Zoo

To the man suing the city of Los Angeles over how its zoo treats elephants, Billy endures a miserable existence. The Asian elephant has spent much of his 27 years at the zoo in Griffith Park. He's now overweight and plagued by cracked toes and weary joints, plaintiff Aaron Leider alleged in court documents. Billy bobs his head for hours, which some experts say is a sign of emotional turmoil, and he's sexually frustrated for months at a time. Billy's maladies - and what may have caused them - will be debated at length this week in a trial that began Monday in downtown Los Angeles.

New concrete barriers are being erected along elevated stretches of a New York City roadway after a weekend crash that killed seven members of a family. The accident occurred when the family's SUV toppled over one of the original railings and crashed upside-down into the Bronx Zoo . As transit workers continued their work Thursday morning on the Bronx River Parkway, relatives were preparing for a wake in the afternoon and a funeral Friday for the dead; they ranged from an 85-year-old grandfather to his 3-year-old granddaughter.

Seven members of a single family, including grandparents visiting from Dominican Republic and their 3-year-old granddaughter, were killed when the SUV in which they were riding skidded across three lanes of traffic and plunged off a highway nearly 60 feet into Bronx Zoo property. Sunday's fatal crash was the second time in a year that a vehicle has tumbled over the Bronx River Parkway guardrails, which are about 4 feet high. The Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr., planned to meet with transit officials Monday, and said he would raise the issue of the height of the parkway's guardrails, at least in some sections.

It hasn't always been smooth sailing for Alex the lion and Marty the zebra, the pals at the center of the "Madagascar" animated films, but for two Central Park Zoo animals, they've certainly had their share of adventures. After washing ashore on the titular island in the first film and crash-landing in the wilds of the African mainland in the second, Alex and Marty, voiced by Ben Stiller and Chris Rock, respectively, find themselves back among civilization in"Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted," which opens June 8. In taking up with a European traveling circus hoping to make it big in the U.S., Alex, Marty and their compatriots may have found their best, though riskiest, chance yet to return to the zoo. "A lot of it is about going home," Stiller said in a joint phone call with Rock from New York.

A plan to expand the Los Angeles Police Department by adding public safety officers from another city agency would leave 37 fewer officers to patrol the city's libraries, parks, buildings and zoo, officials said Friday. Under the proposal, which drew objections from several city employee labor unions during a City Council committee meeting, the LAPD would assume control of scores of sworn police and civilian security officers now working for the General Services Department. About 40 transferred General Services officers would give up their assignments and become full-fledged LAPD officers.

Pina Available on VOD April 6 Prior to the death of legendary choreographer Pina Bausch in 2009, she and director Wim Wenders had been collaborating on a performance film, which Wenders then re-fashioned into "Pina," as a sort of testimonial. Working in collaboration with Bausch's troupe, Wenders breaks up lengthy dance routines with interviews about the choreographer's spiritual, aesthetic and personal influence on her employees. These interviews are understandably sappy, and they prevent the dances from developing as they would onstage; but Bausch's work is still stunning, with staging that involves the addition of obstacles such as dirt, rocks and water to the dance floor.

HONG KONG — It's a warm, humid day halfway into the city's International Film Festival, and Edwin — a rising Indonesian indie filmmaker with his single name born of tradition rather than manufactured Hollywood artifice — is trying to explain how he shapes the aesthetic of his films. It all begins with a single image. For "Postcards From the Zoo," an ethereal fairy-tale-like story of a child abandoned at Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo that is in competition, it was raindrops on an elephant's hide.

The Los Angeles Zoo is opening a snazzy new home for reptiles and amphibians today, a $14-million condominium complex for Mexican beaded lizards, Rowley's palm vipers, radiated tortoises and other creatures that slither and croak. The LAIR — the acronym for Living Amphibians, Invertebrates and Reptiles — was five years in the making and will be one of just a few reptile houses to open in North America in the last decade. "We've got one of the best in the nation," zoo Director John Lewis said as workers prepared by cleaning display windows, planting feathery ferns, adjusting temperature and humidity controls and using metal hooks to place venomous snakes carefully into their spacious new homes.

For the record: Yes, that was Newt Gingrich at the San Diego Zoo on Tuesday for a 90-minute behind-the-scenes tour. Gingrich was in the area raising money for his bid for the Republican presidential nomination but found time to visit the zoo, including feeding a young panda, looking at elephants, polar bears and tigers, and posing for pictures with zoo staffers. Gingrich has made other visits to the zoo and Safari Park, including a sleepover at the park's Snore and Roar program.

Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly fight over how it ought to be done in "Carnage. " George Clooney in "The Descendants," Matt Damon in "We Bought a Zoo" and Sandra Bullock in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" are worried about doing it alone. Viola Davis does it for other people in "The Help. " Demián Bichir does it as an immigrant in "A Better Life. " Nick Nolte is trying to do it over sober in "Warrior. " And Tilda Swinton has blood-soaked proof that she has done it all terribly wrong in "We Need to Talk About Kevin.