a little healing of its own. The MEND Center, short for Meet Each Need with Dignity, will celebrate its formal reopening June 2 after suffering $230,000 in damages in the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake.

A year after the Northridge earthquake violently shook Los Angeles' physical and emotional foundations, a sizable share of county residents, particularly in the hard-hit San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, still suffer hardships, psychological aftereffects or delays in repairing their homes, a new Times Poll has found. A wide majority of Los Angeles County residents say their lives have returned to normal.

Several major Los Angeles businesses jumped in Monday with a range of plans to help rebuild riot-torn areas of the city, while criticism continued to mount against the embryonic redevelopment efforts headed by former baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth.

For 23 years, the MEND Center has revived residents of the Northeast San Fernando Valley with distributions of food, clothing and medicine. Now, the nonprofit organization is getting ready to celebrate a little healing of its own. The MEND Center, short for Meet Each Need with Dignity, will celebrate its formal reopening June 2 after suffering $230,000 in damages in the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake.

Members of a Reseda condominium association have delayed a vote on whether to walk away from their earthquake-damaged units after attorneys for a real estate lender obtained a temporary restraining order to stop any action. Lawyers from North American Mortgage Co. showed up at a Sherman Court Condominium Assn.

A year after the Northridge earthquake violently shook Los Angeles' physical and emotional foundations, a sizable share of county residents, particularly in the hard-hit San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, still suffer hardships, psychological aftereffects or delays in repairing their homes, a new Times Poll has found. A wide majority of Los Angeles County residents say their lives have returned to normal.

Fire quickly spread Sunday through a remote area of the Angeles National Forest, blackening 5 acres but causing no injuries or property damage, a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman said. The brush fire broke out near the Golden State Freeway and Templin Highway around 12:30 p.m., according to spokesman Jim Crawford. It took 95 county firefighters and 30 U.S. Department of Forestry personnel about 45 minutes to extinguish the blaze. Crews were aided by three water-dropping helicopters.

The cover shot of Palm Springs Life magazine's medical guide issue shows noted blade-wielder, actress Sharon Stone, in gluteus- length white smock and white fishnet stockings not seen since the last episode of "Nightingales." In one hand is a syringe bigger than a Pepsi can, and her other hand is pulling at the waistband of polka-dot boxer shorts on a man she's evidently about to inoculate. The issue itself is rich in information about health and medicine.

Orange County has been awarded three state-funded pilot programs to combat drug abuse, truancy and violence among school students, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp announced Tuesday. Each of the programs will receive $5,000 from a new state fund created to test differing approaches for fighting crime and delinquency in California schools. School districts and county departments of education throughout the state were invited to submit applications for the grants.

The worst urban riot in contemporary U.S. history exacted its heaviest tolls in inner-city neighborhoods, but other areas throughout Los Angeles County suffered as well. The violence that left dozens dead, thousands injured and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage in Los Angeles also triggered unrest in the nation.

Members of a Reseda condominium association have delayed a vote on whether to walk away from their earthquake-damaged units after attorneys for a real estate lender obtained a temporary restraining order to stop any action. Lawyers from North American Mortgage Co. showed up at a Sherman Court Condominium Assn.

Several major Los Angeles businesses jumped in Monday with a range of plans to help rebuild riot-torn areas of the city, while criticism continued to mount against the embryonic redevelopment efforts headed by former baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth.

The cost of auto insurance to Californians has gone up an average of 40.1% in the last 2 1/2 years, compared to a nationwide average increase of 28% and a general cost-of-living increase of less than 10%, a report by the state Senate's Insurance Committee said Friday. These and other statistics were cited in the 54-page staff report circulated to every legislator and to other parties interested in the insurance issue by the committee chairman, Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys).

House and Senate negotiators have agreed to spend more than $180 million next year on construction of key California water projects, including $90 million to continue extensive flood control work on the Santa Ana River in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The accord on a $22-billion appropriations bill for energy and water projects also calls for spending more than $35 million for work on the federally owned Central Valley Project, much of it for environmental improvements.