Articles labeled: Los Angeles

An Amber Alert has been issued for two young Los Angeles boys, who police say were kidnapped by their father after he shot his estranged wife.

Jose Luis Ortega, 26, shot the boys’ mother as many as 12 times, but police said she was able to speak while being taken to the hospital.

“He told his wife that he was going to kill her family and that he was going to flee to Mexico,” Smith said.

An Amber Alert has been issued for the two boys, 5-year-old Diego Fabian Ortega and 3-year-old Luis Gonzalo Ortega.

Their mother’s name has not been released. She was in very serious condition early Monday following surgery.

Is it just us or are there more and more stories of teen violence lately? This one involves two teenage girls in Los Angeles who were part of a scheme to rob a taxi cab. When the cab driver took off to escape, he crashed the car and the girls were killed.

The two 17-year-old girls had flagged down the cab early Tuesday and asked to be taken to a nearby housing project, where one girl said her boyfriend would come and pay the fare, police said.

Instead, a man shoved a handgun through the taxi window and grabbed a GPS system off the dashboard, Officer Jason Lee said. Hernandez sped away and called police after seeing a car chasing him, Lee said.

“One of the females pulled out a box cutter and began cutting the taxi cab driver, and that’s what caused him to crash,” Officer April Harding said.

See if you can follow this one: Miley Cyrus, whose real name is Destiny Hope Cyrus, plays the character Hannah Montana, who is really Miley Stewart — also played by Cyrus — in disguise.

Well, Ms. Cyrus is taking one part out of that confusing equation — she has filed papers in a Los Angeles court legally changing her name to Miley Ray Cyrus. (OK, also changing her middle name to match her dad’s is creeping us out a little.)

The 15-year-old singer and TV star is the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, who filed the papers last Friday with wife Leticia. Her father writes in the filing that the request was “to make her commonly used name the same as her legal name.”

The name-change request was reported by the celebrity Web site TMZ.com.

Miley Cyrus has said her father gave her the nickname “Smiley Miley” as a baby because of her sunny disposition. On the Disney Channel tween hit “Hannah Montana,” she plays a teen who hides her singing stardom.

Melodie Conrad, a teacher at the Eagle Rock Elementary School & Magnet Center in Los Angeles, California, believes people should have a respect for all living things — all the way to down to any creepy, crawly critters that may invade her classroom. Conrad routinely appoints one of her students as an “insect monitor” whose job is to scoop up any wayward bugs and safely deposit them outside. She also maintains a “no squashing” policy in her class. Let’s hope none of her future student’s parents work for Orkin.

“I absolutely just feel like we live in a society where violence is prevalent, and I’ve seen that over the years I’ve been teaching. I just wanted to be careful that they’re exposed to just the opposite in this room,” said Conrad, a 21-year teaching veteran.

“I’m not trying to turn them into bug activists. But I hear these kids say how cool it is when they shot this person in a video game or how cool these bloody movies are, and I’m concerned. That made me think.”

To get her students to start thinking about the same issues, she asks them why some want to kill bugs. And it’s instilled a sense of respect for life among her students.

Rebecca Tokofsky, 9, said she used to call her dad to get rid of a “scary-looking spider.” Now, she is eager for her turn to become bug monitor.

Don’t you think that having a place to live ought to be a requirement of parents? I fail to see how being homeless is an acceptable lifestyle for babies and children. Shouldn’t the DCS intervene on behalf of infants and children whose parents are homeless, to assist in permament housing or foster care?

It’s no wonder this little baby starved to death. My first instinct is to question why the mother would not give the baby up for adoption:

LOS ANGELES—A homeless mother whose 7-week-old baby died of starvation, dehydration and neglect at a Skid Row shelter was charged Tuesday with child abuse.

The felony complaint seeks Ranetta Marie Maxwell’s arrest in connection with the Aug. 10 death of her daughter Jasmine, who spent her brief life with her mother at downtown’s Union Rescue Mission.