The California High-Speed Rail Authority won approval Thursday from a federal railroad oversight board to start construction this summer on the first leg of what would be the nation's first bullet train.

In a 67-page decision issued Thursday, the Surface Transportation Board ruled 2-1 that the state could begin work on the first 65 miles of the project from Merced to Fresno, as long as it maintains the current route and follows through on promises to mitigate damage to the environment caused by construction.

The STB's ruling removes a key hurdle for the rail authority to start construction of the $68 billion system in the Central Valley. A ruling against the state could have caused substantial delays and cost overruns for the project, which is under tight federal construction deadlines to collect billions of dollars in federal matching grants.

Read more at KFI News

John Zawahri left a note apologizing for killing his father and brother but left no explanation for the rampage that left them and three others dead in Santa Monica, police said Thursday.

The three- to four-page note was found on Zawahri's body after he was shot and killed June 7 by officers on the campus of Santa Monica College, Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said at a news conference.

In the note, Zawahri also said goodbye to friends and expressed hope that his mother would be taken care of.

Seabrooks said investigators believe mental illness played a role in Zawahri's motivation for the killings, but she didn't elaborate.

Read more at KFI News

The couple tied up by Christopher Dorner after they found him hiding in their Big Bear Lake cabin is entitled to 80 percent of the Dorner reward offered by Riverside County, county officials said.

Besides awarding $80,000 to Jim and Karen Reynolds, officials recommend that the Board of Supervisors give $15,000 to Daniel McGowan, the ski resort worker who discovered Dorner’s burning pickup on a forest road.

Lee McDaniel, the Corona man who saw Dorner at a gas station and alerted Los Angeles police officers, should get $5,000, the report read.  On Tuesday, June 18, the board will decide whether to accept the recommendations for awarding the money.

Read more at the Press Enterprise

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that immigration reform is needed in part because immigrants are “more fertile” than native U.S. citizens, so they can help offset population declines and boost the economy.

Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington, Bush said the country needs an influx of younger workers to replace aging ones to retire in the coming years.

“We’re going to have fewer workers taking care of a larger number of people than the country has a social contract with, to be able to allow them to retire with dignity and purpose,” he said. “We cannot do that with the fertility rates that we have in our country.”

Read more at Politico

An Army doctor who grew up in La Habra accused a scoutmaster of sexually abusing him in a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Boy Scouts of America and its affiliates.

Drew Belnap's lawsuit accuses the scouting organization of negligence and knowing but failing to tell authorities that Scoutmaster John Atwood, now a registered sex offender, was or may have been sexually abusing minors.

“Defendants cloaked within the facade of normalcy” their and Atwood's actions with Belnap and other minors, the lawsuit contends, seeking unspecified damages.

Read more at the OC Register

With a gross salary of more than $333,000, BART's highest-paid employee last year wasn't its general manager, police chief or a worker who racked up gobs of overtime scrubbing grime from filthy train seats.

It was someone who did no work at all for BART in 2012: Dorothy Dugger, the agency's former general manager who resigned under pressure more than two years ago.

Under a lucrative retirement scheme, Dugger, 57, quietly stayed on the books, burning off nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits for more than 19 months after she agreed to quit in May 2011, according to an analysis by this newspaper. By remaining on BART's payroll, she accrued almost two extra months of vacation, while sitting at home drawing a six-figure salary for unused time off.

Read more at the Mercury News

Polish prosecutors have pledged to help U.S. investigators bring to justice a 94-year-old man living in Minnesota, who is accused of being a former commander of a Nazi SS unit responsible for killing scores of women and children during World War II.

A lengthy investigation across six countries led the Associated Press to discover Michael Karkoc living quietly in Minneapolis. Karkoc is accused of leading the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion, an organization whose members massacred civilians and resistance fighters throughout Ukraine and Poland and helped suppress the Warsaw Uprising.

Members of the legion were barred from entering the U.S. after the war. Documents obtained by the AP indicate that when emigrating to the U.S. in 1949, Karkoc lied about his role in the war, telling American officials he spent those years working for his father and then in a labor camp.

Read more at ABC News

Do you think this was another case of bath salts?

The naked acrobat who turned a San Francisco train station into a three-ring circus pounced on passersby, gyrated on turnstiles and performed a series of gymnastics stunts to the horror of commuters.

The bizarre behavior at the 16th Street Mission Station was caught on video May 10 and uploaded to YouTube this week.

The three-minute clip begins with the suspect — in the buff and with a distinct mane of black hair — lunging toward a young woman walking back in fright.  She screams as she falls to the ground.

Read more at the NY Daily News

CAUTION:  Video below is GRAPHIC- NSFW

Do you think that these new bike lanes are more trouble than they are worth?

Boos and catcalls filled a meeting hall this week as Los Angeles city officials defended new bikes lanes that are proving unpopular with San Pedro commuters. And while city officials promised to address their concerns through traffic lights and other changes, the bottom line was this: Get used to it.

Over the next three decades, the city of Los Angeles will implement an extensive network of bikeways that could remove car lanes or curb parking spaces.

It's all part of the 2010 L.A. Bike Plan -- an initiative in the works for years, but that is attracting some fresh notice from motorists who are struggling to deal with changes in well-traveled roadways.

Read more at the Daily Breeze