Egyptian Americans around Southern California were jubilant Friday over the news that embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was stepping down after two weeks of national protests.

Angie Awadalla, 31, of Cerritos has been glued to the TV all morning watching the news and reading celebratory tweets from friends and family.

“I can’t believe it’s really happening,” Awadalla said. “After his speech yesterday, it seemed like [Mubarak] was so stubborn and disconnected from the people.”

Awadalla’s brother, Joseph Fahim, is an editor for the English language Daily News Egypt in Cairo. Fahim has been corresponding with Awadalla since last week about the sights and sounds of the protests in the streets.

The night after Mubarak inflamed protesters by declining to step down as Egypt’s president, Awadalla said her brother was worried that the demonstrations would turn bloody. Friday’s news resulted in a much different outcome.

“He says it’s like one big concert,” Awadalla said. “Just watching the power of the people to get him out in 18 days was amazing to watch.”

Awadalla came to Los Angeles eight years ago with a college degree in English literature when she encountered a lack of opportunities in Egypt for Coptic Christians such as herself.

Today, Awadalla said she’s already making plans to go out Friday night with friends who’ve been tweeting and texting their excitement over the news about Mubarak.

“Today is definitely a day for celebration,” Awadalla said.

Dena Elbayoumy has also been glued to CNN, Al Jazeera and Facebook for the last 2 1/2 weeks following every step of the swelling protests in her family's homeland. 

The 31-year-old Yorba Linda resident woke up Friday morning and turned on the television to see Vice President Omar Suleiman announcing Mubarak had stepped down. She was in disbelief.

"I felt absolute joy just watching people celebrate in the streets and seeing that all their work had paid off," she said. "You look at them and you see your brothers, cousins and sisters."

Elbayoumy's parents immigrated to the United States in their 20s and she was born here. But she has many relatives who lived for decades in fear of criticizing the government. Some of them, she said, "gave up on the idea of a better Egypt and the idea that their voices could be heard."

She says the largely peaceful protests, and the resignation they brought about, mean the Egyptian people will finally have a chance to speak their minds without fear of reprisals from a repressive regime.

"The government was basically acting as a cloud over the Egyptian people," she said. "Now, the culture of fear is evaporating."

Elbayoumy said she, her friends and family will watch with interest as the country forms a new government. Because the protests were held by a diverse cross-section of Egyptians, she feels confident it will be a majority-rules democracy that will also ensure protection of minority groups.

"I don't think anyone is doubting this is a real transformation and that real reforms are on the way," she said.

-- Nate Jackson and Tony Barboza

A south Orange County man was indicted Thursday on charges of fatally stabbing one man and injuring another with a knife outside a Costa Mesa hotel early on New Year’s Day.

A grand jury indicted Adam Randy Baker, 23, of Dana Point on one felony count of murder in the slaying of 27-year-old Robert Sickles, of Mission Viejo, and one felony count of attempted murder, the Orange County district attorney’s office said in a news release.

Baker also faces a sentencing enhancement for use of a deadly weapon, according to the release.

Baker allegedly stabbed Sickles in the chest and allegedly injured a friend of Sickles, Brian McTeigue, 26, during an altercation outside the Orange County/Costa Mesa Hilton at about 2 a.m. on Jan. 1, the release said.

Read the full report here.

-- Sarah Peters, Daily Pilot / Times Community News

A former Los Angeles County social worker has pleaded guilty to an identity theft and tax scam that involved the filing of federal tax returns in the names of 197 different people in an attempt to steal over $2 million in refunds, authorities said.

Trang Van Dinh, 62, of El Monte pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of filing false claims, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.  A sentencing hearing  has been scheduled for June 27.  Dinh faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced on June 27.

Between 1999 and 2009, Dinh worked for the county’s social services agency conducting home visits, interviews and other duties to determine whether applicants for public assistance programs like Cal Works were entitled to receive benefits, authorities said.

Dinh’s job gave him access to the names and Social Security numbers of a large number of people who were part of his caseload, authorities said. He used that information to file false tax returns.

Dinh admitted that he filed fraudulent tax returns in 2009 and 2010, authorities said. Some of the tax returns claimed business losses, while others claimed nonexistent dependents.

All of the returns were filed electronically and requested direct deposit of the federal tax refunds to a bank account controlled by Dinh, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Dinh then filed the false returns without the knowledge, consent or authorization of his victims.

The 197 tax returns filed by Dinh sought refunds totaling over $2 million, authorities said. The Internal Revenue Service issued refund checks totaling over $1 million.

Banks were alerted to the fraud and seized some of the funds but Dinh was able to access $667,000, authorities said.

--Nate Jackson

A crackdown on the sale of counterfeit cigarettes has led to the arrest of four people, the seizure of about 500 cartons of fake brand cigarettes and three guns, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said.

Detectives made the bust after serving search warrants Wednesday at two locations in the 400 block of Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, authorities said. Investigators warned that some of the cigarettes contain materials not usually found in tobacco products.

About 450 cartons of counterfeit tobacco with an estimated street value of about $25,000 and 53 cartons of duty-free tobacco with a value of about $3,000 were seized, authorities said.

The suspects sold the packs of counterfeit cigarettes on the street by walking up to people and asking whether they wanted to get a good price on packs or cartons, authorities said.

The two search warrants also resulted in three handguns being recovered, one of which had been reported stolen in a burglary in West Covina in March of 2010.

The four suspects arrested were identified as Johnny Morales, 20;  Elena Bautista, 39; Benjamin Leal, 58; and Jose Garcia, 59. Their bail was set at $20,000 each, authorities said. Morales is an admitted gang member who is currently out on parole.

"We hope to increase global awareness of the negative impact of organized intellectual property crimes," said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca in a statement. "Counterfeiting and piracy impact public safety by funding organized crime, street gangs, and even terrorism through the sales of these counterfeit products."

-- Richard Winton

Nuch, are you kidding?

There's a lot I like about Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, a Pedro longshoreman in a suit. As a columnist, how can you not like a city official who calls you up and asks you to get high and drive a police cruiser in an experiment?

I also liked when he threatened to prosecute city officials and lock up a City Council member in a scrum over the enforcement of advertising restrictions.

But in threatening to lock up dozens of protesters involved in various demonstrations, giving them up to a year of jail time, Trutanich looks like the bully his critics have long accused him of being.

The protesters didn't get permits, so the demonstrations were illegal?

Oh, give me a break, Nuch. In this disengaged, apathetic society, we need more protests, not fewer.

[Updated at 8:35 a.m.: And Nuch, if you want to see the positive powers of protest, turn on the TV and watch what's going on in Egypt.]

Trutanich has been complaining about his staff being shrunk by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and this is how he wants to use his precious resources?

Nuch said the protests had cost the city thousands of dollars in police response.

But it'll cost many, many more thousands to prosecute and jail the protesters, won't it?

If you're not already racing over to the city attorney's office to protest, let me know what you think.

-- Steve Lopez

Photo: From left, Hamid Khan, Alma Soto, Chloe Osmer and Garrick Ruiz were among those arrested during protests last year at the Metropolitan Detention Center, background, against Arizona's immigration law. Under a new policy of the Los Angeles city attorney, they face the possibility of jail time. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Three 13-year-old boys have been arrested on suspicion of raping a middle school girl in a Banning park as she walked home from school, Riverside County authorities said.

The suspects have admitted to attacking the girl Monday evening at Roosevelt Williams Park, a few blocks from Nicolet Middle School, where the assailants and the 13-year-old victim attended school, Banning police said.

According to police, the boys grabbed the girl, then fondled her before two of them held her down while the third sexually assaulted her.

Detectives said the girl, who was treated at a local hospital, identified her attackers. Investigators interviewed the three boys on Wednesday and arrested them the next day after they admitted to the crime, police said.

The three are being held at a Riverside County juvenile facility pending a decision by the district attorney's office on what specific charges they will face.

The victim's cousin, Marquavis Pryor, told KTLA on Thursday that he heard the boys involved were some of his little brother's friends. "It hurts a lot," Pryor said. "It's not right."

-- Richard Winton

Newport Beach yacht racer and businessman Chris Welsh has applied to park his deep-sea submarine atop a 125-foot long, 60-foot wide catamaran in the middle of the bay.

Harbor commissioners approved his application Wednesday night, which clears one hurdle in Welsh's audacious plan to dive to the deepest points of the world's five oceans.

With the high-tech "flying" submarine and its mother ship already purchased, Welsh has been assembling a team of scientists, engineers and filmmakers. But he is still missing one major component — a financial sponsor — and without one, his expedition may never depart.

"It's pretty captivating to go after it and see if you can get there," he said, later adding, "We have some major hurdles ahead of us, both financial and practical."

"Adventurer wants to base submarine in Newport"

--Mike Reicher, Daily Pilot / Times Community News

Images: Design for the submarine docking station, above; the proposed submarine, below. Credit: Times Community News

The Grand Avenue project, the Frank Gehry-designed shopping-and-residential complex slated for Bunker Hill, is looking at another delay. The much-hailed project has struggled to get financing, but the Downtown News reports that there is now talk of beginning with a residential tower:

Related Companies, the developer of the long delayed, $3 billion Grand Avenue mega project, is working on plans to fast track a scaled down residential tower originally tied to a later phase. The firm had been facing a Feb. 15 deadline to break ground on the Frank Gehry-designed first phase of the project. On Monday, the Grand Avenue Authority, a joint city county panel overseeing the project, is slated to consider a two-year extension that Related has been seeking since August.

STEAK DINNERS ALL AROUND: Some L.A. City Council members spend big on dining out -- and guess who pays? (La Opinion)

SCREEN WOES: More art-house theaters are facing possible closure, even in the heart of Hollywood. The L.A. Weekly reports that both the Sunset 5 in Los Angeles and the Music Hall in Beverly Hills could close down as interest in artsy movies fades. (via L.A. Observed).

BAD NEWS: Forget the gentrification and boutique storefronts. Joel Kotkin calls the last 10 years a "decade of decline" for L.A. From the Planning Report:

In virtually every critical sector, L.A. has declined more rapidly than many of its major competitors. In finance and business sectors, L.A. has done much worse than Houston, New York, Dallas, and many of the other regions it competes with. In manufacturing, we’ve done much worse than Texas and other newer competitors. We’re losing in warehousing, and we’re about to lose out a lot more with the completion of the Panama Canal. The only sector where we seem to be holding our own is entertainment; there we’re still relatively strong. For virtually everything else, we’re in trouble.

Image credit: Related Co.

-- Shelby Grad

Crime reports are up significantly for the latest week in six L.A. neighborhoods, according to an analysis of LAPD data by the Los Angeles Times’ Crime L.A. database.

Six neighborhoods reported a significant increase in violent crime. Mar Vista (A) was the most unusual, recording five reports compared with a weekly average of 1.4 over the last three months.

Alerts are based on an analysis of crime reports for Jan. 31–Feb. 6, the most recent seven days for which data are available.

— Ben Welsh, Thomas Suh Lauder