Los Angeles

Officials call for probe into airport police

City officials are calling for an investigation of Los Angeles International Airport police after hidden cameras captured several officers abandoning their posts and ignoring emergency calls.

“I am very concerned about airport police officers neglecting their duties,” Mayor James K. Hahn wrote to Kim Day, executive director of the airport agency. “Security at the airport must not be compromised.”

The camera footage broadcast Thursday by KCBS-TV appeared to show officers spending hours of their shifts away from the airport or staying at the airport but not working.

It also showed police chatting at a restaurant while ignoring radio calls about abandoned suitcases, and using a patrol car to pick up a child at school.

San Francisco

City proposes charging fee for grocery sacks

City officials are considering charging grocery stores 17 cents each for grocery bags to discourage use of plastic sacks.

More than 90 percent of consumers choose plastic bags, which are blamed for everything from clogging recycling machines to killing marine life and suffocating infants. But the fee would also apply to paper bags to help reduce overall waste.

Promoting a healthy environment “means we need to help change people’s patterns, and that even means their shopping patterns,” said incoming city Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who takes office in January. “This is a sensible user fee.”

Nebraska

Marine killed in Iraq just hours after son’s birth

Marine Lance Cpl. Shane Kielion was killed in action in Iraq not knowing that his first child had been born just hours before.

April Kielion, the Marine’s widow and high school sweetheart, gave birth to a boy in Omaha on Monday, said Kielion’s old high school football coach, Jay Ball.

“She’s hanging in there,” Ball said. “She’s a strong woman. She’s got a terrific family and lots of supportive friends.”

The baby was named Shane Kielion Jr., said April Kielion’s father, Don Armstrong. He said his daughter was “doing as well as to be expected under the pressure.”

New York City

Thousands visit new Museum of Modern Art

Thousands of New Yorkers came to visit their new MoMA Saturday and were happy to find there was so much more to see.

The newly expanded Museum of Modern Art threw open its doors to the general public for the first time with an estimated 15,000 visitors expected before the day was out.

The renovated museum, which had moved temporarily to Queens in 2002, is nearly twice the size of the original.