The person was hit by Train 644 just east of the Anaheim station, Metrolink said on its Twitter account. The transit agency reported the incident about 10:15 p.m.

A bus was transporting passengers from Anaheim to Oceanside.

The condition of the person was not immediately known. No other details were available. 

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Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Metro approves subway extension under Beverly Hills High

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

— Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Carlos Campos, 50, was convicted of second-degree burglary in Los Angeles County. He escaped in August 1983 while on a work furlough program, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

While on the run, Campos lived as Carlos Hererra, an identity he purchased, authorities said.

Special agents from the department of corrections tracked Campos down after discovering that he had been arrested in 1993 for assault with a deadly weapon. He was placed on probation, but state corrections authorities were not notified, the department said in a statement.

Agents finally found Campos comparing fingerprints on law enforcement databases.

Campos was taken to the state prison in Chino for processing.

ALSO:

Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Metro approves subway extension under Beverly Hills High

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

-- Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Photos: Carlos Campos in 1983, in a recent DMV photo and Thursday after he was apprehended. Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

The officers were responding to back up another police unit on a report of a stolen vehicle when they were struck about 6:55 p.m. near Santa Monica Boulevard and Barrington Avenue, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

"They spun out and struck some other cars," Officer Bruce Borihanh told The Times.

The LAPD cruiser came to rest next a wall. The officers were transported to a hospital, where they were treated and released, police said.

There was no immediate information regarding whether other injuries were reported. Investigators were at the scene Thursday night gathering evidence.

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Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Metro approves subway extension under Beverly Hills High

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

--Andrew Blankstein (twitter.com/anblanx) and Robert J. Lopez (twitter.com/LAJourno)

Map shows area where the LAPD patrol car was struck by another vehicle. Credit: Times' Mapping L.A.

The remote-controlled rescue robot zips through the surf to reach stranded swimmers, who can then use the machine as as a flotation device until lifeguards reach the area, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.

Lifeguards have been conducting mock rescues in the surf at Zuma Beach. 

The robot is named "Emily," after Emily Rose Shane, 13, who was killed in 2010 after being struck by a car on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Emily was a friend of the robot designer's daughter, officials said.

Additional testing is needed before the rescue robot will be seen on local beaches.

ALSO:

Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Metro approves subway extension under Beverly Hills High

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

-- Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Photo: Lifeguard rescue robot. Credit: Los Angeles County Fire Department

More forecasts: Long Beach | Pasadena | San Diego | Santa Monica | Van Nuys

The 65-year-old bishop heads the six-county Los Angeles diocese and is credited with leading the church in a more liberal direction.

He will stay at his Episcopalian residence for two weeks, Bruno said Thursday in an open letter. During that time, Bruno said, he will be in protective isolation to decrease the chance of infection.

After two weeks, Bruno will return to City of Hope for three weeks during which he will receive chemotherapy. He will then return home and then undergo another three-week stay at the hospital.

"My physician team has indicated I may fully recover," Bruno said. "I believe  without a doubt that this miraculous type of recovery has only been possible because of the outpouring of prayer from our faith communities."

In May 2010, Bruno ordained the region's first two female bishops. One of them was the first lesbian bishop ordained in the Episcopal Church. 

He was born and raised in Echo Park and was former police officer in Burbank. After attending Cal State L.A. and Long Beach State, he signed a contract with the Denver Broncos, but an injury cut short his football career.

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Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Metro approves subway extension under Beverly Hills High

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

-- Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Photo: Bishop J. Jon Bruno. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Ishamel Imran Townsend, 41, of Los Angeles was booked Tuesday on suspicion of killing his live-in girlfriend, Penelipha Carter, 39, and her 11-year-old son, Crestsalin Carter, police said.

Officers found the Carters’ corpses in their apartment at 917 W. 81st St. Monday afternoon. Neighbors had called authorities complaining of a foul odor coming from the apartment. They said no one had seen the woman or her son in several days. A van was also missing.

Both mother and son appeared to have been beaten to death, police said.

Townsend was arrested at an apartment on 31st Street and Cimarron Avenue. Police said they found Carter's van.

Neighbors on the street said they believed the elder Carter was being abused, but she said little to other residents.

“She was quiet and discreet about what she was going through in life,” said Terry Williams, a neighbor.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call LAPD homicide detectives at (213) 485-1383.

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San Francisco's Gold Dust Lounge finds a new home

Firm that audited Bell's books hit with disciplinary charges

Metro to force riders to pay on Purple and Red lines by Dec. 1

-- Sam Quinones

twitter.com/samquinones7

The fire is now 5% contained. No structures have been destroyed, but homeowners in the fire's path have been ordered to evacuate.

The fire is being battled by more than 200 firefighters, 30 engines and six air tankers.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Los Angeles Police Department detectives want to review some interviews between a Manson Family convicted murderer and his attorney to determine whether it might shed any more light on the infamous case.

NBC4 reported on Thursday about the request for recordings between Manson Family member Tex Watson and his attorney.The station said police want to know if those recording could contain  unsolved homicides related the Manson family's homicide spree.

Police sources stressed that it's a preliminary inquiry and that they have no idea whether the recording will provide new evidence.

Two sources, speaking to The Times on the condition of anonymity, the request is "routine due diligence" and is not tied to any larger investigation involving the Manson Family.

Watson is the self-described right-hand man of Manson. Last year, Watson was denied parole for the 14th time after decades behind bars. He will be considered for another parole review in five years.

Relatives of Watson's victims requested that the panel again deny his parole for killing actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant, and four others at her Beverly Hills home on Aug. 9, 1969. The next night, Watson helped kill grocery owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

Watson was given the death penalty for his role in the murders, but that sentence was later overturned.

While in prison, he married and divorced and fathered four children. He also started a prison ministry and became an author and ordained minister.

On Watson's ministry website, he says he believed Manson "offered utopia, but in reality, he had a destructive world view, which Charles ended up believing in and acting upon. His participation in the 1969 Manson murders is a part of history that [Watson] deeply regrets."

Officials also denied parole for Manson earlier this year,

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-- Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton

Photos: Charles Manson, left, and follower Charles "Tex" Watson. Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Thursday morning they went from dorm to dorm, rousing undergraduates to the annual, cerebral craziness. Classes were canceled and odd looking contraptions sprang up amid the olive trees and stately buildings.

Student teams, identified by their T-shirts, spent the day tackling a series of “stacks,” or challenges, that seniors had worked weeks preparing in secret. The stacks usually take the form of an intellectual puzzle but can also be a physical prank, like turning yourself into a human bowling ball to see how many plastic bottles you can knock down while lying prone on a rolling skateboard.

The Ditch Day tradition began in the early 1930s, when seniors ditched classes and stacked their rooms with furniture to keep out pranksters while they were playing off campus.

Alumni return for the day and an institution whose faculty and graduates have collected 32 Nobel Prizes gets a little silly.

“There’s no actual winner,” said Conwill, a computer science major from Oregon who is headed for a job at Microsoft after she graduates next month. “You just go through a series of puzzles. It’s all for fun.”

She was explaining a stack that was hanging from a breezeway: Using pulleys, students hoisted a piece of clear plastic on which sat a ball. The ball then dropped into a suspended box, triggering a mechanism inside that released a second ball, a tennis ball, whose insides held a clue to another stack elsewhere on campus. The clue read: "Dr. Strange."

Elsewhere, sophomore Josh Fromm, an electrical engineering major from Nebraska, had worked with his team to assemble a 3-D version of a popular board game and figure out the message it contained. "We got very close," he said.

It was easy to spot Alison Parisian’s teammates. They were wearing black capes and holding weapons from a morning tournament, including a crossbow that shot tennis balls. “People get so excited the week before,” said Parisian, a junior biology major from Vacaville.

Even though the date is a secret to all but the senior class, everybody knows it’s approaching when the seniors get busy.

Ditch Day ends when an old cannon is fired in a campus quad and the teams pick up prizes ranging from pizza to tickets for a taping of "The Tonight Show."

Friday it’s back to less outlandish mind work.

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San Francisco's Gold Dust Lounge finds a new home

Firm that audited Bell's books hit with disciplinary charges

Metro to force riders to pay on Purple and Red lines by Dec. 1

-- Bettina Boxall

Second Lt. Travis Morgado, 25, of San Jose, died Wednesday of injuries sustained when his patrol in the Zharay district of Kandahar province was attacked by an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.

Morgado was on his first deployment to Afghanistan. Hit unit deployed in December.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

"LOL! That is amazing :D way to make people take notice and smile," one friend wrote in the comments, and others congratulated Calder Greenwood on being a successful "L.A. guerilla street artist."

Greenwood, a New York native working in Los Angeles, according to his various social media accounts, called the sunbathers a "secret project" on his Facebook and posted a photo Tuesday with the caption "day at the beach," writing that "there was more water when we decided to do it, but the lack of water kind of works too."

The life-size guerrilla art installation at Broadway, between 1st and 2nd streets in downtown Los Angeles, mysteriously appeared Tuesday and had been drawing attention until it was removed Wednesday.

At first glance, passersby thought they were real: a boy playing in the sand, a woman sunbathing on a brightly colored beach towel, a man under an umbrella in the fenced-in area. People rushing along 1st Street stopped their cellphone conversations to peer through the fence. Others did double-takes as they continued walking, removing their sunglasses for a better look.

"At first, I thought they were real and thought: Who would actually do that? I had to take a closer look," said Natalie Espinoza, 20, who stopped for a few minutes to try to get a good picture with her cellphone. "Now I'm thinking: Who would go to all that trouble to put in that art? It's funny."

"I wish I had my camera," Kim Whitlowe, 48, said to her friend. "I was thinking: Who'd want to sit in a fenced-in area, on rocks. There's no shade, no water-- and they even brought a child! To each his own, but I'm glad it's not real."

Did you snap a picture of the sunbathing family? Or do you have a favorite piece of Los Angeles street art?  Tweet it to us using the hashtag #lastreetart or to our @lanow Twitter account.

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San Francisco's Gold Dust Lounge finds a new home

Firm that audited Bell's books hit with disciplinary charges

Metro to force riders to pay on Purple and Red lines by Dec. 1

-- Rosanna Xia and Samantha Schaefer

Photo: Mannequin sunbathers lay out their towels and beach chairs in a dirt pit on Broadway and 1st Street in downtown Los Angeles. Credit: Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times

The plan to open parts of the Big Tujunga watershed won final approval Thursday. The Station fire raged through the area in August 2009. 

Officials and volunteers had been working to reopen the area by Memorial Day Weekend, the U.S. Forest Service said.

The areas to be opened include Stone Canyon Trail, Trail Canyon Trail and the Delta Flat recreation areas. 

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Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Metro approves subway extension under Beverly Hills High

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

-- Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

Photo: Fire crews work in a barren landscape in Angeles National Forest after the Station fire passed through in 2009. Credit: Roger Wilson / La Canada Valley Sun

Brian Banks, 26, bowed his head and trembled, his eyes flooding with tears. His girlfriend, Pamela Soladar, yelped with joy. They made their way to each other and embraced, Banks too overwhelmed to speak.

“You made it,” she whispered to him.

It had been a long, maddening journey.

In the summer of 2002, Banks was considered a top college football prospect. A 6-foot-4, 225-pound middle linebacker at Long Beach Poly High, Banks had been courted by USC, UCLA and other football powerhouses.

He was attending summer school, and asked his teacher to leave class so he could make a phone call, according to court papers. Then Banks, a senior, ran into Wanetta Gibson, a sophomore.

Banks said they fooled around, but that their sexual contact was consensual. His mother, Leomia Myers, believed him, and said she sold her condo and her car to pay for his defense.

“I knew I didn’t raise my son to do something so horrendous,” she said.

Gibson’s version shifted over the years. She could not be reached Thursday for comment.

Initially, court papers show, she told a classmate, in a note rife with misspellings: “he picked me up and put me in the elevator and he took me down stairs and he pulled my pants down and he rapped me and he didn’t have an condom on and I was a virgin now Im not.” Gibson later told authorities a similar, more detailed story.

But when she testified during Banks’ preliminary hearing, Gibson faced the rigorous questioning typical in sexual assault cases. She changed some details and added others, Banks’ attorneys alleged in court documents.

Banks had a choice: He could take the he said-she said case to trial and, if convicted, risk being sentenced to 41 years to life in prison. Or, as his lawyer advised, he could accept a plea deal.

Banks pleaded no contest to one count of forcible rape, spent five years in prison and, upon his release, was forced to register as a sex offender and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. At one point, he begged the California Innocence Project in San Diego for help, but he was told that without new evidence, there was nothing its attorneys could do.

Meanwhile Gibson and her family filed a lawsuit against Long Beach schools. They settled the case for $1.5 million. Gibson’s mother, Wanda Rhodes, could not be reached Thursday for comment.

Gibson contacted Banks on Facebook last year.

When Banks heard from her, he recalled, “I stopped what I was doing and got down on my knees and prayed to God to help me play my cards right.”

According to Banks and his private investigator, Gibson refused to tell prosecutors that she’d lied, lest she have to return the money she and her family had won in court. She also said she feared it would affect her relationship with her children, Banks’ attorney alleged in court papers said.

But her taped admission was enough to interest the Innocence Project attorneys, who said they had never before taken the case of someone already released from prison. When they reexamined Banks’ case, said Innocence Project attorney Justin Brooks, investigators also found other evidence to back up his claims.

After the alleged rape, no male DNA had been detected on Gibson’s underwear, court papers said. Also, the classmate Gibson first told about the alleged attack -- via the note -- said Gibson later admitted to making up the story so her mom wouldn’t find out she was sexually active, attorneys said.

More recently, Gibson has backed off her recantation, Brooks said. Nevertheless, when presented with the Innocence Project’s findings, L.A. County prosecutors agreed the case should be thrown out.

“It’s not our job to maintain a conviction at any cost,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Brentford Ferreira. “It’s our job to do justice.” He said prosecutors had no plans to file charges against Gibson for making false accusations, saying it would be a difficult case to prove.

As for Banks, he walked out of Thursday’s hearing as if in a daze, his eyes red, his face frozen in disbelief. Someone handed him a black hooded sweatshirt with the word "innocent" in bold white letters.

He led a parade of supporters and media outside the Long Beach courthouse where he shared his hopes for restarting his football career. At one point, he grabbed his attorney’s hand and raised both their arms into the air, the pose of an athlete who has just clinched victory.

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Tech executive accused of making fake bar codes to buy lots of Lego

-- Ashley Powers in Long Beach

Photo: Former Long Beach high school football star Brian Banks hugs his mother, Leomia Myers, outside the Long Beach courthouse after his rape conviction was overturned. Credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times

The brush fire east of Julian in northern San Diego County, now called the Banner fire, has burned 1,000 acres and has a "rapid rate of spread" toward the Anza-Borrego desert, according to Cal-Fire.

Evacuations are underway in the Shelter Valley area. The fire broke out about 2:30 p.m.

Cal-Fire has 20 engines, 200 firefighters, and air tankers and air-drop helicopters on the scene and an order has gone out for more firefighters and equipment.

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Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

Man wanted in 1985 L.A. slaying evaded arrest by altering name

Marine, just back from Afghanistan, dies in fall at Grand Canyon

--Tony Perry in San Diego

Image: Map shows approximate location of fire. Credit: Google Maps

San Francisco’s Gold Dust Lounge, in a fight for its life since octogenarian owners Jim and Tasios Bovis were hit with an eviction notice in March, served last call at its beloved Union Square digs Wednesday and announced an upcoming move  to the tourist heavy Fisherman’s Wharf.

The plight of the kitschy  cocktail lounge, run by the Bovis brothers since 1966, had captured the hearts of thousands of supporters after it was announced that landlord Handlery Hotels Inc. planned to replace the bar with the retailer Express. Nastiness ensued: The Bovis brothers sued Handlery -- alleging financial elder abuse -- for purportedly sneaking an early termination clause into the lease. Handlery, which denied the allegation, counter-sued.

Though the lawsuits still are wending their way through the courts, the Bovis family opted to move. Final drinks were poured Wednesday night at the lounge, which sports a ceiling painted with voluptuous nudes and cherubs. The bar will move to a temporary space inside Lefty O’Doul’s –- another cherished San Francisco imbibing institution run by the Bovis family -- while the decor is removed and re-installed in a new Fisherman’s Wharf location. It is expected to open in about four months.

Lee Houskeeper, a spokesman for the Gold Dust, called the move “a new lease on life.”  Sam Singer, spokesman for Handlery, countered that the brothers should have vacated in March, when the lease expired.

One long-time patron sipping a final drink Wednesday quipped to the San Francisco Examiner that with the Gold Dust’s departure, San Francisco’s storied Union Square is now nothing more than “a union for squares.”

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14-year-old boy is accused of plotting to kill ex-classmate

Former high school football standout exonerated in rape case

-- Lee Romney in San Francisco

Photo: A crowd fills the Gold Dust Lounge. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times 

Pfc. Russ Klingsick, 20, was returning to his home in Derby, Kan., when he and a buddy stopped for some sightseeing at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

Klingsick fell 30 feet to a ledge and then, groggy from the fall, attempted to stand up, falling another 600 feet to his death, according to the Associated Press.

Klingsick was with the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, just returning to Camp Pendleton from Helmand province.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Abel Avila-Perez, 53, was able to escape detection by making minor changes to his name after the crime, authorities said.

Avila-Perez was arrested in San Jose, where he’d been living since the incident, said LAPD Det. Kelle Baitx, a homicide supervisor.

Authorities said he's suspected of gunning down Arnulfo Medina, 30, as Medina walked near Main and 37th streets with Avila-Perez’s sister on July 10, 1985.

Avila’s sister was married at the time, Baitx said.

Avila-Perez was quickly identified as the suspect and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He fled and changed his first name to Avel, according to a California driver’s license.

Baitx said a state computer system often identified him by his maternal last name, Perez. In Latino cultures, people use paternal and maternal last names, which often causes confusion among authorities in the United States, who often use the maternal last name when filling out documents, such as driver’s license forms.

Baitx said detectives in LAPD’s Newton Division, charged with tracking down murder suspects with warrants for their arrests, developed information that Avila was living in San Jose.

ALSO:

Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed to retire after 14 years

Former high school football standout exonerated in rape case

Costa Mesa rejects plaque for worker who jumped from City Hall

 -- Sam Quinones

The intended victim was a former classmate who had allegedly stolen a bicycle from the 14-year-old, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

The boy allegedly solicited two other teens to help him with the killing, but they refused, authorities said.

According to witnesses, the boy "had weapons and written plans to assassinate" the former classmate, the Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

The boy, a Phelan resident, was arrested early Thursday and booked into the High Desert Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center in Apple Valley.

ALSO:

Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Metro approves subway extension under Beverly Hills High

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

-- Robert J. Lopez

twitter.com/LAJourno

A brush fire east of Julian in northern San Diego County has burned 150 acres and is growing rapidly, according to Cal-Fire.

The fire broke out about 2:30 p.m. in the Cigarette Canyon area. Evacuation is being planned for approximately 100 homes in Shelter Valley, officials said.

Additional firefighting resources have been summoned.

ALSO:

Arson suspect's mother ordered extradited to Germany

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

Angeles Forest areas closed after Station Fire may reopen by weekend

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Image: Map shows the approximate location of the fire. Credit: Google Maps

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Submit your photos

Southern California Moments best of April

Southern California Moments 2012 editors' picks

-- Jenn Harris
twitter.com/jenn_harris

Every day, we're featuring photos of Southern California submitted by readers. Share your photos on our Flickr page or reader submission gallery. Follow us on Twitter or visit our Facebook page for more on this photo series.

Transportation officials plan to soon lock the gates to Los Angeles subways and force all commuters to pay for their ride.

The subway system has operated without locked gates for years, allowing an open secret about taking a trip: you don’t really have to pay the fare.

But on Thursday the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors voted to lock the gates on the Purple and Red lines by Dec. 1 and convert their ticket machines so passengers are no longer using paper.

Instead, passengers will be required to buy a reusable plastic Transit Access Pass and will have to swipe the card at a turnstile to enter.

Passengers taking a single trip can buy a TAP card for $1 plus the $1.50 fare to ride the subway.

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Body of man found on El Monte elementary school playground

-- Ari Bloomekatz

Photo: Passangers wait for the a Metro Red Line in Hollywood. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

Mayer Hoffman McCann, which audited the books for dozens of cities in California, could be fined $1 million and lose its license to practice in the state. The firm has asked for a formal hearing before an administrative law judge.

The accusation by the Board of Accountancy follows a December report from the state controller that excoriated Mayer Hoffman’s work in Bell, calling its audits little more than a “rubber-stamp.”

The auditing firm repeatedly gave a clean bill of fiscal health to Bell, where eight former city leaders now have been charged with public corruption.

Lauren Hersh, spokeswoman for the board, said individual auditors could also be disciplined, but that would have to take place under a separate accusation.

The 13-page accusation charges the firm with repeated instances of negligence and lack of documentation for the year ending June 30, 2009, the one year the board chose to examine.

“Obviously, we hope this is the next and final step in resolving the Bell matter,” said Joe Crivelli, a spokeswoman for Mayer Hoffman firm. “The firm is working really hard to make sure what happened in Bell doesn’t happen again.”

“People have been quick to blame the residents for the deep rooted corruption, but the reality is that the agencies in place to prevent corruption, like this audit firm, continually ignored red flags,” said Bell Mayor Ali Saleh. “These agencies should not only share the responsibility but the financial burden as well.”

The controller's report said Mayer Hoffman failed to comply with 13 of 17 “fieldwork auditing standards.” when reviewing Bell's books in the 2008-09 fiscal year. Had it fulfilled those standards, “it would have led them to identify some -- if not all -- of the problems,” Controller John Chiang said when the report was released.

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Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

Costa Mesa rejects plaque for worker who jumped from City Hall

Report: L.A. County beach water is cleaner; Catalina remains dirtiest

-- Jeff Gottlieb

Photo: Former Bell City Administrator Robert Rizzo walks toward Los Angeles County Superior Court in September. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

Despite strong objections and threats of legal action, Los Angeles County transportation officials on Thursday approved a plan to tunnel beneath Beverly Hills High School as part of a long-awaited Westside subway extension from downtown to the Westwood area.

Beverly Hills city and school officials had argued against digging a tunnel under the high school as part of the Purple Line extension.

The $5.6-billion rail project will extend 9 miles west from the existing Purple Line station at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to the Veterans Administration hospital. It will mostly run under Wilshire except for a segment where the line veers southwest below the high school and into Century City.

"The subway extension is a critically needed mobility improvement that will create a fast, frequent and high-capacity alternative for the hundreds of thousands of commuters who travel in and out of the Westside on a daily basis," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is also chairman of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors.

Transportation officials certified the environmental documents for the entire project last month, but only formally approved the first 3.9 miles of the project because Beverly Hills city leaders requested a hearing about the segment that would run underh the high school.

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Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed to retire after 14 years

Facebook message led to football player's rape exoneration

Small dog rigged with explosives hurt in blast, Stockton police say

-- Ari Bloomekatz

Photo: Commuters wait for trains at the subway station at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue. The Purple Line extension would start at this terminal. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times