Isolated in our cars, but suffering together

LAMN_ 06-08-2008_ A_ 1_ A1_ IE_ 1_C
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TSet: 06-07-2008 23:04
SUNDAY EDITION
HEAVY
METAL
SAVAGE
AND SLEEK
UPSET
AT BELMONT
Going with prefab steel
housing can cut costs
and construction time.
Summer swim fashions
step off the runway
and into the wild.
Da’ Tara, left, defeats
Big Brown’s bid to take
the Triple Crown.
REAL ESTATE
IMAGE
SPORTS
June 8, 2008
copyright 2008 524 pages IE
Exiting race,
Clinton firmly
backs Obama
By Janet Hook
and Noam Levey
Times Staff Writers
washington — Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday
what Barack Obama’s backers
have wanted to hear for weeks:
she endorses his campaign and
will do everything she can to
get him elected president.
It remains to be seen how
the two Democratic powerhouses will meld their machines — or how long it will take
for the political healing to take
place — but Obama supporters
said they were encouraged by
how unequivocal her endorsement was.
As Clinton suspended her
groundbreaking presidential
campaign, she trumpeted her
many primary victories as a
historic
achievement
and
called on her supporters to
move beyond the long, sometimes bitter contest.
Accused earlier in the week
of failing to make a gracious
exit after it became clear that
Obama had clinched the nomination, Clinton sent a different
message in her concession
speech.
“Life is too short, time is too
precious, and the stakes are
too high to dwell on what might
have been,” Clinton said in a
half-hour speech to thousands
of supporters who packed into
Washington’s National Building Museum. “We have to work
together. And that is why I will
work my heart out to make
sure Sen. Obama is our next
president. I hope and pray that
all of you will join me in that effort.”
It was a dramatic and emotional end to a campaign that
had brought Clinton closer to
the White House than any
woman in U.S. history.
It marked the beginning of a
general election campaign that
pits Obama against Sen. John
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, and poses a
stark choice about the direction the U.S. can take after
eight years of George W. Bush’s
presidency.
Obama and his allies welcomed Clinton’s endorsement
and praised her for the message her campaign sent about
women’s rights.
“I am thrilled and honored
[See Clinton, Page A20]
BRAKE LIGHT BLUES
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Richard Hartog L os Angeles Times
M O R N I N G I S B R O K E N : Gridlock on the 110 Freeway downtown is a snapshot of how many motorists begin and end the
day. So The Times tracked down a handful of commuters near the 10 interchange to hear their stories.
Isolated in our cars,
but suffering together
How our neighbors in the next lane juggle their lives and drives.
More on
latimes.com
By Christopher Goffard: times staff writer
I
n this neighborhood, nobody knows your name.
There you are in the photograph above, crawling anonymously along a cheerless
stretch of real estate known as the 110 Freeway at rush hour. The roads are slick with rain
and cluttered with wrecks, and you’ve become a citizen of Stalled Nation, a community of
the trapped. You’re having a quintessential Los Angeles moment, partaking of a civic ritual more widespread than voting or church, one of the few universal experiences in this segmented, far-flung metropolis.
If you’re seeking the city’s ever-elusive center, it looks exactly like this. It’s anywhere the tires
are stopped dead, a thousand deep. As a motorist in Southern California, your average rushhour speed has plunged from 26 miles per hour in 1980 to about half that today. High gas prices
have thinned traffic in some places recently, but the improvement is unlikely to last. In L.A. and
Orange counties, by one conservative estimate, you’re now delayed by rush hours 72 hours a
year, about double the time you were 25 years ago.
That’s no small part of your waking life, yet you never get to know your neighbors, all the
sufferers stacked up left and right, ahead and behind.
[See Commutes, Page A26]
Carolyn Cole L os Angeles Times
D E PA RT I N G : “Life is too short . . . and the stakes are too high
to dwell on what might have been,” Hillary Clinton told
supporters in announcing the suspension of her campaign.
National
parkland
may revert
to Sioux
The house where a
tragic memory lives
Washington’s clout
declines as its longtime
ally turns to markets in
a booming Asia.
By P.J. Huffstutter
Times Staff Writer
crandon, wis. — There were
seven wakes. Seven funerals.
For nine days in a row, residents of this town of nearly
2,000 wore the same suits and
black dresses each day, and
carefully hung them up at night
to wear again the next.
They all knew — or were related to — the six young people
slain here at a homecoming
house party in October, a fusillade of violence that changed
this logging town forever.
At the service for 20-yearold Bradley Schultz, his
mother, Dianne, hugged hus-
bands and wives, neighbors
and out-of-towners. Everyone
in town was welcome. Even
Laurel and Steve Peterson
went — the parents of Tyler
Peterson, the spurned boyfriend and local law enforcement officer who shot the six
young people and later turned
a gun on himself.
Five
days
later,
the
Petersons returned to Praise
Chapel Community Church
with Tyler’s casket.
His was the last funeral and
the last burial in Lakeside
Cemetery. A few relatives of the
victims had stopped by before
the service to comfort Laurel
and Steve. They were joined by
hundreds of other townsfolk,
who came to find reason amid
the unthinkable.
“We’re all parents,” said Lee
Smith, mother of shooting victim Aaron Smith. “We were all
in pain.”
As the weeks passed, the
[See Crandon, Page A30]
Times Staff Writer
By Nicholas Riccardi
Times Staff Writer
badlands national park,
s.d. — The southern half of
this swath of grasslands and
chiseled pink spires looks untouched from a distance.
Closer up, the scars of history
are easy to see.
Unexploded bombs lie in ravines, a reminder of when the
military confiscated the land
from the Oglala Sioux tribe
during World War II and turned
it into an artillery range.
Poachers who have stolen
thousands of fossils over the
years have left gouges in the
landscape. On a plateau, a solitary makeshift hut sits ringed
by empty Coke cans and shaving cream canisters. It is the
only remnant of a three-year
occupation by militant tribal
activists who had demanded
that the land be returned.
Now the National Park
Service is contemplating doing
just that: giving the 133,000acre southern half of Badlands
National Park back to the tribe.
The northern half, which has a
paved road and a visitor center,
would remain with the park
system.
[See Badlands, Page A24]
Use an interactive
map to see when
traffic peaks
on the freeways
you drive and view
photo galleries
and video of those
trapped in the daily
commute at
latimes.com/traffic
Oil inflames U.S.-Saudi ties
By Paul Richter
Families of six rampage
victims are thwarted
in trying to burn down
the crime site.
$1.50
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CAMPAIGN ’08
Her farewell address
relieves some
Democrats, but her
supporters may not
jump camps quickly.
designated areas higher
washington — For decades,
Saudi Arabia worked with its
dominant
customer,
the
United States, to keep world oil
markets stable and advance
common political goals.
But the surging price of oil,
which soared more than $10 a
barrel Friday to a record-high
$138.54, has made it plain that
those days are over. New forces,
including a weak dollar and an
oil-thirsty Asia, have blunted
the United States’ leverage and
helped sour the two countries’
relationship.
As gasoline prices have
risen, the White House has
unsuccessfully exhorted the
Saudis to step up production,
and Congress has threatened
retaliation. But the situation
now is a far cry from the days
when the U.S. economy dominated the direction of the pe-
troleum market.
“That gave us leverage,”
said Greg Priddy, an oil analyst
at the Eurasia Group, a New
York-based risk assessment
firm. “There’s certainly a perception that the power equation has changed.”
The weakening of the economic
relationship
comes
when the vital U.S.-Saudi security relationship also has been
fraying.
In the 1980s, the U.S.-Saudi
bond that kept oil prices low
was credited with helping
weaken the Soviet Union dur[See Oil, Page A13]
Inside Today’s Times
Sportscaster
Jim McKay dies
The eloquent and versatile
broadcaster was 86.
California, B10
Hands-free calling
Drivers, consider your
options before a new law
takes effect. Business, C1
Weather: Mostly sunny
skies. Riverside: 83/59.
Palm Springs: 102/69. B12
Latest news: latimes.com
Complete index: Page A2
Gary Friedman L os Angeles Times
No sumo hugs, just a kiss
A Hollywood Boulevard performer greets Takamisakari
as Grand Sumo comes to Los Angeles. California, B1
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85944 00150
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