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LOS ANGELES

Immigrant detention facility to add beds

Federal officials have signed a deal to add 400 beds to a Lancaster detention center for immigrants, making it the largest facility of its kind in California, authorities said Thursday.

The Mira Loma Detention Center will now be able to hold 1,400 people.

The facility is run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. A change to the existing contract to add beds was signed in November and approved this month by the county Board of Supervisors.

"We still don't know definitively" when the expansion will take place, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"We do anticipate increasing our population at Mira Loma in the coming months," she said.

The space is needed because more immigrants are being detained for immigration violations in the Los Angeles area, and because the detention center in San Pedro, which housed more than 400 immigrants, was closed in October for repairs. The detainees there were moved elsewhere.

In brief

SANTA ANA

Price of 91 Express Lanes will rise to $10

Starting next week, drivers on the 91 Express Lanes during Friday rush hour will pay $10 for the privilege of a less-congested commute.

The price hike — which will appy only during a one-hour window — makes the lanes among the most expensive tollways in the nation.

Tolls will go from $9.25 to $10 for cars traveling eastbound on Fridays between 3 and 4 p.m. The eastbound toll during the same hour on Wednesdays will increase from $4.95 to $5.95 and on Thursdays from $4.95 to $5.70.

The Orange County Transportation Authority, which owns the toll lanes, raises prices when it tracks 3,200 or more cars in one direction during the same hour in any six of 12 consecutive weeks. The last increase occurred in July.

The lanes are part of the 91 Freeway, one of the most congested highways in Southern California. More than 300,000 vehicles use the freeway each day to commute between coastal Orange County and Riverside County to the east, and volume is expected to reach 425,000 cars a day by 2025.

WRIGHTWOOD

Man dies after falling through ice on lake

Authorities say a 41-year-old man playing with family members has died after falling through the ice at a small lake in the Angeles National Forest.

San Bernardino County coroner's officials say Claro Claridad of Victorville walked onto 7-acre Jackson Lake on Tuesday afternoon, possibly to help adults trying to rescue children who might have broken through the ice.

The others were unharmed, but Claridad went under the water's surface.

A rescue helicopter later spotted his body, which divers retrieved at about 2:30 p.m.

Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

LOS ANGELES

Court upholds living wage' ordinance

An appeals court on Thursday upheld a city ordinance that would require hotels near Los Angeles International Airport to pay workers a "living wage."

The ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's decision in May to strike down the ordinance requiring airport-area hotels to pay employees $9.39 an hour with health insurance, or $10.64 an hour without benefits.

"This decision is a win for the workers who deserve a living wage, and for the hotels who will benefit from increased investment in the neighborhood," said City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.

—From wire reports