The California Highway Patrol is hunting for a pair of heartless thugs, who were caught on tape beating another man senseless and leaving him by the side of the road during a Los Angeles traffic argument last week.
The brawl occurred on June 12 on the northbound side of Interstate 5, and a passerby's video of it made local newscasts on Tuesday after going viral on YouTube and Live Leak, KTLA television reported.
The passerby, who was in his car, rolled down his passenger-side window and filmed the four cursing, shouting and, ultimately, fighting with each other.
In the video, three men standing near an older-model Volkswagen argue with a man in a red shirt standing beside his Honda.
Eventually, the man in red and one of the other three raise their fists.
They lunge at each other, punching, kicking and grappling, before a second man from the Volkswagen group jumps in and tackles the man in red.
"Two on one!" the cameraman says, as cars blow their horns behind him.
The two pummel the man in red, knocking him cold with a blow to the head and savagely kicking him in the face five times, while he lies unconscious.
The crew then hops in their Volkswagen and takes off.
The video ends with the bystander getting out of his car and trying to help the victim, whose face is battered and swollen.
The video has since been pulled off YouTube.
California Highway Patrol said on Tuesday that they were looking for the black Volkswagen with California license plate 3UGW962.
"We don't have any more information other than the video, and we're following up on all the information the video contains," California Highway Patrol spokesperson Mike Harris told The Huffington Post.
"We definitely need to get in touch with the victim," he said.
Local ABC station KABC-TV said they spoke with the victim.
The man, who didn't give his name, said the group in the Volkswagen was taunting him before they pulled over.
He said his "military instincts kicked in" when he decided to roll up his sleeves and duke it out, the station reported.
He said he suffered a concussion and didn’t remember much.
California Highway Patrol was scheduled to hold a press conference at 7 a.m. Wednesday to discuss the incident.
WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO
Source: www.nydailynews.com
UCLA forecasts California housing recovery next year - Los Angeles Times
A dearth of residential construction remains a huge drag on the state's economy, according to the quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast, while sales of distressed properties still dominate the market.
"The data is just not telling me that the market has turned or is on the verge of turning," said senior economist Jerry Nickelsburg. His report noted that "California real estate markets are either still in the trough or still declining towards it."
It's a big reason that UCLA predicts California's unemployment rate, which stood at 10.8% in May, won't hit single digits until the middle of next year.
The good news is that California's housing market is expected to pick up steam in the next few years. UCLA forecasts a dramatic rise in building permits in 2014 to 130,000 — double the U.S. rate.
"Twelve more months of solid gains in California and working through excess inventory, and we should be ready" to declare a housing recovery, Nickelsburg said.
The state's job outlook hasn't changed much from previous forecasts, despite 10 straight months of employment growth and a surprisingly strong May in which California employers added nearly 34,000 jobs. UCLA predicts continued slow and steady gains through the remainder of 2012, with faster growth beginning in 2013.
The unemployment rate is expected to average 9.7% next year, falling to an average of 8.3% in 2014.
The forecast also cast doubt on the possible economic impact of the proposed high-speed rail project that would run from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has contended the project would create 100,000 construction jobs and an additional 450,000 jobs in the broader state economy over the next 25 years.
To substantiate that, the UCLA economists looked to Japan, where high-speed rail has been in place for decades. They concluded that although development sprang up around new rail lines, much of the activity simply moved from other places.
"There may be good reasons to invest in [high-speed rail] but the economic argument, the jobs argument, does not seem to stand on very solid ground," the report said.
Nationally, the U.S recovery will continue its slow plod, according to the forecast. The U.S. will not regain all jobs lost during the Great Recession until the end of 2014, in part because so many workers have been permanently displaced, said Edward Leamer, director of the Anderson Forecast, in the report.
He said many jobs have gone overseas or have been automated, creating millions of excess workers in sectors including manufacturing, construction and retail.
Leamer said the solution is workforce development.
"Good jobs in the United States in the 21st century will require humans to do things that are not suited to the capabilities of faraway foreigners, robots or microprocessors. We need a workforce that can think creatively and solve the new problems, not merely recall the solutions to old problems," Leamer wrote.
UCLA projects GDP growth this year to be a sluggish 2.2%, and slightly higher next year, at 2.4%. They project the nation's unemployment rate will average 8.2% this year and 7.9% in 2013.
Source: www.latimes.com
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