St. Patrick's Day causes spats as it falls during Holy Week this year

COLUMBUS, Ohio - That famous saint named Patrick will have his green-drenched party this year, but it's unclear when the guests are supposed to arrive.

For the first time since 1940, St. Patrick's Day will fall during Holy Week, the sacred seven days preceding Easter.

Because of the overlap, liturgical rules dictate that no mass in honour of the saint can be celebrated on Monday, March 17, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

But a few Roman Catholic leaders are asking for even more moderation in their dioceses - they want parades and other festivities kept out of Holy Week as well.

Bishop Kevin Boland of the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, wrote to practically every agency in his city, from the Chamber of Commerce to the Board of Education, saying the diocese was changing the date of its celebration this year.

In response, the citywide Irish festival was moved to Friday, March 14, when schools will close and bagpipe-driven parties will carry into the streets.

More than half a million people stream into the Southern city for the festival, one of the country's largest St. Patrick's Day affairs, said Bret Bell, Savannah's public information director.

Savannah bars will be open March 17, but no organized events will be held that day, he said.

"The city has a very strong Irish Catholic community, a very traditional Irish Catholic community," Bell said. "They attend mass regularly. And the last thing they want to do is get in the bad graces of the Catholic Church."

Philadelphia has also moved its parade date to avoid giving offence, and Milwaukee is hitting the streets sooner than usual, too.

But in Columbus, the Shamrock Club is going ahead with its March 17 parade, drawing protests from the local bishop. A handful of Irish-American politicians have lined up behind church leaders, breaking with tradition by refusing to march in the parade.

In a letter last fall, the Catholic Diocese of Columbus told the Shamrock Club, the group that organizes the parade, that Bishop Frederick Campbell wanted "all observances honouring St. Patrick" - religious or otherwise - removed from Holy Week.

"It's not a sin to celebrate your Irish culture," countered Mark Dempsey, the club's president.

"Actually, you're born Irish first," he said, "and then you're baptized Catholic."

Not all Columbus Irish groups agree. Members of the local chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a national Irish Catholic organization, will skip the parade and will instead join the March 15 parade in Dublin, a Columbus suburb.

In New York and Boston, with legendary St. Patrick's events planned by the cities' large Irish communities, bishops are taking a hands-off approach, saying the church has no part in planning civic celebrations.

The Archdiocese of New York, which has St. Patrick as a patron saint, will hold the liturgical celebration for St. Patrick on March 14. Edward Cardinal Egan will then say mass on Monday, the same day as the parade, and will review the procession from the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral, archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling said.

Boston's parade remains set for Sunday, March 16, which is Palm Sunday and the first day of Holy Week.

Other public dustups over St. Patrick's Day have erupted in past years, including a protracted fight between gay Irish groups and city leaders in New York and Boston over the right to march in the parades, which the Catholic Church has steadfastly opposed.

But a calendar conflict is a rare event: Holy Week won't clash with St. Patrick's Day again until 2160. This year's peculiar schedule also sees the feast day of St. Joseph - honoured by Catholics as the husband of the Virgin Mary - celebrated March 15, four days early.

Italian enclaves in many U.S. cities mark St. Joseph's with their own parades, but not on the level inspired by his Irish counterpart, so that shift hasn't produced any public grousing.

The St. Patrick's Day clash has a touch of the Christmas commercialism debate, about a holiday whose religious roots are tangled up in decidedly secular traditions. In most St. Patrick's traditions, parades are intertwined with mass.

"It's kind of a test of clerical power, in a way," said Mike Cronin, co-author of "The Wearing of the Green: History of St. Patrick's Day." "I think there's a real issue then around organizing committees saying, 'Do we need the church, or do we not?"'

The United States remains one of the few countries in the world to retain any religious traces of St. Patrick's Day, Cronin said. In Ireland, where the government sponsors the Dublin parade, the holiday has morphed into an arts festival that draws millions of people, he said.

Recognizing that, bishops there have moved the feast of the country's patron saint to March 15 this year. March 17 will remain an official Irish day off work and the Dublin parade will go on as scheduled.

Had Ireland's bishops shown the same insistence as some of their American counterparts, Cronin said, their comments almost certainly would have been ignored.

"It'd be like the (American) bishops arguing to move Super Bowl Sunday," he said.

The conflict is uncomfortable for some Irish-American Catholics. Franklin County Treasurer Ed Leonard bowed out of the Columbus parade but hopes a resolution might be reached.

"We wouldn't be celebrating St. Patrick's Day," he said, "were it not for the religious component of it."

Man, 18, charged after allegedly stealing camel marionette in Kingston, Ont.

KINGSTON, Ont. - An 18-year-old man from Kingston, Ont., has been charged with theft after a large marionette of a camel was stolen from a local store.

Police say a man went into Sultan's Bazaar, browsed for a while, and then on his way out pilfered the $65 marionette.

Police say the man ran down the street with the camel in hand, with a witness giving chase.

The witness called police, who say they quickly identified the suspect.

Officers went to a home in the city and allegedly found the stolen puppet in clear view in the hallway.

Nathan Pettigrew was charged with theft under $5,000.

Scientists' row over G spot nears a climax

After more than half a century of debate and bedroom exploration, a row about the location of the fabled G spot may be settled at last, the British weekly New Scientist says.

The G spot, named after a German gynaecologist called Ernst Graefenberg who first mooted its existence in 1950, is said to be a highly sensitive area in the vagina that, when stimulated, gives a woman a powerful orgasm.

But where the G spot is located has been clouded by evidence that is subjective or downright contradictory, and some experts have even concluded that it does not exist.

The answer, according to Italian researcher Emmanuele Jannini, is that, yes, the G spot does exist, but only among those women who are lucky enough to possess it, New Scientist reports.

Jannini, of the University of L'Aquila, used ultrasound to scan a key vaginal area among nine women who claimed to experience vaginal orgasms and 11 who said they didn't.

The target was an area of tissue on the front vaginal wall located behind the urethra. Tissue was notably thicker in this space among the first group of women compared with the second, the scans revealed.

Jannini, who reports the research in full in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, says the evidence is clear: "Women without any visible evidence of a G spot cannot have a vaginal orgasm."

"For the first time, it is possible to determine by a simple, rapid and inexpensive method if a woman has a G spot or not," he believes.

Some experts question whether what Jannini calls the G spot is a distinct structure or the internal part of the clitoris, whose size is highly variable.

Others say more work is needed to confirm Jannini's belief that the G spot is missing in women who don't experience vaginal orgasm. The G spot could be there in all women, but with differing degrees of sensitivity, they believe.

Women who do not have a G spot should not despair, according to the New Scientist report.

"They can still have a normal orgasm through stimulation of the clitoris," said Jannini.

Beijing to bring in extra pandas for Olympic games

Beijing Zoo is expanding its panda exhibit for the 2008 Olympics and will ship in up to 10 more for visitors to see during the August Games, an official said Thursday.

The zoo is expanding its facilities to accommodate the additional animals and is also building a Giant Panda Museum which will document efforts to save the endangered species, a zoo spokeswoman told AFP.

"The pandas will be on loan from the Wolong Giant Panda Centre, but the numbers to be brought in are still under negotiation," she said.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, up to 10 more pandas would be brought in from Wolong, the world's most successful panda breeding centre located in southwest China's Sichuan province.

The panda exhibition is the most popular attraction at the Beijing Zoo and currently houses seven of the animals.

A record number of pandas have been bred in China in recent years, with 31 born and 25 surviving at breeding centres around the nation in the first 11 months of 2007, earlier press reports said.

In 2006, 33 pandas were born, with most of the new births in both years occurring at the Wolong centre, where artificial breeding techniques are continually improving, the reports said.

The giant panda, known for being sexually inactive, is among the world's most endangered animals.

As of November last year, China had 239 giant pandas in captivity, including 128 at the Wolong centre, while about 1,590 other pandas are thought to be living in the wild.

Drunk driver parks at police station

Police in the western Canadian town of Wetaskiwin didn't have to do much work when they arrested a drunk driver at the weekend -- he had parked his car next to their offices and wandered inside.

Police discovered the man as they drove by early on Saturday morning to respond to an unrelated call. Although the police office was locked, the lobby was open.

"There was a vehicle parked about 10 feet outside our front door. The gentleman had walked into the front lobby and he was displaying many indications of being intoxicated," Constable Mark Scheck said on Wednesday.

"So at that point we did take him into custody ... it's pretty unusual," he told Reuters by phone from Wetaskiwin, some 45 miles south of Edmonton, Alberta.

The 28-year-old man has been charged with impaired driving.

New York City man accused of taking $2M from account of man with same name

Prosecutors say a Brooklyn man withdrew $2 million from an account after a bank error gave him access to funds managed by a man with the same name.

Benjamin Lovell has been arraigned Tuesday on grand larceny charges. The 48-year-old salesman says he kept trying to tell officials at Commerce Bank that he did not have a $5 million account. But he says they told him it was his account and he could withdraw the money.

Prosecutors say the bank confused Lovell and a man with the same name. They say Lovell has subsequently lost much of the money on bad investments.

A call to Commerce Bank seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Jimmy Buffett to open restaurant in Waikiki

Expect occasional appearances by singer/author Jimmy Buffett at a new Waikiki restaurant that will bear his name and is expected to open later this year on Kalakaua Avenue in the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber.

It will be known as Jimmy Buffett's At The Beachcomber and will occupy a prominent location on Kalakaua Avenue above Macy's on the hotel's lobby level.

The deal is a partnership with Outrigger Enterprises Group and will be the first Hawai'i restaurant for the singing entrepreneur, probably best-known for the song "Margaritaville."

It's not clear whether patrons will be "nibblin' on sponge cake," but margaritas will be served. And Barbara Campbell, vice president of retail development for Outrigger, said there will be live music and food, with a Hawai'i flair that should make the restaurant different from the Margaritaville-named restaurants Buffett has in other cities.

"They are designing this restaurant for Hawai'i; it's really customized," she said. She said the deal is part of a $21 million renovation of the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber.

She said the $15 million restaurant project will take up more than 21,000 square feet in an area that fronts Kalakaua and was home to the late Don Ho in his last years, to the Blue Hawai'i showroom and to the Hibiscus Cafe restaurant.

She said Outrigger had been in discussions with the entrepreneurial singer for two years. "Jimmy absolutely loves Hawai'i and had been looking at locations for five years," she said.

Campbell said Buffett is not directly involved in restaurant management but "expect him to visit at least at twice a year."

In a written statement about the project, Buffett said:

"From the first time I rode a wave at Canoes on Waikiki I began to figure out how I could get back to Hawaii on a more regular basis to that One Particular Harbour. I have written many stories and songs inspired by my time in Hawaii and can't wait to see what the future holds in the land that is so far but yet so near."

Campbell said Buffett's other restaurants have a reputation of serving quality food and live entertainment along with the celebrity concept, something not all chain themes have achieved.

She said the restaurant will be designed with an architectural style that combines Buffett's image with the flavors of Hawai'i, with open-air lanais and the interior design of an "indoor island" setting.

She said the restaurant is slated to open in November, with construction beginning next month.

Actor Sharif ordered to pay valet $318,190 over altercation

Will actor Omar Sharif pay up in dollars or euros?

That's what parking valet Juan Anderson is wondering after the film star was ordered to pay him $318,190 as a result of a 2005 altercation outside a Beverly Hills restaurant.

Sharif, best known for his roles in the movies "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago," allegedly punched Anderson in the face when the valet refused to accept a 20-euro note as payment for retrieving his Porsche sport utility vehicle at Mastro's Steakhouse.

The actor and a female companion had just finished a $500 dinner at the North Canon Drive restaurant. Anderson, who believed he was not authorized to accept foreign currency, said he was bloodied by the attack.

Anderson, 50, alleged that Sharif angrily called him a "stupid Mexican." Anderson is from Guatemala. Sharif, 75, later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge. In early 2007 he was ordered to pay a $100 fine and attend anger-management classes. He was also placed on two years' probation by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.

Anderson sued Sharif for assault and battery, emotional distress and commission of a hate crime. A 2005 state law prohibits racially motivated violence.

On Tuesday, Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Joe W. Hilberman awarded Anderson $318,190 in damages. Sharif, who earlier characterized the incident as a parking lot argument, did not appear at the trial.

The actor could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

It was unclear what currency Sharif will use to pay the judgment. That amount is the equivalent of 217,000 euros.

But Anderson's lawyer, John Carpenter, said collecting the cash in any currency could be difficult. Sharif is in Egypt, Carpenter said.

The Beverly Hills parking lot incident was not Sharif's first altercation. In 2003, he was fined $1,700 and given a one-month suspended sentence for head-butting a French police officer.

"It made me the hero of the whole of France," the actor later told the New Yorker magazine. "To head-butt a cop is the dream of every Frenchman."

California's budget gap at $16 billion

SACRAMENTO -- California's budget shortfall has swollen to $16 billion from $14.5 billion, according to the state's chief budget analyst, who says the governor's proposal for closing the deficit is so flawed that her office took the rare step of drafting an alternative state spending plan for legislators to consider.

The plan offered by Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill, whom lawmakers of both parties look to for advice on fiscal matters, calls on lawmakers to raise taxes by at least $2.7 billion. It urges them to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans for a 10% across-the-board reduction in state spending, suggesting that such an approach is short-sighted.
Hill says the lawmakers should target a dozen tax breaks she says are ripe for modification or elimination. They include tax credits that individuals can claim for dependent children and seniors and that companies can claim for research and development as well as for hiring low-income workers.

And she suggests eliminating a loophole that allows buyers of yachts to avoid paying sales tax if they keep their newly purchased boats out of California for 90 days. Democrats call it the "sloophole."

Democrats embraced Hill's ideas. But the governor and Republican lawmakers said they would continue to block any tax increases.

"While I believe that we should begin negotiations with all ideas on the table, I have been very clear in my position against raising taxes to fix Sacramento's spending problem and our budget," Schwarzenegger said.

The increase in the size of the deficit, detailed in a report Hill released this morning, essentially erases the emergency spending cuts lawmakers have made so far to bring the budget into balance.

Those actions, approved by the Legislature and governor late last week, amounted to about $2 billion in service reductions, largely in school programs and healthcare for the poor.

Lawyers divided on death penalty system

Defense lawyers and prosecutors agreed Wednesday that California's death penalty system was deeply troubled but split over the causes and solutions.

During a hearing in Los Angeles before a state reform commission, prosecutors called for quicker appeals and amending the state Constitution to permit the California state Supreme Court to transfer some of the initial review of cases to state appeals courts.

Defense attorneys opposed the proposal, saying it would make the process more cumbersome.

Instead, they asked that the state pare the list of crimes that qualify for the death penalty and provide more funding for lawyers who represent accused killers.

But John Van de Kamp, chairman of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice who previously served as Los Angeles County district attorney and state attorney general, said the prospects of increased state funding were bleak.

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice was set up by the state Senate in 2004 to study the problem of wrongful convictions. Wednesday's meeting was the second focusing on the death penalty.

California has the nation's largest death row, with 669 condemned inmates, but has held only 13 executions since reinstating the death penalty in 1978. It takes as long as 24 years for some killers to complete their appeals before execution.

Before the hearing, two professors from Pepperdine Law School attempted to survey district attorneys around the state to learn how they decide when to seek the death penalty. But they met with little cooperation.

On Wednesday, San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Michael Ramos defended his resistance to the study.

"If you ask us to give detailed public information on each case, you will create a chilling effect" on how those decisions are made and it might lead to increased pressure on prosecutors from victims groups and police officers to seek the death penalty more often, Ramos said.

He also said that his office was very restrained in seeking death sentences and that he has "lost sleep" over what he called the "ultimate decision" a prosecutor can make: "taking someone's life."

"We had 142 murders in the county in 2007" but sought the death penalty in only one of them after top staff in the office reviewed the cases.

Ramos said he did not give weight to the fact that a death penalty case is considerably more expensive than one seeking a lesser penalty. "When you are deciding for a victim's family who has lost a loved one, it is hard to think about money," he said in response to a question about costs.

That comment struck a chord with Cliff Gardner, a veteran San Francisco defense lawyer who has gotten several death sentences reversed.

"When I heard Mr. Ramos, I was struck by his sincerity," Gardner said. "He said when he meets with victims, no decisions are based on money. What a marvelous way to practice law.

"When I take these cases," which could involve reviewing up to 100 boxes of material, "every decision I make is based on money" because there is a limit on how much the state will pay to represent a death row inmate, he said.

Typically, Gardner said, after he reviews the case record he makes a list of 40 areas to explore that were missed or botched by the trial lawyer. Then he has to tell his client "maybe I can only do seven of them. That is an inequity the system has to address," Gardner said.

After listening to more than a dozen lawyers, professors and a researcher from the Rand Corp., the commission heard moving testimony from Aba Gayle, whose teenage daughter, Catherine Blount, was murdered in Auburn in 1980. "The district attorney assured me that the execution of the man responsible for Catherine's murder would help me heal, and for many years I believed him."

She said she was consumed with a desire for revenge against Douglas Mickey, who was sentenced to death in 1983. But eight years after the killing, Gayle said, she had "a spiritual epiphany," forgave Mickey and has since visited him at San Quentin.

Two years ago, she said, a federal district judge overturned Mickey's death penalty because of the ineffectiveness of his defense lawyer. Gayle said she called the district attorney and asked him to drop his effort for execution.

"I told him I would be satisfied with a life sentence. I did not want state-sanctioned murder to tarnish the life of my beautiful child." But she said the D.A. ignored her request and asked the state attorney general's office to appeal the ruling. The case is still pending.

The panel has one more hearing scheduled on the issue, on March 28 in Santa Clara.

Stanford offers middle-class tuition break

Joining a trend that reinforces the gap between the nation's wealthiest schools and those far short of multibillion-dollar endowments, Stanford University on Wednesday became the latest elite institution to announce a big boost in financial aid for undergraduates from the middle class.

Stanford is now among a small string of top-tier schools, including Harvard, Yale and Pomona College, that have taken steps in recent months to help middle-class families and, in some cases, households with incomes over $150,000.
Stanford will give free tuition to most undergraduates from families earning less than $100,000 a year.

Only about two dozen schools in the nation can afford to join the race to so dramatically boost financial aid, according to Terry W. Hartle, a senior vice president with the American Council on Education. "Most private colleges and universities simply don't have those resources," he said.

More relevant to most American college students and their parents, Hartle stressed, are current state budget deficits that are expected to lead to fee increases at many public universities, including the UC and Cal State systems.

It may be cheaper next year, Hartle said, for a student with a family income of $150,000 to attend Harvard than to pay fees, room, board and other expenses at UC Berkeley.

Experts say the newly enhanced aid at affluent private colleges may add even more public cachet to those campuses, some of which accept as little as 10% of their applicants. But they also stress that the schools are trying to keep up with one another, as well as fend off critics of their frequent tuition hikes.

The wealthiest universities are under congressional pressure to spend more of their huge endowments on scholarships. Harvard, the richest, had a $34.6-billion endowment as of June 30, and Stanford, ranked third after Yale, had $17.1 billion.

(Stanford raised the most in donations last year, with $832 million, besting second-place Harvard by $220 million, according to a new survey by the Council for Aid to Education.)

"There is a large gap between the haves and so called have-nots," said Tony Pals, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Independent Colleges and Universities. Still, he and other experts said many schools with relatively modest endowments are trying to sweeten financial aid and to hold down costs with, for example, initiatives that encourage students to graduate in three years instead of four.

USC Board of Trustees Chairman Stanley Gold said the school's $3.7-billion endowment amounts to $117,000 per student, compared with Harvard's $1.7 million per student. Although USC always looks at ways to bolster scholarships, the school needs a much larger endowment to compete with Harvard and Stanford, he said.

Jerry Lucido, USC's vice provost for enrollment policy and management, said that USC tuition rose about 65% over a decade but that aid grew about 80%.

Most USC students from families that earn less than $40,000 a year receive full tuition grants of more than $34,000 and use loans, jobs and family help to pay the other $15,000 in costs for a residential undergraduate, he said.

USC would offer the best package it could to a student also accepted at Stanford but would not engage in a bidding war, Lucido said. Instead, USC would stress, among other things, its commitment to undergraduate education and its Los Angeles location, he said.

At Santa Clara University, a $697-million endowment allows generous aid but not at the level of nearby Stanford, said Richard Toomey, associate vice provost for enrollment.

Santa Clara can't afford the additional $8 million a year it would cost to replace loans with grants for all students from families that earn under $60,000 -- steps taken recently by Caltech and Rice University in Houston. Pomona, Amherst and Williams colleges have eliminated all loans in aid packages.

Chris Munoz, Rice's vice president for enrollment, said the competition for top students could lead schools to offer more merit-based scholarships not linked to financial need.

Announcements like Stanford's, he said, are pressuring colleges "to rethink what they're doing."

Stanford's new plan will, on average, increase financial aid to students by about 16% and eliminate all loans for needy students, officials said.

For the 15% to 20% of its students from families earning less than $60,000, Stanford will cover the full $47,212 in tuition, room and board.

Except for those with very high assets, families earning $60,000 to $100,000 will have the $36,030 tuition waived next year. Some aid will also be available to wealthier families. (Details can be found at www .stanford.edu/dept/finaid/.)

Karen Cooper, Stanford's financial aid director, said the goal is that no high school senior rule out Stanford because of cost worries.

Princeton in 2001 was a pioneer in the movement by eliminating loans in all aid packages and offering more grants to families with incomes as high as $200,000. Yale and Harvard recently made education and living costs free to students from households earning less than $60,000 and adopted plans that would require upper-middle-income families -- up to $200,000 a year in Yale's case -- to pay only about 10% of their incomes.

Such announcements have not silenced congressional critics who want colleges to draw more from their tax-exempt endowments.

"Stanford is the latest big-name school to dip into the bank account and spend more on students," Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate's Finance Committee, said in a statement Wednesday. "I hope we're seeing a trend and a shift in thinking. Spending a little more on students won't break the bank for well-funded schools."

On average, colleges and universities earned 17.2% on their endowments in the fiscal year ending June 30.

But recent declines in the stock market and real estate values will probably make it harder for more schools to augment their financial aid, some officials said.

Even schools with medium-size endowments could expand aid if they were not so focused on building fancy dormitories or dangling premium salaries before star researchers, said Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington-based think tank.

"If most schools really wanted to make this the dominant consideration and put this ahead of all other priorities, I think they could go farther than they have," he said.

4 paparazzi arrested in West Hollywood

The price of chasing Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and other nightclub-hopping celebrities got steeper this week, at least for four paparazzi who were booked on charges arising from blocking sidewalks in West Hollywood.

The arrests, made by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies Tuesday night and early Wednesday, continued law enforcement efforts to crack down on aggressive paparazzi in the weeks since Spears was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. So many photographers, celebrity reporters and onlookers crowded the scene last month that patients and hospital staffers had trouble getting into the facility.
The intense scene led Los Angeles Police Department and sheriff's officials to say they planned to use existing laws to crack down on what they described as increasingly aggressive paparazzi.

Authorities said their tools include anti-loitering ordinances, traffic laws and rules targeting infractions such as illegally tinted windows or paper license plates.

On Tuesday night and early Wednesday, sheriff's deputies booked four photographers in two separate incidents of allegedly blocking sidewalks.

Deputies arrested David Tonnessen, 31, and Christian Shostele, 37, outside B2V Salon in West Hollywood shortly before 8 p.m. Tuesday as they waited for Spears to finish inside the salon.

The men were among about 50 photographers, said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore. The arrests came after the group refused deputies' requests over a loudspeaker to disperse, he said.

Tonnessen was taken to the West Hollywood sheriff's station, where he was ticketed for blocking an entrance, a misdemeanor, and released on $250 bail, authorities said. Shostele was cited for blocking a sidewalk and was released at the scene after posting $500 bail.

Deputies were first called to the salon more than an hour earlier and left believing that photographers were complying with their requests to keep the area clear. Whitmore said deputies then were called back to find the sidewalk blocked.

"They don't disperse. They don't listen to warnings," Whitmore said, adding that after the arrests were made the others cleared out.

About 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, two other photographers -- Christopher Gonzalez, 21, and Vagn Rauch, 23 -- were booked outside the West Hollywood nightclub Villa, again after they allegedly failed to keep a path clear for passersby and patrons.

Deputies at that scene began warning photographers to disperse shortly after midnight, again over loudspeakers.

About two dozen paparazzi had gathered there, apparently waiting for actress Lindsay Lohan to leave the club.

Gonzalez and Rauch were taken to the West Hollywood station, where they were cited on misdemeanor charges and released on $250 bail. All four face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, authorities said.

Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ.com called the arrests "bizarre."

"We have been saying for months that law enforcement needs to arrest people but for really compromising public safety," said Levin, who said that two of those detained work for his website.

"There are photographers who are blowing red lights, chasing celebrities, running people off the road and threatening to kill people in order to get a shot. We're all for a crackdown."

Levin described the actions of photographers Tuesday night as something "every single news outlet in town has done for years."

After everything else that has gone on in pursuit of valuable celebrity shots, he said, "it's bizarre that after watching it all happen, the sheriff's launching pad is photographers on a sidewalk."

The arrests this week came about a month after Los Angeles police took four paparazzi into custody on suspicion of reckless driving in the San Fernando Valley.

The men had been following Spears to her Studio City home. At least four others were also stopped by police but were not arrested.

Police alleged that at least one of the men following Spears, who was driving her car, tried to run her off the road.

City to pass the bucks on sidewalks

Faced with more than 4,000 miles of broken sidewalks and scarce money to make repairs, Los Angeles officials are weighing a proposal to put responsibility for making the fixes squarely on homeowners.

Under the proposal, homeowners would be forced to replace the damaged pavement -- or pay the city a fee -- when they sell their property, before the close of escrow.

The City Council's Public Works Committee got its first look Wednesday at the "point of sale" plan, which could cost the average homeowner as much as $15 for each square foot of sidewalk, and dramatically shift the burden for such repairs from city government to the private sector.

The proposal is backed by Service Employees International Union Local 721, which said it would address a growing backlog of repairs while boosting economic development in the city.

"It's probably the only way of addressing the problem in a comprehensive way," said SEIU policy coordinator Teresa Sanchez, whose union represents about 11,000 city employees.

Several members of Southern California's real estate lobby hate the idea, saying it would complicate a real estate market already gripped by foreclosures and "short sales" -- sellers unloading their property at a loss.

"To put an additional burden on property owners when they're already suffering is pretty insensitive," said Mel Wilson, legislative advocate for the Southland Regional Assn. of Realtors.

Los Angeles spends $9 million annually on sidewalk repairs, enough to replace a little more than 50 miles each year, said Bill Robertson, general manager of the Bureau of Street Services.

At that rate, the city will fix its current 4,600 miles of broken sidewalks around 2091, he said.

Los Angeles has 6,000 additional miles of sidewalk considered in good condition.

The city also spends about $3 million annually on lawsuits and legal claims stemming from injuries blamed on uneven sidewalks.

Although city inspectors can issue citations to property owners with broken sidewalks -- forcing them to make the necessary repairs -- they have not done so since 1973.

That year the City Council passed an ordinance that said private property owners were not responsible for sidewalks damaged by tree roots.

The legal view turned out to be incorrect, and city officials began putting money toward sidewalk repairs shortly after 2000, Robertson said.

But it never recovered from the backlog that accrued over 35 years, he said.

"The question is, do we want to bear the $1.2-billion burden of those repairs, or do we want to . . . have the property owners share that cost when they sell their homes?" he asked.

The council took a stab at addressing cracked sidewalks three years ago when it created the “50-50” program, allowing homeowners to get repairs done on a priority basis as long as they paid half the cost.

That program now has its own backlog, with more than 400 property owners waiting to qualify for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Because the city spends about $7,000 to replace a sidewalk in front of the average single-family home, participants in the 50-50 program pay an average of $3,500, according to city officials.

If approved, the sidewalk plan could apply to every property owner, depending on how it is written.

Backers say the city already requires that homeowners install low-flush toilets and gas shut-off valves each time a property changes hands.

Sanchez, the policy coordinator for SEIU, said the program would allow the city to focus on other needs.

And she said the repair bill would represent a "minimal cost" to property owners.

Highland Park real estate agent Eric Toro disagreed, saying low- and middle-income buyers would find even $3,500 in repairs to be a burden.

The plan will receive another airing in 60 days.

Although Councilman Greig Smith asked for other ways of getting property owners to cover sidewalk costs, Councilman Bill Rosendahl said he was keeping an open mind.

California schools with high dropout rates listed

Just 25 of California's 2,462 high schools account for more than a fifth of the state's dropouts, with the problem heavily concentrated in charter and alternative schools, according to a study being released today by UC Santa Barbara.

However, a UCSB researcher said it wasn't clear whether the schools were responsible for the problem or were simply the recipients of a disproportionate share of troubled students. And some educators and school advocates criticized the report -- either for relying on questionable data or for releasing potentially explosive statistics without context.

The report, issued as part of the California Dropout Research Project, used readily available state data to compile a list of every high school in the state ranked by the number of students listed as dropouts last year.

It showed that, of the 10 schools that reported the highest numbers of dropouts, only one was a traditional, comprehensive high school -- and the principal of that school said it ranked so high because of a data error. The rest were alternative schools, most of them charters and all specializing in education for high-risk students who couldn't make it in conventional schools.

Russell Rumberger, a professor of education at UC Santa Barbara and director of the dropout project, said Wednesday that the report wasn't intended to answer questions about why the schools had so many dropouts but rather to give educators a snapshot they could use to map out future research.

"Is the school doing a bad job, or are the kids at risk anyway no matter what setting they're in?" Rumberger asked in a conference call with reporters. Either way, he said, the value of the study is in telling the public, "This is where we should be concerned."

Rumberger stressed that he wasn't judging the individual schools at the top of the list, but added, "If that many kids are dropping out, it's unlikely that you're doing a good job."

That comment angered Buzz Breedlove, director of John Muir Charter School, a Sacramento-based organization that operates programs for at-risk students at 43 locations throughout California. It was No. 1 on the UC Santa Barbara list, with 1,856 dropouts -- more students than are enrolled at the school.

"To reconfigure numbers and come up with a dropout rate of 149%, which on its face is ludicrous, doesn't suggest to me that very much thought went into these numbers," said Breedlove, a former nonpartisan policy analyst for the California Legislature.

More than half a dozen of the schools on the list had dropout rates over 100% because enrollment is based on the number of students attending classes on a single day in October, but alternative schools typically have students arriving and leaving throughout the year.

According to Breedlove, the typical John Muir student is 19, has already dropped out of school two or three times and has completed only 75 of the required 210 credits for high school graduation. The school serves students who are enrolled in several organizations, including the California Conservation Corps.

"I would submit to you that one reason that our students drop out the way they do is that, absent our program, they wouldn't be in school at all," Breedlove said. "They would be terminal dropouts."

Much the same story came from the No. 2 school on the list, SIATech (School for Integrated Academics and Technologies), a San Diego-based alternative charter with seven campuses. SIATech works with the Job Corps to reclaim students who have already dropped out.

Spokeswoman Linda Leigh said a high dropout rate "is one of the pitfalls of trying to recover students who are really high-risk individuals."

The only conventional, comprehensive school among the top 10 was Madera High North in the San Joaquin Valley, listed at No. 9 with 539 dropouts. But the school's principal, Ron Pisk, said that figure was wrong, the result of a coding glitch that occurred when the Madera Unified School District recently switched data systems.

"It's absolutely driving us crazy," he said. "I've been losing sleep over this." The true figure, he said, is about half what is listed in the report.

Four of the schools in the top 10 are charters run by the same couple, John and Joan Hall. Their nonprofit charter, Options for Youth, has campuses ranked sixth, seventh and eighth, and their for-profit charter, Opportunities for Learning, was ranked third. The schools, which allow students to work independently, were the subject of a Times article in 2006 that found they had a poor record of keeping students until graduation.

A spokesman for the organization, Stevan Allen, issued a statement saying it was "not at all surprising that schools specializing in dropout recovery have a high number of dropouts -- just as obesity clinics have higher incidences of diabetes and heart disease among their patients. By definition, we are dealing with a population highly inclined to drop out."

He estimated that the true dropout rate at the four schools ranges from 15% to 35%, rather than the 42% to 49% shown in the report.

Gary Larson, a spokesman for the California Charter Schools Assn., also criticized the UC Santa Barbara report and said it could be interpreted as painting charter schools -- particularly those that specialize in educating troubled youth -- in a bad light.

Charters are independently run but publicly funded campuses that are free from many state and local regulations in exchange for boosting achievement.

Daria Hall, assistant director of the Education Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit dedicated to improving education, complained in an e-mail that the report was based on "state-reported dropout figures that are wildly inaccurate."

As an example, she said that John C. Fremont High School in Los Angeles, ranked No. 16 in the report, has an official dropout rate of 9%, yet it has more than 1,900 students entering as freshmen but fewer than 500 enrolled as seniors.

"Unless almost 70% of the entering class transferred out, and no one transferred in, this school loses more than 9% of its students to dropout," Hall wrote.

Rumberger, the dropout project director, said the data were accurate but conceded that the state's method of calculating dropouts leaves a great deal to be desired.

"I don't think the data are flawed," he said. "I think the data give an incomplete picture."

Suspect arrested in Beverly Hills shooting

Beverly Hills police this morning arrested a suspect in connection with a Wednesday night shooting that critically injured a man, authorities said.

Police arrested Adel Hakim, 47, of Beverly Hills at about midnight in connection with the shooting of a 50-year-old man three hours earlier at an apartment complex in the 400 block of North Palm Drive, according to Beverly Hills police Sgt. Renato Moreno.

Moreno said the shooting victim remained in critical condition this morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Beverly Hills, a city of about 35,000 residents, rarely sees serious violent crime, according to federally reported crime statistics.

California's schools gird for steep cuts

The Long Beach school board voted to close an elementary school this week. The Rialto Unified School District, in what is believed to be the first such action in the state this year, sent notices to 305 employees including teachers, informing them that they may not have a job next fall. The San Francisco school district may take city "rainy day" money to help balance its budget.

School districts across California have begun trimming services and preparing to lay off teachers in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget, which could cut about $4.8 billion in education funding this year and next year. Educators say it's the worst financial crisis they can remember.

In previous budget cycles, school district and union officials have cried foul when the governor's budget was announced early in the year, only to have funding levels return to normal -- or near normal -- before school started in the fall.

In addition, officials say they have trimmed their budgets in recent years without having to lay off teachers or increase class sizes. But many don't see a light at the end of this budget tunnel.

"There isn't a whole lot of fat left to squeeze. You squeeze now by cutting jobs and teachers," said Bill Hedrick, president of the Rialto Education Assn. "We expect some of our members not to have jobs next fall. That's the reality of the situation."

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the state's largest, could have a $560-million deficit next year, an amount that would affect classroom programs. The district already had agreed to trim almost $100 million from next year's budget to comply with county guidelines before Schwarzenegger's announcement in January of his fiscal plan, which includes $460 million more in potential reductions.

The combined sums would be the district's biggest shortfall ever.

"When I first saw the governor's proposed budget, quite frankly, I was in a state of shock," Supt. David L. Brewer said at a recent board meeting.

District officials have begun raising some scary scenarios to illustrate the depth of the potential problem. Chief Financial Officer Megan K. Reilly said the $460-million cut would be the equivalent of closing 22 high schools, firing 5,750 employees or instituting an 8% pay cut for all employees.

The timing is particularly awkward because state law requires districts to initially inform teachers by March 15 that they may be unemployed, even though that deadline is well before the state's budget is finalized.

The teachers union has warned L.A. Unified not to cut from classrooms.

"It's about time we cut fat from this district. We expect before they start cutting from the heart of the schools and classrooms that they will cut the non-school-site administration," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

District officials already plan to reduce the administrative staff. The board approved a proposal to potentially trim about $48 million from central and local offices over the next two years, although that figure could change. But those cuts alone won't be enough to balance the books, said board member Julie Korenstein.

"There's no way you could get that much money from just efficiency," she said.

Other districts have begun to take preliminary steps to make layoffs. The Rialto school board voted last week to notify almost 300 employees that they could lose their jobs. That represents almost a fourth of the district's workforce.

The nearly 30,000-student district faces a $23-million shortfall, mainly because of the proposed budget but also because of declining enrollment.

"We're in the middle of the hotbed of foreclosures, so we've been losing students at an accelerated rate," said Deputy Supt. Joseph Davis. He said there have been about 400 foreclosures in the district's area.

It's not unusual for school districts to issue preliminary layoff notices during tough budget times, and the teachers are often hired back during the summer. But this time could be different, said Hedrick, the Rialto teachers union president.

"Clearly, if a budget resolution is not found, then the intent is to balance the budget on the back of public schools," he said.

The San Francisco school district is facing a $40-million deficit next year but may be able to draw on the city's "rainy day" fund, which could provide the district with about $30 million.