Mayor: 70% of LA Homeless on Hard Drugs:  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has declared a state of emergency as the city's homeless population has reached a record of 46,000.  An article by Seth Abramovitch in the Hollywood Reporter notes that many homeless are migrating from downtown's Skid Row to Westside neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades and Brentwood where many are living on beaches, in parks, backyards, vehicles and hillsides.  According to the Mayor the increase in homeless is comprised of veterans with mental health issues, emancipated foster youth and criminal offenders left on the streets by California's "Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act" (Proposition 47) passed by voters last year.  Up to 70% are addicted to meth or other hard drugs.  Local law enforcement can do little under current circumstances, "If we are harder on the homeless, we usually get sued by advocates," said Garcetti.   A recent Los Angeles Times story also reports that violent and property crime are up significantly in LA.

Texas Murderer Sentenced to Death:  A Brazos County jury has decided that 22-year-old Gabriel Hall should receive the death penalty for the 2011 killing of a College Station man and seriously injuring his wife.  AP writer Michael Graczyk reports that this is the first death sentence given to a murderer in Texas this year.  The article is focused on the fact that there have been fewer death sentences nationally, "especially compared to the 1990s," as noted by death penalty opponent Richard Dieter, who failed to mention that there were also over 56,000 more murders in the US and  5,700 more in Texas during that decade.  Why did the jury sentence Hall to death instead of life without parole?  Sometimes the details of the crime provide the answer. This story from KTBX in College Station reports how Hall, then 18, shot and stabbed to death 68-year-old retired Texas A&M Professor Edwin Shaar in his garage, then walked into the kitchen and stabbed Shaar's 69-year-old wheelchair-bound wife Linda in the throat.