Transport

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

During eight years in office, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa staked much of his legacy on transportation. He lobbied Washington for millions of dollars in federal funding. He oversaw the addition of 150 miles of bike lanes. And, five years ago, he won voter approval of Measure R, the countywide half-cent sales tax expected to raise more than $30 billion over 30 years for a dozen new transportation projects. The challenge for the next mayor, experts say, will be the nuts and bolts: repaving the city's broken streets and sidewalks, completing a surge of bus and rail projects and securing more transportation funding.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

Dear Liz: A few years ago I finished paying off my debt and now am in the very low-risk credit category. I have savings equal to about three months' worth of bills and am working to get that to six months' worth. I'm wondering, though, about an emergency that may require me to pay in cash (such as a major power outage that disables debit or credit card systems, or the more likely event that I forget the ATM or credit card at home). How much cash should a person have on hand? Is there a magic number?

by Cynthia MacDonald (Knopf: $14.95). Cynthia MacDonald has been a maverick among poets. Her fans and detractors alike are surprised by each new occurrence in her work--her verses have seemed more like events than poems. No one else writes quite like her. Her work is a circus of variety: If one poem is surrealistic, the next is unrelentingly literal; if a few are "Orphic journeys," others are self-igniting cartoons.

Cuba's transport minister and one of 10 vice presidents of the Council of Ministers, Diocles Torralbas, has been removed from his job for "personal behavior," the official newspaper Granma said today. Diplomats said the phrasing could point to a serious case of corruption. Granma did not say whether Torralbas, who fought alongside President Fidel Castro in the rebel army before the 1959 revolution, has been given another job. The Communist Party Politburo proposed the dismissal.

Diocles Torralbas, Cuba's transport minister, has been removed from his job for "personal behavior," the official newspaper Granma said Tuesday. Diplomats said the phrasing could point to corruption. Granma did not say whether Torralbas, who fought alongside President Fidel Castro in the rebel army before the 1959 revolution, was given another job. It said the Communist Party Politburo proposed the dismissal.

A false report of a road rage incident in Contra Costa County on Tuesday led authorities on a search for kidnappers before they figured out they were dealing with a case involving the transport of an illegal immigrant. About 2:30 p.m., the California Highway Patrol responded to calls of an accident caused by angry drivers on California 4 in Concord, according to Officer Tom Maguire. Officers discovered a 1996 green Mercury Sable wagon in the eastbound lanes near Solano Way, he said.

With the debate on medical marijuana still at a full boil in Los Angeles, a judge Friday ordered the return of 60 pounds of pot to a man after his attorneys successfully argued that a state law gave him the right to transport it. Saguro Doven, 33, was initially charged with possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of the drug, a violation of the state's health and safety code. The marijuana was bundled in individual bags that were tucked inside a larger duffel bag when Doven was pulled over on the 101 Freeway by a California Highway Patrol officer, according to court records.

I thought you might enjoy some history on the creation of the sauce spoon ["Sauce Spoon Sighting!" Aug. 24]. This fabulous sauce spoon was launched in 1950 in the Paris restaurant Lasserre. Its raison d'etre was very specific. It was created to transport delicious French sauce, usually from the fish course, from a flat plate to the diner's lips -- without the use of bread. In these times, I think we can call it the low-carb spoon! EVEMARIE EYDE National retail director for North America, Christofle

OAKLAND - State and regional transportation officials announced plans Wednesday for a retrofit to the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge that will cost up to $10 million and effectively do the job of nearly 100 massive bolts that failed earlier this year. Questions remain, however, about whether the world's largest single-tower, self-anchored suspension span will open on Labor Day weekend as planned. The new span will replace the one that partially collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Stanley A. Dashew, an inventor and entrepreneur who helped revolutionize the credit card industry, died of natural causes Thursday in Los Angeles, according to a family spokesman. He was 96. Dashew held 40 patents in fields as diverse as credit card processing, mining, mass transit, medical equipment and offshore oil transportation. He also was an avid sailor, writer and photographer who late in life wrote for the Christian Science Monitor and the Huffington Post. At 94, he distilled his insights about life and business in a book, "You Can Do It: Inspiration and Lessons from an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Sailor.

Some brought children. Some brought friends. Alden Delos Santos brought Chihuahuas. Delos Santos, 41, carried his puppies Bianco and Sriracha in a front pack as he joined as many as 150,000 other bicycle riders Sunday along a downtown-to-the-ocean path of streets that were closed to car traffic for the occasion. It was the sixth and biggest CicLAvia, a celebration of cycling, walking, in-line skating, skateboarding, scootering and any other form of transportation that requires no motor.

It seems like an epidemic: Drivers talking and texting. Now federal regulators have put a number to the dangerous habit. At any given time, about 660,000 drivers are texting, tweeting, talking or otherwise preoccupied with their cellphones while speeding along the freeways or crawling through downtowns and suburban neighborhoods. That's more people than live in Baltimore. "There is no way to text and drive safely," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, whose agency released the survey results Friday.

Dan Turner, a Times editorial writer for nearly a decade who was known for his sharply witty observations on a broad range of subjects, died Saturday at his Los Angeles home. He was 49. The cause was pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed two years ago, said his wife, Jocelyn. "No matter what the subject - and no matter how nerdy - he approached it with the same extraordinary voice and sense of humor," Nicholas Goldberg, editor of The Times' editorial pages, said in an e-mail to the staff announcing Turner's death.

A trade group for the world's airlines is pushing to modernize a decades-old booking system to help speed along the latest airline trend - the sale of customized fare packages. Behind the effort is the International Air Transport Assn., the trade group for about 240 of the world's largest airlines. The group filed an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation last week to upgrade the computer system used by travel agents and online travel sites such as Orbitz and Travelocity.

The Camino de Santiago in northwestern Spain is an ancient pilgrimage trail that leads to the shrine of the Apostle St. James in the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela . Today travelers come for the spiritual and cultural value as well as the beauty of the landscape. Fresco Tours, which leads treks along the route, is discounting an April tour by 22% for those who book by Tuesday. The deal: The "Catch a 22% Discount" offer applies to a 10-day tour that starts April 5 in the town of Leon and ends at the cathedral.

Anti-government mobs looted stores and burned gas stations and cars Wednesday to protest skyrocketing transport costs and demand the resignation of Nigeria's military ruler, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration issued a travel advisory Friday: Because of a budget standoff in Washington, flights will be delayed. That was the message Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood delivered at the daily White House briefing as he outlined the impact that across-the-board budget cuts would have on air travel, a drumbeat he acknowledged was aimed by the administration at Republicans in Congress. "I would describe my presence here with one word - Republican," LaHood said of the White House.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Friday that he plans to stay mayor until the end of his term June 30, an announcement aimed at ending talk of him taking a post as President Obama's secretary of Transportation. "I have said many times that I will be focused on my job as mayor of Los Angeles until 11:59 and 59 seconds on June 30, 2013," Villaraigosa said in a prepared statement. "I am flattered and humbled by the speculation that has included my name for a possible Cabinet secretary position, but I am firmly committed to remaining in L.A. and finishing my term.