CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 16, 2011 | By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times
A decade ago, Shyima Hall was smuggled into the United States as a 10-year-old slave, forced to cook and clean inside the home of a wealthy Irvine family and, at night, sleep on a squalid mattress in a windowless garage. On Thursday, the Egyptian-born 22-year-old stood before a federal judge in Montebello with nearly 900 others and was sworn in as naturalized U.S. citizen. The ceremony capped a hard-scrabble journey that began with Hall's rescue, wound through the foster care system and ended with her living on her own, working, and with ambitions to become a federal agent.
WORLD
November 27, 2006 | Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writer
After five months of fighting in the Gaza Strip, Israeli and Palestinian leaders moved Sunday to shore up a cease-fire that both sides had sought as relief from a politically costly conflict that has left more than 300 people dead. The truce was holding Sunday -- after Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza overnight -- despite a ragged start. At least seven rockets fired from Gaza landed in Israel after the accord took effect at 6 a.m. By 10:15 a.m.
NEWS
May 11, 1990 | Associated Press
Twelve drug dealers on Thursday were sentenced to death for smuggling into Egypt and distributing 10 tons of hashish and 858 pounds of opium, the Middle East News Agency reported.
WORLD
April 25, 2008 | James Gerstenzang and Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writers
President Bush said Thursday that he wanted to lock in the outlines of a Palestinian state before he left office, even as Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, said the road was "paved with obstacles." With less than nine months to achieve his goal, Bush is holding a flurry of diplomatic meetings, including a session with Abbas in the Oval Office on Thursday, seeking to pressure Israel, the Palestinians and their Arab allies.
WORLD
March 12, 2007 | Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writer
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wrangled Sunday for more than two hours over differences that have blocked a resumption of substantive peace talks, but they achieved little more than a pledge to keep meeting regularly.
WORLD
January 31, 2009 | Richard Boudreaux
Defiant red graffiti on the white outdoor wall evoked the sounds of war. "The roar of the lions against the roar of the Jewish helicopters," it said in rhyming Arabic, extolling the Hamas fighters who had stood up to Israel. But the dominant sound Friday in Gaza City's Asqula district was the growl of motorcycle engines, a sign that life in the Gaza Strip, battered and bloodied by a 22-day Israeli assault, is edging back to normal.