Featured Articles from the Glendale News-Press

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — PATH Achieve Glendale, the city’s largest homeless services provider, on Saturday celebrated a $400,000 corporate donation at a time when the organization is struggling alongside other nonprofits to meet increased demand amid a flailing economy. The donation, which was announced at a community appreciation event at Re/Max Elite on Cañada Boulevard, came as many local nonprofit social service agencies continue to see funding sources dry up with the economic downturn.

The first baby born in Glendale in the New Year arrived at 4:24 a.m. Jan. 1 to first-time parents and Glendale residents Elina Hovhannisyan and Roubik Rostamloo. Their son David, who was due on Dec. 31, was born at Glendale Adventist Medical Center weighing six pounds and three ounces. “It is a huge blessing for me,” Rostamloo said. “I'm a lucky guy.” At Verdugo Hills Hospital, Roger and Erica Fajardo, both 29 of Northridge, welcomed Dominic at 6:25 a.m. On Saturday night, the Fajardos hosted a quiet New Year's gathering at their home with family and friends.

When Sue Savona experienced severe stomach pains while traveling with her husband, Gary, and nine children to visit family in Green Bay, Wis., they stopped at a hospital in Tulsa, Okla. He continued on to Green Bay to drop off the children and then took a flight back to Tulsa - but he arrived too late. On Dec. 18, just 24 hours after she was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer and underwent emergency surgery, Sue Savona died - shocking her family and former colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

About $13,000 in jewelry and an unknown amount of cash were taken from a residence in the 900 block of Fairview Street. The loss was reported between 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Aug. 23. It was not known how entry was made. Also on Aug. 23, five guns were stolen from a residence in the 1100 block of Via Alta between 11:15 a.m. and 3 p.m. There were no signs of forced entry. And about $25,000 in electronic equipment was stolen from an apartment in the 800 block of North Victory Boulevard between 1 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Aug. 25. The rear door was reportedly kicked in.

Last year, media companies including the Walt Disney Co. and Time-Warner Inc., parent of Burbank’s Warner Bros. Studios, spent millions of dollars to help defeat California’s Proposition 24. Now a key part of the measure is back in a different form, pushed by state Sen. Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles). Proposition 24, among other provisions, would have eliminated the ability of companies to choose between two formulas for calculating corporate income taxes. In California, companies can choose between paying based on their in-state sales or on a formula that factors in sales, property and payroll.

Nine years' worth of public campaigning, budget revisions and contract negotiations culminated this week as Glendale Community College debuted a newly expanded Garfield campus, home to its certificate and continuing education programs. The $22.8-million revamp of the satellite site at 1122 E. Garfield Ave. in South Glendale included a new 38,000-square-foot building with classrooms, administrative offices and a career center. It also incorporated a new child care facility and parking areas.

In two weeks’ time, Brent’s and Roy’s wives will test the limits of Brent and Roy’s friendship. No, that’s not my pitch for the world’s lamest movie of the week. It’s a sentence designed to showcase two types of possessives that can confound even the most apostrophe-savvy writer. Most everyone knows that apostrophes form possessives, Joe’s house, and contractions, Joe’s here. But that knowledge alone may not be enough to explain why you often see an apostrophe in two weeks’ time or why sometimes pairs like Brent and Roy share one apostrophe and other times Brent and Roy each get their own. For this, you need more than just the basics and a logical mind.

Glendale police on Sunday arrested a 25-year-old Los Angeles woman on suspicion of soliciting prostitution while driving a stolen rental car, officials said. Police were patrolling about 8:39 a.m. an alley behind Glen Capri Motel on the 6700 block of San Fernando Road, where they found Tamika Smith in the driver's seat of the stolen Hyundai Sonata rental, along with her passenger, Alfredo Cruz, 49, according to Glendale Police Department reports. Cruz told police he had been looking for work outside of Home Depot on San Fernando Road, where Smith drove up to him and asked if he was interested in having sex, according to police.

Foothill Municipal Water District will continue cost-cutting measures, but it is unlikely those efforts will be enough to keep water rates from going up next year. Because of limited local groundwater supplies, retail water agencies, such as the Crescenta Valley Water District and those in La Cañada Flintridge, import the majority of their water through the Foothill Municipal Water District, a wholesale water distribution agency supplied by the regional Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

GLENDALE — With healthcare costs and insurance premiums skyrocketing this year, one local service provider is looking to help some parents who can’t afford to pay for medical treatments for their children. Glendale Healthy Kids on Saturday will host its third annual Kids Health & Fitness Expo in an effort to provide local children with free medical services that their parents normally would not be able to afford, said Camille Levee, the organization’s executive director. “This is something the community needs,” she said.

They say you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. But how many do you have to crack to create a successful chain of brunch cafes? The owners of Another Broken Egg Café are trying to find out. The family of restaurants that started in Louisiana on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain has expanded across the Southeast and into California with a space on Olive Avenue in Burbank. Images of a cozy Cajun cafe ruled by a drawling waitress telling you to finish your grits disappear as soon as you walk into the first-floor space in the non-descript Cusumano Plaza office building.

The decision to carry on with a grand holiday fireworks display last week at the Americana at Brand as thousands of residents throughout the Southland fled out-of-control fires elicited a strong rebuke this week from residents and City Council members, who called the move “dumb-headed” and “ill-advised.” In the days following the Nov. 15 fireworks show, residents called and e-mailed city officials and the media to complain about the public safety implications of allowing the display amid smoke-filled air, and the insensitivity they said it showed to those who lost everything in what officials called the most devastating fire disaster to have hit the Los Angeles region.

Singer Katy Perry is scheduled to appear at the Americana at Brand next week to promote her new line of false eyelashes. Perry, who was nominated this year for two Grammys, will be at the ULTA Beauty store to show off a new line of fake eyelashes she created in association with Eylure. For a chance to meet Perry personally, fans must first visit the ULTA Beauty store in the Burbank Empire Center at 10 a.m. Saturday, where the first 90 people to purchase a Katy Perry false lash will win a "lash pack" and a meet-and-greet with the singer in Glendale on Wednesday.