Statistics

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach remained the nation's busiest seaport complex for cargo containers in 2007, even though they saw a decline in traffic for the first time in at least 20 years. But in a shift, exports grew as the dollar's declining value helped U.S. companies ride into new markets and to record-breaking sales. One of those benefiting was Los Angeles Grain Terminal in Long Beach, a 49-year-old company that packs cargo containers with grain from the Midwest for sale in Asia.

Two months into the winter sports season, avalanches have claimed 26 lives nationwide, including three near Mountain High Resort this weekend, in what officials warn may be a record year for mountain fatalities. Avalanche experts say average annual death tolls have edged up from 20 to 25 over the last decade and are likely to increase as more people with better technology and a new "extreme sports" mentality venture into remote areas in search of untrammeled powder.

With its storefront tributes to Southern California's surfing culture and L.A.'s hipster elite, the leafy dinosaur topiary and gleaming signs that promise multiple movies, Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade is a popular destination for tens of thousands each week. In the middle of the night, it is a destination of another sort for a smattering of the city's chronically homeless. It is those inhabitants whom social workers hoped to encounter early Monday.

Curry Mendes moved to Los Angeles last week from New York, where he had picked restaurants based on word of mouth and Zagat reviews. But he quickly learned that many people in L.A. choose restaurants based on the big letter grade affixed by the L.A. County Department of Public Health to the front of nearly 38,000 restaurants and other businesses that sell food ready to eat.

California drivers got a bit of relief at the pump, but nationwide the average gasoline price edged higher in the last week, the Energy Department said Monday. California's average price for a gallon of self-serve gasoline fell 4.1 cents to $3.107 in the week ended Monday. That was 57 cents higher than at this time last year. The cost for U.S. drivers to fill up at the pump increased, though slightly, for the first time in four weeks, the government said Monday. The national average rose 0.

The California wine harvest came in at normal levels for a second year in a row in 2007, and brokers say the industry is heading back into balance after the curve thrown by 2005's bumper crop. Preliminary figures released by state agriculture officials Friday showed that the overall grape crop, including table grapes and raisins, totaled nearly 3.7 million tons in 2007, up 5% from the year before. Looking at just wine grapes, the increase was smaller, 3.2 million tons compared with 3.

The presidential primary season has not yet confirmed a nominee in either major party, but it has already notched a different political accomplishment: It has driven more people to participate in the process. More people have registered to vote, and many states have reported record voter turnout in the primary contests and caucuses so far.

U.S. retail gasoline prices fell over the last week to the lowest level in almost four months, mirroring a decline in motor fuel demand, but California got no relief at the pump, the government said Monday. The national price for regular gasoline decreased 1.8 cents over the last week to an average $2.96 a gallon, the Energy Department said in its weekly survey of service stations. Though the average pump price remained up 72 cents from a year earlier, it was the cheapest since Oct. 29.

California public school students continued to outperform their peers in most states on Advanced Placement tests last year, and the state's huge population of Latino students was a particular bright spot, according to reports issued by the College Board on Wednesday. But the state's overall performance slipped slightly from the previous year, and African American students performed dismally compared with their counterparts of other races.

More than one in 100 American adults are in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released Thursday. With more than 2.