Features

L.A. wants $1.4 billion from feds for health care 

LOS ANGELES – Federal health officials have proposed giving Los Angeles County $150 million to bolster its ailing health care system. But the offer falls far short of the $1.4 billion county officials say is needed to avert massive cuts. 

Federal authorities stressed Friday that negotiations are not over and the offer is not final. 

County residents will vote Tuesday on a ballot initiative that would raise property taxes to pump $168 million into the county’s emergency and trauma care network. If Measure B is approved, an owner of a 1,400-square-foot home would pay about $42 more annually. 

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the $150 million offered by the federal government is nowhere near enough. 

Missing meerkats found 

SANTA BARBARA – Five meerkats that were loaned, lost and finally found in Texas will be returned Sunday to their rightful home at the Santa Barbara Zoo, 

The turnout for the homecoming is expected to be large, said zoo director Rich Block. 

Meerkats are slim-tailed members of the mongoose family, native to Southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert. 

The case of the missing meerkats has drawn attention from animal lovers across the state who feared the furry critters had become supper for the coyotes, bobcats, cougars and buzzards that roam the rural Texas hills outside San Antonio. 

The saga began two years ago, after a meerkat population boom hit the zoo. Most of those babies were loaned to well-known, accredited zoos. 

But five males went to the unaccredited New Braunfels Zoo in Texas. It closed a short time later and the meerkats disappeared. 

Block estimates that the rescue effort will wind up costing between $15,000 and $20,000. 

“We have the most expensive meerkats in history, I think,” he said. 

Cops visit adult Web sites at work 

CORONA – Local police dispatchers visited adult, gambling, job-hunting and other inappropriate Web sites while using police computers on the job, according to records obtained by The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. 

The records also show several dispatchers have been disciplined. 

Corona police officials refused to discuss measures taken against the workers or discuss what types of Web sites were visited.