Southern California

PARIS gave the fashion world the little black dress, Milan the perfectly tailored jacket. And Los Angeles? The Juicy Couture tracksuit. That's right, thanks to Southern California, sweats aren't just for the gym, jeans aren't just for weekends and flip-flops aren't just for the beach. That's because Southern California made casual chic. Sure, our relaxed aesthetic has had its low points: aerobics gear at the mall, baseball caps at the public viewing of a fallen president.

I\o7N\f7 1510, a Spanish writer named Garci Ordonez de Montalvo published a fantasist novel called "Las Sergas de Esplandian," about a golden island ruled by a dark-skinned Amazon queen called Califia. This book would end up giving California its name. About a hundred years later, another Spanish writer named Miguel de Cervantes wrote a book about a character who happened to own a copy of that earlier novel -- a character who was arguably the first modern Californian.

The calls and e-mails keep coming, and they are increasingly desperate: "I've lost my job. I'm losing my home. I can't afford to keep my horse. . . . Can you take it?" The answer is usually no, said Jill Starr, president of Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue in Lancaster. The ailing economy, soaring feed prices and the high cost of euthanizing old or sick animals are forcing many horse owners throughout Southern California to relinquish their pets, according to owners and caretakers.

There are million-dollar mansions in foreclosure, layoffs on Rodeo Drive. And reservations are no longer a must at all but the most exclusive restaurants. As recently as the summer, many wealthy Southern California enclaves appeared beyond the reach of the worst recession in decades. But rich cities, it turns out, aren't always so different from the rest.

For a while, it seemed as if winter had taken a vacation from Southern California, going wherever it is that winters go in the winter. Like Chicago. But it's back. After an unseasonably warm and dry January, winter weather has returned in the form of a series of cool storms that have tracked down from the Gulf of Alaska in assembly-line fashion, with the latest expected to lash the region today with wind, rain and mountain snow.

California lost more than five times as many jobs in September as it did the month before, signaling that the state's employment woes continue despite a budding economic recovery. Employers cut 39,300 workers from their payrolls last month, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department, led by cuts in construction and government. A separate survey of joblessness showed that California's unemployment rate was 12.2% in September, down from a revised 12.3% in August.

A powerful winter-like storm is expected to batter fire-ravaged hillsides in Los Angeles County with 3 to 6 inches of rain beginning tonight and lasting through early Wednesday morning. As news of the coming wet weather circulated Monday, residents in charred foothill areas scrambled to fill sandbags or pack their belongings and flee areas prone to flooding. Officials also worked to place huge concrete mudslide barriers along roads in areas including La Cañada Flintridge. The storm, which originated in the Gulf of Alaska, is expected to combine with moisture-laden remnants of a typhoon from the western Pacific, making the system wetter than normal, the National Weather Service said.

Fire chiefs in tinder-dry Southern California, faced with lean budgets while more people squeeze into the region, are starting to rethink long-standing policies on ordering mass evacuations in a wildfire, debating whether it may be wiser in some situations to let residents stay and defend their homes. "We don't have enough resources to put an engine at every house in harm's way," said Ventura County Fire Chief Bob Roper.

Aiming to accelerate the integration of immigrants into Southern California life, a leading California foundation will announce today that it is issuing $900,000 in grants to help ease conflicts between blacks and Latinos in Pasadena, promote worker rights in Artesia, organize to bring supermarkets to minority neighborhoods and other initiatives. The grants represent the first outlays in the California Community Foundation's five-year, $3.

Eleven California hospitals were fined $25,000 each in administrative penalties Thursday for violations that, in some cases, led to death or serious injury, according to Department of Public Health officials. Most of the hospitals fined were in Southern California, and about half were cited because doctors or hospital staff had left foreign objects in patients after surgery. Coast Plaza Doctors Hospital in Norwalk and Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center were fined for failing to follow proper surgical procedures.