Travel editor: My best trips of 2012
Dear Santa Claus: I have been a good little travel editor this year. I love Paris, Rome and Berlin, but this year I passed on the usual suspects and opted instead for Istanbul, Athens and Moscow. My...
View ArticleMMA: Nelson combo buries Mitrione in ‘The Ultimate Fighter 16’ Finale
Matt Mitrione was not ready for Roy Nelson. Nelson (18-7, 5-3 UFC) dispatched the Blackzilians representative with a crushing three-punch combination and follow-up ground strikes in the first round of...
View ArticleThe 10 worst movies of 2012
Are you giddy yet? The New York and Los Angeles film critics have spoken. The Screen Actors Guild has spoken. The Broadcast Film Critics Association has spoken. The American Film Institute has spoken....
View ArticleMan shot as he flees Santa Ana police
SANTA ANA – Police shot a man late Saturday night as he was evading officers, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said. The man, 27-year-old Ignacio Leon Jr., was in serious but stable condition...
View Article1 of 3 escaped serval cats on loose in Los Al area
LOS ALAMITOS – Three serval cats escaped from an apartment Saturday night; two have been caught, and one is still on the loose, authorities said Sunday night. Serval cats are wild animals that resemble...
View ArticleFood drive renews to help up to 30,000 in O.C.
IRVINE – The cavernous warehouse looked like a real-life Santa's workshop Sunday with more than 350 volunteers hustling about a conveyor belt like elves assembling toys. But they weren't assembling...
View ArticleTom Gray: Can California handle a recovery?
The New York Times has made it official: California is not Greece. The state is showing "the first signs of a rebound," reported the Times's Adam Nagourney last month. The housing market has...
View ArticleNeil Ruiz: Door open to fix immigration
The 2012 elections illustrated how the emergence of a new American mainstream played an important role in re-electing President Obama, potentially opening the door for debate, compromise and action on...
View ArticleLucy Dunn: Clean air is vital; so are jobs
Members of the South Coast Air Quality Management District Board of Directors (AQMD) voted to approve its 2012 Air Quality Management Plan ("clean air plan"), Dec. 7. These clean air plans are updated...
View ArticleGary Galles: 'Right to work' restores workers' rights
Michigan's new "right to work" law is an important labor reform to restore workers' freedom of association. Unions and their allies responded with thuggery and violent rhetoric, such as "there will be...
View ArticleEditorial: Small business slammed
Tax policy – or the lack thereof – has consequences. Americans are seeing that uncertainty about the federal "fiscal cliff" is sparking investors to make moves to profit now, instead of getting hit...
View ArticleEditorial: A backroom sweetheart deal
Eleven months after the Anaheim City Council approved a $158 million tax subsidy to the developer of two luxury hotels near Disneyland, an Orange County Superior Court Judge this past week ruled that...
View ArticleDarrell Issa: Fiscal cliff? No, it's a tax mountain
I have a question for President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: If former President George W. Bush was 98 percent right, does that mean you're 98 percent wrong? In the weeks...
View ArticleJoel Hay: Why health system is so broken
Suppose you went to your local car dealership and they said they had a great deal on a new car model, the "IMRT." Then they told you that the IMRT costs 20 times what the older model costs and probably...
View ArticleChildren 'shop' for doing homework
ALISO VIEJO – Dozens of children from the Aliso Viejo branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Capistrano Valley were rewarded for racking up homework points in a program titled Operation Holiday...
View ArticleLight rain today, more tonight; windy midweek
More light to moderate rainfall begins the week in Orange County, with potentially strong winds Tuesday and Wednesday, the National Weather Service says. And after a break later in the week, yet...
View ArticleLaguna Niguel residents light up the town
It might not snow in Orange County, and the weather rarely warrants mittens, but that didn't stop Laguna Niguel residents from transforming their streets into winter wonderlands for the city's annual...
View ArticleHundreds of tuba players giving free show at Disney
ANAHEIM – Hundreds of tuba players may reach a world record when they gather Saturday at Downtown Disney for the annual Tuba Christmas concert. But the record won't be official. Organizers are skipping...
View ArticleLocal sermons call on faith, action in response to school shootings
Just grief. And sorrow. That's what's left in the wake of a shooting that took the lives of 20 children in Connecticut. "We live in a messed up world," is how Irvine pastor Jeff Suhr opened his Sunday...
View ArticleShots at Fashion Island on shoppers' minds
NEWPORT BEACH – Subdued shoppers returned to Fashion Island on Sunday, carrying bags, sipping coffee in the drizzly air, and visiting the enormous Christmas tree. But even as visitors checked items off...
View Article