Public Safety

The music thumps, the lights flash, the shot glasses wait for willing lips. But the bouncers are reduced to kicking at the curb, hoping somebody, anybody, will round the corner. Friday nights are slow lately in Rosarito Beach's party zone, and everyone knows the drug war is to blame. Hundreds of corpses discovered in and near Tijuana. Some of them headless, others dissolved in barrels of lye. People hear that, and they stay away. At least, most people do.

Klare Allen, a once-homeless mother turned community activist, was stunned at a public meeting in 2002 when she and her friends learned that Boston University Medical Center officials planned to build a biological defense laboratory in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. "We heard anthrax and Roxbury-South End," she recalled. "Then we heard Ebola. The last thing we heard was bubonic plague. We looked at each other and said, 'No way are they bringing that . . . into our community.'

The death of a USC student and the critical injury of another in a violent hit-and-run accident left the urban campus reeling Monday as authorities and relatives called on the public for help in locating the driver and the badly damaged car. "We need to find the vehicle," said LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese. "We need to find it quickly." The accident, which occurred at the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Hoover Street at 3 a.m.

State regulators gave approval Friday for the Expo Line light rail to proceed with construction next to a pair of South Los Angeles schools on the condition that safety upgrades are made at both sites. The decision by the California Public Utilities Commission means the Expo Line between downtown L.A. and Culver City probably won't open next year as scheduled and may be pushed back to summer 2011, according to Expo Line officials.

The beachfront city of Malibu voted Monday to outlaw a form of youthful daredevilry known as speedboarding -- an extreme hobby that has grown increasingly popular here. Speedboarders don protective helmets, knee and elbow pads, and sometimes even sleek bodysuits before hopping onto long skateboards and rocketing down steep public streets and canyon roads at speeds greater than 40 mph. Enthusiasts swear by speedboarding's addictive adrenaline rush.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday asked a panel of federal judges to delay their order that the state produce a plan to reduce prison crowding, saying he would take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court if they did not grant the request. In the motion filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the governor said the order should be delayed pending an appeal to be filed Thursday in the Supreme Court, arguing that the state would probably win in the nation's high court. The order was issued Aug. 4 by judges overseeing two lawsuits filed by inmates complaining of inadequate medical and mental health treatment.

Under legislation making its way through Congress, beachgoers would find out sooner whether they should steer clear of the water. A measure approved Wednesday on a voice vote by the House would require speedier testing for coastal pollution and fund projects to track down sources of contamination.

Less than three weeks after an escaped tiger killed a teenager at the San Francisco Zoo, two new incidents have surfaced that are bringing fresh attention to the facility's handling of its exhibits. Zoo officials said Friday that a nearly 100-pound snow leopard ripped a small opening in its wire mesh cage -- which was inside a bigger secured enclosure -- Thursday afternoon and got part of its head and paw through the gash.

MySpace says it can't guarantee that the people who sign up for its social networking site aren't underage or sex offenders. But it averted a potential legal battle Monday by agreeing to keep trying. A group of 49 state attorneys general probing safety issues at MySpace and other online social networks signed a deal with the Beverly Hills-based unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

An engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge was walking across a bridge to work about 8:45 a.m. Jan. 16 when he spotted something moving in the creek below. At first he thought it was a coyote, but as he got closer he could make out the low build, hulking forequarters and tawny fur. Mountain lion. The engineer, Matthew Dickie, moved to grab his camera, and the animal crouched and froze. Other people walking to work noticed and peered over the bridge too. I'll be damned.