News briefs from around the state

LOS ANGELES (AP) A soldier and aspiring police officer killed in Iraq last month was remembered as a hero to his country as he was laid to rest on Saturday.

Army Sgt. Evan Ashcraft , 24, an infantryman with the 101st Airborne Division, was one of three soldiers killed in Iraq on July 24 when the convoy in which he was traveling came under attack from gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. Ashcraft's division led the fiery assault in northern Iraq that killed Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai Hussein.

Nearly 400 people filled the Prince of Peace Episcopal Church in Woodland Hills for a memorial service Saturday. Ashcraft was buried later in the day with full military honors in the Oakwood Cemetery in Chatsworth.

Ashcraft's family said the Los Angeles native planned to join the police department upon his scheduled discharge from the army in January.

``I would smile when he'd say, 'I'm going to be on the SWAT team,' like it was something you did by merely checking a box on a form,'' said Ashcraft's father-in-law, Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Loren Farell.

``He was a good soldier; he would have made a great cop,'' he said, his voice breaking. ``As for the rest of us, Evan you are a hero to all of us, and you are a hero to your country,'' Farell said.

Ashcraft's 23-year-old widow Ashley wept as she was presented with a U.S. flag that had been draped on her husband's casket. The couple had lived in Oak Grove, Ky., where Ashcraft had been stationed.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) About 100 union organizers and activists attended a workshop Saturday to learn tactics to ``get out the vote'' and fight the recall of Gov. Gray Davis.

Michael T. Dugan, spokesman for the State Building & Construction Trades Council, called the recall ``an assault on unions, working families and a whole list of issues important to them.''

Along with the California Federation of Labor, Dugan's organization is sponsoring 15 such workshops around the state over the next month under the umbrella name WAR, or Workers Against the Recall.

``The consequences of a recall, we think, are disastrous for a number of reasons,'' Dugan said. ``Somebody could win with 10 percent of the vote, and that's where the process has gotten completely out of whack.''

Luther B. Medina, the director of organizing for Sheet Metal Workers' Local 105, said he attended the workshop to receive media training and learn how to better explain the reasons behind labor's opposition to the recall.

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ARCADIA, Calif. (AP) The city of Arcadia in the San Gabriel Valley will mark its 100th birthday this Tuesday with daylong festivities celebrating the its history and heritage.

``The city mailed a birthday bash invitation to all Arcadia residents,'' said Linda Garcia, the city's communications, marketing and special projects manager. ``It's the first time we've ever done a celebration this big.''

Tuesday's celebration will begin with the Lucky Baldwin Treasure Trail, a cross between a scavenger hunt and a trivia contest. Town founder Elias Jackson ``Lucky'' Baldwin once owned much of the land that later became Arcadia. The city was incorporated on Aug. 5, 1903.

As part of the celebrations, the Arcadia City council will meet to change the name of Civic Center Drive to Centennial Way.

Other festivities will include readings of centennial essays solicited from local residents by Mayor Gary Kovacic and the unveiling of a bronze statue of a peacock, the city's official bird, atop a fountain in Arcadia County Park.

The celebrations will culminate with a birthday party at the Arcadia Community Center, where participants can have their picture taken with a Lucky Baldwin likeness and enjoy birthday cake that will be served with 100 candles.

``It's a historic occasion, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of history,'' Garcia said. In its first decade, Arcadia's population was just under 700. In the century since, that figure has grown to 53,000.

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VENTURA, Calif. (AP) Officials barred a Hells Angels spokesman and his family from entering the Ventura County Fair grounds, citing a policy forbidding gang attire.

Wearing a leather vest emblazoned with the group's trademark winged skull, Hells Angels spokesman George Christie, his wife and three children were turned away from the fair grounds Saturday evening.

``We are being targeted, and I don't know why,'' Christie said. He claimed the biker group was not a gang and said members have a right to wear what they like. He announced that he and his attorney are considering a lawsuit against the Ventura Police Department for classifying the group as a criminal street organization.

Last month the Ventura County Fair Board voted to ban gang attire to help prevent violence. The policy prohibits fairgoers from wearing trademark clothing emblazoned with logos such as the winged skull affiliated with the Hells Angels.

It also prohibits the display of tattoos representing any of about two dozen groups recognized by the Ventura Police Department as criminal street gangs.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The city of San Francisco is planning to build four public power plants to replace electricity currently being produced at a plant owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which residents complain is polluting the neighborhood.

The city's plan came after a public agency operating the state's wholesale power grid advised that the new turbines would supply enough energy to allow for closure of the 45-year-old plant at Hunter's Point.

Residents living near the old plant have suspected that their health problems, ranging from cancer to asthma, are linked to pollutants released from the plant.

In the planned new plants, each turbine generates four times less ozone-creating pollutants per unit of electricity than PG&E's plant, according to city officials.

PG&E has taken no position on San Francisco's plan to develop its own power plants.

The city is eyeing industrial land near residential Potrero Hill and a steam generator located in downtown San Francisco as sites for the four new power plants.

Though the new plants will be publicly owned, city officials are planning to have them tied into PG&E's transmission system.

The administration of Mayor Willie Brown in 1998 signed an agreement with PG&E to work toward closure of the old plant.

PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno said that given the plant's age and tougher air quality standards scheduled to take effect in 2005, the utility faced having to make tens of millions dollars in upgrades and felt the money could be better spent elsewhere.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Anglers from across North America spent the week in Golden Gate Park trying to cast their flies further and more accurately than their competitors.

The 95th Annual American Casting Association National Tournament concluded on Saturday. It drew 55 fly casters from as far away as Toronto and Kentucky.

Steve Rajeff, a resident of Washington state, won the overall title, his 28th career national championship.

``Competition puts pressure on you and makes you nervous, but only if you let it,'' said Rajeff.

Although there was not a fish in sight, many of the anglers didn't seem to care. They say the sport of casting is all about control.

``The perfect cast is like Zen,'' said Tom Gong, who heads the Oakland Casting Club. ``The rod and the line become a part of you, and all you can say is, 'That's a beautiful cast.'''

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)