Author: Anna Gorman

Community leaders and celebrities announced a new multimedia campaign in Los Angeles on Wednesday aimed at getting young Latinos to participate in the U.S. Census.

During the news conference at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, speakers invited students to download an interactive mobile application, to participate in a texting campaign (text “LA” to 738674) and to spread the word to family and friends about the importance of the census.

“Your voice literally does matter,” actress Rosario Dawson told students in the campus library. “You have the right to live with dignity in your communities. This is the opportunity to fight for that.”

Dawson and actor Wilmer Valderrama joined leaders of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Voto Latino and the California Community Foundation to show public service announcements and hand out census-themed I-tunes cards to students.

Throughout the month, the community groups will visit schools in hard-to-count neighborhoods of the county to talk about the census and the multimedia campaign.

Los Angeles County stands to lose more than $11,000 per uncounted person, California Community Foundation President Antonia Hernandez said. She urged the students to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to start a conversation about the census and how the federal funds will affect their neighborhoods.

“Your task as youth is to use your fingers and start texting your friends,” she said.

One student, Kevin Menendez, 17, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2007, said he learned about the census in his government class. Then he got the letter from the U.S. Census Bureau this week.

“I told my aunt that we had to do it,” Menendez said. “I really want my family to be counted.”  

— Anna Gorman

Adam Gadahn, a Southern California native who works as a propagandist for Al Qaeda, has been arrested in Pakistan, sources said Sunday.

Gadahn has made videos for Al Qaeda and is wanted in the U.S. for treason. He was raised in Riverside County and later moved to Orange County, where he became a Muslim.

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan — Security forces in the southern port city of Karachi have arrested Adam Gadahn, a Southern California native who became a top propagandist for Al Qaeda and is wanted by the U.S. on treason charges, Pakistani intelligence sources in Karachi said Sunday.

The capture of Gadahn becomes the starkest signal yet that Pakistan has decided to ratchet up its cooperation with the U.S. in hunting down Islamic militants. In the last two months, Pakistani security forces have seized several top Afghan Taliban commanders, including the insurgency’s second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Read more about the reported arrest of Adam Gadahn in this story from L.A. Times staff writer Alex Rodriguez.

[Updated at 8:30 p.m.: As of late Sunday, U.S. officials said the reports could not be confirmed. American intelligence agencies spent the day sorting out conflicting reports on the purported arrest of Adam Gadahn of Riverside. By late Sunday night, U.S. officials said the picture remained unclear.

“In terms of who may have been arrested, the Pakistani rumor mill belched out three very different possibilities in about six hours,” one U.S. official said. “That should tell you something right there. It’s by no means clear who, if anyone, the Pakistanis may have captured.”]

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation has ordered the closure of Mulholland Drive in both directions between between Bowmont and Skyline drives because of roadway damage.

Officials say the expected rain from this weekend’s storms could further undermine the road.

Mulholland will be closed indefinitely and officers are redirecting traffic around the closure.

–Anna Gorman