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Here's a true story about a St. Louis murder that changed America. In 1837, a black freeman named Francis McIntosh stepped off a Mississippi riverboat and blundered into two white cops chasing a drunk sailor who'd called them names. They ordered...
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"I'm not going anywhere," says Spice, a 50-year-old woman who lives in the Santa Ana riverbed under the Chapman Avenue overpass, regarding reports of El NiƱo. "This is my home." The mother of eight was born in Westminster and now lives in an...
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Two gunmen wearing wigs, sunglasses and grotesque facial makeup entered John Seigman's unlocked Los Alamitos-area residence not long after sunset in August 1976. Startled family members had been watching television in the den when the intruders...
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"You know that Janis Joplin song where she says, 'Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose'?" asks Tombstone. He's the 68-year-old founder and chairman of an organization created to improve the image and foster alliances among the...
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By Charles Lam There goes a 3-foot Elsa with verve, walking through South Coast Plaza on Halloween afternoon, passing Sears and Din Tai Fung before getting on the escalator down to go to Uniqlo. A Minnie Mouse and an astronaut flank her; behind...
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The curtain rises on our dual protagonist/antagonist, sitting in a bar. Or maybe he's at home. Or in a $50-per-night motel room with a hooker. Doesn't matter where; every story begins a bit differently. But he's drinking. Maybe he's drinking a...