Top 5 Westside Stories: Sea Otters, Fast Food Robbery, Holiday Travel

Close out your weekend with a recap of the newsiest and most popular Patch articles from last week. Here are the five stories that topped the headlines on Westside Patch sites:

• In the future, how will we get from the Westside to the Valley? Metro is looking roughly 30 years ahead to the day when the Westside needs another transit corridor — the Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor. The ideas floated for the transit corridor include with the possibility of toll lanes.

• Join the conversation: Gun control advocates in the Los Angeles area this week slammed the N.R.A.'s first public statements since the Newtown school shooting. "I think the idea of putting an armed guard in every school is just ludicrous," said Billie Weiss, executive director of the Violence Prevention Coalition of Los Angeles (VPCLA). Tell us what you think of the N.R.A.'s suggestion to put an armed officer at every school to stop gun violence.

• Three masked robbers forced two workers and a customer into a walk-in freezer at a downtown Santa Monica Jack in the Box while they stole cash from the restaurant. The robbers left the restaurant in an older model gold Chevy Suburban. Santa Monica Police are still looking for the three men.

• Airport officials are expecting 2.24 million travelers coming through LAX this weekend through Jan. 2 — a 5.4 percent increase from 2011. As a result, travelers are advised to arrive at LAX two hours before their scheduled flights.

• Sea otters are now free to roam all over Southern California without the threat of being relocated after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ended a 25-year-old program that sequestered otter population on San Nicolas island. The otters will now receive additional protection as a threatened species, and their renewed presence in local waters will help replenish and maintain kelp forests.

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