Courtesy of Tedeytan

Marriage equality supporters rally in D.C.

Updated at the bottom: David Cruz provides new details of his views. First posted Tuesday afternoon.

David Cruz, an expert on civil rights and constitutional law, made his way from USC to D.C. to observe the oral arguments on California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage this morning. In a packed courtroom, he saw a seriousness in the crowd lightened by moments of laughter as justices made small jokes, followed by an intense grilling of the attorneys for the parties.

Cruz tells L.A. Weekly that supporters of gay marriage who hoped for a historic U.S. Supreme Court decision are likely to be disappointed:

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Sheriff Lee Baca

The Los Angeles chapter of No More Jails Coalition is taking it to the streets today, telling L.A. County supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Gloria Molina, Don Knabe, and Mike Antonovich that the plan for embattled Sheriff Lee Baca to build a new women's jail is a crazy way to spend millions of tax dollars.

"We don't need these new jail cells, we don't want these new jail cells, we can't afford these new jail cells," says Mary Sutton of Critical Resistance, a member of the No More Jails coalition, in a press statement.

Sutton and other activists say the supervisors should instead spend money on programs such as drug treatment, housing, education, and job training. They're holding a mass protest in front of Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown today. But will the supervisors listen?

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Waggenseller Law Firm

One tiny Ugandan orphan Laine Waggenseller met in 2012.

A Thousand Oaks host family this week welcomed Ugandan orphan Adolf Baguma, 11, who was burned by his aunt at the age of 7 as punishment for trying to grab some food. Famed Dr. Peter Grossman will perform multiple surgeries so that Adolf -- forced by his burns to crawl on all fours for years -- can stand tall.

Adolf, a happy child, arrived by British Airlines on Monday, the final leg of his saga. Echo Park business litigator and human rights activist Laine Waggenseller stumbled onto his plight in 2011. Carol Horvitz, executive director of Children's Burn Foundation, says "Laine went with friends to an orphanage in Uganda, and heard about Adolf. We got hold of the orphanage, got a lot of paperwork done -- a lot -- to get Adolf here."

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courtesy of Milan Sabata

Dino M. Zaffina: A U.S. District Judge has barred him from using trademarks or a website for the Southern California Darts Association.

Remember Dino M. Zaffina? The studio sound man was a new(ish) member of the Southern California Darts Association in 2010 when he became angry that his middle initial was not included when players' scores were listed on the association's web site.

As L.A. Weekly Staff Writer Chris Vogel detailed in a Feb. 2 cover story, Zaffina subsequently learned that the 33-year-old association had allowed its incorporation to lapse. Zaffina promptly incorporated under the name and sued "60 darts players and eight stunned Los Angeles-area bars where darts are played regularly," as Vogel reported, for "using the historic name 'Southern California Darts Association,' which Zaffina now legally controlled." He also put up a website under the name and began issuing press releases touting his ownership.

When last we checked in, things weren't going well for the band of darts players formerly known as the Southern California Darts Association. They'd filed a cross complaint in an effort to stop Zaffina, but the judge struck it down. Zaffina had also snapped up rights to the new name that they'd contemplating incorporating under.

That was then. But on Monday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner issued an injunction that changes the game significantly.

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@e_espinosa via Twitter

"Non-profit 'Unified Young Americans' have this message for Pres Obama..."

The myriad Armenians of Los Angeles County took to the streets today -- and to the Internet, brave new frontier for social justice! -- to call for global recognition of the "forgotten holocaust" of 1915.

Thousands of protesters marched down Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards this morning/afternoon, lighting up L.A.'s most famous sidewalks in red, blue and gold.

Their picket signs and T-shirts blasted the nay-sayers with phrases like...

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... unless you're blind

​Blind people just can't seem to get a break.

First of all, they're blind, which is never easy.

And now, thanks to a California federal court ruling, they won't be able to book a flight on JetBlue's website.

Where's the humanity.

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DaR

In the wake of a rare proposal to have a sheriff's department oversee thousands of state parolees, a job that would normally go to local probation officials, union boards representing 95 percent of L.A. probation employees today announced a vote of "no confidence" in their Chief, Donald Blevins.

The organizations include: the Los Angeles County Probation Officers Union, AFSCME Local 685; the Supervising Deputy Probation Officers Union, SEIU Local 721; and the Probation Managers Association, AFSCME Local 1967, according to a statement.

This after ...

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Men's Central Jail

​It was about 5 p.m. at Men's Central Jail when sheriff's deputies were getting ready to release temporary inmate Steven Chavez.

But as we've seen, bad things can happen at that jail, anytime and in any part of the jail, even the visiting room.

Suddenly, says Chavez, and without warning, three officers starting beating him.

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​More than a year after suing his boss, Nghia Tran, the manager of a local manufacturing plant, is now a rich man.

A jury in federal court recently awarded him more than $5.4 million in a case where Tran reported that a woman was being sexually harassed at work.

That's right, $5.4 million, and no one ever laid a finger on him.

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Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, Zack.

That U.S. Supreme Court-ordered release of 33,000 California prisoners? Not so bad, says the Drug Policy Forum of California, which argues state lockups have been overcrowded with people who have done nothing more than hold onto natural substances such as marijuana and cocaine.

" ... It is noteworthy that the state maintained 24,959 prisoners for inherently non-violent drug offenses, according to the most recent statistics from the Dept of Corrections," sates the Forum today.

It blames the kind of inhumane overcrowding cited by the court majority for its decision on "the drug laws, a modern innovation that did not exist prior to the 20th century."

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