Statement

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti picked up the backing of school board member Tamar Galatzan on Friday and responded to criticism over his statements on a measure targeting low-achieving schools. Standing outside a school in Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley, Galatzan - who has been on the school board since 2007 -- praised Garcetti as someone who would work closely with Los Angeles Unified School District. Minutes before Galatzan spoke, rival Wendy Greuel's campaign sent an email asserting that Garcetti had given mixed messages on the so-called “parent trigger,” which allows parents at a low-performing school to force aggressive changes, such as handing it over to an outside operator.

The Riverside City College student body president convicted of kidnapping and committing lewd acts with a child confirmed his status as a sex offender Thursday. But Doug Figueroa, 40, emphasized that he pleaded guilty, in part so that he “could immediately engage in … proactive change in my life.” In an email to The Times, Figueroa said he enrolled in school and became involved on campus to help foster that change. “My heart does go out to any victim of any kind of abuse,” he wrote in the email.

The Riverside City College student body president is a registered sex offender who has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and committing lewd acts with a child less than 14 years old. School officials knew about the status of Doug Robert Figueroa, 40, prior to his run for office, but in a statement, they said they had “determined that there was no policy, statute or ordinance that could prohibit this student from seeking office as student body president”...

A major construction project to install a new power circuit in Los Feliz will force road closures and limit left-hand turns in the neighborhood starting Tuesday and stretching into the fall. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will begin installation of a new underground and overhead 4.8-kilovolt circuit to alleviate other overloaded circuits that collectively serve about 5,500 customers in Los Feliz, the utility company said. The first of the project's three phases begins Tuesday, according to a statement from the DWP. As a result, no left turns will be allowed at the intersection of Los Feliz Boulevard and Hillhurst Avenue on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Officials expect this phase to last until May. In the coming months, construction crews will install 1,750 feet of conduit and more than 6,000 feet of cables and related equipment.

AUSTIN, Texas - Simon Klose would like you to steal his movie. Stream it, download it, share it with someone in Croatia or Brazil and remix it with videos of kittens playing patty-cake, if that's your kind of thing. Klose, 37, is the director of the documentary "The Pirate Bay: Away From Keyboard," which follows the eccentric co-founders of the Swedish file-sharing network the Pirate Bay over four years, including their 2009 trial on copyright infringement charges. Shot like a thriller in the stark light of Stockholm, "TPB: AFK" pits its hoodie-clad young subjects, who created the world's largest piracy site and are part of a global anti-copyright movement, against large American media companies such as 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros.

Los Angeles Times BUENOS AIRES - Mercedes Alvarez is among the many here who will never believe that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine chosen to be pope, did anything unsavory during the dark days of this country's "dirty war. " She is aware of the allegations against him. And she has written them off as political gamesmanship. "What's happening," the homemaker said the day before Pope Francis was inaugurated in Rome last week, "is that our president had been fighting with him, and she is trying to hurt his reputation.

The 911 caller who falsely claimed that he was robbed at gunpoint the night Pasadena police shot and killed unarmed 19-year-old robbery suspect Kendrec McDade is due in court Tuesday to face misdemeanor charges that he lied to emergency dispatchers. Oscar Carrillo, 27, is charged with one count of making a false report of a criminal offense and a second count of reporting an emergency knowing the report was false, a Pasadena city spokesman said. If convicted on both counts, Carrillo faces a maximum sentence of 18 months in jail, his defense attorney, Andres Bustamante, told the Pasadena Sun. Carrillo, who has already pleaded not guilty to the charges, is scheduled to return to court Tuesday for a pretrial hearing.

SAN FRANCISCO - A patient's private communications with his psychotherapist generally may not be used as evidence to commit him to a mental institution as a sexually violent predator, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday. In a decision written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the state high court said a trial judge erred by ordering a therapist to disclose statements made by a parolee during state-required therapy. The therapist testified at a trial that determined that Ramiro Gonzales, 58, a Santa Clara County sex offender, was a violent predator who should be indefinitely confined to a state mental hospital.

MOSCOW - Russian investigators found no evidence of violence against a lawyer who died in custody after accusing officials and police officers of running a multimillion-dollar tax refund scam, and have ended their probe, officials said Tuesday. Sergei Magnitsky, who worked as a legal advisor for the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund in Moscow, died in 2009 of heart insufficiency and brain and lung edema resulting from diabetes and hepatitis while in pretrial detention on tax charges, the Russian Investigative Committee said on its website.

Kentucky is the top-seeded team entering this year's NCAA tournament that tips off Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio, and ends on a Monday in Atlanta. Check that: A team from Kentucky, coached by a former Kentucky coach, is top-seeded entering the NCAA tournament. Sorry, it's easy to mix that up. Louisville deservedly and emphatically garnered this year's top overall seeding after elbowing its way to the Big East tournament title. Kentucky, the defending national champion, didn't make the cut. But the Wildcats did get a No. 1 seeding for the NIT. We will dearly miss the in-tournament dynamic of a rivalry that last year produced a fan fight in a dialysis center before the Final Four matchup won by Kentucky.