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LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Vanessa Franco with her French Bulldog Holly during the 8th Annual Bulldog Beauty Contest & Haute Dog Pageants in Long Beach, Calif. on February 11, 2012. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk checks out the McBride Skatepark in Long Beach, Calif. on February 11, 2012. The skatepark, which was given a sizable grant from the 2010 Stand Up for Skateparks Tony Hawk Foundation event, is on Martin Luther King, Jr., Ave. south of Pacific Coast Highway.
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LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- David Arana, right, hugs his son, Justin Arana, as they watch firefighters battle a blaze at their family home in the 3000 block of Arlotte Ave. in Long Beach, Calif. on February 10, 2012. Firefighters from Long Beach, Los Angeles County and Orange County responded to the fire that destroyed the garage and upstairs bedroom shortly after 7 p.m.. No one was home when the fire started.
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LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Jeff Andrews of the Cal State Long Beach snowboard team rides the center rail in front of the Walter Pyramid on February 9, 2012. Fifteen tons of snow was sprayed on to the steps and surrounding area for the Long Beach State Pyramid Rail Jam, a rail-riding competition sponsored by the club. Forty riders competed in half-hour heats in front of three volunteer judges. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Blues guitarist Bernie Pearl at hie Long Beach, Calif., home on January 26, 2012. Pearl played with all the greats, including BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Etta James.

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Brothers Brandan Soltes, left, Ryan Soltes, right, and Robert Soltes, center, listen to stories about their father, Charles Robert Soltes, Jr., during a ceremony marking the dedication of Project 402 at the VA Long Beach on January 25, 2012. Project 402 is a 30-month, seven-building project that includes a blind rehabilitation center named for Maj. Charles Robert Soltes, Jr. Soltes was an Army optometrist, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. See more pictures>>

CERRITOS, CAILF., USA -- Water Superintendent Charles Emig heads towards solar membranes atop one of the two six-million gallon water tanks at the Cerritos, Calif. corporate yard on January 10, 2012. Cerritos has installed two solar panel systems on top of the water reservoirs over the past two years. The systems generate more than 150,000 kws per year. See more pictures>>

WILMINGTON, CALIF. USA -- Firefighters work to put out a blaze in the administration building of the ConocoPhillips refinery in Wilmington, Calif. on January 16, 2012. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Long Beach councilman Robert Garcia gives fellow councilperson Suja Lowenthal a ride before a a ceremony for new banners along the length of Broadway and Third Street from the Long Beach (710) Freeway to Alamitos Avenue in Long Beach, Calif. on January 12, 2012. The banners celebrate the dedicated bike lanes along Broadway and Third Street. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Charlie Josephbeck, front, and Christian Johnson walk through a maze of dried Mustard plant during a class about bugs and fungus at the El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach, Calif. on January 5, 2011. The nature center offers classes for children in Kindergarten through 4th grader throughout Winter and Spring break. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- A worker welds steel at the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse in Long Beach, Calif. on January 5, 2011. Construction on the $490 million, 31-courtroom courthouse in Downtown began this spring and to be finished by 2013.
The courthouse is being built in the city's West Gateway area on six acres bounded by West Broadway, Maine Avenue, West Third Street and Magnolia Avenue. It will replace the more than 50-year-old building at 415 W. Ocean Blvd., which the state has identified as one of the worst courthouses in California in terms of security, overcrowding and physical condition. See more pictures>>

LENNOX, CALIF. USA -- Lennox Little League President Roberto Aguirre hangs his head as he listens to Jerry Flory, administrator for Little League District 37, talk about new fees imposed by the Lennox School District for use of their fields during a coaches meeting in Lennox, an unincorporated area of Los angeles County, on January 7, 2011. The school district is double the fees for the league's use of three fields and charging them for security and storage. See more pictures>>

See the pictures: click here

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Stella Morones comforts her niece, Katrina Romo, after she and fellow Avalon High soccer players were involved in an accident at the corner of Magnolia Ave. and Broadway in Long Beach, Calif. on December 27, 2011.
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Yesterday the Long Beach city council nixed a plan to build a shopping and community destination at the site of the dilapidated SeaPort Marina Hotel. The $320 million project, called Second+PCH, was to be centered around a 12-story residential building and include a boutique hotel and retail space. Click here to see more aerial pictures of the area.

Sometimes everyday assignments surprise you, sometimes they don't. This one didn't, then it did.

On a July morning reporter Greg Mellen and I hiked through Downtown Long Beach, Calif., with volunteers counting the Homeless population. During an uneventful meeting, Elissa Finch, a volunteer, stopped to talk to Kevin Evans, a homeless man wondering the streets before sunrise. Finch asked Evans questions about being homeless like how often he slept inside and how long he'd been on the streets.

The picture itself is not anything special and it wasn't published in the newspaper. But, as with most stories, I built a photo gallery with pictures I shot that day. It was this gallery that allowed Brian Evans, Kevin's estranged brother of 10 years, to find his older brother.

Read the story: click here

See the photo gallery from the July homeless count: click here

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Georgie Cortese gets a taste of the rain outside the Alpert Jewish Community Center in Long Beach, Calif. on December 12, 2011.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Mike Adams snuggles under a new blanket on a cot during the first day of operation for the Winter Emergency Homeless Shelter in Long Beach. The shelter has 150 beds with the capability to hold 200. Shuttles pick up clients beginning at 5 p.m. in Downtown Long Beach. See more pictures>>

In 2008, Press-Telegram writer Greg Mellen and I traveled to Cambodia with the Long Beach-based nonprofit Hearts Without Boundaries to chronicle in pictures, video and words the journey of Davik Teng, the nonprofit's first patient, from her rural home to the U.S. for life-extending open-heart surgery. Since then, several other children have also made similar journeys.

Earlier this year, Mellen and I returned to Cambodia to check on the children and their new lives.

Above is a multimedia piece about Davik Teng three years after she returned to Camobida.

To see pictures of Davik click here

To see pictures of other children helped by Hearts Without Boundaries click here

To see Davik's journey from 2008, click here

To read the story, click here

CERRITOS, CALIF. -- The 55-member Cerritos High School Wind Symphony will play at the London 2012 Summer Olympics... if they can raise the money need to send the band to the U.K.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Larry Allison, Jr., son of long-time Press-Telegram editor Larry Allison, reacts as his father is memorialized during a service at the Long Beach (Calif.) Convention Center on November 17, 2011. Allison, who had worked at the paper since 1957, died October 30 from complications after battling with pneumonia for two weeks.

Fellow staff photographer Stephen Carr and I photographed the memorial service - click here to see our pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Hundreds of Long Beach Memorial and Miller Children's Hospital registered nurses protest in front of the Long Beach, Calif. hospital on November 16, 2011. Since July, the hospitals and the California Nurses Association representing 1,979 registered nurses have been negotiating a new contract. Their contract expired Sept. 30. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- First Grader Maile Quinn, center, joins her classmates as they sing the National Anthem during the Mark Twain Elementary School Veteran's Day Celebration in Long Beach, Calif. on November 10, 2011.
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IRVINE, CALIF. USA -- Long Beach State's Jazz Strozier (15), right, celebrates their win over U.C. Irvine with teammates Nicole Hubbard (22), Taylor Nelson (5) and Sierra Mack (7), right after the championship game of the
Big West Conference Tournament on November 6, 2011, in Irvine, Calif. Strozier scored the only goal in the game that guaranteed LBSU a spot in the NCAA Tournament bid.
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LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Long Beach Councilman Dee Andrews, center, celebrates with Christopher Steinhauser, Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent, left, and Felton Williams, the President of the
Long Beach Board of Education, as a new traffic signal is unveiled at Atlantic Ave. and 15th. Street on November 2, 2011. According to the councilman, over 5000 students attend the two schools, Poly High and Roosevelt elementary, near the intersection.

LAKEWOOD, CALIF. USA -- Investigators examine a car in the 20700 block of Studebaker Rd. where an off-duty Santa Ana police officer shot a man he suspected of burglarizing his Lakewood, Calif. neighborhood on October 31, 2011, in Lakewood, Calif. The officer shot the man in the officer's personal car.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Kathleen Schaaf. owner of Meow Vintage, puts some of her Halloween clothing in front of her 4th. Street store in Long Beach, Calif. on October 26, 2011.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- A dog occupies a blanket at the sparsely populated Occupy Long Beach camp at Lincoln Park in Long Beach, Calif. on October 25, 2011. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Fourth grader Ashley Hernandez learns how to hold a violin on the first day of music class at Longfellow Elementary School in Long Beach, Calif. on October 24, 2011. The Long Beach Unified School District is in desperate need of music instruments since state law now prohibits schools from charging students most educational fees, including fees for musical instruments. Nearly 1,000 violins are needed and 275 trumpets for fourth and fifth graders. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Joe Shumener, left, and Joe Clawson feed bird on the sand in the Belmont Shore neighborhood of Long Beach, Calif. onOctober 24, 2011.

CERRITOS, CALIF. USA -- Los Angeles County firefighter keep an eye on a smoldering strip mall that sustained $5 million in damage in an early morning blaze near the intersection of Gridley Road and South Street in Cerritos, Calif. on October 24, 2011. Investigators are still determining the cause. There were no injuries. See more pictures>>

TORRANCE, CALIF. USA -- Slater Herring, 4, of Redondo Beach, takes a break on a pile of white pumpkins at Cottone and Sons Pumpkin Patch in Torrance, Calif. on October 23, 2011. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- The people at the Long Beach Towne Center can't spell town correctly so why would they be able to spell YIELD. The missing L disappeared near the In-N-Out just west of the San Gabriel (605) Freeway.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Gina Garcia, left, greets friend Gordon Cardona during the Disabilities Awareness Fair in Downtown Long Beach, Calif. on October 19, 2011. The pair skied together in Mammoth. The City of Long Beach and the Citizens' Advisory Commission on Disabilities (CACoD) celebrated October as Disability Employment Awareness Month with the event. See more pictures>>

SEAL BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Dr. Marissa Pei places flowers in the Pacific Ocean after leading a Balance Tai Qi Qong moving meditation class in memoriam of the victims of Wednesday's mass-shooting in Seal Beach, Calif. October 16, 2011. See more pictures>>

SEAL BEACH, CALIF. USA -- A man believed to be the suspect in a shooting that killed six people and wounded three others is held by police in an alley near Central Ave. between 11th. and 12th. streets in Seal Beach, Calif. on October 12, 2011. See more photos by the staff of the Press-Telegram>>

LONG BEACH, CAILF., USA -- Maryanne Gibbons, hugs Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, under an electric sign cheering the completing of the Termino Avenue Drain Project in the 1200 block of Anaheim Street in Long Beach, Calif. on October 12, 2011. Her father, Edward Bielucke, right, lives on the block and has experienced flooding several times because the former drain was inadequate.
The Termino Avenue Storm Drain Project is a nearly two-mile long storm drain system designed to bring flood relief to southeast Long Beach. The $22.6 million drainage system has the capacity to manage storm flows of up to 703 cubic feet per second. (A cubic foot is equivalent to 7.5 gallons of water.) It replaces an existing drain that was undersized to serve the needs of the watershed.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Seventh District Councilman James Johnson awaits for a ceremonial ground breaking at Baker Street Park in Long Beach, Calif. on October 11, 2011. The new park is nestled in a neighborhood just south of the San Diego (405) Freeway at the intersection of Golden Ave. and Baker Street. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Low clouds can be seen rolling past Island White from the view from Bluff Park in Long Beach, Calif. on October 10, 2011.
THUMS Islands are a set of four artificial islands off the coast of Long Beach that were built to tap into the East Wilmington Oil Field. The landscaping and sound walls were designed to camouflage the operation and reduce noise, and they are the only decorated oil islands in the United States.
the islands were named after the parent companies who bid for the island contract: Texaco, Humble Oil (now Exxon), Union Oil, Mobil Oil, and Shell Oil. The rim of the islands are made of 640,000 tons of boulders from Catalina Island, and the islands were then filled with 3.2 million cubic yards of dredged material from the bay.
The islands were renamed in 1967 after the three astronauts who died in the Apollo 1: Island Grissom, Island White, and Island Chaffee. The fourth island is named for Theodore Freeman, an astronaut who died while piloting a T-38 Talon jet for NASA.
The islands and operation were purchased by Occidental Petroleum in 2000

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Art major Ashley Hankla heads to class in the rain at California State University, Long Beach on October 5, 2011. See more pictures>>

SIGNAL HILL, CALIF. USA -- Downtown Los Angeles sits under clouds in this view from Hilltop Park in Signal HIll, Calif. on October 4, 2011. See more pictures>>

SIGNAL HILL, CALIF. USA -- With a view of Downtown Los Angeles, Christiane Jetmore takes a jumping picture of Bethany Fedor at Hilltop Park in Signal HIll, Calif. on October 4, 2011. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Ed Mitchell is all smiles after finding pumpkins at Pa's Pumpkin Patch in Long Beach, Calif. on October 3, 2011.http://lang.presstelegram.com/photos/photos.asp?a=1334968#id=1334968&num=0

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- A member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America Union who refused to be identified joins other union members as the protest the City of Long Beach and Erik Sound of the city's Business Relations Bureau in front of Long Beach (Calif.) Airport on October 3, 2011. The union is upset that the city has not signed a labor agreement for work on the new terminal at the airport. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Lieutenant Governor of California, Gavin Newsom speaks during the 2011 California Visionaries Luncheon Series in Long Beach, Calif. on September 27, 2011. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Dara Pung looks around the living room of his apartment in the 1000 block of Stanley Avenue in Long Beach, Calif. after a fire on September 27, 2011. Pung lives at the one-bedroom apartment with his wife and daughter. According to the Long Beach Fire Department; The fire started around 9 A.M. and the damage is estimated at $100,000. A 35 year-old woman suffered minor injuries to her hands and was transported to the hospital. Arson investigators are examine the damage for a cause. See more pictures>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Coligeo High School students Ashley Campos, left, Elizabeth Tapia, center, and Marilyn Medina taste the barbecued chicken lettuce wraps they made during a class at the Jamie Oliver Food Truck in Long Beach, Calif. on September 26, 2011. See more pictures / buy reprints>>

LONG BEACH, CALIF. USA -- Third grader Sara Williams, center, joins her class as they listen to Lowell Elementary School teacher Pam Parkins read called "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers" on September 8, 2011, in Long Beach, Calif. The book is about Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, on August 7, 1974. The last page of the book simple states, "Now the towers are gone". Each year on Sept. 11, Parkins reads the book to her students and discusses the event of 9/11 on terms her third graders can understand. See more pictures>>