The Week Ahead

News events coming up this week:

Today

Budget: The Los Angeles city and county budgets are released.

China case: Sentencing is set for Tai Mak, who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from trying to export U.S. defense technology to China.

Name change: The Los Angeles Free Clinic announces the change of its name to the Saban Free Clinic after a $10-million endowment from philanthropists Cheryl and Haim Saban.

Tuesday

Green building: The Los Angeles City Council votes on a groundbreaking ordinance to require private developers to incorporate strict energy and water efficiency standards in new construction and major renovations.

King hospital: The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors considers the 2008-09 proposed budget and reviews a report on efforts to reopen Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital.

Wednesday

Honor: The Los Angeles Public Works Commission considers naming the intersection of South Western Avenue and 57th Street as Bishop J. Bernard Hackworth Court.

Biggest loser: The winners of the Battle of the Badges will be announced at a final weigh-in of 20 Santa Ana police officers and 20 Orange County sheriff’s deputies to see which side lost the most total weight.

Zoning: The Orange County Planning Commission considers changes in zoning governing assisted-living facilities.

Museums: The San Gabriel Historical Assn. holds “A Night Out at the Museum” in recognition of National Turn Off TV Week. All three Mission district museums -- the San Gabriel Historical Assn. Museum and Victorian Hayes House, the San Gabriel Mission museum and the Ramona Museum of California History -- will be open for tours.

Saturday

Arbor Day: Tree-planting events will take place throughout the region.

Ask a reporter

Why haven’t those new anti-scofflaw turnstiles showed up yet at Metro rail stations?

Transit gurus never installed turnstiles, relying instead on an honor system that has cost the Metropolitan Transportation Authority an estimated millions of dollars in unpaid fares. So the MTA board voted Feb. 28 to add 379 fare gates for all subway stops and certain light-rail stations. “It generated a lot of news, so people thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s going to happen,’ ” MTA spokesman Rick Jager said. But the turnstiles still need to be built, and the first one won’t go in for 16 months, he said. The project won’t be done until early 2010.

-- Deborah Schoch

Fighting junk

Oliver Brown, a student in the humanities magnet at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, writes on The Homeroom blog:

In past years, students have watched in horror as their favorite fatty and sugary vices have slowly disappeared from school cafeterias and vending machines. The product of a school board decision imposed in 2004, LAUSD has proceeded to ban soft drinks, trans fat chips and candy from lunchrooms, attempting to replace them with healthier, smarter options.

This sudden absence of the essential, and by far most prevalent, adolescent drugs did not, however, deter teenagers; instead, it elicited an onslaught of rogue sugar dealers, myself included. Selling from dingy stairwells and dark, deserted hallways, I, alongside my fellow comrades in arms, pushed candy and confectioneries to the students of Hamilton High School: a dollar a doughnut, 50 cents for every crumpled, timeworn bag of hot Cheetos. As our tribe of underground dealers made hundreds in faded one-dollar bills, school officials remained flummoxed at this new surge of scattered pink boxes and candy wrappers. A cold and calculated war began between these two opposing fronts.

While I watched soldiers falling to fines and two-day suspensions, our seemingly innocuous venture began to reveal itself as a far more insidious crime. Selling the very items I avoided in my own diet, I came to realize that I was peddling obesity to students who were often already overweight or unhealthy.

latimes.com/thehomeroom

The tip

Dry weather since early March is sparking new pleas for less lawn sprinkling. If residents turn off sprinklers just one day a week, they’ll save enough water to keep household taps flowing in Anaheim, Burbank, Long Beach and Pasadena for an entire year, reports the Metropolitan Water District.

Traffic report

10 Freeway: The eastbound connector to the southbound Corona Expressway (Route 71) will be closed 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday.

101 Freeway: The southbound offramp at Vine Street will be closed 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. today. The northbound Sunset Boulevard/Hollywood Boulevard onramp will be closed 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday. The southbound Barham Boulevard offramp will be closed 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday.

105 Freeway: The eastbound connector to the southbound 405 will be closed 9 a.m.-2 p.m. today-Friday.

110 Freeway: The southbound Avenue 43 offramp and the east- and westbound onramps will be closed 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday. The southbound Figueroa Street/Sunset Boulevard offramp will be closed 9:30-11:30 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday.

710 Freeway: The southbound connector to the 5 Freeway will be closed 10 a.m.-1 p.m. today-Thursday.