Vacations

Four men have been arrested on suspicion of burglarizing the homes of Los Angeles Times newspaper subscribers who were on vacation, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The burglars allegedly stole $1 million in property over the last three years. Detectives said one of the suspects obtained lists of subscribers who had submitted "vacation holds" to a vendor that distributes newspapers for The Times. Officials said they have identified 25 victims but believe there are more than 100. Sgt. Michael Maher of the sheriff's Major Crimes Bureau said most of the break-ins occurred along the 210 Freeway in eastern L.A. County and western San Bernardino County.

Voters across Los Angeles are poised to engineer the biggest shake-up on the City Council in a dozen years, sending seven newcomers into office in a series of contests that will unfold from March through July. Although the mayoral campaign has grabbed most of the attention this election year, with millions raised by the five leading candidates, the stakes are just as high for the city's powerful 15-member legislative body. Term limits and other factors -- illness and the election of a sitting councilman to higher office -- have created the largest number of incumbent-free council races in more than a decade.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Jan. 27 - Feb. 2, 2013 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES The Graham Norton Show:   Denzel Washington, Nicholas Hoult and Bill Bailey appear on the comedy variety series (7:15 and 10:15 p.m. BBC America). Saturday Night Live:   Adam Levine hosts with musical guest Kendrick Lamar (11:29 p.m. NBC). SPECIALS Maz Jobrani : I Come in Peace: This new special features the Iranian-American comic's spot-on observations about race relations, Islamophobia and more (8:30 p.m. Showtime)

The cheapest airfare in Lufthansa's ski season sale goes to ... Moscow. OK, not exactly a ski hub, but there is snow -- and savings. Sale prices from L.A. to Moscow start at $685 round-trip.  The deal: There are lots of destinations in this Lufthansa sale, but none that I could find as low as the Moscow airfares. Testing selected dates, I found availability for L.A. to Dusseldorf, Germany, for $795 round-trip. It all depends on where you're going and when you're traveling to find the deal fares.

Pali Mountain Retreat & Conference Center, 30778 State Route 18, Running Springs; (909) 867-5743, http://www.paliretreat.com . Retreat packages (open to groups of 25 or more) range from about $70 to $120 per person per night (including bunkhouse bed and cafeteria meals). Rocky's Roadhouse, 32150 Hilltop Blvd., Running Springs; (909) 939-0501, http://www.facebook.com/RockysRoadhouseRS . Sandwiches and salads up to about $9. Patio in back. Bear Mountain, http://www.bearmountain.com . In Big Bear Lake about 100 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Question: We recently moved out of a house that we were renting. Our lease stated that the tenant was required to have the home and carpets professionally cleaned upon vacancy. We offered the landlady $350 from our deposit to hire a company to clean the house to her liking. When we received our refund, we saw that she deducted this amount from our security deposit. However, by then I had driven back to our rental to pick up my remaining boxes. When I was there, I saw that our landlady had painters repainting the entire house.

Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue on Tuesday overturned the case against the New Orleans Saints players involved in the bountygate scandal, vacating all discipline against them. Tagliabue, appointed to hear the latest round of player appeals, said that even though he affirms the factual findings of Commissioner Roger Goodell, and that those findings could justify fines, “this entire case has been contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints' organization.” “Unlike Saints' broad organizational misconduct, player appeals involve sharply focused issues of alleged individual player misconduct in several different aspects,” Tagliabue said in a written statement.

As an information technology supervisor at Pitzer College, Dennis Crowley had so much work to do last year that he finished 2011 without using nearly five of his paid vacation days. “And to be frank, I was too busy to even realize I was losing time,” he said. Crowley's situation is not unusual. A survey by Harris Interactive found that by the end of 2012, Americans will leave an average of 9.2 days of vacation unused, up from 6.2 days last year. Nearly 90% of respondents said they would take more leisure trips on their vacation if they had the time and money to do so, according to the survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, commissioned by the travel website Hotwire.

As an information technology supervisor at Pitzer College in Claremont, Dennis Crowley had so much work to do last year that he finished 2011 without using nearly five days of paid vacation. "And to be frank, I was too busy to even realize I was losing time," he said. Crowley's situation is not unusual. A survey by Harris Interactive Inc. found that by the end of 2012, Americans will leave an average of 9.2 days of vacation unused, up from the average of 6.2 days in 2011. Nearly 90% of those questioned said they would take more leisure trips on their vacation if they had the time and money to do so, according to the survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults that was commissioned by travel website Hotwire.

When it's time to look back on the high school career of South East quarterback Jonathan Santos, people will remember him as the teenager who was so poised and unyielding at a time of adversity that he inspired teammates and coaches alike. South Gate South East (11-1) has made it to the City Section Division II semifinals Friday night against San Fernando even though its coach was fired early in the season, its principal was briefly removed and 10 players were suspended, then reinstated, for an alleged hazing incident.