“Walking the West”, a documentary about the Pacific Crest Trail, will be shown at Lake of the Sky Outfitters in South Lake Tahoe on April 30 at 7pm.

“Wallking the West” is an adventure documentary about a New Zealander and an Irishman who quit their jobs and walk 2,626 miles from Mexico to Canada along one of the longest foot trails in the world, the Pacific Crest Trail. This documentary shows the changes that occur when two urbanites escape civilization, venture into the wilderness and push their bodies and minds to the limits of their endurance.

RSVP to (530) 541.1027.

South Tahoe High School juniors John Cefalu and Bailey David are two of 36 student-athletes to be chosen among approximately 2,000 applicants to be part of the NFL-Wharton Prep Leadership Program.

The program is a three-day workshop in June that provides top-notch high school athletes with leadership training and instruction from Wharton professors and NFL executives. The workshop at Wharton School will provide student-athletes with a crash course in business and personal finance, the role of financial advisers, and development of leadership skills.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times

They were not even born at the time their city erupted in flames, violence and rage against a system that would not convict Los Angeles police officers of brutally beating a black man.

But high school students Jiaya Ingram, Ashley Torres and Jessica Maldonado have been gripped by accounts of the 1992 Los Angeles riots as they learn about them through poetry and plays, readings and recollections of their parents and others.

They say they felt shock over police actions, horror over the mob violence and an uneasy feeling that it could happen again, particularly as unarmed African Americans are killed, most recently in Florida, Oklahoma and Pasadena. Yet these teenagers also express hope that they can make a difference through personal action — education about stereotypes, for instance, or peaceful protests.

“I’ve learned that you have to be the change you want to see in the world,” said Jessica, a junior at the Social Justice Leadership Academy, a small school at the Torres High School campus in East Los Angeles. “History is not wars and dates; it’s about the choices you make.”

But two decades after the riots sparked massive violence that would leave dozens dead and thousands injured, lessons about them appear to be limited in Southern California classrooms. For many teachers, the pressure to teach content that will be tested in state standardized tests and Advanced Placement exams next month has crowded out time for the riots, however crucial they are to city history and the nation’s larger civil rights struggle.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has not formally included the riots in its history curriculum because it is not part of the California social studies standards. The district plans to post material on its website for optional teacher use, however.

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By Erica Goode, New York Times

WASHINGTON — In a single week last April, three people were killed with guns in Philadelphia, 14 more were shot and wounded, 68 robberies were carried out at gunpoint and a total of 144 crimes involving firearms were reported.

During that same week in San Diego, a city of roughly the same size with far fewer police officers, there were no gun-related homicides, two people wounded by gunshots, four robberies committed at gunpoint and a total of only 20 gun-related crimes.

What made the difference? About 250 police chiefs from around the country debated this question and gun violence more generally at a meeting here this week, taking as their focus a survey of crimes occurring in six cities — Philadelphia, San Diego, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Austin, and Toronto — over a seven-day period in April 2011. The survey was carried out by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit police research group that sponsored the session as part of its two-day annual meeting.

Coming two months after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, the wide-ranging discussion encompassed the proliferation of laws that make it easier to own, carry and use a gun; the role of gangs and narcotics; the characteristics of perpetrators and victims; and the need for more aggressive prosecution and greater investment in technology to trace and identify firearms.

If there was a central message to be drawn from the survey, it was that gun violence is tightly concentrated in the poorest urban neighborhoods, its victims mostly minorities, who receive little attention from politicians and the news media.

“Nobody in this room, unless you’re from Sanford, Fla., would even know the name of Trayvon Martin if it was a black kid that had shot Trayvon Martin,” said Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey of Philadelphia, who is African-American.

“It happens every single day in Philadelphia. It happens every single day in cities across the country, but if it’s a black killing a black,” no one cares, Commissioner Ramsey continued, noting that the week studied by the forum was less violent than many other weeks in Philadelphia. “Our streets are bleeding, and they’re bleeding profusely.”

The survey found that, using conservative estimates, the cost to taxpayers of the crimes committed with firearms during the week of April 4 to April 10 was more than $38 million in medical care, social services, criminal justice costs and other expenses.

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By Cathy Locke, Sacramento Bee

A man with multiple convictions for driving under the influence has been indicted for murder in the September death of a South Lake Tahoe man.

An El Dorado County criminal grand jury on Thursday returned an indictment against Larry L. Halverson, 60, charging him with murder and other offenses in connection with the death 51-year-old Patrick Purnell, according to an El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office news release. Purnell died when he was struck by a car driven by Halverson, who investigators allege was under the combined influence of alcohol and cocaine at the time.

Halverson did not immediately stop but returned to the scene later. At the time, authorities said, his driver’s license was both revoked and suspended for prior DUI convictions.

Purnell was crossing Ski Run Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe near the intersection with Highway 50 when he was struck, officials said. He was transported to Renown Hospital, where he later died as a result of his injuries.

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Iron Mountain Secure Shredding will be at St. Theresa School (1041 Lyons Road, South Lake Tahoe) on May 12 from 10am to 1pm to shred people’s old files.

Iron Mountain is donating its services in hopes people make a donation to St. Theresa School.

Individuals and businesses are welcome.

Wildlife photographer Jim Stamates will share some of his images set to music to tell the story of the Rhythm of the Sierra.

The Tahoe Area Sierra Club is sponsoring the May 9 7pm event at the Unity at the Lake Spiritual Center.

An added feature will be “In The Rhythm of Kokanee” filmed at Taylor Creek during the annual spawning and egg harvest.

Unity at the Lake Spiritual Center is located across from the South Lake Tahoe Recreation Center at 1195 Rufus Allen Blvd.

The second of three sessions designed to help parents whose children are being bullied is May 7 from 5:30-8:30pm.

Techniques will be provided to empower youth with methods to deal with put downs and bullying. This series will provide usable responses and tools that empower youth to diffuse conflicts with their peers along with preventative methods for cyber bullying. Adolescent development will be covered.

People who didn’t attend the first class are welcome. The third class is June 11.

Th class is at Lake Tahoe Community College’s board room.

RSVP to Dana at (916) 801.9848 or mcknight@ltcc.edu.

Lights on the Lakes fireworks show on the South Shore starts about 9:45pm July 4.

The fireworks are shot off from a barge in Lake Tahoe.

For more information, go online.

By David Lightman and James Rosen, Sacramento Bee

WASHINGTON — Saturday postal delivery could continue for at least two years. And the closing of post offices in smaller communities may not happen as quickly as advertised.

The Senate on Wednesday approved legislation that would slow the U.S. Postal Service’s effort to make such changes. By a 62-37 vote, it sent a strong bipartisan message that, though the system is ailing financially, it’s not good politics, especially in an election year, to take a scythe to popular parts of the Postal Service.

“We don’t allow for what might be called shock therapy for the Postal Service because we don’t think it will work,” said Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent and an architect of the bipartisan bill.

Not everyone agrees, and the plan still has to navigate a difficult road in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. One proposal by key GOP lawmakers would set up a commission to devise a plan to consolidate and perhaps close certain post offices. The measure would give postal officials the option of ending Saturday service within six months of the bill’s enactment.

Many lawmakers in both chambers still see ending Saturday delivery as an important, timely and necessary cost-cutting move.

“It is clear the Postal Service must make drastic changes,” argued Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

The Postal Service has been struggling, battered by the 2007-09 economic recession and customers’ increasing reliance on electronic communication. First-class mail has dropped 25 percent in the last five years. Postal officials have proposed several strategies, including ending Saturday service and studying whether to close about 3,700 of the nation’s 31,509 post offices, and consolidate or close 234 of the 431 processing facilities. Many of the targeted post offices are in smaller, more rural areas, and lawmakers from affected states are howling.

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