L.A. Now

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Thursday selected charter school co-founder Ref Rodriguez as its president.

After the 4-3 vote, Rodriguez immediately called for unity. The votes backing him came from a bloc elected with the help of funding from charter school backers. The other three board members supported Richard Vladovic, who has served as president in the past.

A raucous brawl that was captured on cellphone video between a security guard and two homeless men inside a McDonald’s restaurant in Santa Monica early Wednesday started with a simple request: Buy some food or leave, according to police.

The security guard gave the homeless men the choice after waking them from their slumber about 4:30 a.m. inside the restaurant on 2nd Street, said Lt.

The body of a 19-year-old man was found early Thursday in a burning car near Loyola Marymount University, authorities said.

The fire was reported just after 2 a.m. when an ambulance spotted the flames near the campus at 1 Loyola Marymount University Drive, Lt. John Radtke of the Los Angeles Police Department told reporters.

When firefighters extinguished the blaze, they discovered the body, he said.

A 24-year-old man was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday in connection with a suspected illegal street race in Hawthorne last year that killed a popular elementary school music teacher.

More than a dozen friends and family of the victim, Benny Golbin, 36, attended the emotional court hearing, including some who detailed how their lives have spiraled since the fatal crash.

Overall crime in Los Angeles has nearly leveled off at the midyear mark, police Chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday, calling 2017’s numbers a sign that police are making progress against the city’s stubborn uptick in crime.

A landowner who objects to a condition of a building permit but proceeds with the project anyway cannot later successfully sue to have that condition removed, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Thursday.

The state high court ruled against two homeowners in Encinitas who built a seawall to prevent their houses from sliding into the ocean.