The Los Angeles city controller doesn't have any actual power over the modernization plans of Los Angeles World Airports or over whether a controversial new runway is built at Los Angeles International Airport. Nevertheless, LAWA and the runway have become an issue in the race between candidates Dennis Zine, a termed-out city councilman, and Ron Galperin, a Century City attorney.

The City Council endorseda $4.76-billion modernization plan for LAX last month that includes an additional runway on the north side to better accommodate the new generation of supersized jets. Zine, who represents...

We applaud Times columnist Robin Abcarian for shining the light on the inequities in our healthcare system in response to Angelina Jolie’s recent announcement about her prophylactic mastectomy. When Jolie made her medical decision, she had at her disposal the resources to pay for the procedures and the best doctors; not everyone has the same ability.

At the Cancer Legal Resource Center (CLRC), our attorneys hear from individuals who experience great difficulty undergoing the same procedures as Jolie because they fear discrimination based on the results of genetic tests, and because their...

Readers are talking a lot about a man who talks for a living: Vin Scully. Times data editor Doug Smith's Op-Ed article Tuesday musing on "the voice of L.A." closed with a question: "As far as I'm concerned, the voice of L.A. should be heard every day in some public place. So tell me, where would you want to hear Vin Scully?" 

More than 60 suggestions were sent to letters@latimes.com and to Smith directly. Perhaps as a reflection of mobile technology's imbededness in our lives, many of the suggestions relate to cellphones. Others said the comforting familiarity of Scully's speech would soften...

Meghan Daum’s Thursday column about the loss of her dog was a real tear-jerker. “If Rex could have talked, we'd have finished each other's sentences,” she wrote of their powerful bond.

I choked up at my desk as I read it, thinking about my own dog, just a little over 2 years old, and the unbearable idea of life without him. Every night when I get home from work and see him waiting in the window for me, my heart grows two sizes.

Surprisingly, Daum’s column was also a lightning rod for debate. Or maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked. I like to read the comments on...

The scandal surrounding the Internal Revenue Service's handling of applications for tax-exempt status by "tea party" groups and other right-leaning organizations took a sharp turn at the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday. In addition to decrying how those groups' applications were flagged for extra scrutiny, Republicans on the panel -- especially Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) -- argued that the Obama administration had covered up the problem for more than a year.

"Listening to the nightly news, this appears to be just the latest example of a culture of cover-ups -- and political...

The Times editorial board offended some liberal readers when it urged a no vote on Proposition C, which asks voters in the city of Los Angeles to “instruct” local members of Congress to support a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. One commenter asked: “Did the Koch Bros already buy the Times and I missed it?”

As our editorial noted, The Times was critical of Citizens United when it was handed down. But we raised several objections to Proposition C: It wouldn’t be binding; it was “vague and question-...

The fatal attack on a woman walking in the Antelope Valley community of Littlerock by four pit bulls last week has prompted Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich to ask the  county Department of Animal Care and Control to look into ways to better deal with the problem of vicious dogs prowling the streets.

Roaming dogs in general are a problem in the Antelope Valley, where the landscape seems to invite careless or even cruel behavior.

“People go out there and abandon their dogs in the desert,” Marcia Mayeda, the director of Animal Care and Control, told me. “They...

Don’t know why, but Thursday turned into car crash day.

Perhaps it was because, in between reading about one White House scandal or another, I was distracted by this intriguing headline on The Times’ homepage: “Kim Kardashian's gate closes on Kanye West's $750K Lamborghini.”

Go ahead, click on it-- you know you want to, even though you’ll hate yourself in the morning. Partly it’s because of the perfect storm of names involved: Kim, Kanye, Lambo (if only Khloe had been driving!). But partly it’s because like moths to a flame, we can’t help...

The state Senate has approved an anti-"swatting" bill. Swatting is the act of pranksters who make false 911 calls in the hope of prompting a heavily armed police response, typically to the home of a celebrity.

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The scandal over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for special review claimed its first scalp Wednesday, when Treasury Secretary Jack Lew demanded and received the resignation of the agency's acting chief.

President Obama announced the resignation of Steven Milleron Wednesday afternoon. He also took the opportunity to repeat much of the statement he'd issued Tuesday, when he said the agency's actions were "intolerable and inexcusable." He also pledged, again, to put safeguards in place to make sure that sort of one-sided and improper...

In a May 7 Op-Ed article, Richard Greenwald and Michael Hirsch exhort consumers to support the workers who make our clothes rather than the global apparel industry that exploits them with low wages and unsafe working conditions. Yet exactly how we should do this remains unclear. We need to be more specific about our moral responsibility so that the "labels we wear not be stitched in blood."

Should we be faulted for not buying clothes with the "Made in USA" label, for example? Aside from the issue of whether a boycott is effective in improving conditions under global free trade, finding clothes...

Way at the bottom of Tuesday’s ballot are three confusing propositions -- Measures D, E and F -- that have to do with medical marijuana. Voters can’t be blamed if they feel frustrated and unsure of what to do when confronted by three alternative approaches to the same issue (two of which seem extremely similar). The Times' editorial board has offered its opinion on the choice among the three.

But just to make things complicated, the landscape has changed somewhat since the measures qualified for the ballot. Indeed, just last week, with only 15 days to go before the election, the...

A new report by the Internal Revenue Service's inspector general offered a few new details Tuesday about the scandal revolving around the IRS' treatment of "tea party" groups seeking tax-exempt status. Those details were in part damning and in part exculpatory. Collectively, though, they shred the argument from the agency's defenders that the IRS was right to crack down on those groups.

Bear in mind that the report doesn't address important aspects of the scandal. Most notably, it says nothing about any communications IRS officials may have had with the White House or President Obama's...

Angelina Jolie’s Op-Ed in the New York Times about getting a double mastectomy after learning that she was at risk of getting breast cancer struck a chord with fellow celebs as well as with Los Angeles Times staffers Anna Gorman and Paul Whitefield, who wrote about their own experiences Tuesday. 

Jolie’s Op-Ed specifically focuses on BRCA1 and BRCA2, known as the breast cancer genes. “I have always told [my kids] not to worry [about me getting cancer], but the truth is I carry a ‘faulty’ gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ...

It seems that Republicans have long held out hope that Florida might be the state where the GOP could make inroads with Latino voters. However, any effort to woo Latinos was probably dealt a setback this week when Pablo Pantoja, the former GOP director of Latino outreach in Florida, announced he had changed party affiliation.

Pantoja explained his decision in a letter that was made public. In the missive, he refers to the “culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today.” He goes on to express concerns about the GOP’s reaction to a recent Heritage Foundation...

It's hard to imagine Supreme Court justices paying much attention to the travails of Hollywood's rich and famous. Still, there's an interesting connection between Angelina Jolie's disclosure Tuesday that she underwent a double mastectomy and a case the court is deliberating, the Assn. for Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics.

At issue is whether a human gene sequence can be patented. That's the broad question. The two specific sequences patented by Myriad -- BRCA1 and BRCA2 -- are genes that suppress tumors. A small percentage of women have defective copies of those genes, and they are...

If the hand-wringing over revelations that the IRS gave additional scrutiny to "tea party" groups and other conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status is as widespread as the coverage makes it seem, that anger hasn't spread to a place where outrage normally lives: The Times' mailbag.

More than a dozen readers -- an unusually low count for such a made-for-indignation topic -- have sent their thoughts on the IRS scandal to letters@latimes.com. Most of the reaction can be described as a collective shrug; some declare that no political groups (liberal ones included) deserve any...

I didn’t realize until now that Angelina Jolie and I have something in common: cancer. Or at least risk factors for it.

Jolie, of course, has made worldwide headlines with her dramatic op-ed Tuesday in the New York Times describing her decision to undergo a double mastectomy. And clearly, family history played a big role in her choice:

“My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56,” Jolie writes. “She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and...

The PR spin on this book has been all about the “Hollywood insider,” and I suppose she was, having been married for so long to entertainment executive Bob Daly.

But to Angelenos who knew her, and they were many -- and not all of them having anything to do with Hollywood -- Nancy Daly was a formidable woman, an advocate for children whose email address was "lovedkidsla" and who was for a time, as Mayor Dick Riordan’s wife, L.A.’s first lady.

The Supreme Court sided with Monsanto Co. on Monday, ruling against a farmer who used beans grown from the company's patented, genetically modified soybean seeds to plant subsequent crops. It was apparently the first time the court had upheld patent protections on a self-replicating product -- in this case, a soybean that could survive being doused with Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. And it drew a flurry of warnings online about the implications for non-GMO foods and the food supply in general.

David Kravetz of Wired's Threat Level blog offered this apocalyptic-sounding take Monday:

"Regardless...

News flash: Global warming hits California!

That’s right -- the Golden State has become the Golden Baking State, with temperatures soaring into the triple digits. For example, in Johnny Carson’s “beautiful downtown Burbank” on Sunday, the thermometer hit 103 -- hot enough to melt Ed McMahon’s smile.

And on Mother's Day no less! Apparently it really isn't nice to fool with Mother Nature.

You may think this is just a “heat wave.” But you’re wrong. This is Al Gore Vindication Day. This is climate Armageddon.

Sure, sure, I know: You think I'm being...

The Supreme Court has the fate of same-sex couples in its hands. Will the court stand with equality and rule that marriage, and the benefits that come with it, should be available to all couples regardless of sexuality? Or will it uphold the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8?

For some same-sex couples, the issue is made even more complicated by our country’s immigration laws. In his video Op-Ed “Eric and Juan,” Jens Erik Gould introduces us to a same-sex couple who got married in 2008, during the brief time when gay marriage was...

There are three things Rick Perry would like to do to the great public universities of Texas, but he can only remember two of them.

That’s a joke. You may remember that during a 2012 presidential debate, he started to list three departments of government he’d eliminate, and wound up forgetting one of them.

But he remembered that he wanted to shut down the federal Education Department, and there are folks in Texas who suspect that some of his ideas for higher education in the Lone Star State may wind up accomplishing much the same thing to higher education there.

Among the changes...

It’s tragic that a woman was mauled to death by four pit bulls Thursday morning as she went for a walk in the Antelope Valley community of Littlerock. And if the circumstances around her attack prove to be as police suspect, it’s a reminder not that pit bulls are necessarily dangerous — they are not — but that irresponsible people train them in ways that make them dangerous.

Police found and seized eight dogs — six of them pit bulls — that they suspect may have been among the ones that killed the woman. They found the dogs on a property where they also...

In the post-9/11 culture wars over Islamic fundamentalism, American conservatives — properly — have condemned attempts in Muslim countries to punish blasphemy or insults to the prophet Muhammad. It will be interesting to see if they are similarly outraged over what has happened to an art student at Carnegie Mellon University who insulted the pope.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that CMU filed criminal charges against Katherine B. O'Connor, 19, and Robb S. Godshaw, 22. The university acted after the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh asked it to investigate a parade and carnival at...

Vindicating the complaints of some "tea party" activists, a top IRS official admitted Friday that the agency had singled out such groups for scrutiny in the months leading up to the 2012 election.

The revelation (accompanied by an apology from Lois Lerner, the agency's lead overseer of tax-exempt organizations) is sure to draw an investigation in the House because it smacks of Nixonian intimidation tactics. But on the bright side for President Obama, maybe the administration has finally found a way to move Fox News off Benghazi!

At the heart of the scandal is an effort to enforce the rules...

The GOP’s effort to woo Latinos may have suffered a minor setback Thursday, thanks to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Republicans have been trying to improve their standing with the fastest-growing voting bloc ever since last year's election, when Latinos overwhelmingly cast their ballots for President Obama.

Graham, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, decided that Thursday’s “mark-up” of a bipartisan immigration reform bill was a good moment to review the differences between the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border and on the U.S.-Canada border. His conclusion:...

Big employers beware -- some California lawmakers want to pressure you to extend health insurance to virtually everyone who lands on your payroll, even part-timers who work less than two hours a day.

That's one of the effects that a bill by Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Echo Park) would have on companies and nonprofits that employ 500 or more people in the state. But it's not the one that Gomez, a former labor leader, emphasizes when talking about the measure, which the Assembly Health Committee approved on a party-line vote April 30.

Instead, the measure is being sold as a way to stop companies...

It’s been a very good week for Tesla Motors Inc., the little electric car company that can -- with a little boost from the state of California and other automakers, that is.  

On Wednesday, Tesla reported a quarterly profit, the first in its 10-year history. And on Thursday, The Times reported that Consumer Reports magazine had given the company’s Model S its highest score: 99 out of 100.

In fact, the staid folks at Consumer Reports went, for them, absolutely bonkers in praising the car, saying it is “brimming with innovation, delivers world-class performance, and is...

An unintended consequence of same-sex marriage could hearten wedding traditionalists by making marriage more attractive to all couples. It’s all about the health benefits — and what isn’t these days?

In Maryland, where voters recently approved same-sex marriage, the Baltimore Sun reports that Gov. Martin O’Malley wants to do away with domestic partner benefits for state employees who are gay and lesbian. Such benefits have been available only to same-sex couples because, unlike heterosexual couples, they were until now unable to wed. Now that marriage is theirs to...

Names and money, it turns out, have some correlation. According to a survey of top earners, the shorter the name, the higher the salary is likely to be. Or at least, people with high salaries tend to have very short names.

Before you go changing your moniker to Al, be aware that the survey just points out a certain amount of coincidence, not one thing causing another. It’s more likely that people who use short nicknames — and many of the top earners do — have certain personal characteristics in common that gear them toward higher pay. Maybe their inclination toward the short...

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