PAINFUL CUTS: Within Los Angeles County’s financially...

PAINFUL CUTS: Within Los Angeles County’s financially stricken health care system, the obstetrics department at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar is not the hardest hit. But budget cuts will mean more painful childbirth, and in some cases, higher risk to babies and mothers, said Olive View’s chief of obstetrics, Dr. Larry Evertson. . . . Said Evertson: “I guess it has to get so bad it affects a large number of people.” (B1)

ELECTRIFYING: A state-of-the-art, all-electric transit bus will be rolled out in Burbank Monday by the Calstart transportation consortium. . . . Manufactured by APS Systems, a member of the Calstart team, the 35-passenger bus will be delivered to the Santa Barbara transit system, a pioneer in the use of electric buses . . . . A second APS electric bus is bound for Yosemite National Park.

SORDID TALE: A tale of treachery is unfolding in a Van Nuys court, where Dennis Dawley, above, and his former prostitute-mistress, Brandita Taliano, are charged with the 1991 murder of Dawley’s wife in Sylmar. . . . As Dawley, 59, and Taliano, sat handcuffed to their chairs at their preliminary hearing last week, two felons testified Dawley first had tried to hire them to kill his wife (B1).

FAX MAN: When Gregory Fein couldn’t get his name removed from the junk-mail list of a computer pornographer, he made sure the company paid dearly. It was a case of fax bondage, writes columnist Scott Harris (B1).

FANCY DIGS: A beer can’s throw from convenience stores and low-rate motels, a posh new apartment complex catering to tenants with six-figure incomes opens this weekend in Studio City. . . . Planners say similar rental complexes may spring up in the Valley as the entertainment industry expands (B1).