Transportation

WASHINGTON - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former lawmaker from Illinois and the last Republican left in President Obama's first-term Cabinet, announced Tuesday he was stepping down once a replacement was confirmed. Among those mentioned as a possible successor is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose second and final term ends June 30. He has sought to establish himself as a national leader on transportation and made improving L.A.'s transit system a cornerstone of his tenure.

WASHINGTON -- Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the last Republican left in President Obama's Cabinet, announced Tuesday he is stepping down. In a note to department staff, LaHood said he would remain at the helm until a replacement is confirmed to ensure "a smooth transition for the department and all the important work we still have to do. " The former seven-term congressman from Peoria, Ill., has led the department since 2009 and was not expected to stay on through a second term.

MOSCOW - Russia is sending two airplanes to evacuate scores of its citizens from longtime ally Syria, Moscow said Monday, in the latest signal that the Kremlin may be preparing for the collapse of President Bashar Assad's government. The airplanes will fly to neighboring Lebanon on Tuesday and transport more than 100 people back to Russia, a spokeswoman for the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry told Russian media. The evacuees are reportedly mostly women and children. Russia has already disclosed contingency plans for a massive naval evacuation of thousands of its nationals living in Syria.

Los Angeles County transportation officials have released the final version of their analysis of alternatives for closing the so-called 710 gap between Alhambra and Pasadena, setting the stage for more vigorous environmental review. The analysis by the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority focuses on five options - down from an initial 39 - for reducing traffic and providing better transportation access in the area between the end of the 710 Freeway in Alhambra and the 210 Freeway in Pasadena.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -   Two veteran police officers broke down on the stand Monday morning as they described the horrific crime scene at a suburban movie theater where a gunman opened fire on spectators, leaving a bloody trail of bodies. Aurora police officer Justin Grizzle said he entered the theater where “The Dark Knight Rises” was still playing on the screen and saw people screaming for help, some covered in blood as they desperately sought safety. Fighting back tears, Grizzle said that he slipped on something slick as he tried to make his way into the theater, only later realizing it was blood.

Los Angeles County transit officials Thursday budgeted $6.78 million more for improvements on the Blue Line - one of the busiest light-rail lines in the nation, with 26 million riders annually and a history of accidents and fatalities. There have been eight deaths along the Blue Line so far this year, at least four of which were suicides, according to Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials. The most recent fatality occurred Thursday about 12:45 a.m., when officials said a woman apparently tried to swerve her Hyundai around lowered gate arms at a crossing in Compton and was struck by a Blue Line train.

When Sheyenne Reyes was growing up in Riverside she could always find a seat on the public bus. Reyes is 21 now, and while waiting for the Route 1 line to take her to work last week, the college student lamented that these days the bus often "gets too crowded to the point where some people have to stand up - they stumble a little bit" as the bus rushes from one stop to another. Standing nearby with his wife and infant daughter, 24-year-old Trayvor Chandlis said that he's looking for work and that his family rides the bus because of high gas prices.

After decades of debate, Orange County transportation officials have finally and formally killed plans to build a bridge across the Santa Ana River, a span that would have been a new link between Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach. The Orange County Transportation Authority board voted unanimously late Monday to remove the proposed 19th Street Bridge from the county's master plan, where it has been since the 1950s. The bridge would have connected Costa Mesa's 19th Street to Huntington Beach's Banning Avenue, potentially relieving traffic on the river's other crossings.

CAIRO - The Egyptian transportation minister resigned Saturday after 49 children were killed on their way to school in southern Egypt in a collision between their bus and a train. The state-run news agency said a total of 51 people died in all in the accident near Mandara village in Assiut province. Another 16 were injured. Before submitting his resignation and taking responsibility for the crash, Transportation Minister Mohamed Rashad Metiny requested an investigation by the national Railways System.

As one of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory "rocket boys," engineer Herman Bank had already helped launch the Space Age when wobbly surfboards strapped atop his station wagon in the early 1960s led him to another design frontier. After securing his cargo alongside a Los Angeles freeway, Bank puzzled over how to make the era's nearly 10-foot-long boards easier to transport. A son who surfed persuaded him that the answer was to slice them in two. By 1966, Bank had come up with a way to cut a surfboard in half so it could be taken apart for travel and bolted back together at the beach.