This train runs from the 7th Street Metro Station Downtown out west to La Cienega & Jefferson, running right through USC’s station at Exposition Park; where one of four grand opening celebrations was held on Saturday.

“We are trying to get to all of our community.” Jacqueline Martinez is a community relations officer for the Metro.  And joined by her many co-workers; they handed out information pamphlets to garner interest in the new train line.  “We just want the community to come out and support the system, get out and ride the system.  A lot of people have never been on a train before, so this is our way of saying come have fun, use the system, and it is a great thing to do,” she said.

Gerri Williams is from Pasadena and plans on taking the Expo line often.  She also decided to take part in the festivities of opening weekend.  “I am enjoying it very good.  The music is good and it is nice to be outside and seeing all the venders that are here, and being out in the sun!”

And Martinez is convinced that this is a smart and necessary move by the city of Los Angeles.

“I think it is a great step forward for LA.  It is connecting us to the Westside, one day Santa Monica.  People can get to the museums, to USC.  Students, they can get here to campus and explore museums.  It is just going to get us closer to things that a lot of Angelenos don’t even know exist.”

This weekend is the time to try out the train. Passengers can ride for free over the weekend.

Members of Martin’s family as well as Reverend Jesse Jackson, Magic Johnson and Stevie Wonder were on the guest list.  Still the overall attendance was much less than what West LA native Bobbie Betts expected. “There a lot of people who can’t get here.  But it means we need more,” she said.

Although several people attendance including Betts were wearing “I am Trayvon Martin” shirts, Betts said tonight’s event was not just about Martin’s death.

“Here is a meeting of community people who believe in justice.  That’s what we’re here for,” Betts said.  “To demand justice and to look at the question of justice and to look at what’s happening not just in Los Angeles but across the country 10 years after the last riot and things have not gotten any better.”

But people at the event had more than just justice on their mind.  As the congregation waited to enter the church, dozens of Walmart protesters paced up and down with petitions advocating for workers rights. There were also solicitors for the United Workers, Occupy LA, and the Militant - a socialist newspaper.

James Harris is running for U.S. Senate with the United Socialist Party. Harris said racism within the police department killed Martin and hundreds of other dark-skinned teens.

“We live in a city where police brutality, despite what they’re saying about the change to LA,” said Harris.  “The only thing that’s really changed is that policing tactics have become more efficient and more brutal.  You can turn on the TV any night and watch them actually shoot somebody down in the streets.”

Jeffrey Koontz calls himself a community activist and he said racism has nothing to do with Martin’s death. “That has nothing to do with black bad blood.  That has everything to do with ignorance,” Kootz said.  “You just don’t shoot someone in the back because you think he looks intimidating.”

Zimmerman was recently arrested and charged with second-degree murder but Betts is not satisfied.

“I’m not sure what to expect from that,” she said.  “I think he’ll probably slide through.” The date of Zimmerman’s trial has not yet been set.

It’s a landmark and a piece of history, but these days, it’s something else entirely: a recreation center.

“When I was told that I was coming here, I had no idea what this place was, so I said give me the address let me find out what this is so I driven up here and I said ‘it’s an actual house!’” said Carlton Stubbs, Recreation Coordinator at the South Seas House.

Stubbs’ job was to create unique programs for the unique house. The most popular include summer camp and computer classes. It’s a tight-nit group of kids, many of whom Stubbs’ hires back as counselors. Todd Hightower has been working there for six years. He says the South Seas House feels like home to all of the people who visit it.

“I grew up in the neighborhood so it kinda feels good to still be working in the neighborhood and it’s kinda good to be giving back,” said Hightower.

Joseph Depuy built the home in 1902 and it stayed in his family until the 1970s. The city bought it for a street-widening project that would never happen. When plans took shape to demolish the house in the mid-90s, the community stepped in. Laura Meyers formed the South Seas House Action Committee with many other members of the community. She says saving the house became something more during a turbulent time in Los Angeles history.

“It became a symbol if you could rebirth the house you can rebirth the community,” said Meyes.

After a $1.5 million dollar restoration, the South Seas House reopened as a recreation center in 2003. With the house revitalized, the surrounding area followed. The park next door became a place for families instead of gang members. Stubbs’ says in all his time working at different centers in the city, he’s never seen so much commitment from a community.

“A lot of what went into this house was community driven. A lot of love was put into it by the community so they have a stake in it, which is how all communities should be,“ said Stubbs.

Today, the South Seas House looks exactly the same as it did in 1902, but with a fresh coat of blue paint and yellow trim and with a few more kids running around.

For former LAPD chief Bernard C. Parks, it’s a simple answer.

“It’s a riot,” Parks said. “Whenever you have people come out in those numbers of civil disobedience, and basically begin to loot stores and people get killed and injured, I don’t know how you could call it anything but a riot.”

At the time, it was undeniably a riot. Immediately following the verdict, angry Angelenos set fire to buildings, exchanged gunshots and looted stores. The weeklong commotion left 53 dead, thousands injured and more than a thousand buildings destroyed. The city incurred nearly a billion dollars in damages.

However, when considering the mayhem in retrospect, calling it a “riot” glosses over the “very serious issues that existed in those communities, and in fact, still exist,” said Professor Leland Saito, who teaches sociology at the University of Southern California.

“[By] calling the Civil Unrest of 1992 a riot, you’re focusing on the behavior of some of these individuals,” Saito explained. “And clearly, the looting, burning down businesses, there was this kind of behavior occurring. But what that ignores though is what were some of the root causes of the civil unrest.”

The issues serving as the undertone of the 1992 events include massive deindustrialization, high unemployment, lack of adequate housing, lack of adequate health care and a broken educational system, Saito said.

But to Dr. Anthony Samad, a renowned commentator and professor of political science and African American studies at East Los Angeles College, the term “civil unrest” is a government term that tries to revise the true events in retrospect.

“The ‘civil unrest’ term came out of the mayor’s office, city council and police,” Samad said. “They don’t like to use terms like riots because riots essentially show dissatisfaction or democratic disability. ‘Riots’ represents a term that shows that both government and the social establishment is out of control.”

Samad said he alternates between “riot” and “rebellion” to describe what happened that week—“depending on what side of the fence you were on or your racial, cultural prism.”

While the term “riot” sufficiently captures the experiences of Korean merchants who incurred the brunt of the looting and damages, the black community largely calls it rebellion, he said.

“At the end of the day, [with] the police being let off for beating Rodney King, [it] was an act of frustration that represented a rebellion of ‘justice’,” Samad said.

The term “riots” also highlights the spontaneity of the events that overtook the streets, he added. Had the police been convicted on April 29, 1992, it may not have left such an indelible mark in L.A.’s history.

“There may have been some underlying symptoms, but what caused the event of April 29 was the verdict,” he said. “We can frame these things in traditional lexicon but at the end of the day, riots happen on a spontaneous basis.”

But are these terms—riots, civil unrest, rebellion— mutually exclusive? Is one more correct than another?

“I think all the terms describe part of something that happened in ’92,” said Joanne Kim, chief operating officer of Community Coalition, a south LA organization. “I don’t want to put too much in a name. It’s a label. It’s not just the name but in how we reflect upon what happened in ‘92.”

That’s why Community Coalition prefers the term “civil unrest”, Kim said.

“There was chaos and rioting going on for sure,” she said. “But as an organization working on improving the quality of life in south L.A., I think it’s important to focus on the social and economic conditions that led to the civil unrest and the reactions. Not just to the verdict, but all of the injustices that led up to it. It [was] a reflection of people’s anger, people’s frustration [and] people’s hopelessness.”

She added: “But if we choose to focus on the rioting and the mayhem and the opportunism which definitely was there, then we’ve kind of lost the opportunity to turn this tragedy into an opportunity to better ourselves as a society.”

“There’s another one, hi love. How’s it going? Doing fine,” said a walker to another.

The Rancho Cienega track was built for the 1984 Olympics, today it is bringing people together from all over Los Angeles.

Willie Holmes started walking in 1959 after his doctor told him it would fix his knee problems.

“He said all you got to do is exercise and I said I am. He said you ain’t doing enough. I haven’t had a problem since. The older you get the more exercise you got to do more exercise than you ever did in your life and when you start getting old, but a lot of people don’t understand that,”said Holmes.

Today Holmes, who is 81 years old, spends every morning at the track from 7 to 11. He does 16 hundred steps three days a week, and walks a mile on the others. Afterwards you will find him underneath the big tree in the corner eating a healthy breakfast of bananas and pecans, and helping stretch or massage other walkers. He pointed out one man in particular who he helped with arthritis.

He helped rub out Daniel Brown’s knee, who is better known as Mr. Brown at the track. He has been walking there for ten years.

“I retired on Friday and came our here Monday, and started walking. I’ve been walking ever since,”said Brown.

He’s been making friends, like Willie Holmes, since he started walking at Rancho Cienega.

“Everywhere I go I run into someone that I know, no matter what part of town I go in, I run into someone here who walk. They change clothes and don’t look the same and come up and speak and say oh I walk out there, we walk,” said Brown.

Mr. Brown walks a mile with his cane alongside his partners Joney Spencer and Trudy Wiggins.  They walk five days a week all year round. When they are done walking they sit on the bleachers and talk about life, sports, and health food.  Wiggins says they like to mingle with everyone who passes by.

“We introduce ourselves, we get to know them. So therefore there aren’t too many people who walk out here that we don’t know. We don’t care who they are, so we’re just like one big happy family out here, and if you want to be our family you got to come out here and walk a couple weeks and then we let you get in the family,”said Wiggins.

This group of seniors does not go unnoticed by other younger walkers at the track.

“They have done so much for the track, they keep us motivated to keep coming. I’m 54 and I’m the little boy here,”said a younger walker passing by.

The Rancho Cienega track and field is home to a very different kind of family. It’s become the one permanent fixture in many of the walker’s lives.

“A day without walking is a day like something went wrong, like the day’s not complete,”said Wiggings.

Everyone at the track agreed. When they don’t spend the day at the track, they spend it wishing they could be with the Rancho Cienega family.

With the deaths of Kendrec McDade and Trayvon Martin in the news, concerns about the nexus of race, law enforecement, and violence are also high on the list.  Eric Mann, a veteran organizer currently with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and one of the keynote speakers addressed the violence:

“There is no black man, apparently, who is not suspicious in US society...and there are so
many people in this room who could tell you heartbreaking stories of living while black…

Also speaking was Danny Park, a Korean-American labor organizer with the Korean Immigrant Workers’ Association.  He was in L.A. when the riots flared, and said the riots made many Korean-Americans reassess their communications within the community and with outside groups. 

“It was a huge wake-up call for everyone and I think that really did start a lot of organizing
effort and building—a re-building effort...”

How all that effort adds up depends a lot on younger people like Kevin Cosney, who attended the conference.  Cosney’s 25 and was growing up in the suburb of Simi Valley when the trials of the policemen charged with the beating Rodney King were held.  Cosney recalled the vivid contrast between the controlled quiet of Simi Valley and the wildness that flamed up in L.A.

“I remember seeing the city where I was at just kind of a lock-down… and then turning on the
TV and seeing the other side of the coin...”

Although he was only five years old at the time, Cosney was struck by images of what he describes as “violence on bodies of color.” He said life as a black man hasn’t been free of that violence.

In one relatively small incident, he said, he just happened to be in the company of someone the police thought they were interested in.

“[We were] coming out of a movie theater, and my friend fit a description.  I’m like, ‘Um, we
just got out of a movie’, and then [one cop] said, ‘I’m not talking to you!’, and that’s when I
got thrown up against the car.”

It’s incidents like that that made him want to work for California Calls, a community activist group.  And it’s why he attended the conference.

“There’s been times where I’ve felt anger.  But I also understand that anger doesn’t
change anything.  So it’s how do you funnel that anger into something...and I think that’s
where the passion I have for the work that I do comes from.”

That’s what the conference wants to achieve, to keep these kinds of conversations going, and to convert the anger, and the memory of the riots, into positive change.

Instead, this is the lobby of the new site of the Los Angeles County - USC Medical Center’s Violence Intervention Program, a clinic for child victims of sexual and physical abuse.

“It’s hard to explain it to people who were never here before,” said Dr. Astrid Heger, who founded the clinic in 1995 and has overseen its evolution ever since. “This was just so ugly. I couldn’t stand the fact that we had no place at this hospital that had grass.”

The Violence Intervention Program serves more than 20 thousand foster children, and any other victims, regardless of their ability to pay.

A year ago, however, it treated them from a windowless block surrounded by asphalt. Now, founder of women’s empowerment nonprofit Do A Little Deborah Santana believes the clinic is much more welcoming - beautiful, even.

“The artwork speaks for itself,” Santana said. “It’s from the community. This type of brilliant art is on these walls to bless everybody who comes in, because art heals, just as medicine heals.”

The paintings come from Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park. J. Michael Walker, a founding board member of the Studio, also painted two of the pieces hanging in the clinic.

“I think what’s important is that the artists be able to speak a language that communicates well to the audience. Whether they’re born in the same community, whether they live in the same geographic community or not, the important thing is that there’s a common language,” Walker said. “Everybody has a love of art. What’s missing is access to art.”

Heger directed the installation of a park with picnic tables outside the clinic several years ago. The renovated building that opened today will start serving its patients in mid-May. And now, she’s working with Doctor Larry Opas to turn it into something much, much bigger - what Opas calls a “medical village” able to treat patients from childhood until old age.

“That’s a very important concept in medicine right now, that every patient should have a medical home,” Opas said. “I have no problem with the medical home. But it was Astrid who said, you know, in my business, a home is not always the safest place… We want to create a medical village.”

That vision is still a dream.

But Heger turned her visionary clinic into today’s new building in just a year of donor-funded construction. Opas is confident that their latest goal will soon become reality, too.

Tags: Rosalie Murphy, LAC-USC Medical Center, Violence Intervention Program, community arts, visual arts, child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, health, medicine

The plan involves a 9-mile subway extension from the Wilshire-Western station to the Westwood-VA hospital, which could potentially get riders from Westwood to Downtown L.A. in just 25 minutes.

People like Anh Nguyen of the Central City Association believe this extension has been a long time coming.

“Businesses and residents on the Westside have long waited for dependable alternatives to transportation other than the use of a car,” Nguyen said, “and this project responds to that call.”

Supporters of the extension say that the building of seven new subway stops will add jobs to the economy.  However, there were dozens in attendance imploring the board to wait for all the data, which would show the dangers of their current plan.

“We understand that there are jobs involved.  We want those jobs,” said Michelle Rose, PTA President at Hawthorne Elementary.  “But we want safety for those workers as well as safety for our children.  Going under the high school where we aren’t sure what’s under there . . .  There’s oil saturation.  There [are] methane gas pockets.  [If] they get in there and start working and we have a collapse or a problem, it affects not just the workers, but our school, our building, and our children.”

Some believe that the board of directors is rushing the expansion process without fully checking all of the safety risks involved with putting subway tunnels under schools.  Mayor Villaraigosa assured skeptics that all necessary precautions would be taken on the project.

“We take the issue of safety very seriously, particularly the safety of children.  Safety, without question, will be one very important consideration.”

After today’s vote, the MTA Board of Directors will meet again in May to seek approval to begin initial construction.

Mayor Villaraigosa passed along this message to members of the USC community at USC’s Town and Gown ballroom this morning.

“What happened a few weeks ago, was something that not only effected the student body, but it really tore at the heartstrings of Angelinos all across the city.”

So as Police Chief...Charlie Beck...outlined, many safety adjustments are being made around the USC community, and it is all coming out of President Nikias’ pocket.

To begin with, 30 police officers will be permanently added to the Southwest division, which patrols the area around USC.

And 4 of these newly added officers will strictly monitor the area directly surrounding USC.

“Their task will be to make sure that the surrounding residential areas of SC, where so many students live, are safe.”

And although violence has decreased in the USC area by 27% over the last 2 years...Police Chief Beck is confident that these safety measures are a necessary precaution.

“This is an awful singular incident, but this is not the trend in the SC area.  This is not us trying to catch up, it is us addressing an awful singular incident, and there is nothing wrong with that.  It is important to the well-being to all of Los Angeles that USC is successful.”

Additionally, a detective and city attorney will be assigned to focus wholly on the USC area.

Finally, Police Chief Beck was asked about the ongoing investigation.

“I am pleased with the progress to date, I won’t predict when we will give an outcome, but I am confident in the detective and investigative process going forward.  We will reach a resolution on this.”

No new information has been released.

USC was used as a geographical reference point by the national news media for viewers unfamiliar with the Los Angeles area. The campus, however, remained unscathed. Meredith Goodwin was working in USC’s Development office at the time.

“There was no damage at all to the USC campus, except one rock was thrown through the window of one of the security booths, and that’s all,” Goodwin said. “And it was attributed to the relationships that USC had built with the local community people, plus great security.”

USC’s director of undergraduate admissions at the time, Duncan Murdoch, was hoping for an incoming freshman class of about 2500 students. At the time of the riots only 1,200 had committed. A phone bank was set up at Kaprielian Hall and a small group of alumni and staff called about half of the 8,200 admitted freshmen and their parents to assuage any fears they might have about the campus’ safety.

“My staff and I were, if we weren’t directly dialing students we were getting incoming calls from students who’d been admitted or parents of students,” Murdoch said.

USC ended up only 200 students short of its incoming goal.

“Well I think it was a major miracle that we ended up with that many [incoming] students in the end,” Murdoch said.

Students who could were encouraged to leave campus until the riots ended. Those who couldn’t were allowed to stay in campus housing and the Lyon Center. Campus cafeterias provided free food, barricades were set up at campus entrances and few were allowed in or out.

With confusion about finals and the safety of returning to campus, the student newspaper, The Daily Trojan put out a special 8-page issue just days after the riots began. Mike Carlson, the incoming editor, toured the USC area with the paper’s photo editor.

“You know the Ralph’s I used to go get groceries at and it’s just been completely torn apart. And you know Eddie was along shooting photos and I’m kinda talking to the manager of the store and I suppose if we wanted to we could have picked up a thing of sugar too and walked out the door too.”

Carlson believes it wasn’t an accident that USC was untouched by the riots.

“At least talking to people in the community when I was out and about I got the impression that they saw USC as an asset, an institution that was doing things for the neighborhood, for the community and so why would they really want to destroy it or hurt it in any way,” Carlson said.

Many students were worried about going on campus to take finals. Though the University ultimately made finals optional, outgoing Daily Trojan editor Robin Rauzi remembers the students’ concern.

“You would think that you could sort of put that aside when there’s clearly a crisis of this magnitude going on around you, but at the same time you don’t want to be the person who wasn’t paying attention and therefore fails your psychology class,” Rauzi said.

There was speculation the graduation ceremony would be cancelled, but with national guard troops on the Doheny Library roof and helicopters in the sky, the commencement went on as scheduled.

“I would see the graduating seniors in their robes and their parents were with them and they would go and they would pose with the national guard fellow behind them with a rifle slung over their shoulders,” Goodwin said. “And at first that was a real shock to me and then I thought ‘you know, imagine showing your grandchildren this photo.’ Here you are graduating and there’s a guy with a gun over his shoulder protecting you and thats what it was like when you were at school.”

With this year’s commencement just around the corner, we can consider ourselves lucky that students will be thinking more about their next step in life rather than the anger and violence around them.

“He was a good kid, never been in any trouble, never been arrested, never been suspended from school,” said Shaw.

Espinoza is a member of the 18th Street gang and an undocumented immigrant. He had been released from county jail on gun charges just one day before Shaw was shot. 23-year-old Espinoza now faces the death penalty.

“Even though in California, what’s the odds of having the death penalty?"said Shaw.

The Shaw family has spent the four years between the arrest and the trial trying to get “Jamiel’s Law” on the city ballot. The law would allow police to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants if they have been identified as known gang members. Shaw Sr. says that if this had been in place four years ago, his son might still be alive.

“These are the ones that they need to protect us from. Criminals, killers, murderers, rapists. And they’re not doing it, because if they did, they would have had him because he’s three gun charges in a row, and you didn’t know he was in the country illegally?” said Shaw.

Opponents of Jamiel’s Law argue it could lead to racial profiling. The Jamiel’s Law petition failed to get the signatures needed in 2008 to be placed on the ballot. Shaw Sr. says they will continue to try to make Jamiel’s Law a reality as a way to honor the son who was taken from them too soon.

“MVP three years in a row, all city, getting recruited from Stanford, Rutgers, and a lot of small schools. The kind of kid you’d think would make it. You think he would have made it, but he didn’t of course,” said Shaw.

The juror pool will be cut down to 12 jurors and 6 alternates in the next few days. The trial is expected to take between two and half and four weeks.

Leon Partamian was the owner of Partamian Bakery for nearly 60 years.  But just before he passed away in 2006, he had a decision to make: Who would take over his beloved bakery?

With no family to pass down his legacy, Partamian chose the next closest thing: his two longtime assistants, Jose Gonzales and Francisco Rosales, who had been working for Partamian since 1975. 

“I learned from him to make all the stuff, the Armenian stuff,” Rosales said.  “They gave me all the secrets for the bread and everything.”

Rosales and Gonzales took over the bakery in 2006 and have been carrying Partamian’s legacy of great Armenian food including pita breads, baklava, and a favorite Armenian treat called Lahmajune.  Often called “Armenian Pizza,” Lahmajune is made with lamb meat, tomato, peppers, herbs, and spices.

The bakery’s Lahmajunes are so popular, Rosales and company are constantly making new batches throughout the day, and often sell them by the dozens. 

“I live in the Marina now,” said Barbara Kalegian, a regular at Partamian bakery, “but I still come here to get my Lahmajunes.”

Rosales and Gonzales grew up together in Zacatecas, Mexico, and have stuck together for over 40 years.

“I know him because we come from the same place in Mexico,” Rosales said.  “We went to school together, and he got married with my cousin; it’s a family.  I’ve known him forever.”

Rosales is grateful for Partamian passing down his shop, but says his former boss and mentor has done much more for him.

“He helped me a lot and Jose and everybody. He’s very good person, He helped me fix my green card, and my family’s.  He was very nice.”

With new owners, came a new name: F&J Partamian Bakery (F and J for Francisco and Jose).  But new name or not, business is as good as ever, thanks to the duo’s ability to replicate the famous recipes Partamian taught them all those years ago. 

“When he passed away, all the customers knew me,” Rosales said, “and everyone wants me to keep making the Lahmajunes because they say they don’t find them anywhere like these ones here.  And I feel good when they say that.”

Francisco’s name is already becoming synonymous with the popular bakery.

But he isn’t getting any younger. Like Partamian did for him, Rosales too will soon have to find someone new to take over the shop.

“I don’t know.  I’m getting old and tired,” said Rosales.  “So I hope someone in the family takes over when I leave the store.  Maybe my sons or maybe Jose’s sons take it over.”

Leon Partamian was a father-figure for Rosales, who hopes to keep the shop alive as long as he can, passing it down, generation to generation. 

“Like family, yeah.  That’s what it is.”

On the corner of Vermont and Wilshire, it seems like Alvarado barely notices his audience. And he preaches nonstop for hours. But he says that’s because his message is important.

“Jesus saved my life 20 years ago,” said Alvarado.

20 years ago Alvarado was a young man in Guatemala. A smoker, a drinker, and part of a gang. When a rival gang placed a price on his head, Alvarado was forced to flee. Alvarado told me that when saying goodbye to his mother for the last time:

“My mother told me, Carlos if you give me one present before you go to the US, accept the lord jesus, believe in the lord jesus and I am okay my son. And I cried, oh I cried.”

He’s kept his promise. Alvarado has preached every night for twenty years in South LA.

“Jesus told me go, tell everybody If I can change you I can change other people,” said Alvarado.

Los Angeles used to be a street preaching capitol. Preachers needed a permit and couldn’t preach within 75 feet of one another.

Now, Alvarado finds himself alone most of the time. Which brings its own safety issues. He says he’s been forced to the ground by the LAPD demanding he “show them the drugs.” And one time, a passerby tried to stab him. It’s a second job that’s in a word, exhausting.

“When I come home, I feel very tired but I feel very very good,” said Alvarado.

Alvarado ends his sermons with an invitation for everyone to be saved. His count of souls saved is 500. Well, 524 after tonight.
And even skeptics feel a change as Alvarado places his hands on their chests.

“I have never seen a street preacher in my entire life,” said one passerby.  “His energy was through the roof, there’s nothing like it when you have such a strong belief coursing through your veins.”

Alvarado will be on another street corner tomorrow night—the busier the better. He says car horns and buses are no match for the word of God.

Paul Cerula from Brand USA is part of a major effort to boost America’s image around the world, in a campaign that will feature broadcast, print, and digital ads aimed at luring visitors to the United States.

“We’re losing share, we’re being out-marketed by competitive countries, so the US has to get out there and show the world that we’re back in business.”

The negotiations and contracts signed this week by agents and foreign governments are generating future travel into the US, and could total upwards to the tune of 4.5 billion dollars. That’s why a new campaign was kicked off Monday morning, marketing the nation, globally.

Don Skeoch from the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention board says as far as he’s concerned, the efforts start now, in LA.

“It’s going to be huge for us. All these delegates, from all over the world, they’re booking business, and so we anticipate the economic impact long term to LA will be about 350 million. “

Skeoch says leaders understand the importance foreign travel dollars have on the local economy, and are working hard to extend LA’s presence globally.  And Skeoch says there’s one particular market that everyone is country is courting.

“China is taking off. A statistic that people don’t realize is there are more people in China that can afford to travel to the United States than the population of the United States. It’s remarkable.”

“We’re the number one dream destination for Chinese Travelers-- we’re one of the top destinations for Brazilians”

But Cathy Keefe, spokeswoman for the US Travel Association, says these travelers have enticing options like London or Paris.  So, the United States has to up its game to compete for tourists who help buy local economies as well as improved cultural understanding.

“International travelers currently spend more than a hundred billion dollars in the US, but we can see more of that. We can have more jobs, more money coming into the country, and at the same time, improve public diplomacy.”

Which is why Chief Marketing Officer for Brand USA, Chris Perkins, wants to fight fire with fire.

“We’ve got to stem the tide. Everyone else is spending enormous amounts of money to draw people to their market, so it’s time we start drawing people to ours.”

It’s a landmark and a piece of history, but these days, it’s something else entirely: a recreation center.

“When I was told that I was coming here, I had no idea what this place was, so I said give me the address let me find out what this is so I driven up here and I said ‘it’s an actual house!’” said Carlton Stubbs, Recreation Coordinator at the South Seas House.

Stubbs’ job was to create unique programs for the unique house. The most popular include summer camp and computer classes. It’s a tight-nit group of kids, many of whom Stubbs’ hires back as counselors. Todd Hightower has been working there for six years. He says the South Seas House feels like home to all of the people who visit it.

“I grew up in the neighborhood so it kinda feels good to still be working in the neighborhood and it’s kinda good to be giving back,” said Hightower.

Joseph Depuy built the home in 1902 and it stayed in his family until the 1970s. The city bought it for a street-widening project that would never happen. When plans took shape to demolish the house in the mid-90s, the community stepped in. Laura Meyers formed the South Seas House Action Committee with many other members of the community. She says saving the house became something more during a turbulent time in Los Angeles history.

“It became a symbol if you could rebirth the house you can rebirth the community,” said Meyes.

After a $1.5 million dollar restoration, the South Seas House reopened as a recreation center in 2003. With the house revitalized, the surrounding area followed. The park next door became a place for families instead of gang members. Stubbs’ says in all his time working at different centers in the city, he’s never seen so much commitment from a community.

“A lot of what went into this house was community driven. A lot of love was put into it by the community so they have a stake in it, which is how all communities should be,“ said Stubbs.

Today, the South Seas House looks exactly the same as it did in 1902, but with a fresh coat of blue paint and yellow trim and with a few more kids running around.

“It’s from Africa and Cuba, it’s Afro-Cuban,” Gastelum said. “We believe in Saints and we believe in spirits.”

Santeria, or “Way of the Saints” in Spanish, is dedicated to devotees building powerful relationships with mortal spirits called Orishas. Gastelum began practicing 35 years ago and has since become a high priest.

“We do a lot of ceremonies here too, spiritual, spiritual cleaning,” Gastelum said.

Gastelum opened her first Botanica in the Lynwood neighborhood of Los Angeles ten years ago. This shop in South Central was opened just last year. 

“When [customers] come in here, they ask me what is this store about? Because, they’re not familiar with the store and I tell them, this has to do with things of the religion and everything. They start asking me, ‘What do you see in me? What do you think,” Gastelum said.

There is nothing fortune-telling about Santeria; but Sonia says many customers come in seeking guidance.

Some studies report that nearly a million people practice Santeria in the United States alone; but, an accurate number is hard to know for sure due to the stigmas of practicing. One reason being that animal sacrifices are central to the religion.

“We sacrifice but we don’t make them suffer,” Gastelum said. “A lot of people these days, they’re not explaining it and they’re not understanding it. They hear the word “Santeria” and they think it’s devilish or something, but it isn’t. 

UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh says that state constitutions provide different levels of protection to religious practices. Volokh says that California is one of the states that provides more protection.

“The questions that would have to be raised is exactly what she is doing, exactly what the relevant laws are,” Volokh said. “There are laws in California regulating the killing of animals. Some are aimed at preventing to unnecessarily cruel deaths for the animals. Some are aimed at protecting hygiene. But, it may very well be that what she is doing is perfectly consistent with those laws.

Without thinking about legality of Santeria, Sonai’s store decorations are quite impressive. The walls are filled with a grand array of colorful aromatic candles. She also carries hundreds of other religious paraphernalia, including: statues, crosses, soaps, oils, clothing, and more.

“Well the inspiration that I get because everything you see here, like the skirts, I make them, and we use them in our religion,” Gastelum said.

The store’s surrounding community is known to be drug and gang ridden. So much so that Sonia’s first week open began with a shooting outside her front window.  Since then Sonia says her days are safe and she has made a point of encouraging others to accept faith.

“In my house, we think we’re not here to do bad to nobody,” Gastelum said."You know, we’re here to help out a person; not to harm them in any kind of way.”

The religion has been passed down from generation to generation with the help from story telling and what Gastelum calls her godchildren.

“I have about 500 godchildren,” Gastelum said. “Because every time you’re initiated, you have a godmother, and that godmother is supposed to guide you in the religion and show you things and how it’s supposed to go, you know.  If I have that gift that I was initiated, I should use it for good, not for bad.”

As Sonia sits behind her counter each and every day making much of the store’s merchandise, nearly 20 customers walk in daily hoping to be better themselves and reach the spirits above. While some may frown upon Santeria, Sonia seems quite happy.

The extension of Measure R, which would require a two-thirds majority vote in November’s elections, is expected to inject another $8 billion into the Mayor’s transportation projects.

But a recent poll conducted by Loyola Marymount University found that just under 55 percent of Angelenos currently support an extension of the half-penny tax.

Left out of the Mayor’s address was any mention of the city budget, which he will unveil on Thursday. In an interview on KPCC on Wednesday, Villaraigosa said he would propose cutting “hundreds” of government jobs at the budget meeting, a move that has enraged unions across the city.

For some insight on the Mayor’s last citywide address, we spoke with Alice Walton of TheCityMaven.com.

Graduation…A time to celebrate your academic achievements in higher education… To join the professional workforce…and arrive in the real world. But what if you don’t have “that job” upon graduation?

I graduated from USC nine months ago and I’m working at a department store…retail. I saw graduation as the day I would have it all figured out. On the contrary, despite my ideal fantasy, I’m right back where I started.

Ok, so it’s not that bad, but I’m still trying to come up with an acceptable answer to the looming question of, “What are you going to do now Michele?” I go to grab a drink with my friends Alyssa and Katie at the Yard House. Turns out their situations are a lot like mine. Katie has a job at the pool, she wants to work for the government someday. Alyssa had hoped to be in med school by now; she’s working with me at the department store.

Alyssa: “I was so happy to get my diploma and I was excited for the pictures to post on facebook to prove that I had graduated, which sounds awful, but I was like this is my proof because I don’t have a job to show for it right now.”

Katie: “They all want to know if I’m in school, what I majored in and all that good stuff and then I tell them and they look at me like ‘oh and you’re teaching swimming in La Mirada because why?”

Katie: “It just sucks, and my relatives, speaking of people that don’t understand, were like ‘why are you working in retail, you went to school’ and I’m just like, you know what, there’s no jobs out there, this is the best I can do and it pays well!”

Waitress: “I don’t even tell people where I graduated from because immediately they assume, you must be a failure in life, nobody wants you.”

Our waitress joins in! Turns out she’s a USC grad too. Her tray is full of drinks for the next table, but she stops.

Waitress: “I mean, if you would have asked me how I pictured my life in high school and like what I wanted to do, like, I was going to be this traveling journalist, and I was going to report on all these soulful things like aids in Africa, and I was going to change people’s lives and I was going to be like this powerful strong woman and like, you know, eat guys’ souls for breakfast, like independent, just beautiful, skinny and…none of those things happened...”

The other day at work as I’m ringing a customer up I tell him where I graduated from and shaking his head in confusion and asks, “Is this where you saw yourself after graduating from USC?” For the rest of the day I was thinking, have I really “ended up” at a department store?! I know people who have degrees, who work retail while they figure out what they want to do, and then 20 years later they’re still working retail.

In these times, it’s hard to keep your hopes up. I think a lot about what Katie said when we were out for drinks…

Katie: “The fact that this economy is horrible and there’s no jobs makes it so much worse. Makes me even more freaked out. I have no idea what’s going on and I’m really stressed out.”

Me too, Katie. Hopefully things will be looking up soon. As of now, Katie is thinking about grad school, Alyssa is still deciding if she wants to apply to med school, and our waitress is interning in the PR department of Morgan Stanley anxiously awaiting a possible full time position.

What we’re all doing now is a stepping-stone to bigger things. One day another customer told me, “treat everyday as a networking opportunity, and don’t worry, you’re on the path to success”. Turns out she’s a dean at Cal State Fullerton. Maybe she’s right. Maybe one day I’ll be the traveling journalist who eats guys’ souls for breakfast, in the meantime, at least I have a job.

The car was making a left turn into the USC campus on Watt Way when it was t-boned by the train.

The driver of the car was immediately transported to California Hospital. His condition has not yet been released. 

Luis Inzunza, a Metro employee, says the operator of the Metro train was not injured.

“When it’s a train versus an automobile, the car always loses,” Inzunza said.

Metro says the line will still be open as scheduled on April 28th. 

It doesn’t look like much now. But when it’s done, the 3 ½ acre area will serve as a new front yard for the museum and a new outdoor destination for museum-goers.

Don Webb works for Cordell Corporation and was involved with the master planning.

“There’s something really deliciously ironic about taking the natural history and putting it back out into nature,” Webb said.

The new addition will include gardens, ponds, streams and exhibits for butterflies, birds and bugs. The gardens will allow visitors to learn to plant their own gardens and will have flowers blooming year-round.

It’s funded in part by the County of Los Angeles and the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

Mia Lehrer headed up the landscaping design. She hopes this will give city residents an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the natural world, before walking through the actual museum’s doors.

“Connect Angeleno’s to the nature in the heart of the city, connect to the museum’s collection and connect to the museum’s research,” Lehrer said.

North Campus won’t be officially open until June of 2013 for the museum’s centennial celebrations. So if you’re eager to see the new landscape, you’re going to have to wait a little longer.

It allocated $10.1 billion on prevention and treatment; $9.4 billion on law enforcement and incarceration; $3.6 billion on drug interdiction; and $2.1 billion on international programs.

Meghan Ralston of Drug Policy Alliance, a national organization advocating marijuana legalization and de-criminalization of other lesser drugs and amounts, was underwhelmed.  “It’s essentially been the exact same allocation of funds, the exact same approach, since the days of Nixon.  So it’s really just the same old, same old.”

Ralston thinks Gil Kerlikowske, the President’s drug czar and head of the ONDCP, and the Administration are trying to do the right thing, but they’re going about it from the wrong direction.

“The policies that are in place at the federal level, and the rhetoric that’s happening at a federal level, is really inconsistent and out of touch with what a lot of the American people want and what a lot of American people need and really the direction the rest of the country is headed.”

With polls showing overwhelming support for medical marijuana, Ralston said, there’s a big disconnect between federal policy and popular will.

Kerlikowske has been touring the country to tout the new strategy.  He held a news conference at Los Angeles’ First African Methodist Episcopal Church, in the West Adams district, to highlight a portion of the community-based approaches the administration thinks may be more effective at the local level.  The Drug Free Communities Support Program offers small grants to community groups that address youth substance abuse.

Standing in the church’s sunny garden, Kerlikowske said local faith organizations reach more people regularly than he could possibly reach himself.  “These are the folks that touch people every single day.”

He also said the new strategy will take into account the rising scourge of prescription drug abuse.  “It was just a few years ago that no one talked about the problem of prescription drugs.  Now prescription drugs take more lives in this country than heroin and cocaine overdoses combined.”

Whether the new strategy will be any more effective in combatting this and other forms of drug abuse than prior attempts remains to be seen.

“I’ve worked at Walmart… on the 17th, that’s three years,” he said. To support his son and put himself through school, “I do a little of everything. I do a little LP sometimes, I work electronics, I play management at times… I do it all, dude.”

But despite all this history, he’s not happy about the stores springing up in Los Angeles. 

“I don’t live around Chinatown, but if I did, I would tell them definitely not to open up,” Hindman said. “Because I feel if you’re going to open up, you’ve got to treat your people correctly. Walmart doesn’t. Things they promise, they don’t follow through with it. I’ve been promised interviews with different departments. I haven’t seen an interview yet.”

Hindman and about a hundred other Walmart workers met in Los Angeles this week at a national Making Change at Walmart conference. There, they put together a list of demands to present at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Walmart today.

The protesters say their schedules are irregular and they’re not earning as much as Walmart promised. They’re disrespected at work. They want higher wages, guaranteed health insurance and Walmart’s promise that it will invest profits in communities.

But Michael Jones, CEO of the Crenshaw Chamber of Commerce, says that’s what Walmart already does in South L.A. When the store opened about a decade ago, it created more than 500 jobs, most of which went to residents.

“That had a tremendous, tremendous impact. Before that, there were people that were out of work, and they made it happen,” Jones said. “I understand people will talk about unfair wages and things like that, but compared to what? If someone is unemployed, and they’re getting paid even minimum wage, is that an unfair wage? We’ve had a tough, tough economy. People can have some dignity .”

In a statement released today, Walmart said they do offer competitive pay and affordable benefits.

But the workers leaving the conference in L.A. today plan to air their grievances at Walmarts all over the country.

“It’s symbolically naked. I actually welcome people to get naked if they want to,” said protester Hadley Greswold.

But no one did. The crowd of 30 or so students kept on their sports bras, shorts and boxers, leaving plenty of exposed flesh to paint slogans like “expose the truth” in red.

“The message that we’re trying to send is that we’d rather not wear Trojan apparel than wear Trojan apparel that’s made in sweatshops,” she said.

The group sponsoring all the action is the Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation. They were sparked into action by an investigative report filed by ESPN, after the company took cameras into apparel factories in Cambodia. ESPN alleges that Silver Star Merchandising, the apparel company used by USC and the Dallas Cowboys, among others, uses factories with substandard working conditions.

Max Hoiland, another student protesting, said the group is pressing USC’s President Nikias to adopt a solution: an independent monitoring system that will enforce workers’ rights.

“There’s a factory monitor called the Workers’ Rights Consortium, which is a not for profit the only one in the world that monitors factories,” he said.

Matt Curran, USC’s Director for Trademark Licensing & Social Responsibility, said USC has a strict code of ethics.

And Hoiland agrees: “USC actually has a very good code of conduct.”

Curran said USC turns down a lot of vendors. Out of 100 applicants only about 15% will make the grade.

But the protesters said the mechanisms USC is using to review labor practices are ineffective. And they said without an independent review organization like the Worker’s Rights Consortium, abuses will continue.

Curran said the university hasn’t ruled that option out but they need more information about the Consortium.

Hadley Greswold says organizers want the university to work with them.

“And when they see that students really care I think they will sign on. I think that’s the most important thing.”

If not, they’ll keep at it, she said.

After bodies had been painted and pizza consumed, the group grabbed their signs and banners and left the parking lot en masse, headed straight for USC President Nikias’s office.

Next Tuesday, the group is holding a teach in in Taper Hall at 6:30 pm.

“My little trailer here has been parked here now for 5, 6 years,” said Bravo.

The World War two veteran gives between 150-250 free haircuts every month.
At the West Los angeles Veterans Affairs Campus, Bravo was honored for his service with an American flag that flew at the largest US military airbase in Iraq. Bravo says these haircuts mean more than just a clean shave.

“The guys are broken a little bit they had courage sometime ago and they had a brain and they had a heart. But i think we’re entertaining them a little bit with a haircut and making them kinda beware that they have courage,” said Bravo.

Bravo whose known as The Dreamer by most, thinks his services are just him doing his part in this world.

“I think people need to know that there are a lot of good people in this world that can wanna help and do the right thing and I’m just one of them, I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one,” said Bravo.

While Bravo may think he is just another person, his newly awarded flag hangs right above his barber station, proudly reminding him of the gratitude of his fellow veterans.

Lawns are still muddy from the morning’s flood.

Long-time resident Susan Snyder says that people had to walk up onto people’s lawns to avoid the water. The street’s dry now that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has replaced the ruptured pipe, but Snyder is still worried.

“Well, the biggest concern is that there’s a big sinkhole in front of my neighbors house which extends halfway across the street,” said Snyder.

Just a few miles away, the DWP’s District Superintendent, Breonia Lindsey, is working with a crew to fix the largest break at the Farmer’s Market at the Grove.

According to Lindsey, the water main breaks were caused by work being done on the Franklin Reservoir during an inspection. That led to an increase in pressure that ruptured the water main.

The Department of Water and Power is working on ways to prevent main breaks like this from happening again in the future.

“We’re working hard right now on an infrastructure replacement program, we’re replacing
35,000 feet this year,” replied Lindsey. “It is an aging infrastructure. It’s a structure that we need to replace, and we’re working diligently to replace it.”

Water will be in service and streets will open by 7 p.m. tonight.

It’s a time that brought devastation to many Koreans living here as some rioters unleashed their anger on Korean shop owners.

Hyepin Im is the president and ceo of Korean Churches for Community Development, an organization that works to build the capacities of Korean churches and nonprofits and fuel economic development. She spoke with me about the high language barriers and rates of poverty among Koreans in California and also about how the community’s recovery has progressed over the past 20 years. She also said there is more that communities of color have in common than many assume. 

“Well first we need to fill the applications, than it takes about 2 weeks to receive your first response, then you go to do your fingerprints, than after that about 4 months later you receive another form to do your test, and then this is the last step,” said Vernel.

The naturalization process can be daunting and includes an interview and test with a United States Citizenship and Immigration Service officer. The officer looks for the ability to speak English and knowledge of the United States history. But regardless of how time consuming the process can be, candidates like Joel VanKamp from Egypt had many reasons to apply.

“It’s more freedom, we can vote, we can go out of position in government, like sheriff, like government maybe one day,” said VanKamp.

Whatever the reasons are for citizenship, the naturalization ceremony which lasted about half an hour made sure to highlight the importance of being an active citizen. Zee Bilik, who’s originally from Turkey, was very pleased with the ceremonies speakers.

“I mean I really appreciated that, that was what was highlighted here today, whether it was the district officer who spoke, or the president, or the court, or the judge, that they really underlying how much, how important it is to be an active member of your community and to write your own chapter, “ said Bilik.

And with certificates in hand, these newly awarded citizens can now apply for a passport, vote, and call themselves proud American citizens.

“One of my coordinators proposed the idea to me last year to teach any elective I wanted.  She said we have this empty space, empty class, what do you wanna teach?” he said.

For KZ, the choice was easy.  He’s a member of Break-On 2, the University of Southern California’s premiere salsa performance group.  So KZ started a Partner Dance Class at Dorsey last fall and it’s open to students of all shapes and sizes.  That is good news for athletes like Jovonte Warren, who says that when his friends hear Jovonte is in dance class “they laugh because I’m freakishly tall and when they come here to see, everybody else is short.”

KZ’s Partner Dance Class makes Dorsey High one of the only schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District to have an organized dance class.  But dancing isn’t the only thing the class teaches.

“This class in particular is something special for the kids, not just because it’s the arts but because it’s partner dance,” KZ said. “So what’s really neat and unique about this class and would be at any program at any high school is that they’re really learning how to socialize with each other.”

Whether it is dancing the tango, doing the cha cha, or shuffling to the salsa, KZ emphasizes the importance of social etiquette and mutual respect.

“It’s been pretty cool, I kinda opened up as a person.  I used to be kinda like shy and stuff but now, dance… it helps me like be able to walk up to a person and make conversation,” said Shelton Sanders, a senior who says Partner Dance has helped him open up his social life.

“Mr. KZ came in and asked us about the dance team and he said it was with girls so I was like ‘Yeah, this is awesome!’”

Girls aren’t the only attractive aspect of the course.  The Dorsey students get to interact with USC students and alumni through a mentorship program set up by KZ, a USC graduate of 2010.  The High Schoolers recently visited USC to perform in USC’s Break-On 2 salsa club.  Armand Jordan said the experience helped get him excited about attending college this fall.

“Through this program I was able to go to USC for one of the first times and meet some of the college students and listen to some of their experiences,” Jordan said.  “It’s definitely made me want to go to college.”

Almost all of the Partner Dance students are college bound and we’re not talking about your average two-year community college.  Many Partner Dance students are headed to prestigious universities such as UCLA, USC, and Stanford.

But KZ’s mentorship program doesn’t just benefit the students of partner dance.

Erika Soto graduated USC in 2011 and she mentors the Partner Dance students every week at Dorsey High School.

“Every student has a USC college mentor and we basically write to each other back and forth,” Soto said.  “I feel like we’re making a really great impact on their lives.  We’re really influencing them in a positive way and it also reminds me of who I’m trying to be and keeps me motivated to stay in a positive path and move forward in a positive direction.”

The Partner Dance class will return to USC this spring for another performance, this time at Bovard Auditorium for the Break-On 2 Showcase April 19th.

So it should be no surprise that residents are upset about the building’s closure.

Resident Jim Smith says the 73-year-old post office is much more than a building. It’s a place for community. He has lived in Venice since 1968.

“So, I’ve seen a lot of changes, but one thing’s that has been constant is the post office, which is really kind of like a community center. It’s a place where we meet our friends and neighbors and have a chance to talk. And everyone in Venice goes to the post office sooner or later, so it’s something we don’t want to lose,” said Smith.

Some Venice residents don’t have internet access, so they rely heavily on mail delivery. But the Postal Service faces mounting debt as more people pay their bills online and turn to texting and email.

In response, the U.S. Postal Service announced in February it will close or consolidate two hundred and twenty-three mailing centers.

In another blow to the postal service, the U.S. Senate voted today to end Saturday mail delivery after two years.

“We’re here to basically say stop giving these janitors an excuse to give them a modest pay increase to cover their health care benefits,” Terrones said.

Governor Brown’s initiative would increase sales taxes by a quarter of a cent. It would also raise income taxes for people who make more than $250,000 a year. 89% of these temporary tax revenues would be given to K-12 schools, and 11% to community colleges.

Melissa Chadburn is an organizer for Good Jobs LA. She says she understands the importance of this cause.

“I come from a working family. I grew up on foster care and I think it’s about time that the California’s tax initiative gets passed so that we can go ahead and continue to fund those programs that are much needed,” Chadburn said.

A USC Dornsife LA Times poll found that at the end of March, nearly two-thirds of Californians supported Brown’s tax initiative.

“I applaud the governor for trying to put an initiative that’s going to make them pay a greater amount of taxes that they’re paying now. No more tax schemes. Pay what you have to, we’re doing it and we’re still taking a stand here today,” Terrones said.

As expected, not everybody supports Brown’s tax initiative. Kris Vosburgh is the Executive Director for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

“If it passes, it will be a tax on the ignorance of voters who approve it,” Vosburgh said. “You know there’s always people on the margin in this case. People who are may be successful, maybe have a small business, are going I just can’t afford this additional tax and still have my business remain competitive, I’m leaving. And when they leave, they take jobs with them. And if you multiply that 100 times 1000 times 100,000 times, then you see you have real impact on the California economy.”

The initiative has to bring in 807,615 signatures to appear on the November 6, 2012 ballot.

As tension builds between Iran, Israel and the United States, the Iranian-American community in Los Angeles seems split on whether to take action and unite. In an effort to understand my own community and dig deeper than the trivial perceptions and mainstream media depictions, I challenged the community to explore what my generation has learned from that of the parents’ generation who experienced the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After the revolution many of my parents generation came to the States searching for democracy, freedom and success. Now, 33 years into the revolution, we are confronting a possibility of another conflict.Yet as the nation of my birth stands at the brink of war, so much of our community seems ignorant. The biggest news out of our diaspora now? Is a new reality show on Bravo called “Shahs of Sunset”—a sort of Persian Jersey Shore, where young people flaunt their cars, bags and dramas around Beverly Hills.

Sure some people may argue that we finally got some exposure; but for those people I would say; “What is the price?”

I’m simply baffled that at a critical time, so many of my people are focused on this mindlessness; and those who have an opinion are too heedless to come together and for once unite.

Yet, as I looked at the larger community of Iranian Americans in both Orange County and LA, I realized that I’m not alone.

One morning I invited a musician friend, Siavash over for breakfast. He brought his guitar.

Siavash agreed that the image portrayed by Shahs of Sunset, captures the trivial side of our community in Southern California. He blames this on the disappointments passed
down from our parent’s generation.

“Most of them just don’t have hope. They feel you don’t have any power to change anything or to say anything…therefore, why bother.”

“Older generation, you know they say oh we just want to make our money and don’t get involved in politics, because they failed once, and they failed big time and they are afraid
of doing it again.”

With a failed revolution the parent generation managed to focus on their own personal life and look at politics as a taboo and pointless battle. Yet, at a pivotal time, where the stage can be taken by a group of shallow minorities, I wonder if there are people in the second generation who can help rebuilt the Iranian-American narrative.

What does it really take for my generation to stand up and raise their voice? Whatever the old generation did, is the past, so what is the second generation doing—when we see shows like “shahs’ of sunset—what should we expect from others to think of us?

I feel sorry for the cast; yet more disappointed in my generation and the entire community.

“There’s going to be a war with Iran and other countries and it’s really sad that we don’t have the unity to show that hey we have all these good people and unfortunately we have these kids running around in their nice cars and getting the stage” said Siavash.

After breakfast, I called my friend Amir—a West Point graduate. He lives in Orange County, but is now spending most of his time in DC, where he takes an active voice in Iran-related issues. He has just signed a book deal for his Mid-East diplomacy strategies. Despite his young age, he has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and is one of the most active voices in the Iranian-American community. I just wanted to see if I’m worrying too much.

“What’s at stake is not my individual success, or a doctor or engineers individual success—what is at stake, is really a war with Iran. If Iranian-Americans don’t determine their future, someone else will”, said Amir.

Yet, I feel the second generation, those in their 20s and early 30s…people like Siavash and Amir—in their own unique ways…are trying to bridge differences and portray an honest picture of not just Iranians, but what this young generation is all about.

In an effort to shape new narratives, Amir is now organizing several national panels on foreign policy—like the one he just had in Claremont College.While Amir talks policy, Siavash is taking a more subtle approach, as he collaborates with non-Iranian musicians and puts his talent in use.

In a small studio in Orange County, Siavash and his friend Noalto a Japanese-American trumpet player, are on the same page…playing the same Persian tune—something that years of media portrayals and diplomacy may never do.

Siavash said that by working with non-Iranian musicians he wants to actually engage them with what’s going on in our culture and how as Americans they can help him understand his culture better and present it better.

While the embarrassment of mediocrity seems to be the new recipe for fame; I hope this doesn’t taint my entire generation It’s time for us to take part in framing our own narrative and tell our own story—a story that defines Iranians beyond, the 79-hostage crisis, Ahmadinejad, and a group of shallow characters who live a scripted life.

“I want them to go out and speak about our culture and how different it is. One person at a time; If that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes,” said Siavash.

“From Humboldt in the North to San Diego in the South,” said Ferguson. “It could be that school may not reopen for 400,000 students next fall.”

The rolling strike means that only one campus stops running at a time, prolonging the impact. It’s a good thing, since these days, California professors have plenty to be angry about.

“Year after year, we’ve had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cuts,” said Teri Yamada.

Yamada has been a professor at Calstate Long Beach for 25 years. And during that time, she says she’s seen her students’ education suffer. Thanks to budget cuts, her class of 15 is now a class of 70.

“It’s really hard to have quality education and suddenly you have seventy students,” said Yamada.

“More meat on the seats is better,” explained Ferguson.

Ferguson says in this economy, educators are losing their jobs while some school administrators are giving themselves ten percent raises.

“You see administrators getting 100,000 dollar raises and meanwhile course sections are being cut,” said Ferguson.

And then there are the tuition hikes. Since 2002, public university tuition has increased by 318%. Professor Lillian Taiz at Cal State Los Angeles says some of her students can’t afford college anymore.

“The administration is trying to use us and them like we’re ATM machines,” said Taiz.

The results of the vote won’t be released for at least another three weeks. but Ferguson says despite professors threatening to stop doing their job, public support is firmly on their side.

“Their cousins, their nephews, themselves, their own kids are students in the CSU. we’re really a university of the working class,” said Ferguson.

Professor Teri Yamada says her favorite part of her job is:

“Teaching students.”

And she says she’s doing the unthinkable--not teaching--for them. After twenty five years she says she’s finally ready for two days off.

Beth Jines, Director of Sustainability for the city of LA, said dealing with climate change is not just about new technology. It’s about working with what you’ve already got.

“We’re looking at retrofitting municipal buildings, and we have a commercial building retrofit program that the city is funding, as well as a lot of work on residential retrofits.”

Wade Crowfoot, deputy director for Governor Jerry Brown’s environmental planning office, says sometimes, it’s the accumulation of small steps that can help. 

“Really paying attention to science telling us these impacts that are coming, but in fact are already here, and then taking smart steps to address them.”

Higher, sustained temperatures in urban areas can be addressed by planting more. As their shade cools the ground, water demands for surrounding plants are eased, along with lowering greenhouse gases.

“You know, the challenge of climate change can be overwhelming, because it’s a global challenge, but there are a number of very concert short term steps communities can be taking, not only to address these impacts but improve their communities in the meantime.”

Because California gets the majority of its water from only one source, that being the delta, supply and distribution of the state’s water are also being addressed. Millions of federal dollars are now aimed towards California, fixing issues like air pollution and wildfire dangers.

Associate professor at UCLA, Alex Hall, agrees, and says locally, we’re headed in the right direction.

“L.A.’s made tremendous progress in the last 50 years. It’s really a model globally for environmental regulation and successful environmental management. Now we have many more automobiles on the roads, but even better air quality, and so that’s pretty astonishing.”

Low emission vehicles and higher efficiency appliances are helping to improve air quality. But Jines says sometimes change comes from personal, day to day decisions.

“We’re doing better, we still have a ways to go. Doing things like the upcoming CicLAvia, which will be this next Sunday, where we get usually over a 100,000 people that come out and ride their bikes and walk and skate on the 10 miles of city streets that we close to gasoline or motor-powered engines.”

Despite dire warnings about climate change, most in attendance were optimistic..

“As a scientist I’m accustomed to interacting with other scientists, and this is an example of a new era. It’s really astonishing the level of cooperation and collaboration that’s going on towards this common goal. Gives me a lot of optimism about winning this battle.”

Most agreed, it’s not “if” but “when” major climate change will come. But experts here say that many, many small steps can help soften the effect.

The DWP is still one of the dirtiest utilities in the States, getting almost half of its power from coal.  That doesn’t fit in with Mayor Villaraigosa’s vision of making L.A. the greenest city in America. He’s thrown his weight behind solar power, saying, “We use more solar energy, we use less dirty coal.”

Today, Villaraigosa, a born-and-bred Angeleno, signed an ordinance empowering the DWP to test a new “feed-in tariff” program that makes it easier for businesses to generate power on site and sell it back to the grid.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti, who partnered with the Mayor to write the ordinance, explained:

“A feed-in tariff allows a solar provider to go to multiple businesses or somebody who
owns huge warehouses throughout the region and say to them, ‘Look, I can make a deal
with DWP [for buying our solar-generated power] if you give me the tops of your roofs.
The businesses make a little something, the solar provider makes a little something, and
the people of L.A. have better, greener energy.”

But the devil’s in the details, said Adam Browning of Vote Solar, a San Francisco green-energy policy group—the proposed projects have to be doable.

“As long as there are strong project viability requirements in a market-based approach [like
this], that is to say, you make sure that the projects that are bid in are real projects, not
spurious ones, [it can work].”

This version of the feed-in-tariff program is a test to work out those details. If all goes well, the program will be ramped up next year, incorporating what was learned from the test-version about implementation, customer service, and pricing.

Improving the city’s environment is personal for the mayor:

“I remember when I couldn’t get out of my classroom—they’d keep you in your classroom
because the air was so dirty.”

And he clearly hopes he’ll leave a lasting legacy:

“ As we go, so goes the state, and so goes the nation.”

With business, labor, and neighborhood groups behind it, proponents think this can serve as a model for the nation. 

Norah Guthrie, his daughter, encouraged patrons at Thursday’s memorial ceremony to remember Guthrie for both his music and his political activism.

“We’ve been following his footsteps—from Oklahoma, to Texas and now here in Los Angeles,” she said at her father’s memorial ceremony. “It was here that he met Will Geer, and they started going around singing and performing for the migrant workers to get them to organize into unions.”

For this Thursday’s host interview, we spoke with USC journalism professor Ed Cray, who authored a biography on Gurthrie—Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie.

Cray will be among the panelists at Guthrie’s official celebration of his 100th birthday at the USC Bovard Theater this Saturday.

Pei Shen is a graduate student from China studying communication. She says she does not feel completely safe living or even driving in South LA.

“I’m kind of scared.  Because when I drive my car I think at least I’m safe in my car but now I think even though I’m in the car I’m not safe,” Shen said.

Shen says her fears intensify when she ventures west of Vermont. “There’s no lights, no people walking around.  I’m really scared actually.”

As more students move farther from campus and safety concerns grow, some USC students criticize Chinese media outlets for headlining the fact that the victims were driving a brand new BMW.  They say that focusing on the BMW faults the victims for driving an
expensive car and making themselves targets. A USC graduate student and writer for the US-China Institute who asked to remain anonymous says the media should reveal all the
information they can to the public, including information describing the BMW.

“We understand that news media should, like, send out some information about this incident so they might talk about the brand of car exedra,” she said.

The age of the BMW is also in dispute.  Many news reports say the car was new but the LA Times quoted friends of the victims who say the BMW was a 2003 model. Katherine Jo is a first year graduate student. She says although the Chinese press is focusing on the BMW, she blames the American media.

“Because the newspapers in China, they recite the same resources from the U.S. newspapers.  They don’t know the truth,” Jo said.

Although police have not identified a suspect for the crime, LAPD is looking through security camera footage for clues.  Police have also installed a video kiosk on Raymond Avenue.

At USC, the Department of Public Safety is hosting an online forum where students and parents can ask officers questions about bolstering safety in the neighborhood.

As a local Crenshaw reporter, said he’d never heard of any Buddhism in the area.

“I think most people from what I know in this area would probably be Christian, either Baptist, Methodist, mostly Protestant Christian within the area. I had no idea there were any Buddhist temples or anything Buddhist in Crenshaw period,” said Brian Carter.

There are over 400 Buddhist temples in the Los Angeles area, but only a few people practice and come to Piyananda from Cresnshaw.

“Here most of the people are coming in Sri Lankan communities, born Buddhist families, Tai people, sometimes other ethnicities,” said Piyananda.

The Dharma Vijaya temple offers spiritual advice, religious counseling, and meditation. They don’t advertise within the community and are open to all religions.

“Buddhism we are not trying to convert anyone to our religion. If anyone needs any assistance we help them,” said Piyananda.

After 32 years, the Dharma Vijaya temple has become a permanent fixture in Crenshaw and is helping give back to a community that knows little about its existence. 

As part of a larger effort to reform L.A. county jails, today Sheriff Lee Baca announced for the first time publicly that he is committed to closing down Men’s Central Jail, the largest jail in the world.

The jail has been criticized in the past for inmate abuse and unsanitary conditions, and Sheriff Baca admits that changes need to be made to other jails as well.

“That is the issue with the old design it doesn’t facilitate education-what do you do with a person in jail,you’re just going to leave them in there and not help them mentally? We believe educating people to the extent that they reinvent what they are as a human being and they can go out and can be more trustworthy.”

Serious crimes like rape, murder and theft have been declining in L.A. county since 2000, yet more people than ever are being incarcerated.

Margaret Winter, the associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project, points to the reason.

“Why, why are these numbers so vast? It’s because we incarcerate millions of people for low-level non-violent offenses.”

Prison expert, Dr. James Austin, was appointed by Sheriff Baca to find out how to safely reduce the rising prison population. 

Austin says one problem is the jails fill up with people waiting for their trials.

“They cannot get out because they can’t raise the bail-the bails are very high here in Los Angeles County so what’s blocking them is not their risk level their charge it’s the bail amount and they just can’t raise the money.”

Austin says that low risk offenders should be free until their trial. low-risk is someone judged unlikely to commit another crime and who is not violent. Austin says education programs in prison are a better option.

After completing their educational programs, low-risk offenders will be under community supervision by parole and probation agents.

The ACLU and Sheriff Baca agree on Austin’s recommendations, and the need to safely close down Men’s Central Jail.

Baca wants to use the Austin report as a roadmap for reducing mass incarceration but he’ll need the support of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, L.A. courts and local government.

Students in a psychology class at USC erupt into laughter. But one sits there, unamused by the joke. Jayson Kellogg lets out a sigh.

“You realize you’re in a completely different world and no one has any idea what you’ve been through. You know that, so you feel this distinction, you know?”

Jasyon is one of the million-and-a-half young soldiers who’ve returned from war in the last decade. It’s been four years since Jayson returned from two deployments in Iraq, but he is still struggling to readjust. It was pretty bad at first. A stranger’s gaze held too long or the early morning groans from the neighborhood garbage truck took him back in time.

“People looking you in the eye or cars driving by fast or being in a place you don’t know…like if I left the neighborhood, like, if I drove my car outside of Santa Monica I’d have a lot of anxiety and I would notice it in my driving. That’s when I realized there’s something wrong,” said Kellogg.

Jayson needed help and understanding that was the first step. Reluctantly at first, he started seeing a social worker at the VA, someone who understood his trauma.

“It’s like a blank canvas and you can kinda throw things up against it and see what happens. It’s just good to have that feedback,” said Kellogg.

Jayson says a key to his adjustment has been trying to understand his reasons for joining the Marines in the first place, which he says had much to do with exploring the outer bounds of his masculinity.

“For a young man, when I was 17, I’m trying to figure out who I am as a man and nothing in my culture gave me that except like the military,” he said.

Looking back, he has also come to understand the bigger picture—that soldiers and the public they try to defend simply don’t see eye-to-eye.

“I think the military and the infantry is politically incorrectly. Their job is just to kill as effectively and quickly as possible. Well, that’s the exact opposite of how it works in the day-to-day culture in America. Like, if someone has a problem you try to talk it out, you try to come to some consensus. Well, that philosophy is the inverse of war and that’s why people don’t understand it.”

For Jayson, the healing actually began while he was still stationed in Iraq, where he started to sense that his humanity was deeply intertwined with the humanity of the ordinary Iraqis he came across every day. On his second tour of duty, he brought a camera along and in 2010 self-published a book of photographs. Children of War was put on exhibit last year on the USC campus. He recovers the book from underneath a pile of newspapers on his coffee table and thumbs through the pages stopping at an image of a young girl. 

“The girl with the green sweater, you can see me in her eyes. As I look at her I’m looking back at myself and that’s really what this whole thing was about. I was basically trying to counteract what Iraq did to me through taking these pictures, I was basically fighting all the feelings or the loss of feelings and trying to recapture my humanity.”

Marcos Soltero, a former adviser with the VA, says that understanding one’s own experience which Jayson started through his photography is what college can help do for others.

“For some of these younger veterans… that might have joined straight out of high school…who really don’t know how to comprehend what they’re going through … that education puts them in a place where they can cycle through that and comprehend their experience or what happened to them,” said Soltero.

Take Jayson’s experience and multiply it by thousands because last December 8,000 troops left Iraq. Many of them, like Jayson, will try the classroom.

“The trick is to find a way in which you take those experiences that seem incomprehensible and you can’t find anything good and meaningful about them and integrate them into something in which they become very important and significant. And then when that takes place you’re not a victim. I actually have more humanity now than people here because I know more about what it is to be a human being.”

And these are the chants of two dozen protesters pacing Robertson Boulevard outside the restaurant today.

Latino and LGBT activist groups met at The Ivy during the lunch rush to support Reymundo Martinez, the busboy who lost his job last year. He started lawsuit proceedings two weeks ago.

“We’re here because we think it’s unfair that someone be fired just because of their HIV status,” said Erika Reyes of The Wall Las Memorias, a Latino HIV education group. “This man is HIV positive and was let go of his job, and it’s discrimination.”

The case began when Martinez started taking new medication with unexpected side effects. In January 2011 he had to leave a shift early. He took the rest of the week off and brought The Ivy a doctor’s note requesting a schedule change. Five days later, the restaurant let him go.

The Ivy management says the restaurant did not know Martinez lived with HIV.

Brian Moulton, Legal Director at LGBT advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign, said the 1990 Americans with Disabilites Act made employment discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS illegal. Restaurants tried to opt out of the requirement then, but Moulton said they’ve never been exempt, even though people worried that HIV could be transmitted more easily there.

“That there’s some sort of threat for an individual working in a food service position, that they might transmit HIV, that hasn’t stood up when it’s been brought up as an argument in the past,” Moulton said. “it really just wasn’t supported by the scientific evidence.”

Longtime HIV/AIDS activist Eric Gordon said today reminds him of the old days a little too much.

“This seems like a throwback, in a way. I remember demonstrations like this 20 years ago, when people were demonstrating for employment rights, insurance rights, for healthcare, for visitation rights, for all kinds of things,” Gordon said. “A lot of those struggles have been won. In the tradition of that struggle, this goes on - even, you know, in Beverly Hills. It’s shameful.”

But retired United Methodist pastor Rene Ledensa was part of their generation, too - and he still sees hope.

“15, 16 years ago, even some of my parishes were totally against my work. Thanks be to God, we have a lot of answers, a lot of great doctors,” Ledensa said. “We need to keep on working, praying, and calling out for people to understand that this is not what it used to be.”

The court has not yet begun proceedings on Martinez’s complaint.

ARN Reporting 4/11/2012 by Annenberg Radio News

Two students from China studying at USC were fatally shot at 1 am Wednesday morning in the West Adams district near the campus, police said. The victims were identified by university officials as Ying Wu and Ming Qu; both were studying electrical engineering at the graduate level and in their early 20s. Sgt. Carlton Brown of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Southwest Station said they were shot multiple times while sitting in a double-parked BMW on Raymond Avenue, near the intersection of Normandie Avenue and Adams Boulevard.

LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith suggested one possible motive police are investigating is whether the homicides were the result of a bungled carjacking. Smith said one assailant was seen leaving the area on foot.

Reports from the scene stated that both the driver and front passenger’s side windows were blown out. Wu was found slumped over in the front passenger seat, while Qu was found on the steps of a nearby house, which suggests he was looking for help before collapsing.

In a letter to the university community, the administration offered condolences and psychiatric support for students affected by the deaths, but also reiterated the efforts it has made in past years to increase security in surrounding neighborhoods: “This incident occurred outside the neighborhood areas where over the past several years we have steadily increased our security presence, adding dozens of security and license plate recognition cameras, uniformed officers, and yellow-jacketed security ambassadors.” On Wednesday night, hundreds gathered on the campus for a candlelight vigil in memory of Qu and Wu.

The janitor’s contract with contractors, including America Building Maintenance and DMS, will expire on April 30th. Negotiations have been tense, with the janitors voting last week to strike on May 1st if their demands aren’t met. Union organizer Nathalie Contreras says the cuts the contractors want are unreasonable.

“What they’re proposing are wage freezes for six years, having them pay difference in increases in insurance on top of co-pays, which at the end of the day don’t add up and would cause an enormous burden on our janitors,” said Contreras.

The protests were meant to be part of the occupy movement of the 99% versus the 1%. Karen Berger is a member of Occupy Pasadena who came out to support what she called the “exploited janitors.”

“It’s not right what the 1% are doing. They’re taking advantage of people because they can,” said Berger.
The protesters chose banks as the stops on the march to allude to the connections to Occupy. Contreras says the banks make-up many of the buildings these janitors clean and that it is them who are pushing for the benefit cuts.

“This is part of the larger message that’s going out across the country, that these banks are getting away with not paying taxes, that these banks are getting away with all these corporate loopholes, but yet they don’t want to put what’s needed into these working families which is what would help get this country out of this recession,” said Contreras.

United Service Workers West will be organizing more protests and other activities in the coming weeks, all leading up to the possible strike.

“Go Dodgers.” “It’s Opening Day at Dodger Stadium, you don’t want to miss it.”

Fans especially didn’t want to miss the festivities today to celebrate the franchise that put Los Angeles on the national sports map, and the stadium that made it possible.

One fan could barely catch his breath he was so excited for the game and to see Clayton Kershaw pitch.

“First its fifty year anniversary of Dodger stadium, the greatest place on earth, second, we have the reigning Cy Young award winner coming to pitch for all of us to see, there will be 50,000 Dodger fans here for the first time in a long time. When baseball season starts, it’s like life has meaning again,” said Alfredo Mirales.

The Dodgers held a pregame ceremony to honor the 50 year anniversary and members of the 1962 team that opened the stadium. The first pitch was thrown by Terry Seidler, whose mother threw out the park’s first pitch 50 years ago.

For a longtime fan like Sam Kane, it is the exciting baseball milestones he has witnessed at the park that keep him coming back.

“I loved seeing the poster driving here of Maury Wills stealing bases, Davey Lopes stealing bases, and now our Dee Gordan. It’s going to be number one season for the Dodgers,” said Kane.

Dodgers fans could use a winning season. Just one year since the beating of Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodger Stadium, the public divorce of former owners Frank and Jamie McCourt, and pandemonium in the front office, fans are optimistic that Magic Johnson’s ownership of the team will restore faith and pride in the Dodgers.

“I could not be happier about Magic. The best off season news any of us could have expected. We’re winning it all. This is our year,” said Mirales.

Win or lose the fans this year will be a presence in their Dodger blue.

“I’m actually getting a tattoo, it’s gonna be a baby angel on the
side of my face. The baby angels is gonna symbolize what I’ve been
through, through thirty years, said Reignald.”

And while Ross is getting his tattoo done, don’t be surprised if you
find a bubbly three year old girl running around the shop. Things
are done a little differently at this family owned parlor. 25 year
old Aida Campos is the owner and her 3 year old daughter Dahlala,
Loves to hang with the customers. But it didn’t start with Aida, it
was her mother, Silvia Campos who opened up the shop ten years ago.
According to Aida, she did it to help her brother stay out of trouble.

“My uncle was a tattoo artist and he was working out of our house
so my mom had some money saved up so they entered a partnership
and they opened it together. He’s always been an artist he’s always
been drawing and painting so he picked it up as a way of doing
something positive with his life instead of going in and out of jail
like he used to.”

Silvia Campos didn’t have any experience in the industry. Before
She opened up her shop in 2002, she had worked at a non-profit
organization helping disabled children. Now the Campos family
Owns two tattoo shops. The other one, purified ink is in Carson.
It’s unusual to have a female ownership, in an industry that is
largely dominated by men. But Campos has found it advantageous.

“We have moms bring their daughters to get piercings which there
usually afraid but when they come they see there’s a female piercer,
Its female owned, there not gonna be disrespected in our studio, said Campos.”

And no one knows what its like to work with the Campos family
Better than Tony Zan. An employee and friend of the family for
seven years.

“You feel comfortable working around these people, you feel like
you are part of the family. You know they, they trust you, they
respect you as an individual they respect your choices and they
respect your ideas for the shop. So you’re not just working for them it
feels like you’re working with them, said Zan.”

While this family is incredibly close, everything isn’t always peachy
at the shop.

“You know we pull each others hair every now and then because we
see each other all the time, you know you wanna give them respect
And patience but at the same time its business so it’s a little bit more
difficult, said Campos.”

Aida hasn’t just learned the trials of working with family, but also
many valuable lessons working in an industry that isn’t always
respected. She would like to pass that knowledge onto Dahlala.

“I would really want her to pursue something that she loves and
not let anyone tell her not to do it. Because that’s what happens
in this industry everyone tells us o that’s not a real job, and they
don’t realize that this is an art form this is definitely what were
passionate about and at the end of the day I know that I’m doing
what I really wanna with my life and at the end of the day I’m
bringing happiness to others by doing so, said Campos.”

The Campos family will celebrate the shops ten year anniversary on
April 20th. With live music, live piercings, and of course live tattoos.

Saundra Shimmelpfennig runs the blog “Good Intentions Are Not Enough.” She launched the blog after years in the nonprofit sector where she said she watched donations get funneled into ineffective projects.

I asked her for her thoughts on TOM’s awareness raising campaign and how shoe donations affect local communities in the developing world.

Aidan Caballero’s family left Honduras for California for many reasons. In Honduras, Aidan’s dad killed a neighbor, pistol whipped his mom, and beat Aidan again and again. But worse, for Aidan, his uncle repeatedly sexually abused him.

“I was crying every night, I was crying to God, like please help me, and don’t let me be gay… At some point I started changing that and saying, ‘God, let things happen as they should, and just keep me safe,’” Aidan says.

While at UCLA, Aidan came out as gay. He’s quick to add that’s not because of sexual abuse. His worry now is of being deported to a country he no longer considers safe. So in 2009, Aidan applied for political asylum based on his fear of persecution in Honduras for being gay. Human rights groups have recorded at least 62 homicides in the LGBT community in Honduras since 2010.

“You have many people who are very religious and…will not … tolerate or respect people who are different from them. There’s no sense of survival,” Aidan says.

With pressure from the U.S. to take action, the Honduran government formally set up a unit in November of 2011 to investigate murders and hate crimes against the LGBT community.

“If anyone sees me hanging out with a guy, coming in, out of my apartment … people see all that stuff. And at some point, the truth comes out…maybe I might be walking home someday and be attacked…that happens every day in Honduras,” Aidan says.

Since 1994, the U.S. has recognized homosexual individuals as eligible for protection under asylum law. The asylum application means Aidan can’t go back home. So he must live 3,000 miles from his family.

“Hola Mami,” Aidan greets his mom.
“Hola, como estas?” His mom responds, asking how he’s doing.
“Muy bien, como esta?” Aidan says.

Aidan hasn’t seen his family in more than two years. They probably can’t afford to come to his UCLA graduation next year. All he has for now are the 15-minute weekend phone calls to his mom.

“Que le quiero mucho. Se cuida,” says Aidan’s mom.
“Ok, Ma. Le quiero mucho,” Aidan responds.

“Your order is $8.21 for a hamburger with grilled onions, a cheeseburger with grilled onions, fries and a medium drink,” Aidan says to a customer at the drive-thru window.

At one point, Aidan worked two jobs to raise $4,500 in legal fees. And now to afford tuition, he takes time off from working toward his philosophy degree to instead work the drive-thru window. Sometimes he thinks he sees a familiar face.

“I saw this little girl that looked like my little sister, right. And knowing that all my family is in Honduras, I just had to tell my crew workers, ‘Okay, I’ll be back.’ And I went to the bathroom, and I started crying, because to me, I just thought, I’m working here, I’m tired, I barely sleep, I want to be at UCLA, but I’m not, I want to see my family, but I can’t, I can’t leave this country because I could die, you know, in Honduras…All these things I don’t have because of a paper. Just one paper,” Aidan says.

One document that Aidan says may literally make the difference between survival and persecution.

“When I reflect on my life, I thank God that I’m strong and that I persevere and stuff like that. But sometimes I’m like, Jesus Christ, I could’ve like committed suicide… the way I see it is, I’m here for a reason, maybe it’s to make that change that is to be needed, you know what I mean …either as a professor or as a lawyer, or as a judge,” Aidan says.

Aidan was supposed to meet with an immigration judge March 1st. But for the third time, it was postponed one more year. In the meantime, he’s allowed to remain in the U.S. and continue planning his future.

After a weekend tending to his daughter after she was hospitalized with pneumonia, Santorum said he and his family had come to the decision to end his campaign for the presidency.

With the Pennsylvania primary just two weeks away, Santorum had been hoping a victory in his home state would give him the momentum needed to carry his candidacy through until the Republican National Convention in August. In his 12-minute speech, Santorum did not mention Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney and gave no indication as to when or if he would endorse him.

Kathie Obradovich is the political columnist for The Des Moines Register. Santorum’s campaign successes have largely been credited to his triumph in the Iowa Caucuses. Obradovich doesn’t believe Santorum’s decision to not endorse Romney immediately was meant to hurt the frontrunner, but rather focus on his own reasons for leaving the race.

“His campaign certainly didn’t rule out an endorsement and I suspect that it would have a greater impact if it came on a different day.”

Super PACs have played a big role in the presidential race so far and Obradovich said they may have caused Santorum to drop out.

“I think that without Super PACs helping with some campaign advertising on his behalf that he would have run out of money and would not been able to stay in long enough for him to gain any traction.”

Some worry that social conservatives won’t support Romney in the general election because of his Mormon faith and past pro-choice positions.

“I think that social conservatives will support him, the question is how hard will they work for him.”

Though not a likely vice presidential candidate for Romney, Santorum could end up with a Cabinet post in a Romney administration. Obradovich believes a third party candidacy from either Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul is unlikely.

Today, about 50 students marched to College President Chui Tseng’s office.

The event was peaceful, but on Tuesday night, protesting didn’t end well for freshman Kayleigh Wade and about 30 of her classmates, who tried to go to the Board of Trustees meeting.

“They opened the door to let some students in, and it was a joint decision that we would all attempt to go in,” Wade said. “But they took that as combative behavior by us. And they pepper-sprayed us.”

Santa Monica College Public Information Officer Bruce Smith responded.

“There was one discharge of pepper spray used by a Santa Monica College police officer to preserve public and personal safety,” Smith said. “Unfortunately, a number of bystanders, including college staff, students and other police officers were affected.”

What students are angry about is a two-tiered tuition system. It’s a summer pilot program that would charge students extra money to guarantee spaces in some of the college’s most crowded classes.

“With the community college system being a cornerstone of education, as a tool for impoverished families for the next generation to come out of poverty, lift themselves up and lift their community up,” said first-year student Donald Gray. “When you begin a two-tiered program, when you give priority to the affluent, it creates a system and a society which is not going to be able to sustain itself in the future.”

Yesterday, California Community College Chancellor Jack Scott asked President Tseng to put the program on hold.

Santa Monica College and the State Attorney General’s office are both reviewing the policy.

However, “No decisions have been made at this point,” Smith said. “At this point we’re moving ahead with the program for the summer.”

Even after Kayleigh Wade’s confrontation with police, she says students will continue to fight the fee hike.

“Santa Monica College is seen as this progressive, liberal, diverse campus, you know? And a lot of community colleges look to us. This decision would affect every community college, because every community college would be like yeah, that’s a good idea,” Wade said. “And a community college is supposed to be something that’s an equal opportunity for everyone.”

Students certainly haven’t won the war against rising college fees. But in Santa Monica, they’re determined to win this battle.

“It is the local watering hole for most people in the community who are what you would consider movers and shakers in our community.”

That was Rev. Eric Lee, one of the many business and political leaders in the area who visit Harold & Belle’s two or three times a week. It’s like an extended family, and one that’s very protective of one another.

Inside, Harold & Belle’s is like a time capsule, transporting you back to the restaurant’s glory days in 1969. It’s the same beige wallpaper, same tables, same bar stools, even some of the same people. The only thing that’s changed is the addition of more and more family photos on the wall.

Ryan Legaux, General Manager of the restaurant and grandson of the original Harold and Belle, is featured in many of those photos. But times have been tough and sales are down 30% from just a few years ago. When Ryan’s father, Harold Jr., passed away last year, his mother and her business partners considered closing it all down.

“I told them ‘no, ya know, stick it out if you can I’d like to take it over and create more business for it, kind of keep it going.”

They agreed, but Legaux would not be getting a family discount. To finance his dream, he applied for a $2.6 million loan from the federal government. Though he has been approved by the city council, Legaux hasn’t yet received federal approval. He remains optimistic.

“Our intentions are good and we’re straightforward as to what we’re trying to do.”

Legaux says he’ll keep the doors open with or without the loan. He owes it to his family.

“It also is a family legacy. It’s my grandparents name on the building, on the business. It’s my parent’s hard work for 30 plus years. It’s my career for the past 10 plus years. When I want to have kids and when I want to have a family of my own it’s going to be a part of their legacy too.”

The world has changed outside in 42 years. But inside Harold & Belle’s is still serving the same food, drinks, and the same family.

“When you think about your life, like what’s the one thing that you fear the most?” asks Claudia Gomez.

“Probably to lose my peoples,” answers Cris Carter.

“Lose them how?” asks Gomez.

“Get shot, uh, anything to have them stop living,” answers Carter

Next to the camera sits Claudia Gomez. She wears tight jeans, Air Jordans, hoop earrings, and long, pink fingernails. She’s twenty years old, and she’s interviewing Cris Carter, one of the students she works with. He’s nineteen, and he got out of prison two weeks ago.

“What’s like the number one thing you think nobody knows about you… That now we’re gonna know,” asks Gomez.

“Uh, that, uh, I’m not really, like, I’m not a disrespectful type of dude, like, my insides are like, I ain’t disrespectful none,” answers Carter.

“That’s cool. I knew that,” said Gomez.
.
“Thank you,” said Carter.

Claudia’s studio is a classroom at Free LA High, a charter school many of whose students have spent time in the correctional system. Free LA instructors help them earn their degrees, while teaching them about social justice and community organizing. Claudia’s first year working at the school, she ran the front desk and mentored struggling students. Then she met documentary filmmaker Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, and her responsibilities grew.

“It all started like last summer. Jennifer was like doing interviews on like does prison make you a better person? And I just happened to one day be around,” said Gomez.

Claudia had never used a camera before, but she was a natural. And, in January, Jennifer hired Claudia to co-produce a series of short documentaries about the Free LA community for public broadcasting. Claudia works on all aspects of the project: she films, helps edit, organizes shoots. She’s at her best, though, when she’s sitting across from a student or colleague, and the camera is on.

“Like after the interviews, like, I had some of them come up to me and be like man I hadn’t
thought about that question or I hadn’t thought about my life in that way,” said Claudia Gomez.

For Claudia, the filmmaking is an opportunity to connect deeper into her community. She grew up in South Central. When she was 12, she watched her sister get shot and killed by an ex-boyfriend. She spent the next five years angry, fighting, on the streets. Then she got pregnant and pulled it together. Now she works with kids like the one she used to be.

“Sometimes I have to step out of my role as a mentor and step into myself and who I am as a person and that’s how I’ll talk to them,” said Gomez.

“Have you ever had a family member get killed?” asks Gomez.
“No, well, my friend. Just a friend but...” answers a kid she works with.
“I mean a friend is something,” asks Gomez.
“Yeah well two of my friends died in a fire, and one of my friends got shot.”
“And do you feel like the person who shot your friend deserves another chance?...” asks Gomez.

“I love it. I love doing like this documentary stuff because when you see these people that
we are interviewing, like you’ll never know how deep their story is by just looking at them.
Like you’ll never know how like, like beautiful they are,” said Claudia Gomez.

Beautiful and fragile. Cris Carter, the young man Claudia was talking to at the beginning of this story was murdered about a month after that interview. He was the second Free LA student shot in the head and killed this semester.

“Part of this job is to see people come and go, you know, whether they come and go because they want to or they come and go because they die,” said Gomez.

Tears are flowing. But Claudia’s face and voice don’t change. She reaches for a roll of scratchy grey paper towels and tears off a piece.

“His family like you know they have to see that interview. Like he was just so pure and like so honest and so humble and so I’m not rude I’m very polite, and people always think that because I have tattoos on my face I’m this certain way. Like, I’m really glad that we got to interview him and for him to reflect on himself, because after that day he’s like, man, you know, I feel good,” said Gomez.

“Are you happy?” asks Gomez.

“Yup. Stay happy,” said Carter.

“Yeah. That’s cool,” said Gomez.

“Thank you,” answers Carter.

“You look really serious,” said Gomez.

“I do? I am serious,” answers Carter.

8 groups ranging from LA airport workers, to home healthcare workers, to the port trucking industry banded together to form this coalition to show they can change LA’s economy and the environment.

Los Angeles Airports Representative Alejandra Valles says the workers, not the employers, are the people that can make a difference.

“A lot of these employers are fighting workers, trying to make them feel like they are lucky to have a job and therefore they should tolerate unsafe working conditions and that’s not what’s happening here. We’re in this problem in our economy because of the top 1 percent, not because of the 99 percent.”

Members of Prosper LA contend many of their jobs also have unsafe working conditions.

According to the Don’t Waste LA Campaign, In 2008 waste and recycling haulers had a higher on-the-job fatality rate than firefighters and police officers.

It’s the mission of Prosper LA to raise the pay of the workers it thinks deserve it.

By doing so, the coalition asserts workers will be more efficient, leading to higher levels of productivity.

As Roxan Tynan, Director of the LA Alliance for a New Economy says…

“Money is like manure, you’ve got to spread it around to make things grow.”

Prosper LA plans to continue raising awareness of their economic plan and strive to make Los Angeles a more sustainable city.

Pot pies...fried chicken...burgers…

“Ya make that two sodas.”

Oh, and don’t forget the drink.

If you’re in South LA, any fast-food you want, you can have in minutes.

And if anyone knows a thing or two about fast-food, it’s father-of-three Joe Vidal...Who picked up his family’s dinner at Taco Bell.

“Everywhere you go in South L.A. if you’re driving by… you come prolly like from here to Manchester there’s probably like 13 stores...fast food restaurants… that’s why we’re all like this… “

Vidal laughs about his bulging belly, but it was that troubling ‘fat fact’ that had city leaders looking for change.

2 years ago, the LA City Council approved a moratorium on fast food in South LA.

That meant no new fast food restaurants...period. And for Gwendolyn Flynn of the Community Health Councils...it couldn’t have come any sooner.

“We found we have an over concentration of fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles. There’s high rates of obesity, there’s high rates of diabetes [and] other chronic illnesses that are diet related that have to do with the ones we are concentrating on...cardiovascular disease, you know and even cancers”

Flynn says it’s still too early to tell if the ban made any impact… but has worked making people think about community health for themselves.

“If we can have a place.... a location in South Los Angeles that can offer different options that make it easy for people to make good choices.. I think they will make good choices..”

Choices Joe Vidal might make for his family’s next meal. 

“Are you worried about your kids at all?”

“We try not to eat as much fast food...but I guess yeah, I do worry about my kids, ‘cause that’s all they see, that’s all they see around here. ..Just wish they’d have a lot better food for us here.”

The LAPD and California Highway Patrol have named April “National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.” Chris Cochran is the Assistant director of the California Office of traffic safety.

“Distracted driving is anything that takes away from the task of driving,” Cochran said. “Anything that keeps your eyes from focusing on the road ahead, your hands on the wheel, or your brain activity utilizing what it needs to have in order to safely operate the motor vehicle.”

The emphasis this month is specifically on talking and texting while driving, but Cochran says officers will be paying attention to much more.

“You’re not going to be ticketed for changing the radio station, or adjusting your rear view mirrors or those type of things,” Cochran said. “You will be ticketed if you’ve got a big sloppy hamburger in your hands and your trying to negotiated the road. You will be ticketed if you’re putting on make-up, or shaving, or reading a book.”

LA drivers are known to be both aggressive and frequently distracted. 22-year-old Mac Pearce says he is no exception.

“I’m just am driving to Vegas constantly and I’ve got these plates of food in my lap and I have to prop the steering wheel against my knee to keep from veering into oncoming traffic,” Pearce said.

“Well, I have a karaoke machine in the back,” LA resident Dave Samic. “Sometimes I sing when I drive on an auto-tune so people in other cars look at me and I’m singing pretty loud on the auto tune and like turning on the speaker”

USC Student Anya Lehr says she is well aware of the damage that can be done from not paying attention. 

“I don’t text because of the danger. That’s scary,”” Lehr said. “I have a few times before, and then all that happens is I don’t see that the light changes and people are honking at me.”

Last “Distracted Driving Awareness Month,” over 52,000 people were cited in that one month alone. Traffic Safety spokesman Chris Cochran says he expects even more this year.

If you are caught texting while driving, the first offense will cost you $159. But depending on what else you’re cited for, it could be more.  So drivers, beware.

On a sunny afternoon, Tina Xiao is riding with her agent Al Laghab in his Lexus. She has a stack of portfolios on her knees and is looking over the details for a three-bedroom house in Azusa.

“Cause I already have townhouse, I want to look for something different, duplex or three unit, and then get a loan,” she said. “There’s a lot of factors to it; it’s not just buying the house at a very low cost. In any market, if you know how to look, you can always make money.”

Tina is part of the army of Chinese investors pouring money into the U.S. housing market. They rush to the U.S. because they can buy what they cannot in China. Under current policy, each family can buy no more than two properties. 

“To them, it’s something real, something they can hold onto. Because in China, you don’t own the land. But here, the sense that you’re owning something makes them feel like look, I am, in Chinese we say, dizhu, landowner. It makes them feel like they’re rich, and they have control,” Tina said.

Tina works at the foreclosure department of a local bank in L.A. She’s lived in the States since 1999. Her job guarantees a stable paycheck, but Tina said it is not what she wants for her life. When she stumbled upon the real estate market a year ago, she saw her opportunity.

“I think that’s just the moment when everything just clicks. I think that was a moment when everything just went like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “I think I just got determined to say ‘I need to take action’. Especially I am taking the advantage of that housing market price is dropping,” Tina said.

In the past year, Tina taught herself about real estate by reading books and meeting with experts. Finally, she convinced her parents to give her about $400,000 as a starting fund.

“And then I just keep telling them ‘Mom, it’s time to buy a house.’ And then eventually it penetrated their brain cells. And then it just kind clicked. They say ‘Let’s do it!’” she said.

Now Tina stands in front of a two-bedroom townhouse near Pasadena City College. She bought it with cash in late January. The house meets Tina’s criteria for location and financing, and it’s about $25,000 below the market price.

“So my motivation behind it is that I don’t want to work, get money and spend. But I want to be able to use my money, to grow money. So I don’t have to think about it. So that in a long term I will be a wealthy person,” Tina said.

And for that, Tina has a plan: Lease this house in Pasadena, buy a duplex nearby, refurbish and flip it for profit, and then look for another one to flip.

“I’m always telling my friend or co-worker. It’s kinda like a joke. You know the family who owns the Irvine, so all the residents have to pay to the family? So I say ‘oh, you know, maybe eventually I will own Azusa, Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley, and then you all have to pay rent to me’,” she said.

While Americans are losing their homes, people from Tina’s birth country are buying more houses than ever before. Chinese investors contribute 9 percent to the $41 billion in international sales for U.S. homes, becoming the second-largest group of international homebuyers in the US. Tina thinks the strong buying is actually helping American people out, by getting them out of bad mortgages for a reasonable price.

For her side, Tina knows risk is inevitable. She is undeterred.

She said, “You know a lot of people are stopped by fear. They can make money, and they can do that. And then later on they regret and say ‘oh, look, if I invest, then I would’ve make so much. But because of that, because I was scared, blah, blah…so I did’t do it.’I think everyone has that fear. I’m just kinda able to step over my fear.”

After looking around the three-bedroom house in Azusa, Tina thinks it is nice but not cheap enough for flipping. Tina says to get a good buy you need to be patient.

And now, Tina and Al are driving to her next target.

***********************************************************

That story was produced by Yasser Zhang. Emily Frost spoke with him about the story behind the story with the help of translator Kristie Hang. Frost asked him about the trend of young Chinese buying homes in the US.

Kristie Hang has a degree in Asian Humanities and studies broadcast journalism at USC. She works at MYX TV, an Asian American lifestyle channel.

Yasser Zhang is a visiting scholar at USC. He is from Beijing.

Around 11 p.m. on March 24 police were responding to an armed robbery call. The caller claimed two men robbed him at gunpoint and fled the scene. According to police, two officers tried to detain Kendrec McDade, but then opened fire on him as he reached for his waistband. They believed he was carrying a gun. No weapon was found and McDade later died at a hospital.

The case has caused many to draw comparisons to the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida. This morning Kenneth McDade called in to KJLH Radio’s Front Page show to say his son’s shooting wasn’t right and vowed to fight for justice.

“[H]e was a good boy, he didn’t deserve that.”

The second suspect, a 17-year-old Pasadena boy, was arrested nearby. He’s facing felony counts of burglary and grand theft.

According to KABC, police blame Oscar Carrillo, the 911 caller, for falsely claiming the suspects were armed. Prosecutors say they need to investigate more before Carrillo can be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Carrillo is being held in jail on an immigration hold.

The McDade family’s lawyer and community activists say they have serious questions about the killing. The Pasadena Police Department says it is investigating the shooting internally as well as with the county’s officer-involved shooting team and an independent review group.

“We’re hanging on the beach, being swarmed by spring breakers!”

CANCUN, PUERTO VALLARTA, CABO SAN LUCAS!
THIS SPRING, MILLIONS OF AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE SOAKING UP THE SUN ON SANDY WARM BEACHES WITHOUT A WORRY.

“I just bought four drinks for fifteen dollars and at USC it’s that much just for one drink, so it’s great!”

“The beaches, the girls…”

“This is amazing!”

WHAT IS AMAZING…

JUST BEYOND THE BEERS BEING POPPED (NAT)
AND LOUD DANCE MUSIC… (NAT)

IS THE FACT IN PARTS OF MEXICO THERE HAVE BEEN SHOOTINGS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT AND CRUISE SHIP PASSENGERS ROBBED AT GUNPOINT, AND STILL STUDENTS CONTINUE TO FLOCK HERE FOR FUN.

“Why would you want to go anywhere else??!”

BUT USC SENIOR AEEZH GOODWIN SAYS THE ISSUE OF SAFETY DURING SPRING BREAK COULDN’T BE IGNORED, EVEN IF SHE TRIED.

“Was safety at all a concern with you going to Mexico?: Yes, my parents were like not happy about it. We booked before the travel alert, and they were like, I can’t believe you’re doing this, but we had already paid so I was like, whatever. But when I was there, you could see like military, I guess they were having cartel problems or whatever, but you just try to ignore it and go to senior frogs and not think about it.. Haha”

GOODWIN RETURNED FROM CANCUN MEXICO, SAFELY. BUT WITH ALL THE DANGERS SHOWN IN THE MEDIA, JUNIOR MATT HUNTINGTON SAYS HE WASN’T TAKING ANY CHANCES TRAVELING THERE DURING HIS BREAK.

“You hear about all the drug lords down there, and “ya, it definitely makes me much more cautious than i otherwise would be, it deserves an abundance of research to make sure you’re safe.”

TRAVEL EXPERTS LIKE MEGAN SIKES WITH STA TRAVEL SAY THEY DO WARN PEOPLE ABOUT THE POSSIBLE DANGERS.

“First question they would open up with is, I’m thinking about Cancun or Cabo, but is it safe?”

“We have to say, well, the government has a warning, and be kinda by the book because we can’t promise them anything.. it is what it is..”

“We always offer travel insurance, some things are just unplanned. Play it smart, buddy system.”

IN AN ANNUAL SURVEY BY THE AP JUST RELEASED, THE NATION’S TOP TRAVEL AGENCIES SAY MEXICO IS STILL BY FAR THE MOST POPULAR PLACE TO GO.... WITH ABOUT 20-MILLION AMERICANS IN TOTAL VISITING EVERY YEAR…

NAT: “U OF A, U OF A…”

AND JUDGING BY THE SOUND OF IT, EXPERTS MAY BE RIGHT THAT THOSE NUMBERS
DON’T APPEAR TO BE FALLING ANYTIME SOON!

NAT: “… USC , USC.. “

IN CABO SAN LUCAS, SEAN PATRICK LEWIS, ANNENBERG RADIO NEWS

“Everybody is loving it, they’re very excited,” said Bonnie Polishuk, Marketing Director for the Los Angeles Jewish Home.

Round tables brought Jewish and Japanese retirement home residents together for the first time. Even Rabbi Anthony Elman got into the multicultural spirit.

“I’m very excited I had sushi last night in fact,” said the rabbi.

The cultural exchange is in honor of the Jewish Home’s 100th anniversary—but the original site of the home is now a Japanese retirement center. So the two centers compromised, celebrating Passover together, followed by a meal of sushi.

Seating is randomly assigned, but one pair of ladies aren’t complaining. 89-year-old Lucille Weiss and 86-year-old Betty Uchida have become fast friends.

“Oh I love her!” said Weiss, of Uchida. “I hit the jackpot! She’s so personable.”

“She’s wonderful,” said Uchida, of Weiss. “I feel like she’s a friend I’ve always had.”

They make quite a pair--they both dressed up for Passover. Weiss wears a black beret and three inch long sparkly earrings, and Uchida wears a bright pink sweater set with pearls.

Weiss is the Passover veteran here. She’s done the ceremony her whole life, but just as the group is dipping parsley into salt water, both of Weiss’ hearing aids fail. So first-timer Uchida guided them both through the rest of the Seder.

“She was pointing out things to me, and I’m the Jew! I was really lucky, I’m telling you,” said Weiss with a laugh.

Passover is a celebration of freedom and the end of oppression. Shawn Miyake, president of Keiro Senior Healthcare, says the Japanese and Jewish residents here have more in common than one might think.

“The Jewish people in world war II were put in concentration camps, the Japanese had a very similar experience being put in relocation camps here in the U.S.,” said Miyake.

Uchida and Weiss talk about this as they sip grape juice—their wine substitute. Both Weiss and Uchida vividly remember World War II. Uchida’s family owned a restaurant in California.

“We had to just close it and lose everything that we had, because each person only had forty pounds to carry,” recalled Uchida. “I remember being put in the barbed wire and we couldn’t get out, they had guns so we wouldn’t get out of line.”

And Weiss said in the face of violence overseas, she joined the Airforce as a flight nurse.

“I was able to travel all over the world: China, Burma, India. Lost a lot of friends, a lot of friends,” said Weiss.

After the Passover ceremony closes, sushi and rice are served. Uchida shows Weiss how to hold her chopsticks and they make promises to see each other soon.

“She and I are buddies now,” said Uchida. “I told her, I’ll come and visit her and she’ll come and visit me!”

It’s hard to believe Uchida and Weiss were strangers this morning. In the first day of a ceremony all about coming together with family, the two of them seem to have found each other at the perfect time.

Born in Yuma, Arizona in 1927, Chavez became one of the best-known Latino activists for his work with migrant farm workers and nonviolent protest methods.

As we celebrate his legacy over the weekend, Marc Grossman, his former press secretary, says we must also be cognizant of the dire situation that most farm workers continue to face in California. Many work unimaginably long hours without sufficient work breaks and are not given overtime pay like employees in other fields.

Grossman’s interview was aired as part of Annenberg Radio’s host interview for Thursday, March 29.

City Controller Wendy Greuel at a press conference today released an audit of the city’s fuel usage.  The audit finds that $7,000,000 of total fuel expenditures was spent for trips that were unaccounted for.  This despite having spent twelve million dollars since 1999 on a contractor to run an expensive automated tracking system.

The tracking system isn’t working, the audit says, because departments haven’t been using its monitoring capabilities.

“What’s clear,” Greuel said, “is that some city leaders and managers were asleep at the switch.”

The city buys fuel in bulk, thereby keeping prices lower than on the retail market.  The fuel is then dispensed at 141 City fueling stations.

The tracking system has too many loopholes that are easy to exploit, said Greuel.  For instance, master fuel access cards that allow overrides of the tracking system were within easy reach of employees, although they weren’t supposed to be.  Those cards were used over 50,000 times during the 22-month audit period beginning in 2009.

Overrides by keypad entry were also a problem.  Greuel said, “Although [keypad] overrides should only be used when all normal methods of procuring fuel have failed, they accounted for nearly $4,000,000 worth of transactions in this audit period.”

Additionally, there were 94,000 cases of odometer tampering.  Cars were returned with lower odometer readings than they left with, indicating possible masking of unauthorized trips.

Although the $7,000,000 of unexplained fuel usage is spread across all city departments, the audit specifically scrutinized the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Department of Recreation and Parks, the Housing Department, and the Los Angeles Convention Center in order to understand the possible reasons for such widespread inaccuracy in record-keeping.  None of the departments returned calls in time for this story’s deadline. 

The audit does point out that the LAPD is the only city department which has regular reviews of its fuel usage, notwithstanding some irregularities discovered in the course of the audit.  The audit also states that all five departments specified had seen an earlier copy of the audit, and have agreed to both its findings and its recommendations.

These include the creation of a Fuel Task Force in the General Services Department.  The task force would be comprised of representatives from departmental fuel/fleet managers.  It would develop cooperative solutions and guidelines to better manage fuel resources.

Also recommended are more restrictions on use of keypad functions in vehicles, including requiring employee or badge numbers to be entered whenever fueling up.

Greuel said that, at best, “department managers did a poor job of keeping records of the fuel.  Worst-case scenario is that there’s theft of the city’s fuel resources.”

The audit will be sent to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich.

Greuel, a former City Councilmember, is running for Mayor in next year’s race.

“Just self defense is just not going to fly with me,” said Gray.  “Because he’s at least 100 pounds heavier than Trayvon.  Through different people who have seen the incident, he attacked Trayvon verses Travyon attacking him so it all just doesn’t add up.”

According to the Sanford Police Report, Zimmerman claims Martin looked suspicious wearing a hoodie in the rain inside a gated community.  Police say Martin was unarmed and was only carrying a packet of skittles and an ice tea.  BUT Zimmerman chose follow him and an altercation ensued.

Eddie Jones Jr., the President of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Association, led a protest today in Crenshaw.

“How dare Zimmerman have the audacity take a loaded 9 millimeter weapon,” said Jones. “ That’s a premeditated conspiracy to commit murder on a young person that was completely innocent.”

But according to some eyewitness accounts and a police investigation, Zimmerman may not have killed Martin in cold blood.  According to the Orlando Sentinel, the police reports say Martin punched Zimmerman in the face and then slammed Zimmerman’s head against the sidewalk.

However, the Orlando Sentinel released a video from a security camera that shows police escorting a handcuffed Zimmerman into an interrogation room the night after the killing. Zimmerman has no visible head injuries.

Rachel Zolensky is the president of a brand new USC club called the Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere (AWARE). She says Travyon’s case is a manifestation of American institutional racism. 

“You know this isn’t the first case where something like this has happened.  There’s a history in the United States of Black Life not being valued the same as White life.”

Tonight, USC students will gather on campus for a candlelight vigil in Trayvon’s honor.

Well thanks to Path Ventures and many others, 48 homeless people have been afforded the opportunity to live in their own house, and pay just 30 percent of their income as rent.

“Where there is a will, there’s a way,” said Councilman Eric Garcetti. He explained that this project was about more than just taking advantage of an area full of warehouses.

“In this overbuilt city there are still so many opportunities like this, which was just a vacant lot a few years ago; that we can take these parcels of land and transform them.  But we don’t just transform the parcels, we transform the lives of the people that live here,” he emphasized.

One individual whose prayer was answered by the new complex is Calvin Schwartz.

“When they say they put people in your path to help you out at the most dire needs of your time, it has been true,” he said.

After over 3 years of homelessness, the new opportunity that is La Kretz Villas has helped put Schwartz’s life back on track.

“Thank you for giving me a smarter outlook, thank you for giving me a stepping stone for tomorrow, thank you for giving me another day,” he said.

Residents like Schwartz are expected to pay 30 percent of their total income for rent thanks to the federal section 8 housing voucher for low-income citizens and Garcetti says this is the future in housing the homeless.

“I don’t care if you don’t ethically see this issue,” Councilman Garcetti continues.  “But if you are just a hard-nose budget expert, it is time for us to end homelessness because it is less expensive and the right thing to do.”

And Path Ventures already has plans for two similar complexes to be built within the next few years.

“It turns out our moms were right,” Mayor Villaraigosa said Thursday morning. “Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.”

It’s so important, that Villaraigosa has joined the Los Angeles Unified School District and community organization, InnerCity Struggle, to form “Food For Thought.”

The new program is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and looks to offer LAUSD students breakfast in the classroom.

“Food For Thought” will give students free breakfast at the start of each day, offering healthy options such as fresh fruit, whole wheat muffins, and one-percent milk.

But isn’t it the parents’ responsibility to feed their children in the morning?

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy says, “not necessarily.”

“It is a community’s responsibility,” Deasy said.  “So that if a parent would not have the means, then we wrap our arms around the student and make sure that no one goes hungry.”

Monica Garcia, Board President of the LAUSD, believes “Food For Thought” will increase student attendance, decrease child obesity, and help students reach her ambitious goal.

“We said one hundred percent graduation and we meant it,” Garcia said.  “Breakfast in the classroom helps kids get to graduation.  Breakfast in the classroom help our employees maximize the service for our young people.”

Deasy shares Garcia’s goal of a perfect graduation rate, and says that poverty shouldn’t hurt a student’s chances of success.

“If great breakfast is good enough in Beverly Hills, it’s good enough in Boyle Heights.  The idea that every student deserves [to] and will graduate college workforce ready is not a dream; it’s not unattainable.  It’s the right of students.”

David Binkle, Deputy Director of Food Services for the LAUSD, knows that an empty stomach in the morning can lead to poor performance in the classroom.

“If you have a hungry stomach, then you focus on the hunger pains as opposed to focusing on whatever it is you’re trying to focus on,” said Binkle.  “And in our case, in the educational day, the kids are trying to focus on learning life lessons; they’re trying to learn mathematics and science.”
Maria Brenes, Executive Director of InnerCity Struggle, is happy to help feed hungry children, but says that in the long run, “Food For Thought” can help more than just students.

“We have to play that role of being that safety net for these families and for these children so that they can succeed, go on to graduate, go on to college, and be able to come back to our communities and be those teachers and be those elected officials, and those doctors.  So it’s a community investment.”

Now that is some serious food for thought.

You can follow Nick Edmonds on Twitter @NickEdmondsUSC

“I used to say when I first came to America, I’m going to get my degree, then I was really going to be a doctor and go back home,” Bada, now 26, says.

Home was Lagos, Nigeria. Like many African parents with the means to do so, hers sent Bada, the youngest of 9, to study abroad. “I got on a plane at 17 and I came to the US. I had never been on a plane or anything. I can’t believe my parents let me.”

In the United States, she first studied nursing, then earned a master’s degree in public health from Loma Linda University. The next step was to be med school, but Bada didn’t get that far. Instead, she clicked on a Facebook posting about a program called One Young World.

“The idea was to bring together all these fabulous young people who had all these great ideas and finding solutions to kind of the problems in the world,” she says. “Kofi Annan, Desmund Tutu, all these fascinating people were going to be there.”

She applied, and in February 2010, Bada found herself in London with nearly 1,000 other young leaders.

“We had little discussions in and out and basically one of the discussions was what are we going to do now that we feel all empowered,” Bada says. “You go to a room, I don’t know if you’ve ever felt it but a room where like everybody is just as passionate about changing the world as you are. … I literally couldn’t sleep when I got home.”

In her sleepless nights, she had a realization: Her colleagues talked a lot about interfaith dialogue, but it was missing from the UN’s discussion of development.

She emailed her new friends and the idea caught on. Soon the idea became an initiative and the initiative became a campaign: The Missing Millennium Development Goal. There’s a website, t-shirts, flyers, an online commercial.

The commercial shows Bada explaining her project at the 2011 summit in Zurich. “At this time we’re working on a platform to bring together the most influential representatives from the fields of business, media, academia, religion, politics, everybody to develop a blueprint, a call to action, to promote understanding between different faiths,” she explains.

At the London summit in 2010, Bada was in awe of the social justice celebs she saw. Now in Zurich, she and her project partners were attracting the attention. Desmund Tutu approached her backstage.

“He just signed my petition for the Missing Millennium Development Goal on stage so that was amazing,” Bada says. “He just finds me and just gives me this handshake and a pat on the back. And he’s just so nice and cool.”

“Having them listen to you and engage with you, just gave you that kind of you know, very kind of oomph,” she says.

In California, Bada stays connected to her new global network through Skype and email.

One moment The One Young World office checks in from London about another global campaign. A few minutes later, Bada discusses strategy with a colleague in Argentina. “I’d really like to have a call with (name) just kind of regroup,” she tells her friend. “I think it’s important to stay grounded.”

“I think you should send an email with those exact words,” her friend replies.

Changing the world is slow, sometimes frustrating work. Bada hopes to find a Ph.D. program that will allow her to develop her interfaith initiative.

Before then, she wants to work, but her student visa expires in April and she needs a company to sponsor her in the United States. This global activist would love to stay in California. But she might have to find a new home.

“Even from a religious perspective, I think there comes a time when you must follow your passion and your purpose,” Bada says. “I think it would be a little tough to start up somewhere else, but like I said I’m more interested in my purpose and if it is in somewhere else, I want to be there as soon as possible.”

Bada knows something will work out. After all, she says, God is in charge.
(Photo in courtesy of One Young World)

Supervisor Gloria Molina acted as the force behind the attack. She worried that unclear guidelines could leave the county open to lawsuits. The ACLU recently sued the Sheriff’s department for violating human rights in the jail system. The fight during the meeting came down to the use of ‘directives’ versus ‘policies.’ Sheriff Baca contends there isn’t a difference.

“Well by our standard, and by the common professional standards of the word directive or policy, are one in the same. Directives are policies,” said Baca. “In fact, in case law, which is something I’m a little familiar with, the fact that we don’t do something, let’s say nothing is written, can be interpreted in a court as policy.”

Molina didn’t buy it and she consulted County Counsel John Krattli.

“Is this the case?” asked Molina.

“I’d want to consider that further,” said Krattli.

“I would think so,” Molina responded. “I think a good lawyer is going to pull out that there’s a difference between directives and policies.”

Supervisor Molina also reprimanded the Sheriff for claiming the use of force has decreased in the jails. Molina admits to a county wide decrease, but she says it’s actually doubled at the Men’s Central Jail.

“Again, I think the issue for us is trying to get a recognition of when you make statements like, ‘we’ve had a decrease of use of force,’ and we look at the numbers in December, January, and February of this year, they don’t show a decrease,” said Molina.

The sheriff’s department has planned for the use of 705 new cameras in both the Men’s Central Jail and the Twin Towers facility in order to decrease its liability, but the jails computer network needs a $2.5 million upgrade first. Project leader Mario Mejica says the network needs to increase ten times what it is now.

“Basically what that means is like a highway. You’re coming across the 5, 10, and 60, and you’re just jammed,” Mejica said. “Basically what we have to do is we have to increase that highway.”

The upgrade is expected to be complete at Men’s Central Jail by May, with Twin Towers following in July. Today’s meeting only covered three of the recommendations made by Special Counsel Merrick Bobb. The Board and the Sheriff will meet again in the future to discuss them further. 

A group of airport employees chanting in Spanish and English protested against the private contractor Aviation Safeguards, for alleged poor working conditions.

Mayor Villaraigosa did not let the protest damper the unveiling of what is being called the “Airport of the Future”. He led all the reporters away from the protesters, through security, and into the new terminal for a tour.

When you first arrive at the terminal there is not a long winding line of travelers checking bags at one ticket counter. Instead there are 12 stations to weigh and check bags, and more security lanes to get travelers to their gates fast.

Nicholas Daulton, who was traveling this morning, was surprised at how quickly he got to his gate.

“I definitely thought it was a very fast procedure. It was five minutes in and out,"said Daulton.

At the new gates, passengers no longer have to search for plugs to keep electronics alive.50 percent of seats in the waiting areas are equipped with electrical power. Since Alaska also operates the most international flights out of LAX daily, it created a glass corridor to take passengers directly to customs without having to leave the terminal. Even the restaurants in the terminal are popular places that can be found around the city.

“You’re going to see concessions that reflect LA,the diversity of LA, the flavor of LA, you’re going to see the concessions throughout the airport doing that,” said Villaraigosa.

The new terminal was completed on time and 33 million dollars under budget. It cost 238 million dollars, and opened for business last week.

Traveler Brittani Holland says she already sees a difference.

“Alaska was like get to a check point and go. We’re already here and we’re sitting here waiting, so not a lot of hassle,” said Holland.

This new terminal of the future still has a few projects to finish, but is on path to eventually regain a reputation as the West Coast’s dominant international gateway. 

Just minutes into today’s arguments four of the court’s conservative judges posed skeptical questions to the lawyer defending the health law. Most analysts believe one of those four justices could be the vote needed to uphold the law, but today’s questioning indicated an uphill battle for the law’s supporters.

Defenders say the law falls within Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce, because all Americans are virtually certain to use health insurance sometime in their lives. But opponents argue it steps beyond the Constitution and sets a dangerous precedent.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is President Obama’s most important and controversial domestic policy. It has been a rallying cry for Tea Party conservatives demanding a smaller federal government. In the 2010 mid-term elections, Republicans used opposition to the law to win their most commanding control of the House of Representatives since 1949.

According to a recent New York Times/CBS poll fifty-one percent of Americans oppose the individual mandate, compared to 45 percent who support it. But the same poll also found Americans strongly support most of the law’s other provisions. Two of the most popular would require insurance companies to cover pre-existing medical conditions without a penalty and allow young adults to remain on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 26.

Legal analysts and blogs say it’s almost impossible to determine how the Court will ultimately rule on the case, but the decision will be very close either way.

Labor leaders, immigration activists and a “Coalition of the 99 percent” are organizing three different protests outside a Romney fundraiser in Century City this evening.

“Mostly we’re sending a message to voters that Romney really is the candidate of the one percent. He’s representing not just millionaires, but a corporate culture that really crashed our economy,” says Jacob Hay, of Good Jobs LA. The non-profit is part of the “Coalition of the 99 percent,” which has been advocating for jobs, against foreclosures, and access to health care.

“We’re certainly going to get his attention,” insists Hay. “Whether he listens or not, that remains to be seen. He does have a history of changing his position, so maybe he’s persuadable.”

That’s what Pedro Ramirez hopes for. He’s an organizer for a coalition of undocumented students.  They’re known as “DREAMers” because they came as children to the United States and dream of becoming legal citizens of the only country they know… and they’re targeting Latino voters.

“For dreamers, although we can’t vote, we can organize, we can engage our community,” affirms Ramirez, who came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was just 3 years old. “We’re going to educate them on the issues, not on the candidates, but on the issues, and they’re going to be selecting the candidates.  Their vote is our voice and our voice is their vote.”

Latino activists believe their vote will be the deciding factor in 2012 elections.

As the twenty-odd churchgoers held hands in mourning, pastors called for the arrest of George Zimmerman, who says he shot Martin in self-defense.

But Councilman Parks urged respect for the legal process.

“I don’t think we right a wrong by having no investigation. I think the investigation will clarify in everyone’s mind what actually occurred and will then become the basis of what happens in court.”

The shooting, on February 26th in Sanford Florida, has sparked a national debate about so called “Stand Your Ground” laws.

Here in California, you can only use deadly force to protect yourself in your own home, and only when an intruder is threatening you with severe injuries or death.

But in Florida, where Martin was shot, you can also stand your ground in a vehicle or public place. So if the investigation concludes that Martin initiated the violence, then Zimmerman was legally allowed to use his gun to defend himself.

But Councilman Parks believes that even calling the law “Stand Your Ground” is confusing.

“When you hear these little slogans like “Stand Your Ground,” it defeats the whole purpose of explaining the law. So I don’t think people are interpreting the law, as what I can see the intent is, because I’ve heard variations that say, you can just be frightened and shoot. I don’t know of any law on the books that says you can indiscriminately shoot people.”

The case has spurred civil rights protests across the country, as well as here in Los Angeles. This morning, a group of more than a hundred students from Fremont High School in south L.A. marched to demand justice for Trayvon Martin.

Among the liveried actors stands Sandra Perez Richmond. She says she’s here for two reasons: her son and daughter.

“They’re my life,” said Richmond.

Her 14-year-old daughter has thalassemia, a type of anemia that’s considered a pre-existing condition. When her daughter was denied coverage, Richmond said she lived in terror of a thousand dollar bill for a doctor’s visit she couldn’t afford.

“I’m a hard working person, but I’m not rich,” said Richmond.

She even considered moving to another country that would provide coverage for her daughter. But the Affordable care act changed everything two years ago for Richmond’s family. Under it, both of her children are under her insurance plan until they are 26.

But her daughter may soon lose her coverage.

The US Supreme Court begins a historic three-day review of Obama’s health care law--three days of six-hour arguments that may find the president’s landmark achievement of universal healthcare unconstitutional.

“It’s a basic human right that we should be able to see a doctor and not lose our home over it,” said rally organizer Vanessa Aramayo, of the California Partnership.

Aramayo says because of the law, 319,000 seniors and 600,000 children have insurance coverage. But critics of the law say that the government should not have the right to require Americans to buy insurance, or pay a penalty.

Policy analyst Fatima Morales says this is an issue that disproportionately affects minorities and the poor.

“In Los Angeles, the rate of uninsured is disproportionately high,” said Morales, of Community Health Councils.

It is high--nearly a third of all Angelenos are uninsured. Planned Parenthood is also in support of the law, saying that it protects many women in the city.

“One of the practices that health care reform will outlaw is a process called gender rating which simply means charging women more for their health insurance premiums simply because of their gender,” said Serena Josel of Planned Parenthood.

During the rally, Richmond’s son holds her hand tight.

“She worries about it a lot, to protect us and keep us safe. In case something happens,” he said.

He knows the next three days of court battle will be a battle felt in his home as well.

As of now, no formal charges have been filed against Zimmerman. Adding fuel to the fire, Sanford’s police chief announced today that he would temporarily step down from his post, a decision he attributes to the distraction his presence has caused to the investigation.

I spoke with Shana Redman, a professor of American Studies & Ethnicity at USC, about the incident, and how similar incidents impact the psyche of African American youth in the United States. 

“I have 3 dogs, 7 cats, 2 parrots, one cockatiel, 20 finches, 3 squirrels, and I’m not counting all the wild doves and finches I feed every day,” said Cabrera, who is often considered the “Snow White” of her community.

Cabrera manages to provide food, medical care, and love to all of her pets, but she still finds a way to work fulltime as a legal secretary and raise her three-year-old daughter Sophie, who, like her mother, loves the animals around her.

After asking Sophie, who her favorite pet was, she responded with “Mimi,” a 16 year old Chihuahua and holds two records – one for the oldest animal in the Cabrera household, and the other for the animal bringing in the highest vet bills.

“Sometimes it’s hard because there are so many and the bills can get pretty high,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera has opened her home to stray animals to combat the rising rate of pet overpopulation in the city of Los Angeles.  LA County Animal Control Officer C. Green has been rounding up stray animals in South LA for over 13 years.  He says pet overpopulation is out of control because many pet owners fail to spay and neuter their animals.

“Some people just don’t come in even if we spay and neuter for free,” Green said.

The Los Angeles City Council passed a law in 2008 that requires all pet owners to spay and neuter their animals.  Although many people simply ignore the mandate, Green says it is enforceable. But Cabrera says regardless of the law, there are some South LA pet owners who will never spay or neuter their animals because of a negative cultural stigma.

“The Hispanics I’ve encountered, being Hispanic myself, don’t want to spay or neuter their animals because they thing it’s cruel,” said Cabrera, “and I always tell them it’s the first thing that needs to be done.”

But spaying and neutering operations are only part of the solution.

In the city of Los Angeles, pet owners are only legally allowed to house three animals. But according to Green, many South LA residents have several dogs to combat crime.

“If you’re going to kind of rough neighborhoods, you’ll see people with 4, 5, 6 dogs.  And that’s where the problem comes in at.”

So what’s the solution?  “I think people need to become more educated about animals,” answered Cabrera.

According to Green, many animal shelters and volunteer agencies are currently boosting their efforts to educate Los Angeles pet-owners about pet care and overpopulation.

As of now there is no government legislation on the table to curb pet-overpopulation in South LA, but animal lovers like Cabrera believe this is a top priority. 

But today, community members and business owners gathered in support of the corporate giant’s proposed move.

They say Wal-Mart will help residents as well as small mom-and-pop shops, while opponents maintain it will drive them out of business.

“If anyone has been into Chinatown lately or recently or within the last couple of years, you’ve seen that the amount of visitors coming in Chinatown has dropped dramatically,” said Nicki Ung, executive director at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not as vibrant as it used to be from many years ago, and having a Wal-Mart would increase more visitors into Chinatown.”

However, Bing Wong, a long-time employee at Chinatown’s BJ Market, is worried the increased foot traffic would exacerbate the area’s parking situation.

“No good for us business because now in Chinatown there’s a lot more people, the parking is very little, so it’s difficult for us businesses,” Wong said.

Chinatown currently has two full-service grocery stores in addition to 15 to 20 neighborhood markets like Wong’s BJ Market.

“If Wal-Mart comes in [and] undercuts them by having cut rate wages and cut rate prices just to drive them out of business, we’ll see a loss of a lot of important institutions in Chinatown,” said James Elmendorf, deputy director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

This Friday, Los Angeles City Council members will vote on a proposal that would block chain businesses like Wal-Mart from opening in Chinatown.

About 20 million people get sick from contaminated drinking water every year in the U.S. According to a 2011 Columbia University study, Americans also spend almost 15 billion dollars on bottles of water annually.

But the Public Water Works! campaign released a report about the state of public water today at Los Angeles City Hall, calling for people to revisit their faucets - and for cities and states need to clean them up.

Emily Reuman, a campaign leader, organized this morning’s news conference.

“Here in Los Angeles, and across the country, we’re really seeing a groundswell of support. We’ve had a thousand people sign onto the campaign, over 30 mayors have signed on, and so it’s clear that people are really calling for the tap,” Reuman said. “People want support for their tap water. And that’s why today we’re out here helping to really call on our public officials to really reinvest in our tap water.”

Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom is one of those supporting mayors. Reuman and her team plan to start discussions with L.A. City Council members this month.

Updating local infrastructure can be as simple as tightening leaky pipes, Reuman said. A representative of State Assemblymember Betsy Butler says improving L.A.’s water recycling system would also make the city less dependent on water from other states.

Plus, better taps keep water bottles out of trash cans.

“I see this as a good choice to rid the country of the 30 billion bottles that go to landfill every year,” said Faber Dewar, the founder of water filtration company Drink Up. “And it’s also legislation - we do need to make the government aware that this is an essential service they have to provide, it’s an inalienable human right, and we need to update the infrastructure because it’s old. The water system is old. And we need to have purer water delivered in our homes.”

Water is even a faith issue, said Reverend Susan Stouffer, Director of the Peace Center at United University Church.

“Two hundred and forty thousand water main breaks every day. That’s 16 percent of our total use of water around the country. That is enough water to supply the ten largest cities in the U.S. for a day,” Stouffer said. “Faith traditions from around the world celebrate the sacredness of water. We’re told to share food and drink with those who are in need.”

Tags: World Water Day, Rosalie Murphy, infrastructure, Public Water Works, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Faber Dewar, Emily Reuman, Susan Stouffer

The residents have been billed for garbage pickup since 1983, even though the city was supposed to be paying for it.

Karina Torres has lived in public housing for three years and says her lease stated that the agency would pay for the trash fee, not her. Paying this fee has forced Torres into rough money situations.

“It’s hard because i’m a single mother, if the charge from the trash was removed from my rent, I would be able to, you know, buy something for my son,” Torres said.

According to Torres, her rent was about $24 higher than it should have been. Enrique Melo, a house inspector for the Housing Authority of Los Angeles, thinks it’s the city’s fault for not following the lease guidelines.

The residents have teamed up with organizations like People Organized for Westside Renewal (POWER) to get their money refunded.

Residents say the money that should be refunded is about $15 million. HACLA released a statement Wednesday and is refusing to refund the money. So, residents filed a lawsuit against it yesterday.

Bill Pryzlucki, an organizer for POWER, said he thinks this lawsuit is costing a lot more money than it needs to.

“The housing commission has a choice to make today: they can either choose to negotiate with us now, like in good faith, or choose to try and fight this, drag it out for a year or two, waste a lot of money on legal fees,” Pryzlucki said.

Residents at the protest say they don’t expect their money back quickly, but they do eventually want it back.

“The faster we win that money, the faster the money can go into local communities,” Pryzlucki said.

Residents think they’re going to win the case, but now they’re just waiting for HACLA to respond in the lawsuit.

Reports say the quake shook central and southern parts of the country, damaging at least 60 homes near the epicenter. The quake also caused a pedestrian bridge to collapse and buildings to sway in the capital. Windows broke and plaster fell from ceilings in the center of Mexico City. A magnitude-5.1 aftershock was also felt in the capital.

Just after noon Central Time today Mexican President Felipe Calderon used Twitter to announce there have not been reports of damage in Mexico City, only scenes of panic and evacuations of buildings.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard also tweeted that the city’s “strategic services,” including the water system are functional though there have been reports of power outages and telephone service interruption throughout the affected areas. Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero tweeted that his state has been “seriously affected” by the quake, but there have been no reported injuries.

Flights from LAX to Acapulco, a resort city 120 miles west of the center of the quake, had not been delayed as of earlier this afternoon.

Investigative journalist Raymond Bonner spent more than 12 years researching and writing Elmore’s story for his book “Anatomy of Injustice.” Its publication coincides with Elmore finally walking free.

Bonner shared how race, police mishandling and prosecutorial abuse all contributed to an innocent man spent more than his half his life in jail. 

“What would you do if it was your son, your husband or your brother?” Canales asks.

Canales and other mother’s held a news conference today outside the state building in downtown LA on behalf of the 4000 prisoners living in solitary confinement in California. The group is petitioning the United Nations to abolish the use of solitary confinement for prisoners based merely on gang membership.  Prisoners who are associated with gangs, are placed in a security housing unit, known as Shu. They cannot leave until they have been free of gang activity for 6 years. Peter Schey, President of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law feels the living conditions in Shu are deplorable.

“These men are detained in small concrete cells the size of a closet they have no fresh air they do not see sunlight, they do not have the opportunity to work or engage in recreation. They have almost no contact with other human beings,” said Schey.

Last July, prisoners in solitary confinement went on a hunger strike, to protest the inhumane conditions. After 3 weeks, the strike was called off when the California Department of Corrections Rehabilitation, or CDCR, agreed to conduct case by case reviews for Shu prisoners. Jeffery Callison from CDCR denies the allegations of inhumane living conditions in Shu and says new policies are in the works.

“The proposed policy was just released at the beginning of this month, earlier this month, and there a formal process that you need to go through and at this point the proposed policy is being circulated amongst external stake holders,” said Callison.

But prisoner rights groups say these don’t go far enough. Canales feels these conditions break the human soul.

“There knowingly confining you in these conditions, that there hoping your brain turns to mush, that you feel yourself slipping that the line of insanity is so thin and will you break to the other side or are you grasping to hold on,” said Canales.

The prisoners hope the United Nations will intervene by holding on-site investigations; permitting Red Cross visits and ultimately ruling that California’s policy on isolated segregation violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

“Los Angeles locks up more young people than anywhere else in the world,” she says.
　
Parekh should know. She is a Coordinator at Chuco’s Justice Center, named after a community leader who was gunned down in 2005. It is located on the border of South Central and Inglewood. The center was created as a safe space for young people to play and social justice workers to organize.
　
Parekh explains that before raising money to have a permanent location, space was one of Chuco’s main concerns.
　
“We had made a committment that we would have the center open to other folks and organizations that were interested in doing good work, helping young people, helping the community” she says.

Since October 2010, Shofu the Beatdown and a circle of krumpers have benefitted from Chuco’s mission. Shofu is part of Xtreme Movement, a well-known crew. Krump is a street dance characterized by chest pops and foot stomps that originated in South Central in 2002.

The krump circle takes place every Monday from five to nine p.m. Shofu appreciates the reliability and safety of the space. Sometimes the center provides free food and drinks. Mostly though, young people can practice and perform a street dance they love.

Shofu has been krumping for six years. He will always remember the exact date he started.

“Somewhere in June. I think it was June 20,” he says. “I remember the day because I want to remember that day for as long as I live. I saw the krump video and it was a piece of me that I felt I didn’t have or didn’t even know I was missing.”

Meanwhile, Parekh is keeping her eyes on the bigger picture: redirecting dollars marked for suppressing crime to positive opportunities for young people like Shofu.

“If we took just one percent of suppression dollars for L.A. County, that would be 100 million dollars and that could actually provide 50 youth centers around the county, open from 3 to midnight, 365 days a year, plus 500 community intervention workers that can maintain safety within communities, plus 25,000 summer jobs for young people,” she ays.

With that kind of financial help, Chuco’s imagines a world with more krumpers and less criminals.

One victim waited those painful 45 minutes for paramedics to arrive after cutting off her finger.

The response took so long that her doctor said too much time had elapsed to reattach her finger.

While some people are blaming the delayed response time on the Fire Department’s new dispatch center, Fire Chief Brian Cummings says that no system is perfect.

“There’s no system in the world that we can build ever that will achieve that one-hundred-percent accuracy. There’s always a circumstance where you can have a failure no matter how many redundancies were built in.”

The technical failures are adding to questions about the department’s performance after the Los Angeles Times disclosed that for years, fire officials were reporting emergency response times that were faster than they actually were.

“Our average response time on our first resource on scene to an EMS call is four minutes and fifty-five seconds.”

But this response time does not include the time it takes to process the emergency call, which is said to take between thirty and ninety seconds.

Assistant Chief Dan McCarthy assures the public that all problems with the dispatch center have been identified.

“We believe we have determined what most of the issues were that were causing us to not deliver voice messages to the stations and in the last few days we have had six-thousand dispatches and I think only one we had an issue with.”

While the LAFD continues to work out the problems with its dispatch system, people with emergencies can only hope future calls to the fire department are responded to in a timely fashion.

“I’ve wanted to be a nurse for two years now,” Newmark said. “My mom is a nurse practitioner and it seemed like a really good fit for me to be around people and be in the medical field.”

But Hannah’s plans may be put on hold as the Cal State system will freeze all enrollment for the Spring of 2013 and potentially waitlist all applicants the following fall. The state has cut funding to the Cal State system by $750 million in the last 18 months. They face the possibility of another $200 million if another proposed tax initiative fails on the November ballot.

“I’m having to consider out of state schools now because of everything that’s been going on,” Newmark said. “It’s so frustrating. I have pulled all of my hair out over this.”

Cal State LA is one of the eight colleges that will accept a few hundred-transfer students from community colleges. The rest will not accept any other students.

CSU Media Relations Manager Erik Fallis says he expects students to be upset over the drastic measure of freezing enrollment.

“Any of the issues we have with enrollment are all directly tied to the pullout of state support,” Fallis said. “If we think about it, in the last 18 months, the CSU has lost nearly a billion dollars.”

While this change will be devastating for thousands of students, the news wasn’t unexpected for Miles Nevin. He is a graduate student at Cal State Long Beach and a member of the California State Student Association member.

“This is one we’ve seen coming,” Nevin said. “We’re not surprised because we know that the CSU system has very few tools left in its tool kit to manage what is really a disaster that we’re experiencing in California.”

The CSSA has been doing everything to get people engaged in lobbying and advocacy to put pressure on the state to stop funding cuts. Nevin says it is uncertain how long these freezes will continue.

“This is all dependent on what the state budget looks like and more specifically on whether or not the tax initiative is successful,” Nevin said. “We just don’t know and where going to have to wait to see what happens with that.”

For Hannah and many other students, not many options are left. But, CSU Media Relations Manager Erik Fallis says impacted students should continue taking as many classes as they can at community colleges. 

For now, the majority of CSU’s will close down enrollment for the spring of 2013 with uncertainty for the future. All is depending on the outcome of the proposed tax initiative on the November Ballot.

District Attorney Kenneth Ma

“The way it was charged is the maximum he could receive.// Today was a very simple process of him just pleading not guilty. We go through normal pre-trial motions at this stage. It could take anywhere from 60 days to about a year before we go to trial.”

Smith allegedly opened fire with a ‘Chrome 25’ Semi-automatic handgun on a group of students at a house party near the campus. The bullet struck one woman in the hand and another man in the chest. Smith, who may not have been an invited guest, allegedly grabbed a pair of headphones from the house and tried to flee when partygoers tried to stop him.

Detectives used surveillance video and photos taken during the party to identify Smith.

University Police Captain David Caryle says the incident should remind students that they need to take extra precautions to remain safe when off campus.

“What we try and get students to do, if they are going to have a social event then they need to have someone who’s not drinking, in charge, and make sure that they know who the guests are on the invite list. And if not, call DPS or the LAPD. Don’t try and take matters into your own hand.”

Smith is back in court for a pre-trial conference April 18th. If convicted of the attempted murder and assault charges, Smith could face up to two life sentences in prison.

Attorneys Mike Geragos and Pat Harris reached a $2.5 million settlement with the pop star’s former private jet company, Xtrajet, for illegally videotaping a conversation aboard a company jet.

Jackson’s two attorneys sued the private airline and its owner Jeffrey Borer for $20 million in 2008. The duo won their case, but the appeals court reduced the settlement to $750,000 after it learned that there was no audio from the recorded videotape.

Geragos alleged that airline owner Borer illegally recorded a conversation during the singer’s flight from Las Vegas to Santa Barbara in 2003. Jackson and the two attorneys were heading back to Los Angeles, where Jackson faced child-molestation charges.

Geragos also claimed that Borer attempted to sell video of the conversation to the media for a sum in the high six figures.

The fact that the park exists is unusual—older areas like South Adams in dense cities like LA typically don’t have enough parks and green spaces.  City Councilman Ed Reyes supported the upgrade at Hoover:

“In this pocket [of LA], we’re talking about 40,000 people per square mile.  Children are playing
on the fire escapes, in the hallways of their apartments.  The moms and dads are worried
about where their children will be.”

These small parks function as essential breathing spaces in crowded urban lives.

But in a densely populated area like South Adams, it’s hard to carve out more space for anything.  With local and state governments making massive cutbacks, it’s hard to find money to improve anything.  But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and small things can be done that add up to large improvements.

Said LA Parks Commissioner Barry Sanders, “We can never add enough acreage.  So what you can do when you can’t add enough is you try to make what you’ve got count.”

Jill Werner, of the Werner Family Foundation, is a member of the Parks Commission.  She was instrumental in getting a $150,000 grant from the Foundation for improvements at Hoover.  That grant, in part, helped fund a study conducted by the University of Southern California’s Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture, which looked at ways in which the park could be better organized.  USC professor Robert Harris, who supervised the study, said the park was underutilized because it wasn’t clear how to divvy up the space between different activities.

“The people playing soccer, the balls always came into the place where the kids were playing. 
The picnic space was being occupied by people doing all kinds of things.”

A walking trail was added with exercise equipment installed at various points along the path.  The trail gives valuable space for walking and exercising, and it creates a clear visual separation between spaces for different uses.

For instance, said Harris, “The path itself separates the picnic area enough that it will seem to everyone that that’s what that’s for.”

The new improvements, which also include freshly planted grass in the lawn areas, are a hit with the neighborhood.  While the dedication ceremony was going on, several children and their families were playing in the playground and open spaces.

Local resident Juany Molina said she’s lived in the neighborhood for 42 years.

“I am 67 years old...now we have a place where we can come do exercises.  Before we didn’t have anything like exercise machines, and there were many people drinking—we disapproved.  But now I think when more people are coming, it’s going to be different.  Nicer.”

The Parks Commission has plans to add 50 more pocket parks in areas, like South Adams, that have a lot of people and not enough parks.

Though many members of the Armed Forces came from families who immigrated to the United States illegally.

The spouses and families of active duty members have a path to citizenship; but now the US Citizenship and Immigration Services is refusing to give the same rights to the families of veterans. 

“We should get the same rights as active duty have.”

Army veteran, Rudolfo Terensos served 8 years in Iraq.

“We did our time, they do their time.  We went through the same struggles they are going through right now, so why shouldn’t we be treated the same?”

The Coalition for Human Immigration Rights of Los Angeles called today’s news conference.

Chirla’s Jorge-Mario Cabrera says that when family members have different citizenship status it can cause hardship

“What is a family?  The value of a family?  And the fact that in the us every family should be able to live happy...no matter the conditions.”

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services office had no comment towards the matter.

Currently, L.A. janitors are renegotiating contracts with their employers. It’s also International Women’s Day and the anniversary of a Civil Rights march in Alabama.

“It’s very, very, very important, this march right now. There are like 20 buses bringing in people,” union member Rosa Welson said.

On the surface, today’s event brought janitors in United Service Workers West, a division of the Service Employees International Union, to a union rally.

Today is also International Women’s Day. And Nathalie Contreras, an SEIU organizer, says that’s not a coincidence.

“It’s a day of commemoration, it’s a day of remembering all the struggles for women, whether it’s the Triangle Fire of the women who, fighting for their union, were burned alive trying to fight for their union, or it’s immigrant workers here in L.A. who organized 20 years ago for their union. We’re all struggling together for a better future.”

But today is the anniversary of a 1965 Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. And last year, Alabama passed a law restricting the civil rights of illegal immigrants - it makes all their contracts invalid and allows public schools to check the citizenship of enrolling students.

Federal courts have blocked some provisions of that law in Alabama, but most of it was upheld by a U.S. district judge in September. The Eleventh Circuit will hear an appeal from opponents this summer.

SEIU will continue to vocalize its opposition, along with many other labor and religious groups across the country who held solidarity events today.

“For the janitors, it’s a struggle about working people. An attack on some working people is on all working people. Today the janitors are standing in solidarity.”

The janitors hope to have a contract settled by the end of next month.

Tuesday was the 44th anniversary of the 1968 East LA high school blowouts when 15,000 students walked out for two weeks demanding educational change. Some Cal State Los Angeles students are continuing that legacy with their own protests.

The California State University system lost 750 million dollars in state funding in the 2011-2012 academic year, and with more cuts being threatened, students are hurting.

“We’re tired of paying fees, they keep on increasing. I even have to, and not just me even other people have to take out loans for public education. That just does not make sense,"said Este Zaragosa, a student at Cal State Los Angeles.

Paul Browning, a representative for CSU, supports the students. He knows the difficulty the school faces.

“Unfortunately the CSULA only has two sources of funding, one is the general budget that’s been cut and student tuition, and it is always a really difficult decision to raise student tuition,"said Browning.

The budget cuts have created overcrowding in classrooms, and made it harder for students to get into the core classes they need to graduate.

Grace Nunez’s hope to graduate on time was shattered by the cuts.

“Now four years is out of the question. Now it takes at least five years, like five years, six years to get everything and graduate on time,"said Nunez.

With a 12 percent increase in tuition costs just this year, students fear that it whatever it is next year, it will be too much either way.