Nine months after the Los Angeles City Council unanimously adopted a comprehensive plan to end homelessness, the first progress report on the plan, released this week, offered a sobering picture of the long and difficult path ahead.

The number of homeless people in Los Angeles County jumped 12 percent in the past two years, to more than 44,000

The federal government has agreed to settle a lawsuit accusing the Department of Veterans Affairs of misusing its sprawling West Los Angeles health campus while veterans with brain injuries and mental impairment slept in the streets, people familiar with the agreement said Tuesday.

West Coast dockworkers and their shipping line employers have agreed to federal mediation to help resolve a contract dispute that has been partly blamed for severe congestion at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach.