LOS ANGELES - Baby Mills

"Chinese birth tourism scheme busted" by Brittny Mejia and Joel Rubin, San Diego Union-Tribune 2/1/2019

NOTE:  This was copied from the e-newspaper, so no link.

Operation illegally brought hundreds of women to U.S.

A group of travel agents has been charged with running illicit “birth tourism” schemes across Southern California that allegedly brought hundreds of pregnant Chinese clients to the U.S. illegally so they could deliver their children on American soil, according to court records made public Thursday.

The charges are the culmination of a long-running investigation by agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS into three outfits operating for years in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire region and Orange County that charged as much as $100,000 for their clandestine services — a price tag authorities say Chinese parents-to-be readily paid to make sure their children would be citizens of what one company’s brochures called the “most attractive nationality.”

“These cases allege a wide array of criminal schemes that sought to defeat our immigration laws — laws that welcome foreign visitors so long as they are truthful about their intentions when entering the country,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement.  “Statements by the operators of these birthing houses show contempt for the United States, while they were luring clients with the power and prestige of U.S. citizenship for their children.”

Arrested Thursday morning were Dongyuan Li, 41, of Irvine, who was identified in court records as an executive at You Win USA Vacation Services in Irvine, as well as Michael Wei Yueh Liu, 53, of Rancho Cucamonga, and Jing Dong, 42, of Fontana [CA], who authorities said owned and operated a company called USA Happy Baby in San Bernardino.

The three face charges of conspiracy, immigration fraud, money laundering, identity theft and other crimes, according to indictments filed in U.S. District Court.

Li’s husband, along with her business partner, Chao Chen, and several others involved in the schemes also face charges, but are believed to be living in China, court records show.  Chen, Homeland Security officials told the Los Angeles Times, pleaded guilty to some crimes and agreed to cooperate with investigators as part of a plea deal, but then fled the country as he awaited sentencing.

Also indicted Thursday was Wen Rui Deng, 65, an American citizen officials accuse of running a Los Angeles-based agency named Star Baby Care, which authorities believe to have been the largest birth tourism operation in the U.S.  She, too, is in China, authorities said.

The indictments stem from a series of raids agents carried out in March 2015 on dozens of apartments used to house pregnant women and other locations linked to the birth tourism schemes.

Following the raids, several women and their husbands living in the apartments were ordered by a judge to remain in the country as material witnesses in the case.  Many of them fled back to China, however, leading to charges being filed against them and an Irvine attorney who helped them escape.

The investigation into the operations named in Thursday’s indictments began in 2013, when birth tourism operations were booming in Southern California and coming under increasing scrutiny by local officials and disgruntled residents.  Officials were tipped off by anonymous letters sent to a federal immigration office and the Irvine Police Department that described a man operating a birth tourism business out of a luxury apartment building in Irvine.

The Carlyle Apartments happened to be across the street from a Homeland Security Investigations field office.  From their windows, agents could see pregnant Asian women coming and going, HSI officials told the Times.

An undercover agent was dispatched to make contact with Chen, who was suspected of operating the business.  The agent told him a cousin in China wanted to come to the U.S. to have a baby, officials said.  Chen asked the agent for approximately $15,000 and instructed him to have his cousin call a number in China, according to the HSI officials.

A female HSI agent fluent in Mandarin called the number from a concealed number and, over several conversations, was coached on how to deceive U.S. immigration officials.  She was instructed to fabricate a job and the name of the place she went to school, information the agency employee later used to complete an application for a tourist visa to the United States on behalf of the woman.

“Everybody wants to come to the U.S.,” HSI agents recalled the employee saying on the phone.  “It’s crazy how many people I have to train, I’m overwhelmed.”

It is not known how many women were brought to the U.S. by the three agencies implicated in Thursday’s indictments.  On her website for Star Baby Care, Deng boasted of having orchestrated 8,000 U.S. births since opening her doors in 1999, according to court records.  Li and Chen told prospective clients they had successfully sneaked more than 500 pregnant women into the country, records show.

The investigation would later widen to include Star Baby Care and Happy Baby USA.  The three companies followed a similar strategy, instructing clients on how to lie on tourist visa applications and putting them up in one of the dozens of apartments each operation leased across the region.

Although childbirth can be a legitimate reason to travel to the U.S. if the traveler provides the correct paperwork and evidence they can pay for their medical care, lying about the purpose of a visit can lead to charges of visa fraud.  Customs and border protection agents at major ports of entry such as Los Angeles International Airport in recent years have tightened security for pregnant Chinese women and sometimes block them from entering the country.

Taiwanese, Korean, Turkish, and Russian mothers are also known to engage in birth tourism, but the practice has become particularly popular with the newly wealthy Chinese middle class.

Investigators found women paying the birth tourism agencies were told to come to the U.S. before their third trimester and to wear loose-fitting clothes in order to better conceal their pregnancies from immigration officials.  For example, in a voicemail message to a customer in 2014 intercepted by investigators, Li said: “The main thing is they look and see if you look obvious (pregnant); can they see it?  First thing is not to let them see it.  Second thing is don’t deny it if they can see it, and just say that you’re still here for vacation and just show them the return flight ticket,” according to Li’s indictment.

After giving birth, mothers typically stay in the U.S. at least long enough to observe the Chinese custom of “zuo yuezi,” a monthlong regimen that restricts a new mother’s diet and lifestyle in order to help her recover from pregnancy.

On a document titled “Strategies to Maximize the Chance of Entry” that investigators discovered while searching You Win USA’s offices, Li and Chen spelled out the particulars of their strategy.  They told women, for example, they would improve their chances of slipping past immigration officials by putting on their tourist visa applications that they intended to stay at the Trump International Hotel in Honolulu.

Liu and Dong, who ran USA Happy Baby, catered to wealthier clients that included Chinese government officials and charged as much as $100,000 for their services, authorities said.

The indictments also drew attention to the drain on resources at the hospitals where the women gave birth.  After paying tens of thousands of dollars to the agencies that brought them to the U.S., the mothers often claimed to be uninsured or poor to receive a reduced bill for childbirth services, the indictments said.

Despite the subterfuge the mothers employed to come to the country, their children nonetheless are citizens under U.S. law and officials said they do not plan to try to challenge their citizenship.

In recent years, the practice has prompted some lawmakers, who oppose children of unauthorized immigrants automatically becoming citizens, to propose repealing birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

President Donald Trump last year claimed erroneously that the United States is the “only country in the world” that automatically confers citizenship to anyone born in the country.  In fact, it is one of at least 30 countries that do so.

Mejia and Rubin write for the Los Angeles Times.  The New York Times contributed to this report.

COMMENT:  What's wrong here?  People with Chinese Passports and NOT having their passports confiscated or being held as material whiteness?!

RACE IN AMERICA - "Zoot Suit" Classic Play

"'Zoot Suit,' a classic play about discrimination, finds renewed purpose" PBS NewsHour 3/14/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  It's the story of a real-life murder trial and the so-called Zoot Suit Riots, set amid rampant discrimination in 1940s Los Angeles.  A play called "Zoot Suit" was a cultural phenomenon in the 1970s and '80s, launching the careers of many Chicano actors.  Now it's in revival at the theater where it all began.  Jeffrey Brown reports talks to writer and director Luis Valdez.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It is a deeply American story, a Mexican-American story, “Zoot Suit” the play, set in Los Angeles in the 1940s, amid rampant discrimination, a real-life murder trial and the so-called Zoot Suit Riots.

ACTOR:  The grand jury has just indicted you all for the same identical crime, not just you four, the whole entire 38th Street Gang.

JEFFREY BROWN:  And “Zoot Suit,” the cultural phenomenon, reaching from its premiere in 1978 at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum, to Broadway, to a 1981 film, and now, 38 years later, to a revival at the theater where it began.

Its writer and director, then and now, is Luis Valdez.

LUIS VALDEZ, Writer/Director, “Zoot Suit”:  I believe in entertainment.  I love entertainment, you know?  But I love it with a purpose.  I want people to come out of here thinking about what they saw, and perhaps reassessing what's happening in their own lives with their families.

And, more than anything I hope that people leave here with hope and inspiration.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Valdez received a National Medal of the Arts from President Obama in 2015 for — quote — “illuminating the human spirit in the face of social injustice.”

He spent his early years in a family of migrant workers.

Is it correct what I read, that you were 6 when you first discovered your love of theater in a camp?

LUIS VALDEZ:  In a camp, labor camp, I got hooked, yes.  I auditioned, and I won my first role.  Unfortunately, the week of the show, we were evicted from the labor camp where we were staying, and I was never in the play.  So, that left a big gap, a big hole in my chest, you know?

INSPIRATION - Heroic Foster Father

I know I could not do this, the emotional toll would be too much.

Note that his actions are part of the faith, Islam.  Caring for others.

"The foster father who cares when terminally ill kids have no one" PBS NewsHour 2/24/2017

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SUMMARY:  Mohamed Bzeek has become somewhat of a local hero in Los Angeles, taking on a life mission that few others would consider:  as a foster parent who cares solely for terminally ill children.  Special correspondent Gayle Tzemach Lemmon meets Bzeek, a former Libyan immigrant who depends on his Muslim faith as he juggles intensive caretaking and heartbreak, as well as his own battle with cancer.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now the story of a good man on a quiet and heartbreaking mission, one many people would never consider undertaking.

He worked for years in obscurity, until recent notice brought this remarkable man and his story to light.

From Los Angeles, special correspondent Gayle Tzemach Lemmon brings us this profile.

MOHAMED BZEEK, Foster Parent:  What are you doing?

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, special correspondent:  Mohamed Bzeek has become something of a local hero here in Los Angeles recently.

MOHAMED BZEEK:  I am not an angel.  I am not a hero.  It's just what we are supposed to do as a human being.

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON:  In 1978, Bzeek, then a former marathon runner, came to the U.S. from Libya to study engineering.  He met his wife here in the U.S., and became a citizen in 1997.

But, today, he is a different kind of champion.  His distinction?  He is the only foster parent in this city of four million who cares solely for terminally ill children.

What happens if you get sick?

MOHAMED BZEEK:  Father doesn't get sick day.

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON:  It is not a glamorous job.

MOHAMED BZEEK:  You have to do it from your heart, really.  If you do it for money, you're not going to stay for long.

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON:  Over almost three decades, he and his wife cared for scores of children.  Ten have died in his care.  Most of the children he's taken recently are born with terminal illnesses.

Sometimes, they are abandoned or born to parents with drug addiction.  Once they enter the foster care system, the county works to connect them with foster parents like Mohamed.  The memories of the children, he says, still live with him every day.

CULTURE WARS - Artist Robert Mapplethorpe

"Seeing Robert Mapplethorpe’s idea of perfection in a new retrospective" PBS NewsHour 5/5/2016

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SUMMARY:  Artist Robert Mapplethorpe found himself at the center of the culture wars of the 1980s and ‘90s for his best-known work, homoerotic and often explicit photographs that drew the ire of federal lawmakers.  Now two major Los Angeles museums have mounted a retrospective of his work, asking viewers to take another look.  Jeffrey Brown examines the artist’s life and legacy.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):   Now, looking back and looking anew at an artist at the center of the so-called “culture wars” of the 1980s and ’90s.

Jeffrey Brown reports from Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  'Take another look;' that’s the invitation from two Los Angeles museums, together presenting a major retrospective of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Mapplethorpe was best known for his homo-erotic photographs and explicit sadomasochistic imagery, and the political and legal battles around them.

Even now, we’ve chosen not to present his most controversial work.  But the new exhibition, “Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium”, wants us to see how much more there was to the artist.

BRITT SALVESEN, Los Angeles County Museum of Art:  This gallery gets us to the 1980s —

JEFFREY BROWN:  Britt Salvesen is a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

BRITT SALVESEN:   For several years after the culture wars debate of the late ’80s, early ’90s, it was impossible to see the work as art because we were preoccupied with its status as evidence, let’s say.

JEFFREY BROWN:  As part of that culture war.

BRITT SALVESEN:  Yes.  And that really forestalled an assessment of his artwork.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Mapplethorpe grew up in a conservative Irish Catholic household in Queens, New York, and in the 1970s became part of the city’s burgeoning gay scene.  He focused from the beginning on three main subjects: portraiture, including artists and celebrities of the day, floral still lifes, and sex and the body.

BRITT SALVESEN:  Those are very traditional art historical subjects, I mean long before photography.  So the question becomes, how do you make them your own?   And I think Mapplethorpe does it through a refinement, a reduction of extraneous elements.  His sense of perfection and beauty is what he applies to those traditional subjects.

SPECIAL ED - More Inclusive Schools, Good/Bad?

"LA schools grow more inclusive, but at what cost?" PBS NewsHour 3/1/2016

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SUMMARY:  The Los Angeles school system has come far in the last ten years, especially in terms of inclusivity.  In 2003, only 54 percent of LA's disabled students were taught alongside their nondisabled peers; today, it’s more than 90 percent.  But some parents worry that general education schools won’t provide the specialized attention their children require.  John Tulenko of Education Week reports.

JOHN TULENKO (NewsHour):  In Los Angeles, the nation’s second largest school system, it took a class-action lawsuit filed in 1993 to bring attention to the failures in special education.

Teachers weren’t trained, records weren’t kept, and thousands of students were not receiving services.

Sharyn Howell, the district’s special education director, says progress has been made.

SHARYN HOWELL, Special Education Director, LA Unified School District:  I think we have come a long ways.  Even at that point in time in LAUSD and in other school districts, special education was still thought of as this was a very separate group of students and most of them were in segregated classes someplace.

JOHN TULENKO:  But not anymore.  Today, many of the problems have been resolved, especially when it comes to inclusion.  In 2003, about half of all students with disabilities were taught alongside their non-disabled peers for the majority of the day.  Now it’s 90 percent for students with learning or speech and language disabilities.

For other special education students, there’s still a ways to go.  Seventeen-year-old Leo Villegas, who has Down syndrome, spends most of his day in a separate classroom.  But even that’s beginning to change.

ROSIE VILLEGAS, Parent:  I want Leo to be included in the community.  I don’t want Leo to be segregated all the time.  I mean, come on.

JOHN TULENKO:  Rosie Villegas is Leo’s mother.

ROSIE VILLEGAS:  I want other students or other people to see Leo and accept Leo the way he is, even if it doesn’t work, to try.

JOHN TULENKO:  At his mother’s insistence, Leo is in a few general education classes like economics, but not without support.

Monet Gothard is with Leo all day, helping with his behavior and class work.

MONET GOTHARD, Behavior Intervention Therapist:  I was reading a story to him, and then he was answering reading comprehension questions.

Humm.... Off topic comment:  I wonder if Republicans need a Behavior Intervention Therapist?

RACE MATTERS - Getting Away From Gangs

"Steering young people away from a life mixed up with gangs" PBS NewsHour 11/27/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Naomi McSwain was once a member of the notorious Crips gang in South Los Angeles before leaving that path of violence and drug use to devote her career to helping other young people escape.  McSwain sits down with special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault to discuss her solutions for combating gang violence.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Tonight, we have another look at Race Matters Solutions.

PBS NewsHour special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault is examining specific solutions to racial problems in our year-long series.

As we reported earlier, police in Chicago today announced murder charges against a man for killing a 9-year-old boy as part of what they are calling gang retaliation. Charlayne's conversation tonight focuses on preventing gang-related black-on-black crime.

She traveled to South Central Los Angeles to meet Naomi McSwain and learn about a solution that keeps kids out of gangs, and in doing so, is keeping them alive.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT (NewsHour):  This crime scene, the result of a gang-related shooting, is not unusual here in South Los Angeles.  And, recently, police attributed 80 percent of the homicides in South L.A. to gang violence.

No one knows this violence and its consequences better than Naomi McSwain, once a gang member herself.  Years ago, she was a member of the notorious Crips, still today one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country.  But, unlike many gang members, McSwain escaped, later finishing college and becoming a journalist who reported on gangs and looked for solutions.

In 2010, McSwain became executive director of the 20-year-old Wooten Center, founded by her late aunt, Myrtle FayeRumph.  She set up storefront havens to get children off South L.A.’s mean streets after her 35-year-old son, Al Wooten, was killed on one of them in a drive-by shooting.

Naomi McSwain, thank you for joining us.

NAOMI MCSWAIN, Executive Director, Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center:  Thanks for having me.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT:  I think most of our viewers will want to know right away, how did you get out of the gang life?

NAOMI MCSWAIN:  My mother.  She intervened.  She saw her daughter changing.  I went from a practically straight-A student to a practically straight-F student.  This was in high school.

And I was doing drugs.  She didn't know all of that, but she saw the signs of it, my belligerence, truancy.  She pretty much saw my grades and my attitude changing.  But it was because of the gang activity and the drugs that I was doing.

ART - A Billionaire Collector's Museum

"An art collector with Broad influence opens his own museum" PBS NewsHour 9/18/2015

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SUMMARY:  Billionaire Eli Broad began his fortune building tract homes in the Detroit suburbs, and over the decades he and his wife also built an impressive art collection.  Now the brand new Broad Museum is set to open in Los Angeles, part of his larger effort to make the city into an arts mecca.  Jeffrey Brown reports.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Los Angeles’ cultural scene is about to get a big new showcase for contemporary art.  A new museum opens this weekend featuring the work of major artists from the past six decades, all from the private collection of a longtime arts patron.

Jeffrey Brown takes us there for a preview.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Billionaire art collector Eli Broad still remembers how he managed to acquire this early painting by modern master Roy Lichtenstein.

ELI BROAD, Philanthropist:  A Parisian collector wanted a lot of money for it.  I wasn’t going to pay that.  So what I did is, I wrote a check for X-million dollars and said, you could take the check, send me the art, or tear it up.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Really?

ELI BROAD:  And we ended up with the art.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Not something that most of us can do, but Eli Broad can and has for more than four decades.  The results can now be seen in the brand-new $140 million Broad Museum in Los Angeles.

Designed by the firm of Diller Scofidio and Renfro, it features an outer honeycomb veil that allows natural light to filter in, a floor for storage of art works that visitors can peer into, and 30 galleries filled with big names in modern and contemporary art, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Kara Walker, Jeff Koons, and many others, including Jasper Johns.

CALIFORNIA - Drought Shaming

"LA mayor says ‘drought shaming’ is our civic duty" PBS NewsHour 9/3/2015

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now to our weekly feature, Brief But Spectacular.

Tonight, we hear from Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles.

With California in the midst of a severe drought, the state imposed mandatory water restrictions earlier this year.  Last week, the mayor’s office announced that, for the month of July, Los Angeles saved even more water than the state asked them to, using two million fewer gallons.

ERIC GARCETTI (D), Mayor of Los Angeles:  The droughts in Los Angeles and in California are here to stay.  So, we have got to make it a little bit more exciting, make it a little more sexy.

Ah, water.  We see so much water misused, wasted, thrown out to the ocean, or bad decisions made that take up more water than we need to sustain life.  The 'Save the Drop' campaign in Los Angeles is all about mindfulness.  It’s about being conscious of our behavior and our use.

I’m half-Mexican, half-Jewish, so it’s going to be a combination of intelligent forward-looking action and old-fashioned guilt.  Drought shaming is when you go to your next-door neighbor and say, you know, you have never been on that grass in your front lawn.  Why don’t you get rid of it?

I would say, if you have a lawn you are using, great.  Keep it.  Water less frequently, but keep it.  But 90 percent of lawns, maybe even more, go completely unoccupied.

We’re being very innovative here in Los Angeles with water, with the plentiful water we actually still have, switching out our turf and paying people to do that, to have better plans that use less water, and then recycling water.  About 60 percent of our daily use of water, equivalent of that, gets treated through our sewage treatment plants to a standard you could basically drink.  But then we wash it out to the ocean, instead of putting it back into the land here.

We’re not just planning for the next two years to get through the immediacy of the drought.  But we have got a 10-year and a 20-year plan to wean ourselves off of water that we import.

This is a nonpartisan issue.  Water doesn’t care what your party registration is.  It just cares that you are wasting it.  I hope to leave behind a legacy in which we reengineer Los Angeles once again, but in a way to live more sustainably with the water we already have.

I’m Mayor Eric Garcetti.  And this is my 'Brief But Spectacular' take on California and our relationship with water.

MEDICAID - House the Homeless?

Think  about it....  Being homeless is NOT healthy.  So why not use Medicaid money to solve this health issue?

"Should a federal health program pay to house L.A.’s homeless?" PBS NewsHour 12/12/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Since the federal health care law expanded Medicaid in some states, about seven million low-income Americans have gained new health insurance.

But, in Los Angeles, health officials say that’s not enough and they want to try going further, using Medicaid dollars to pay for housing for the homeless.

Hari Sreenivasan has our report.

WOMAN:  I got appendicitis, OK?  Cirrhosis of the liver.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Deborah Mullins blames most of her health problems on this block in downtown Los Angeles.  She has been living on the sidewalk here for the past 30 years.

MAN:  Do you know how many times she went to the hospital?  At least eight.  At least.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Mullins’ health has gotten so bad that even the police have started worrying.

MAN:  As a matter of fact, no, that’s been this year, and we’re not even done yet.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  She’s exactly the kind of person Dr. Susan Partovi and her team from L.A.’s Department of Health Services have been trying to find recently.  They say they have an obviously cure for much of what ails the city’s chronically homeless, namely, housing.

VENICE BEACH - Changing From Bohemian to Tech

"Replacing surf shops with startups, tech boom makes waves in bohemian Venice Beach" PBS NewsHour 12/4/2014

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STEVE GOLDBLOOM (NewsHour):  In San Francisco, computer programmers are like rock stars.  Here in Los Angeles, the rock stars are the rock stars.  But now that’s starting to change, as more entrepreneurs are trading in the high costs of Bay Area living for sunnier space right here in Venice Beach.  They even have a name for it, Silicon Beach.

But as is the case in San Francisco, the tech boom brings with it both prosperity and its share of problems.

CHAD BILLMYER, CEO, Panjo:  We’re a marketplace for auto, sport, and hobby enthusiasts.

FARBOD SHORAKA, CEO, BloomNation.com:  It’s awesome to be by the water and working at the same time.

CHAD BILLMYER:  Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, I can walk to work.  Right?  It’s going to be sunny.  It’s going to be 70.

STEVE GOLDBLOOM:  L.A. Times tech reporter Paresh Dave covers Silicon Beach.

PARESH DAVE, The Los Angeles Times:  The West Side of Los Angeles has always been sort of a young, hip district.  And things like the weather and being close to the beach, to some, it was attractive.  And I think that’s what got it started.

STEVE GOLDBLOOM:  Entrepreneur Erik Rannala decided to relocate to L.A. from the bay area.  He co-founded Mucker Capital, the first start-up accelerator to arrive in Silicon Beach.  They nurture and invest in young start-up companies.

ERIK RANNALA, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Mucker Capital:  I have seen a lot of these buildings switch over from, you know, not tech companies to tech companies.

JOBS - The 'Living Wage' Fight in U.S. Cities

"New York City, LA among cities moving to raise minimum wage" PBS NewsHour 10/5/2014

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Some of America’s biggest and most expensive cities are acting on their own to increase the minimum wage.  For some insight yesterday I spoke to Matt Flegenheimer, a reporter with the New York Times.

New York did something recently, so did L.A., what did they do?

MATT FLEGENHEIMER, New York Times:  So, in New York at least on Tuesday, Mayor DeBlasio signed an executive order essentially expanding a law that was passed in 2012 – over the objections of Mayor Bloomberg – which stipulated that on city subsidized projects, workers were entitled to a what’s called a ‘living wage’.

At this point it would be $13.13 as the minimum.  Sort of a wide expansion compared to what we saw a couple of years ago.

Any tenants or subtenants on projects that receive city subsidies now are entitled to that wage, it is about 18,000 workers by the administration’s estimate.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  OK and this is if it goes through and makes it through city council, right?

MATT FLEGENHEIMER:  No, this is an executive order, which is sort of a sticking point.  Some of the council members have kind of chafed at being bypassed in this case.  They probably would have supported it.  It has been a very sort of compliant council here in New York.  But the mayor did this on his own.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  And Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles trying a little something different.

MATT FLEGENHEIMER:  A little bit different.  So, there are a couple of things going on there.  The sort of broader minimum wage package he is pushing for I believe $13.25 and then for hotel workers – in a lot of cases – they have gone for sort of an expansive move through the council as well, which has been faced with some opposition obviously from some of the business groups who have said that this could cost jobs in the long run potentially if workers don’t want to, rather, if employers don’t want to pay these wages to workers, they’ll take their jobs elsewhere, so there’s been a bit of a debate there over that.

EDUCATION: Homeless in High School

"From Skid Row to high school graduation, Los Angeles supports homeless students’ academic success" PBS NewsHour 6/17/2014

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GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  It’s high school graduation season, and one of the country’s largest school districts is celebrating the accomplishments of dozens of students who’ve had a particularly difficult time earning a diploma.

They have all been homeless, which drastically increases the likelihood of their dropping out.

But as David Nazar of PBS SoCal explains, a concerted effort to help those students graduate has been paying off.

It’s the latest report for our American Graduate project, a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

DAVID NAZAR, PBS SoCal:  Nora Perez just graduated from Roybal learning center, a high school in Los Angeles.  Those four years can be an uphill battle for many students.  However, Nora faced a mountain of challenges.  This is what she called home during high school, the back of a car, parked on a city street.  It’s where Nora spent part of the night and studied after school.

NORA PEREZ:  You don’t have your own room.  You don’t have your own bed.  You don’t even know where to shower.  And it was really difficult. It was really difficult.

And it brings tears to my eye, because going through all this pain, going through all those moments, all those cold nights that I looked at my parents and saw the pain in their face.

DAVID NAZAR:  The difficult road for Nora began during her freshman year.  Her father lost his job, and then the family lost its house.

CHILDREN - Music and Young Brains

"Making sure young brains get the benefits of music training" PBS Newshour 1/4/2014

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The percentage of students receiving music education has been in decline for decades.  The Harmony Project, a music program for inner-city kids in Los Angeles partners with a neurobiologist to study the impact of music training on the learning skills of poor children.
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DR. NINA KRAUS, neurobiologist at Northwestern University:  There have been a number of studies.  And the language abilities seem to be strengthened by the music instruction more than the art.  And so these language-based skills seem to profit from music instruction.

JOSH ARONSON :  The Harmony Project has 17 sites in Los Angeles and one in Ventura.  And there are 16 more in three other states.

CONDUCTOR:  Here we go.  From the Allegro.  Measure 37…

JOSH ARONSON:  What are the goals, where do you want to take this?

MARGARET MARTIN:  Oh man, my dream is to build Harmony Project programs in inner cities throughout the country because our students are achieving their unique potential.  They are blossoming.

EDUCATION - What Parents Can Do to Help Their Children

"Parents study up on how to improve college prospects for their children" PBS Newshour 10/24/2013

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  While their elementary school-aged kids are being taught the basics of reading and math, some parents are learning how to prioritize their prospects for higher education.  The NewsHour's April Brown reports on the "Parent College" program that is working to improve graduation rates for underprivileged students in Los Angeles.

This is more on just how important parents are for their children's education starting at an early age.  We who had the advantage of parents that emphasized education know how true this is.

LOS ANGELES - Not Good for Today's Women in Politics

"Women Scarce in the Top Posts of Los Angeles" by ADAM NAGOURNEY, New York Times 8/4/2013

Excerpt

There are 1.9 million women in Los Angeles.  The two senators from California are women, as is the state’s attorney general.

But this city, a bastion of progressive politics, has a curious distinction these days.  Only one woman holds elective office in the entire government of Los Angeles, a member of the 15-person City Council from the San Fernando Valley who was sworn in only on Friday.

The mayor is a man, Eric M. Garcetti, who defeated a woman, Wendy Greuel, for the job in May.  The city attorney is a man.  The city controller?  You guessed it.

Los Angeles County, with a population of 9.9 million that includes Los Angeles, has just one woman on its five-member Board of Supervisors.  And the race to fill the City Council seat for Hollywood, which Mr. Garcetti vacated when he was elected mayor, gave voters a choice of 12 candidates — all men.

The overwhelmingly male lineup in local elected offices has caught many people here by surprise, overlooked in the general lack of interest in this year’s campaigns.  And it has become a subject of considerable chagrin, civic embarrassment and impassioned discussions about exactly what happened.

“When I was in elementary school, there were like five women on the City Council,” said Nury Martinez, the city’s lone woman in elected office, speaking in her empty Council office at City Hall.  “It’s a shame and embarrassing that in a city of four million people we are down to one woman.”

The paucity of women in office in the nation’s second-largest city is a reminder that even when the next president could be female, women are struggling across the country to attain parity with men in elected office.  Women’s political organizations have watched with concern this summer at the difficulties of Christine Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council, as she seeks to become the city’s first female mayor.

The case in Los Angeles might be particularly egregious, but the number of women holding office across the country has flat-lined in recent years.

“Can you believe it?” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who works extensively with female candidates, including Ms. Greuel.  “It’s part of a national trend.  We are seeing this in a lot of places — in offices in statewide office, in a number of city councils.  But it’s really shocking.  That is a state that is very pro-women.”

CALIFORNIA - Massive Manhunt Saga

"Manhunt Continues for Fugitive Cop Wanted for Murder in California" PBS Newshour 2/11/2013

Excerpt

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour):  And we turn to the search for the ex-officer wanted in multiple killings in California.  Authorities have been given hundreds of tips for the suspect, who is still at large.  But he was charged today with the murder of a Riverside police officer and the attempted murder of other officers.

Those charges could bring the death penalty.  The manhunt was in its fifth day, as law enforcement agencies across Southern California kept looking for Christopher Dorner.  Authorities said they're hoping a $1 million dollar reward will yield new leads on Dorner's whereabouts.

MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, (D) Los Angeles:  Our dedication to catching this killer remains steadfast.

RAY SUAREZ:  Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the reward yesterday.

LOS ANGELES - 'Yes Alice, There Is a Blue Moon'

"Blue moon: Two chances to see this rare event" Rene Lynch, Christian Science Monitor 8/31/2012

The saying “once in a blue moon” refers to something that’s exceedingly rare. But in Los Angeles you’ll have two chances to see this lunar occurrence Friday, when a so-called blue moon comes into view.

The first opportunity will be Friday morning — yes, the morning — as the blue moon is setting for the day, said Anthony Cook, astronomical observer at Griffith Observatory. Look for the early-morning blue moon between 6:30 and 7 a.m. PDT, he said.

Later in the day, you’ll get a second chance to see the blue moon, when it rises at 7:13 p.m. PDT.

So what is a blue moon? It’s the second full moon within one calendar month.

The moon isn’t actually blue. And it might even take on an orange hue as it starts to rise in the sky, Cook said. If anything, the Friday night moon will most likely appear an especially brilliant white.

“There’s nothing unusual really about the moon itself,” Cook said. “It will look like the usual moon.”

The genesis of the term “blue moon” is unclear.

“It’s not really certain” where it came from, Cook said. “Why ‘blue’ was chosen isn’t really known for sure.”

There are, on some occasions, atmospheric conditions that could produce a blue-looking moon, he said. And it’s believed that such conditions sometimes took place at the same time as the second full moon, perhaps leading to the moniker.

A blue moon occurs because the average lunar cycle is 28 to 29 days long. That’s why most months see just a single full moon.

The average month, however, is about 30 days long. “As a result, the lunar cycle gets out of phase with the calendar,” Cook said. “If you have a full moon right at the beginning of the month, you can get one at the end of the month.”

The last time a blue moon occurred was December 2009. “The next time will be on July 31, 2015,” Cook said.

He added that there is another definition of “blue moon,” one that comes from the Farmer’s Almanac. When four full moons occur during the course of a single season, the third of those is referred to as the blue moon, Cook said.

“That kind of full moon is just as rare as a second full moon in a month,” Cook said. “It also occurs every two or roughly three years.” The next seasonal blue moon will occur in August 2013.

AMERICA - Local, From Los Angeles

"Augusta National OKs 1st female members, including Condoleezza Rice" by Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times 8/20/2012

Darla Moore, left, in a March 24, 2011 file photo,
and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in January 2008
(Associated Press)

Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters tournament, admitted the first female members in its 80-year history Monday: former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore.

"This is a joyous occasion," Augusta National chairman Billy Payne told the Associated Press. "These accomplished women share our passion for the game of golf and both are well known and respected by our membership. It will be a proud moment when we present Condoleezza and Darla their green jackets when the club opens this fall.

"This is a significant and positive time in our club's history and, on behalf of our membership, I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome them and all of our new members into the Augusta National family," Payne said.

The Georgia club, closed for the summer, opens again in October.

Augusta National came under heavy scrutiny in 2002 when Martha Burk of the National Council of Women's Organizations urged the club to include women among its members. Then-club chairman Hootie Johnson said Augusta would not be forced into admitting a female member "at the point of a bayonet."

Payne took over as chairman in 2006.

Augusta National, which opened in December 1932 and did not have a black member until 1990, is believed to have about 300 members. Although the club until now had no female members, women were allowed to play the golf course as guests, including on the Sunday before Masters week began in April.

Rice was the national security adviser under former President George W. Bush and became secretary of state in his second term.

"I have visited Augusta National on several occasions and look forward to playing golf, renewing friendships and forming new ones through this very special opportunity," Rice said. "I have long admired the important role Augusta National has played in the traditions and history of golf. I also have an immense respect for the Masters Tournament and its commitment to grow the game of golf, particularly with youth, here in the United States and throughout the world."

Moore first rose to prominence in the 1980s with Chemical Bank, where she became the highest-paid woman in the banking industry. She was the first female to be profiled on the cover of Fortune magazine.

"Augusta National has always captured my imagination, and is one of the most magically beautiful places anywhere in the world, as everyone gets to see during the Masters each April," Moore said. "I am fortunate to have many friends who are members at Augusta National, so to be asked to join them as a member represents a very happy and important occasion in my life.

"Above all, Augusta National and the Masters tournaments have always stood for excellence, and that is what is so important to me."

"Mars rover Curiosity vaporizes rock with laser" Los Angeles Times 8/20/2012

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity unleashed its laser this past weekend on a nearby rock named Coronation, hitting the softball-size chunk with 30 pulses in a 10-second span.

With more than 1 million watts of power in each 5-billionths-of-a-second pulse, the laser shots from the ChemCam instrument vaporized the rock into plasma. The device then used its spectrometers to analyze the elemental composition.

Like the initial photos taken by Curiosity’s cameras, the laser exercise was meant to test whether ChemCam was working properly. But it could provide some useful scientific insight. If the composition of the plasma seemed to change over those 30 pulses, then it could mean the laser was digging into successive layers of rock with each pulse.

Scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge have also picked their first drive-to spot — a place about 1,300 feet east-southeast called Glenelg, which is at the nexus of three different types of terrain. One of those types — layered bedrock — would be a tempting first target for Curiosity's drilling tool.

Los Angeles Times science writer Monte Morin discussed how the rover will roam around the Red Planet during a Google+ Hangout on Thursday.

Morin reported that this is a stressful time for the drivers:

They must sacrifice some of their Earthly existence and live on Mars time, an ever-changing schedule that is tougher than any graveyard shift. For months, operators will be essentially sequestered from family and friends to focus on Mars. While the mission is scheduled to run 23 months, it could last much longer.

The stress can be overwhelming. Separated from the rover by millions of miles, they know they can make no mistakes. A single slip-up can turn the ambitious scientific mission into a $2.5-billion Martian paperweight. It will feel at times like the entire world is a back-seat driver.

In the coming days, engineers at JPL will test the rover's steering actuators. Then Curiosity is to take its first few "steps" — driving perhaps a few feet before turning around and surveying the spot where it landed.

"Editorial: A 21st century test: What's a 'search'?" Los Angeles Times 8/20/2012

Even many who cherish the "original meaning" of the Constitution recognize that provisions drafted in the 18th century must be interpreted in light of changing technology. That is especially true of the 4th Amendment's guarantee of the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

When the amendment was adopted, unreasonable searches involved physical trespass. But in 1967 the court ruled that the 4th Amendment was violated when federal agents affixed a wiretap to the outside of a telephone booth being used by a gambler. What mattered, wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan, was whether the suspect had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Flash forward to 2001, when the court held that police violated the rights of a drug suspect when they aimed a thermal imaging device at his house to determine whether the heat inside was consistent with marijuana cultivation. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: "Where, as here, the government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant."

The latest controversy over adapting the privacy protections of the 4th Amendment to new realities concerns global positioning system, or GPS, devices, until recently an exotic technology but now as ubiquitous as the cellphones of which they are a prized feature. Seven months after the Supreme Court sidestepped a major decision on the constitutionality of warrantless GPS tracking of criminal suspects, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati has issued a decision on the subject that seems as antiquated as a rotary phone.

Melvin "Big Foot" Skinner was a drug runner who was apprehended after Drug Enforcement Administration agents established his location through signals sent by his pay-as-you-go cellphone. The agents could have sought a warrant for the information by showing probable cause that Skinner was involved in drug trafficking, but instead they obtained an order by convincing a magistrate judge that the desired data were merely "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."

Writing for the court, Judge John M. Rogers dismissively observed: "When criminals use modern technological devices to carry out criminal acts and to reduce the possibility of detection, they can hardly complain when the police take advantage of the inherent characteristics of those very devices to catch them." Perhaps not, but the 4th Amendment and the requirement of probable cause are designed to protect innocents as well.

Rogers' decision reflects two legal principles that have been undermined by technological changes. The first is that although the contents of a phone conversation may be protected from casual police intrusion, phone records are not. In the era of land lines, the courts concluded that callers didn't anticipate that the exchanges they dialed to and from would be kept secret. In the cellphone era, however, those records can pinpoint not just who called whom but also the phone's variable location.

The decision also is consistent with a distinction the Supreme Court has drawn between papers in the sole possession of a citizen, and bank and phone records that are the legal property of a corporation. But that difference is also an anachronism.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested as much earlier this year in a concurring opinion when the court held that the surreptitious attachment of a GPS device to a drug dealer's vehicle was a "search" under the 4th Amendment. It may be necessary, Sotomayor wrote, "to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks."

The framers of the Constitution could not have envisioned the cellphone, much less its ability to establish the whereabouts of its owner, but the language of the 4th Amendment to protect persons and "effects" will, as it so often has, adapt to modern life.

"Op-Ed: Newton: Anaheim's ballot battle" by Jim Newton, Los Angeles Times 8/20/2012

When Disneyland first opened to the public on a sweltering July day in 1955, the city of Anaheim wasn't much more than an orange grove. It had all of 15,000 residents and was known mostly for its Halloween parade.

More than half a century later, almost everything has changed. Disneyland helped spur a development boom that has made the city California's 10th largest. Once a suburban and almost entirely white town, it now is 53% Latino and about 15% Asian. Whites make up about 27% of the city's population.

But one thing hasn't changed. The city continues to elect its representatives just as it did in 1955: Four council members and a mayor all are elected by the city at-large. The result: Four of the city's five elected leaders live in the wealthy, and predominantly white, area known as Anaheim Hills. Only one comes from the center of Anaheim, and none lives in the poorer, denser western part of the city.

Mayor Tom Tait, an earnest Republican who has attempted to infuse Anaheim government with, as he puts it, "the core values of kindness and freedom," recognizes the stresses that Anaheim's election system has placed on its geographic and social fabric. Faced with an ACLU lawsuit challenging the city's election rules, and convinced that reform is needed, Tait introduced a motion that would have allowed Anaheim residents to consider a ballot measure in November to create council districts and move their city into, if not the 21st century, at least the 20th. Districts, he said, would make for more effective representation, especially given Anaheim's peculiar geography — it stretches more than 20 miles east to west while being compact from north to south, so council members who live at the far western end of the city are far from their constituents in the east — both geographically and socioeconomically.

"The vastness of the city," he explained, "makes it hard to cover."

And yet, by a vote of 3 to 2, he lost.

Tait's colleagues protested, unconvincingly, that they're not opposed to creating districts, just that they weren't ready to endorse this particular proposal. Instead, they voted to appoint a committee to study the matter. At the same time, some have complained that districts would distort the city's politics, replacing officials whose concern is for the overall welfare of Anaheim with more narrowly focused council members, inclined to defend their constituents at the expense of the city's larger interests.

The crux of the matter is really self-protection. Because the Anaheim City Council was elected on an at-large basis, moving to districts almost certainly would cost some of those members their part-time jobs. Although the jobs pay only $18,000 a year, they also have good benefits, including a car allowance, and public officials aren't often eager to give up power voluntarily.

But even if holding citywide elections makes short-term political sense for the current crop of council members, it's bad public policy, legally risky and manifestly unfair. The lawsuit challenging at-large voting in Anaheim recites the city's sometimes unsavory past in matters of race: In the 1940s, nonwhites were only permitted to swim in Anaheim public pools the day before they were cleaned; until 1957, Anaheim continued to segregate Latinos into so-called Mexican schools, even though California had legally outlawed such schools 10 years earlier. More recently, the Anaheim Planning Commission in 2002 opposed letting a Mexican grocery chain open a Gigante supermarket in a redevelopment project because it was felt to be "too Hispanic," according to the lawsuit. The City Council eventually approved the project, but only after public outcry.

Racial tensions still divide Anaheim, which has been the scene of protests in recent weeks, as residents, many of them Latino, have claimed mistreatment at the hands of the city's police. Tait's proposal offered an opportunity for the council to demonstrate sensitivity to those concerns, but self-interest trumped broad-mindedness. "We have issues of people not feeling a sense of belonging," the mayor said. "This would have been a great first step."

It also would have saved the city what could be a costly and fruitless legal battle. Morgan Kousser, a Caltech professor and nationally recognized expert on voting rights, predicted that Anaheim will have a difficult time defending at-large elections and will have to spend heavily to do so. A similar case in Florida a few years ago ended up costing the defendants $2 million. "Does a municipality even as large as Anaheim want to spend $2 million in these times"? he asked.

Indeed, Anaheim leaders might consider the fate of Compton. The Anaheim lawsuit closely resembles a suit filed in 2010 against Compton, where an African American leadership was resisting district voting that might create more opportunities for Latinos, now the majority in that town. Compton resisted the litigation for more than a year, then eventually agreed to a settlement that put the matter before Compton voters. In June, nearly two-thirds of Compton voters approved the districts.

AMERICA - Charles Manson Update

Geesh, this guy is still alive!?

"Charles Manson should move to mental hospital, attorney says" by Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times 4/11/2012

Mass murderer Charles Manson should be moved from prison to a mental hospital, his attorney said.

A parole board will meet Wednesday to determine whether Manson should be set free, the 12th such hearing since he was sent to prison.

The board will review psychological reports and statements of victims. A decision is expected by late Wednesday afternoon.

Attorney DeJon R. Lewis said he would like to see Manson transferred to Atascadero State Hospital from the state prison near Corcoran. "Charles Manson does not need incarceration at this point in his life," Lewis told CNN. "He needs hospitalization."

So far, Manson has said he will not be showing up for this parole hearing, but an attorney for him will be present.

Manson, 77, has not attended a parole hearing since 1997.

He and other members of his so-called family were convicted of killing actress Sharon Tate and six other people during a bloody rampage in the Los Angeles area during two August nights in 1969. He is housed at Corcoran State Prison in a special unit for inmates felt to be endangered by other inmates, separate from the general prison population.

Twice in the last few years, Corcoran guards said they found the notorious killer in possession of a cellphone. Manson called people in California, New Jersey and Florida with an LG flip phone discovered under his prison bunk in March 2009, The Times reported in 2011. A second phone was found a year later. Thirty days were added to his sentence for the first offense, officials said.

Earlier, a homemade weapon was found in his possession.

Despite the prospect that Manson will be absent, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said it would vigorously oppose Manson's release. "We consistently [opposed parole] and will continue to do so," spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.

A new photo released by the California prison system shows Manson with long, gray hair and a beard. It was released at the request of CNN.

In 2007 at Manson's last parole hearing, the board concluded he "continues to pose an unreasonable danger to others and may still bring harm to anyone he would come in contact with."

Prosecutors said Manson and his followers were trying to incite a race war that he believed was prophesied in the Beatles song "Helter Skelter (music video link)."

Tate, the wife of director Roman Polanski, was 8½ months pregnant when she was killed at the couple's hilltop home in Benedict Canyon on Aug. 9, 1969. Polanski was out of the country working on a film. Besides Tate, four others were stabbed and shot to death: Jay Sebring, 35; Voytek Frykowski, 32; Abigail Folger, 25, a coffee heiress; and Steven Parent, 18, a friend of Tate's caretaker. The word "Pig" was written on the front door in blood.

The next night, Manson rode along with his cohorts to the Los Feliz home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, then left three of them to commit the murders. "Death to pigs" was written on a wall, and "Healter Skelter," which was misspelled, was written on the refrigerator door.

Manson was also convicted of the earlier murder of musician Gary Hinman in his Topanga Canyon home, and the slaying of former stuntman Donald "Shorty" Shea at the Spahn movie ranch in Chatsworth, where Manson had his commune.

Manson initially was sentenced to death. A 1972 ruling by the California Supreme Court found the state's death penalty law at the time unconstitutional and his death sentence was changed in 1977 to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

CALIFORNIA - String of Arson Fires, Los Angeles

"LAPD Urges Ongoing Vigilance After Arrest in String of Arson Fires"
PBS Newshour 1/2/2012


"Federal officials' tip leads to arson suspect" by Richard Winton, Ari Bloomekatz and Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times 1/2/2011

Excerpt

They erupted almost simultaneously, a sudden barrage of fires about 1:30 a.m. that signaled the fourth night of an arsonist's rampage. In 90 minutes, nearly a dozen vehicles had gone up in flames on both sides of the Hollywood Hills.

But this time, early Monday, police finally had an edge.

Hours before the fires began, federal officials alerted authorities that a Los Angeles man might be the suspect they were looking for, according to law enforcement sources.

The man had recently made a scene at a Los Angeles Immigration Court hearing, the sources said. An official involved in that court case recognized him when police Sunday night released images of a "person of interest" seen on a surveillance tape after a car fire at the Hollywood & Highland shopping center.

Patrol officers were told he would be driving a blue Dodge minivan.

Police swarmed the area and set up a roadblock on Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

At 3 a.m., a reserve sheriff's deputy spotted the minivan in West Hollywood and pulled it over near the Sunset Strip. The driver appeared to match the grainy video and inside his minivan, officials found fire starter sticks, police said. He was taken into custody, and the outbreak of fires came to a sudden halt.

"I feel very good that we've got the right guy," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said in an interview. "He had the right stuff in his van and I am confident in the arrest."

At a news conference Monday evening, Beck emphasized that the investigation was ongoing and that it could take some time to present the case to prosecutors. "We are confident in our investigation, but we have a long way to go," he said.

The man police arrested remains something of a mystery. Law enforcement sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, first said the suspect was a 55-year-old named Harry Burkhart.

Police later said Burkhart was actually a 24-year-old German national who carried travel papers from Chechnya. He had spent time in Germany, they said, but had lived in Southern California for the last several years. They weren't clear on his alleged motives but speculated that he might have been furious over his mother's pending deportation.

A senior LAPD official said the suspect had attended a recent immigration hearing regarding his mother's case and erupted in a tirade, spewing angry anti-American statements.

It was this incident that eventually led police to Burkhart. Several sources said the tip came from an official at the State Department. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday also thanked the U.S. Marshals Office for helping identify Burkhart.

L.A. detectives were also investigating reports that either Burkart or a family member was connected to an arson case in Germany, said the senior LAPD official.

TV footage showed Burkhart after his arrest, dressed in black, wearing his hair in a ponytail and grinning.

Investigators are trying to determine if other people were involved in the arson rampage that had parts of the city on edge for four days.

Since Friday morning, at least 50 fires were set, mostly in the Hollywood area, but also on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley. Many of the blazes were in carports and driveways, and spread to apartment buildings and homes.