Do you think that the LADWP should raise rates to pay for janitor's pay increase?

Last year, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power imposed an 11 percent rate hike — which it called a “rate change” — on its power customers, while water customers saw rates go up 5 percent.

Millions of Angelenos will no doubt be thrilled to know what this is paying for: $70,000 a year janitors. No wonder DWP unions want to keep pay data secret.

This is from the L.A. Times: “Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant stared in disbelief Tuesday at a list of hundreds of Department of Water and Power employees who have asked that their names and salaries be withheld from the public, citing safety concerns.

Read more at Cal Watchdog

The investigation continued on Thursday into a deadly crash in downtown Los Angeles that claimed the life of a Metro bus driver.

The crash between an MTA bus and a tow truck was reported just after 5 a.m. on Wednesday at 457 S. Broadway, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Both the driver of the bus and the tow truck driver had to be extricated from their vehicles, fire officials said.  The bus driver was transported to the hospital in critical condition, where she later died.

Read more at KTLA

Would you trust someone with hair and eyes like this?

Authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of a former teacher and day care worker in Santa Ana in a child molestation case that may go back decades.

Robert Ruben Ornelas, 62, was arrested on Tuesday after police served a search warrant at his home in the 13000 block of Prospect Avenue.

He was accused of molesting a girl, 12 years old or younger, from 1990 to 1995, according to a news release from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.   The Orange County Child Exploitation Task Force began investigating Ornelas back in April.

Read more at KTLA

Have you ever seen any gross activity in your local restaurants?

In the latest addition to the chronicle of fast-food employees' grossest actions captured online, a photo of a Wendy's employee streaming ice cream from the soft serve Frosty machine directly into his mouth is making the Internet rounds.

The photo, posted Wednesday on the content-sharing site Reddit, came with this note from a customer: "I was going to buy a Frosty from Wendy's until I saw the employee do this."

"The photo isn't funny to us," a spokesman for Wendy's told ABC News.  The sharing of the photo could not have come at a less opportune time for the fast-food chain. The company is currently promoting its Frosty products, including its newest Frosty Waffle Cone, for a Father's Day charity drive for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, named after Wendy's founder.

Read more at ABC News

A tipster just emailed us to say that his girlfriend Stephanie was walking around Sue Bierman Park in San Francisco's Financial District today and happened across a creepy-masked busker who looked strangely familiar.

Could this be the infamous Naked BART Man who currently has an outstanding warrant for his arrest on suspicion of misdemeanor battery?

The tipster flipped through the photos on the Facebook page of Yeiner Perez's former circus troupe ClownSnotBombs, and sure enough, he found a photo of Perez wearing the exact same outfit.

Read more at Gawker

Do you think it was wrong for the Senate to vote down tighter border security measures in the immigration bill?

Beating back the first attempt to substantially change the pending immigration bill’s border security measures, the Senate on Thursday voted down a Republican effort to require strict security goals are met for six months before undocumented immigrants can apply for legal status.

The bill’s bipartisan drafters – the so-called “Gang of Eight” – held together to vote against the amendment by Sen. Chuck Grassley, with Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining the four GOP senators in the group.

The final vote to kill the measure was 57-43.  Two Democrats, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, voted with 41 Republicans in support of the Grassley amendment.

Read more at NBC News

Do you think that this ruling will give more women access to be tested for breast and ovarian cancer?

Isolated human genes may not be patented, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday. The case concerned patents held by Myriad Genetics, a Utah company, on genes that correlate with increased risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.

The patents were challenged by scientists and doctors who said their research and ability to help patients had been frustrated. The particular genes at issue received public attention after the actress Angelina Jolie revealed in May that she had had a preventive double mastectomy after learning that she had inherited a faulty copy of a gene that put her at high risk for breast cancer.

The price of the test, often more than $3,000, was partly a product of Myriad’s patent, putting it out of reach for some women. The company filed patent infringement suits against others who conducted testing based on the gene. The price of the test "should come down significantly," said Dr. Harry Ostrer, one of the plaintiffs in the case decided Thursday. The ruling, he said, “will have an immediate impact on people’s health.”

Read more at the NY Times

One day after reaching a compromise with legislative leaders on the state budget, Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday he has not agreed to consider increased spending if the economy outperforms his administration's expectations, but he did not dismiss the possibility.

Legislative Democrats had said Monday when they accepted Brown's relatively conservative revenue estimates that they could call for additional spending in January if tax revenue came in higher than anticipated.

"I haven't made any agreement," Brown told reporters at the Capitol. "Look, we have boom and bust, money comes in, money goes out. And I'm trying to be a good, prudent steward of the people's money."

A Santa Monica gunman who killed five people last week was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation in 2006 after police found bomb-making materials at his home.

Police searched the house where John Zawahri lived with his father after the teen made repeated violent threats against students, teachers and campus security officers at Olympic High School, retired police officer Cristina Coria, who helped execute the search warrant, said Tuesday.

Coria said she didn't know what was found at the house or the outcome of that mental evaluation.

Read more at USA Today