Training

With community colleges turning students away for lack of available slots, Latinos are projected to face disproportionately higher workforce training gaps, a study released Friday found. That means lower wages over the lifetime of an estimated 840,000 Latinos in California, according to a study from Corinthian Colleges and economic consulting firm Encina Advisors. "California's Latino community is likely to be affected disproportionately by budget cuts and overcrowding in community college classrooms," the report said.  From 2008 to 2019, demand for community college education among Latinos is expected to increase 28%, but it's expected to decline for whites and African Americans.

SAN DIEGO - In the ocean off Coronado, a Navy team has discovered a relic worthy of display in a military museum: a torpedo of the kind deployed in the late 19th century, considered a technological marvel in its day. But don't look for the primary discoverers to get a promotion or an invitation to meet the admirals at the Pentagon - although they might get an extra fish for dinner or maybe a pat on the snout. The so-called Howell torpedo was discovered by bottlenose dolphins being trained by the Navy to find undersea objects, including mines, that not even billion-dollar technology can detect.

Zack Greinke returned to the Dodgers' rotation this week, recovering from surgery on his left shoulder in five weeks, three ahead of schedule. Hanley Ramirez came back last month from a broken thumb two weeks earlier than expected. But head trainer Sue Falsone has little time to celebrate how cutting-edge procedures and rehabilitation methods accelerated Ramirez's and Greinke's recoveries. The Dodgers are in last place not only in the standings, but also in injury prevention.

Jennifer was one of my first patients as a new doctor, and she came to see me about an unintended pregnancy. A single mom to a rambunctious 5-year-old girl, Jennifer was struggling economically and battling depression. We talked about the options available to her: continuing the pregnancy and preparing to parent another child, offering the baby for adoption or having an abortion. She chose to continue with the pregnancy, and I worked with her over the following months as she struggled with the discomforts of pregnancy, excessive weight gain and the anxiety of having to raise two small children on her own. Seven months later, I delivered Jennifer's beautiful baby boy. Six weeks after that, I saw Jennifer, her new baby and her 5-year-old for a joint checkup.

Hip-hop star Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine are donating $70 million to USC for a new academy that they say will give students the tools they need to break into the rapidly changing music industry. Scheduled to be announced by Dre (whose given name is Andre Young) and Iovine on Wednesday in Santa Monica, the gift will establish the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation. The academy will open with an inaugural class of 25 students in fall 2014.

A British Olympic gold medalist in sailing was killed Thursday when a catamaran training for the upcoming America's Cup capsized in San Francisco Bay. Andrew "Bart" Simpson was part of an 11-man crew aboard Artemis Racing's AC72 vessel when the boat flipped northwest of Treasure Island about 1 p.m., officials said. Simpson, 36, served as the Swedish team's strategist. An America's Cup chase boat pulled the sailors from the water, but Simpson was trapped under the 72-foot catamaran for up to 15 minutes before he was reached, San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said.

The real estate bust idled hundreds of thousands of construction workers. Now, with housing on the mend, builders are hiring again. Trouble is, many workers aren't coming back. Years of sporadic employment drove many from the industry. Incomes aren't what they used to be. Laid-off workers remember the sting of lost livelihoods; some have had enough of boom and bust. Former house painter Alan Schaffer has hung up his paintbrush to pursue a degree in business administration.

For the fourth time in the last two weeks -- and the third in Orange County -- a pedestrian was killed after ending up in the path of an oncoming Metrolink train. The latest incident happened about 8:55 a.m. Tuesday when a person ran up to a rail crossing between the Anaheim and Orange stations at Eckhoff Street in Orange, stopped and then appeared to jump in front of the train, said Jeff Lustgarten, a Metrolink spokesman. Lustgarten said he did not yet know the person's gender.

Pat Morgan of Westlake Village wrote to the SoCal Garden Clinic to ask: My fig tree was started from a cutting three years ago and was recently transplanted to our atrium. It has been in a container in the same place for over a year. How should I create an espalier frame for it? For an answer we turned to Alan Uchida, the nurseryman at Bellefontaine in Pasadena. He writes: Espalier is a technique for growing plants against a flat, vertical surface. Among the benefits is an abundance of fruit in a relatively small space.

The California bullet train agency on Thursday defended its bidding criteria for selecting the winner for its first construction contract, saying that the process held down prices and was handled properly. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has come under fire from critics who assert changes to the bidding criteria could jeopardize the quality of the project. The authority tentatively chose a team led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to build a 29-mile segment of track through Fresno even though it had the lowest technical score.