With the Long Beach Marathon marking its quarter-century Sunday, two of the race’s founders, Vic McCarty and Gordon Proctor, sat down with the Press-Telegram’s Kelly Puente to remember the first race back in 1982.
A high point for McCarty, now an 82-year-old retired accountant, came in 1988.
“I think about 15 countries were represented,” McCarty told the [...]

During the week, Donna Birge teaches Spanish at Hill Middle School.
But, as the Press-Telegram’s Kelly Puente writes, Birge donates her time and money Saturdays, teaching English to the day laborers outside the Signal Hill Home Depot.
“Some people think I shouldn’t even be bothered with them,” Birge tells Puente. “But if you look at the human [...]

Here’s something you don’t read every day: the Press-Telegram reports that, following the non-injury crash of a Cessna on it Monday afternoon, Long Beach Airport’s main runway will be closed until further notice.
That’s according to airport spokeswoman Sharon Diggs-Jackson, the P-T’s Kelly Puente writes.
“Commercial flights are being diverted to two parallel runways while workers clear [...]

Remember Roketi Su’e, who was shot and killed by a Long Beach Police officer during a tussle back in May 2008?
As the Press-Telegram’s Kelly Puente reports this morning, a jury Monday ruled in favor of the police officer, following a lawsuit by Su’e’s family.
“Officer Dominick Scaccia, a five-year veteran of the Long Beach Police Department, [...]

It’s unofficially been gathering steam for some time, but attorney Evan Braude on Sunday officially began his run for the vacant First District Long Beach City Council seat vacated by his longtime partner, the recently-elected Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal.
As noted on LBReport.com and in the Press-Telegram, Braude–who previously represented the First District from 1986 to 1994–held [...]

Press-Telegram reporter Kelly Puente wipes away the tears I shed for Bellflower’s fallen Starbucks with her revelation that the cozy little store it abandoned last month will soon be filled with a locally-based caffeine den called Eclipse.
My coincidental swing through the Starbucks–open for only a year, and intended as a step toward reviving Bellflower’s quaint-but-quiet [...]

Taking a closer look at downtown statistics

Editor’s note: this item has been partially re-written–by its author–in hopes of improving it
When you think of downtown Long Beach and Pine Avenue, what images come to mind? A late-night walker being stalked–and badly beaten–by four still-unidentified assailants? A brawl outside a nightclub? For Long Beach police, how we [...]

Long Beach police still don’t have a motive in the deaths of five people whose bodies were discovered early Sunday in a homeless encampment near the Santa Fe Avenue offramp from the southbound San Diego (405) Freeway.
But details are trickling out about some of the victims.

Coverage continues of the death Saturday night of alleged burglary suspect Deshoun Kenyon Torrence, 18, of Lake Elsinore.
The Press-Telegram, LBReport.com, and the Los Angeles Times are all in, and ask the question we’re all wondering: why he died.
There’s no real answer yet (The Los Angeles County Coroner is scheduled to perform an autopsy today) but [...]

As reported by the Press-Telegram, LBReport.com and the Los Angeles Times, here’s what’s been said thus far about the burglary suspect who died in police custody Saturday night.
He was Deshoun Kenyon Torrence, 18, of Victorville–and according to the Times‘ Victoria Kim, he “reportedly screamed for help as he was being detained by neighbors,” who allegedly [...]