Undercover

Average employee pay at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power rose 15% over the last five years, despite an economic slump that ravaged the city's budget, records released Tuesday show. DWP workers received significantly more generous pay increases than other city workers, who received an average raise of 9% over the same period. The median household income for Los Angeles residents - the public utility's customers - fell over roughly the same period, from $48,882 in 2008 to $46,148 in 2011, the latest year for which U.S. census numbers are available.

REMEMBERING HER DAYS AS A young girl--"No one would have accused me of being a happy child"--Leslie Abramson has an enduring memory of her favorite means of escape. After school, at the corner luncheonette, she'd buy button candies and chocolate marshmallow twists (two for a nickel) and spend hours at the comic-book racks, reading. Mad magazine was good for a giggle. But it was the spooky stuff, the horror comics like "Tales From the Crypt," that she really loved. And hated, too.

In another life, William Fulton was "Drop Zone Bill," a bounty hunter who ran a military surplus store in Anchorage. You need a tactical vest? A bayonet that would clip neatly onto an M-4? Bill Fulton was your man. "We do bad things to bad people," his company jackets said. Fulton was also a go-to guy for Republican politicians who occasionally needed to reach out to the far right fringes of the party - those who spent weekends in the woods in camo gear and considered the 2nd Amendment an expression of divine intent.

Federal agents seized four F-14 Tomcat fighters in San Bernardino County on Tuesday -- three from airplane museums -- after investigators determined that the jets were not demilitarized and were improperly sold or transferred to private companies, including the producer of the TV show "JAG," authorities said.

EVERYBODY IN LA JOLLA knew the Brodericks. Daniel T. Broderick III and his wife, Betty, seemed to have a classic society-page marriage. Dan was a celebrity in local legal circles. Armed with degrees from both Harvard Law School and Cornell School of Medicine, the prominent malpractice attorney was aggressive, persuasive and cunning--a $1-million-a-year lawyer at the top of his game.

In Tijuana, schoolchildren get lessons on how to duck during gangland shootouts. Ciudad Juarez cops patrol with military escorts, and the morgue there is spilling over with gunshot victims. But here in Mexicali, people fear the desert sun more than drug hit men. The city of 700,000 has a homicide rate comparable to that of Wichita, Kan., and one of the biggest police deployments is Operation Beat the Heat, in which officers haul blocks of ice to shantytown residents. There hasn't been a bank robbery in Mexicali in 18 months, or a reported kidnapping in a year.

Gardena police are taking law enforcement in a new direction: Instead of just tailing the bad guys, they're tracking the good ones. Using a system like the one used to recover stolen cars, Gardena is monitoring the movement of its patrol cars, prisoner transport vehicle and undercover detectives. It is the first law enforcement agency in the nation to use the high-tech system to follow its police force. "I feel more comfortable using Teletrac," said Officer Nick Pepper.

WASHINGTON - The CIA on Tuesday disclosed the names of 15 of its operatives killed in the line of duty over the last 30 years, the result of a new effort to honor fallen officers whose sacrifices had long gone unrecognized by all but a few. Fourteen of the dead already had a star inscribed in their memory on the CIA's wall of honor in the lobby of the old headquarters building on the agency's Langley, Va., campus. But their names had been withheld. In a closed agency ceremony Monday their names were added to the Book of Honor, which accompanies the stars.

Shawn Robbins, psychic, author and mail-order entrepreneur, has turned her big hazel eyes toward Wall Street since the stock market has become so volatile. A shaky market is good for people in her line of work, she says. "For psychics," she says, "the market is boring when it's good, but now is the chance to really shine with psychic abilities. This is a good time to go to a 'reputable psychic.' "Be careful, though. This is not the time to go to Madame Ripoff on the corner with your portfolio.