Air quality near the closed 10-mile portion of the 405 Freeway reached levels 83% better than typical weekends, according to a team at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.The reprieve lasted for only one weekend, but UCLA researchers say that last year's Carmageddon closure of the 405 Freeway rid Los Angeles of both traffic and another notorious problem: pollution.

A new law broadens how the Academic Performance Index will be calculated. Test results will now account for just 60% of a high school's API score.California's key measure of public school quality will be redefined to lessen the impact of standardized test scores under a bill signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Planning Commission decides that economic benefits of bringing the NFL to downtown L.A. outweigh the stadium's effects on traffic, air quality and other issues.A $1.2-billion plan for bringing an NFL stadium to Los Angeles passed a major test Thursday, even as anti-poverty activists pressed powerful developer Anschutz Entertainment Group to make millions of dollars in additional concessions.

Air quality officials say Monday's rotten egg odor traveled 150 miles, blown by a storm that probably unsettled the fetid water at the bottom of the Salton Sea.Regional air quality managers said Tuesday that inspectors had cracked the mystery of the epic stink that had descended over much of Southern California.

Legislative time runs out on the bill that education advocates said would have weakened initiatives in Los Angeles and elsewhere to improve the quality of public school instructors.Education advocates Friday hailed the eleventh-hour defeat of controversial efforts to rewrite state rules on teacher evaluations that they said would have weakened initiatives in Los Angeles and elsewhere to improve th...

Children in the pilot Medi-Cal program spent less time in the hospital, their families' quality of life improved and their medical costs fell by 11%, the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found.For two months Stephanie Aldana's son complained of intense pain in his back and tremors in his legs. Doctors visits revealed nothing. She could do little but try to comfort 10-year-old Isaac as his fe...

Ruling comes in a suit brought by paint manufacturers against the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates pollution from sources other than vehicles.Southern California air pollution authorities may require pollution controls based on technologies that do not exist but may be reasonably anticipated, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday.

Nirbhay Singh resigned from his California role last year after questions were raised about his work, as well as cronyism. It wasn't the only time he's faced criticism.A consultant who led the troubled effort to overhaul California's public psychiatric hospitals has played a lead role in federal reforms in at least five other states, where critics have raised similar concerns about cronyism and th...

Newsong church plans to buy historic Santora building in Santa Ana's Artists Village. But the building's tenants fear censorship.There was a time when Hollywood mainstays like Lucille Ball and Jack Benny would come to the Santora to be seen at Daniger's Tea House.

Rail construction could create more emissions in an area that already has dirty air and high asthma rates. Resolving the issues could delay the project and boost costs.The California bullet train is promoted as an important environmental investment for the future, but over the next decade the heavy construction project would potentially harm air quality, aquatic life and endangered species across ...

Heal the Bay credits the gains to a drier winter and construction of more facilities to capture, treat and divert tainted storm water. But the county still has seven of the state's top 10 most polluted beaches.The water at 82% of Los Angeles County's beaches earned solid A or B grades in Heal the Bay's annual Beach Report Card, but many of the state's most polluted shores continue to be in the cou...

By allowing California legislators to serve 12 years in one house, Prop. 28 would instill some adult supervision and dampen political ambition, especially in the Assembly.Proposition 28 proposes a tiny tweak in legislative term limits. But it could have a huge impact on legislative quality.

The SEIU will drop two healthcare-related initiatives after an accord with the California Hospital Assn. to facilitate union activity and find ways to lower costs, improve quality and expand access.SACRAMENTO — A labor union that pushed a pair of ballot measures that would have reined in excessive hospital billing and expanded healthcare for the poor has dropped them — in exchange for ...

Officials say the commentator, who died March 1, was a victim of heart failure and hardening of the arteries.Commentator and editor Andrew Breitbart, a polarizing website publisher who once helped edit the Drudge Report and found his way to tea party stardom in recent years, died of heart failure and hardening of the arteries, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said Friday.

Kaldi Coffee & Tea is a ways from Tinseltown but draws a regular crowd of screenwriters, producers, directors and the like -- some successful, others still striving. 'It's very much a workplace,' says one.The cafe is narrow, with a dozen little tables and a gray concrete floor. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too shiny.

Some see John Deasy as a dynamic leader morally driven to give all students a quality education. Others see a relentless taskmaster intolerant of dissent. He admits impatience but otherwise has no apologies.It's 7:30 a.m. and the chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District briskly launches a powwow on the sensitive topic of how to place the strongest math teachers with the weakest students. ...

A report by the state auditor finds that problems with the speed and quality of child abuse investigations remain despite years of promises by the Board of Supervisors.A report released Thursday by the state auditor describes widespread deficiencies in Los Angeles County's oversight of abused and neglected children, finding that problems with the speed and quality of investigations remain despite ...

Tim Donnelly, a tea party Republican from San Bernardino, was stopped at the Ontario airport in January after a loaded .45-caliber pistol and ammunition were found in his carry-on bag. He will pay a $2,215 fine and get three years' probation.SACRAMENTO — A California lawmaker who tried to take a loaded firearm through an airport was fined $2,215 and placed on three years' probation after ple...

Nine-year Marine put comments on the Armed Forces Tea Party page saying he would not follow unlawful orders from Obama, such as ordering the killing of or taking guns away from Americans.The Marine Corps is moving to boot a Marine for having made "political statements" about the commander in chief on a Facebook page.

The Santa Catalina Island resort town's water has long been tainted with sewage, its beach one of the most chronically polluted in the nation. Now, the L.A. Regional Water Quality Control Board is putting Avalon under its supervision.The crystal-clear water lapping the shore of Avalon can be deceptive. The Santa Catalina Island resort town's water has long been tainted with sewage, its beach one o...

Any time an officer gets into a traffic accident in which someone is killed or hurt badly enough to be hospitalized, a police team trained in crash reconstruction will go to the scene immediately.Acknowledging major problems with the quality of its investigations into serious traffic collisions involving officers, the Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday announced new rules intended to improve...

Any time an officer gets into a traffic accident in which someone is killed or hurt badly enough to be hospitalized, a police team trained in crash reconstruction will go to the scene immediately.Acknowledging major problems with the quality of its investigations into serious traffic collisions involving officers, the Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday announced new rules intended to improve...

The Chinese vice president, who is expected to become president next year, arrives in L.A. and visits the Port of Los Angeles. He has tickets to the Lakers game Friday night.Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping swept into Los Angeles on Thursday for a brief but action-packed visit that will include a stop at a local school, quality time with Vice President Joe Biden and tickets to Friday night's Lake...

The EPA plans to cut $10 million in grants it gives annually. Water quality advocates worry that swimmers and surfers will be at even greater risk of illness.Health testing at beaches in California and across the nation is at risk of being cut under a plan to eliminate federal funds for monitoring whether the water is too contaminated to swim in.

Few standards apply to quality of marijuana, because the federal government considers all use illegal. The tech broke the bud of marijuana into small flakes, measuring 200 milligrams into a vial. He had picked up the strain, Ghost, earlier that day from a dispensary in the Valley and guessed by its pungency and visible resin glands that it was potent.

A new generation of Southern California connoisseurs is emerging, seeking teas with layers of sublime taste revealed in multiple infusions. They can spend hundreds of dollars for a handful of leaves.In an Echo Park home, four friends gather around a fist-sized clay pot steaming with a rare vintage of pu'er — an aged tea from southern China whose most exotic variations sell for $1,500 a pou...

Federal reforms to address quality and accountability concerns are forcing more than 130 Head Start agencies, including the one overseeing L.A. County, to compete for funding.At a Pomona preschool recently, children played with a large wooden train set, built a fort with colorful cardboard blocks and listened attentively as their teacher discussed ways to be safe in school and outdoors.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a tea party member and gun rights advocate, was detained at Ontario International Airport after a loaded gun was found in his briefcase. He says he forgot the gun was there.Reporting from Sacramento -- A California lawmaker who has been a vocal advocate for gun rights was detained by police Wednesday at Ontario International Airport after attempting to take a loaded gun o...

Santa Monica-based program lends higher-quality instruments to students seeking entry to prestigious groups than they could otherwise afford.It was noontime and the sweet sound of Bach swept across the plaza outside the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in downtown Los Angeles.

They want a November ballot initiative to repeal the Dream Act, which gives illegal immigrants access to state financial aid at public universities and community colleges. There is a January deadline.In the parking lot of a closed Pasadena restaurant, a handful of tea party volunteers huddled under a tent to escape a sudden downpour of rain.