Relocation Of People

The Obama administration is preparing to admit into the United States as many as seven Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials. Their release is seen as a crucial step to plans, announced by President Obama during his first week in office, to close the prison and relocate the detainees.

Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved a plan Tuesday to relocate the few remaining residents of the blighted Ujima Village subsidized housing complex in Willowbrook within 90 days, but they turned down housing officials' appeal for eviction powers. Citing contamination concerns, county housing officials had urged supervisors to give them the authority to evict those reluctant to leave.

At the edge of a Nairobi neighborhood called the Ghetto, there is a bridge across a gray, stinking creek, on a street called Mother Teresa Road: The creek has become a frontier between two worlds, and the bridge the border crossing. All day Saturday, under the protection of paramilitary police, people shuttled from one side to the other, carrying furniture, bedding, bags and pots as they steadily divided themselves by tribe. On one side of the bridge, in the Ghetto, no Luos can live.

ANNE WILLAN is shopping at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market when out of the blue an attractive young woman comes up to introduce herself. "I met you at a Les Dames [d'Escoffier] dinner," she says earnestly. "I just wanted to say how glad I am that you joined our market."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday that it would accelerate efforts to get victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita out of government-supplied trailers after tests showed that the temporary residences contain unhealthy levels of toxic formaldehyde. Tests in a statistically sampled selection of 519 trailers showed that formaldehyde levels averaged five times higher than levels in new housing, and in some cases much higher than that.

A month after mobs burned down his hardware store and chased his family into a squalid displacement camp, Joseph Kamau, 35, decided it was time to go home. But he didn't return to the city he'd fled, Nakuru, where he was born, married and owns 5 acres of land. Instead Kamau and his family resettled in his grandparents' tribal homeland, known as Central province, where most fellow Kikuyu tribe members originated. Until now, Kamau had never set foot in this part of Kenya.

An ambitious $672-million plan to be presented to supervisors next week would reorganize Los Angeles County jails and ultimately shut down the Men's Central Jail, long a symbol of inmate violence and overcrowding in the nation's largest jail system. "This is far-reaching," said Sheriff Lee Baca. "I have been wrestling with this problem for the past 10 years. This is the time to be making the big change."

A small sign taped to the glass front door of the town's hardware store still pleads for donations to the victims of the tornado. Less than four weeks ago, a funnel cut down the northern edge of this farming town of nearly 650 people. The wind flung tractors more than a mile, crumbled Civil War tombstones and killed two people. Then, before the white roses had wilted in their cemetery urns, the rest of the town was destroyed -- by a flood.

San Bernardino County officials vowed Thursday not to become a dumping ground for San Francisco criminals, saying they may sue that city for exporting juvenile offenders to local group homes. "The county is exploring every option to recoup all our police expenses," said county Supervisor Gary Ovitt. "This lunacy needs to stop now."

For years, Johnson Community Day School has been the second, third or last chance for students kicked out of other middle and high schools. And many have thrived in a setting with small classes, counseling and close supervision to overcome truancy, drug use or brushes with the law. But now Johnson itself is being booted. Next month, the school must vacate its longtime South Los Angeles campus, pushing students already on the edge of failure into a cross-town commute.