BRIEFLY : 2 KIDS FATALLY HURT AS CAR JUMPS CURB.

A car jumped a curb after a collision in Echo Park on Friday and hit and killed two young children on a sidewalk.

An unidentified man driving one of the vehicles in the two-car crash fled on foot but returned about 45 minutes later and was arrested, said police Lt. Tony Alba. The booking charges weren't immediately known.

The 1:40 p.m. accident near North Alvarado Street in Echo Park sent bystanders running to help the boy and girl, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey.

The children were not breathing and had no pulse when paramedics arrived, he said.

Luisa Cornejo, 2, died about 2:45 p.m. at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, said hospital spokesman Steve Rutledge. Edwin Camacho, 3, was pronounced dead at 8:10 p.m., he said.

The children were not related and were walking with each of their parents when the accident occurred, police said.

SOURCE: - Associated Press

4 die in crash near Victorville

VICTORVILLE - Four people were killed Friday in a collision on Interstate 15 north of the city, authorities said.

The 7:30 p.m. accident involving four vehicles temporarily shut down the main thoroughfare into Las Vegas in both directions, said California Highway Patrol officials.

One car was heading southbound and hit a northbound vehicle head-on, a CHP dispatcher said. Officials didn't immediately know the cause of the accident or how the other two vehicles became involved.

It was not immediately known if there were any other injuries besides the four unidentified dead.

The northbound lanes were closed for four miles from Stoddard Wells Road to Boulder Road. One southbound lane was reopened around 10 p.m., the dispatcher said.

SOURCE: - Associated Press

Council settles in crash suits

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to pay $2.5 million to settle a lawsuit by the husband of a woman who died after her car was hit by a city ambulance on an emergency run in 1993.

Jane Paulin had a green light when she entered the intersection of Bay Club Drive and Pacific Coast Highway, where her car was hit by a city Fire Department ambulance, using sirens and lights, that was transporting a patient in cardiac arrest to the hospital.

The council also voted Friday to pay $470,000 to settle lawsuits stemming from an accident in which a city dump truck was hit by a Metrolink train in 1992 near the intersection of San Fernando Road and Del Sur Street.

The council paid $350,000 to a passenger on the train who received back injuries, and $120,000 to the MTA for damage to the railway caused by the accident.

SOURCE: - Daily News

Dead teens linked to suicide clique

Two teen-agers who apparently jumped to their deaths from a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean were members of a clique known to be fascinated with suicide, a school official said Friday.

San Pedro High School Principal Stephen Walters said the group of youths stood out on the 3,000-student campus. Most of the clique dressed in black, some shaved their heads and others wore their hair in Mohawks.

Then there was the music. Walters said the youths listened to such bands as Nirvana, whose lead singer Kurt Cobain committed suicide two years ago and whose lyrics speak of teen-age alienation and disappointment.

``This macabre death . . . culture is kind of a spiraling downward depression,'' Walters told reporters Friday.

The bodies of Alicia Hayes, 15, and Amber Hernandez, 14, were discovered Thursday on the rocks beneath Point Fermin Park in San Pedro, a 150-foot drop from the cliffs above. Witnesses said it appeared the two had tied their wrists together.

SOURCE: - Associated Press