AP - East L.A. — birthplace of the lowrider, Los Lobos and Oscar de la Hoya — is to Mexican-Americans what Harlem is to the black community. Now it wants to become its own city. Commonly mistaken for a part of Los Angeles, East L.A. is actually an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, with more than 130,000 people — 96 percent of them Latino — packed into 7.4 square miles.

AP - In the state that may again determine the presidency, voters started casting ballots Tuesday as Barack Obama struggles to thwart a John McCain victory in Ohio four years after it tipped the election to President Bush.

AP - Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to try to reverse the term-limits law he had long supported so he can seek a third term next year and help the city emerge from financial turmoil, a person close to the mayor told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

AP - The man who told a jury that O.J. Simpson asked him to bring guns and "look menacing" during a hotel room confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers acknowledged Monday he didn't tell police that last October.

AP - Voters in this crucial swing state began casting absentee ballots Tuesday, a day after state and federal courts upheld a disputed early voting law.

AP - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled a $5 billion plan to provide 20,000 affordable homes in the city over the next five years, but acknowledged he'll have to reach far and wide to raise the funds amid the financial meltdown.

AP - The glittering, steel and glass domed rail hub had seemed for years to be the only thing that was going right at ground zero.