Pensions

Riordan admits to ginned up pension plan
Richard Riordan has finally acknowledged that the pension initiative that he's circulating for signatures was thrown together without any financial analysis behind it. To be blunt, Riordan has come clean that his claims of savings and plan costs from his initiative are made up and don't have a shred of actuarial support. In a Los Angeles Daily News story, Riordan admitted that he has not conducted any independent actuarial study to support his wild claims of bringing cost savings to the City.
LAPPL News Release

Law Enforcement

LAPD seeks public's help to find suspect in fatal hit-and-run of developmentally disabled teen
Authorities today sought public help to find the hit- and-run motorist responsible for fatally injuring a developmentally disabled 18-year-old man over the weekend. Miguel Mendez of Los Angeles was struck while crossing Broadway at Century Boulevard about 7 p.m. Saturday. The Bannerker Special Education Center student died at a hospital.
City News Service

More Californians driving high than drunk on weekends, study says
California officials are warning against "drugged driving" after a statewide survey found drugs that can affect driving in one of every seven weekend nighttime motorists -- nearly twice the number of those with alcohol in their system. The survey results, announced Monday by the California Office of Traffic Safety, found that 14% of drivers surveyed tested positive for driving under the influence of impairing drugs -- both illegal and prescription -- while 7.3% of drivers tested positive for driving with alcohol in their system.
Los Angeles Times

FBI Report: 72 Officers Feloniously Killed Last Year
Seventy-two officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2011, compared with 56 from the year before, the FBI announced Monday. Another 53 officers died in accidents while performing their duties, and 54,774 officers were assaulted in the line of duty. The data comes from the FBI's annual report, "Law Enforcement Officers Killed & Assaulted." Of the 72 officers, most were killed by gunfire (63) and were wearing body armor (51) at the time of their murders. Of the officers killed by firearms, 46 were wearing body armor.
Police Magazine

Meth lab reports up 39 percent nationally in past three years
Special Agent Jeffrey Scott of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C., said the public has it wrong if it thinks the meth threat has disappeared just because we aren't hearing about "trailers catching fire or hotel rooms exploding." Meth remains a growth industry with heavy demand across the country, federal officials say. The number of meth lab "incidents" rose 39 percent from 2008 to 2011. Meth has evolved from an illegal drug made mostly in rural labs to a business increasingly run by Mexican drug cartels through a sophisticated urban distribution system infiltrating most major U.S. cities.
Scripps Howard News Service

Homeland Security

4 held in alleged terror plot
Four men with ties to Southern California have been charged with plotting to join Al Qaeda and the Taliban to commit "violent jihad" and target Americans, the FBI said Monday night. One of the men, Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, allegedly traveled in July to Afghanistan, where he arranged for terrorist training to be conducted with Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, according to a complaint unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Riverside. Kabir, who lived in Pomona, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, federal authorities said.
Los Angeles Times

Traffic

Protest expected to snarl LAX traffic the day before Thanksgiving
Passengers departing Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday are being warned to expect significant delays because of a huge labor march expected to snarl traffic along Century Boulevard and adjacent streets. People are being advised to arrive at terminals two hours before domestic flights and three hours before international flights, the Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday evening. The day before Thanksgiving is typically one of the busiest of the year at LAX.
Los Angeles Times

2nd set of L.A. toll lanes may open on 10 Freeway by late January
Less than two weeks after unveiling the county's first toll lanes along an 11-mile stretch of the 110 Freeway, Los Angeles transportation officials this week cheered what they called a "successful opening" and said they were on track to begin operating another toll lane -- on 14 miles of the 10 Freeway -- as early as late January 2013. The toll lanes on the 110 Freeway opened Nov. 10, running from Adams Boulevard just south of downtown to the 91 Freeway.
Los Angeles Times

Prisons

Pitchess Detention Center inmates graduate from fire training camp
On the outside, they were deemed criminals. On the inside, they became heroes. For 110 inmates currently serving sentences at Pitchess Detention Center, the bright orange county jumpsuits they wear doesn't mean felon. It means firefighter. "I'm not a bad guy, I just made some poor choices," said Richard Ortega, 42.
Los Angeles Daily News

Politics

Rumors Antonio Villaraigosa could add cabinet to résumé
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is closely following the most important rule for a potential Cabinet member: Don't pine after the job. But the man with the top job in the nation's second-largest city admits that he, too, hears the secretary rumblings and rumors. "I've heard commerce ... transportation," he said. "The other day, someone congratulated me that I got appointed. I said, 'There's not a job opening, man!'" A Cabinet job or a post with the Democratic National Committee would just be the next step in the mayor's meteoric rise.
Politico