Tuesday was the first day for a new day-pass system to be put in place at the massive twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

OOIDA saw a key victory last week when the second port of America’s largest two-port complex approved a special entry pass for long-haul truckers, allowing small-business truck operations to continue making occasional port deliveries.

The Port of Long Beach approved a day-pass provision this past week, which will allow long-haulers to visit the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach complex 24 times annually. Drivers will need one pass per visit, and each pass will cost $30.

The Port of Los Angeles adopted its part of the day pass in early April.

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By Kurtis Alexander

What would be the most sweeping limits on smoking in Santa Cruz County are making their way through the state Legislature and could be in effect by the first of the year.

A bill by Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, would prohibit smoking at all state beaches and state parks in California.

With 25 miles of coastline and more than a dozen parks managed by State Parks in this county, the proposal is drawing attention locally, with most offering enthusiastic support for the measure.

“It’s just not the appropriate place to smoke. We want everybody to be able to enjoy themselves in a smoke-free environment,” said county Supervisor Neal Coonerty, who authored a county resolution in support of the proposed smoking ban earlier this month.

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Since June 20th of last year, Long Beach Transit has been moving people around in hybrid buses running on a technology similar to the Toyota Prius. They replaced the older, already low-sulfer diesel buses with quieter, more fuel efficient, and less polluting ones, dubbed E-Power. This made Long Beach the first in the world to introduce production hybrid gasoline-electric buses into public transportation. As of yesterday, Long Beach rolled out 25 new ride Hybrid buses to their fleet, furthering the effort to improve mass transportation for the future.

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By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer

LONG BEACH - American high school students have shown no gains in reading and math since the 1970s, while their elementary and middle school peers improved over the same period, according to the results of a nationwide assessment released Tuesday.

Since the early 1970s, the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress has been administered to a national sample of 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students in math and reading to get a picture of student performance.

Federal officials on Tuesday released 2008 results, based partly on tests administered to groups of students at four schools in the Long Beach Unified School District. Although the LBUSD contributed, the federal government did not release test results for individual districts or states.

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Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington — The Obama administration, stepping up efforts to stem foreclosures, will offer lenders and homeowners incentives to cut payments on second mortgages, write down balances on first mortgages that are underwater, and repay loans in a timely fashion.

The new measures announced Tuesday would especially help many distressed homeowners who have both first and second mortgages — and can’t afford either. The Treasury Department now wants lenders and their customer-service agents to agree to modify both loans as part of a comprehensive solution.

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Layoffs, tight credit and other fallout from the troubled economy have battered Southern California’s office market, leading to vacancy rates as high as 30% in some areas.

The pain is expected to continue for months, if not years, with vacancies rising even as the economy shows modest signs of recovery, according to industry observers tracking activity in the first quarter.

“We have a rough road ahead of us,” said Joe Vargas, senior managing director of real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. “It’s going to be a very challenging market for the remainder of the year.”

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April 22, 2009
Wednesday

LONG BEACH, Calif. — A recently published survey showed that, even in these precarious economic times, a vacation is a luxury that many people are unwilling to give up. Hard-earned and well-deserved, those sacred two weeks serve as a wellspring of rejuvenation for the next grueling 50 ahead.

Still, the dilemma remains — with so little time and ever-shrinking disposable income, where will your dream vacation take you: Spain, Italy, England, Latin America or the Pacific Rim? With so much of the world offering appealing alternatives, how does one choose?

Here’s an idea: Go to Long Beach. You can experience all of the above destinations much more economically, and you won’t need a passport.

Long considered Los Angeles’ less glamorous younger sister, Long Beach has spent much of the past two decades refurbishing, refashioning and revitalizing itself. The result is one of Southern California’s most surprising vacation destinations. Part of that surprise stems from the realization of just how cosmopolitan the city is.

In Long Beach, you can take a trip around the world in 80 blocks.

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Southern California home prices held steady for the third straight month in March, a sign that the housing slump may be near its bottom.

The median sale price remained at $250,000 for the six-county region, which is less than half the median value of homes at the market’s peak in 2007. But the fact that home prices have stayed the same since January could be an indicator that the market is beginning to stabilize — which is considered key to a broader economic recovery.

“In the normal behavior of a recession, the first improvement is in the housing sector, followed by autos,” said economist Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast. “When somebody buys a home or buys a car, they’re predicting economic growth, they’re predicting they’re going to be employed. It’s a statement of optimism.”

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