A parolee accused of stealing from church donation boxes in Glendale and Burbank has pleaded no contest to two counts of burglary, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Wednesday.

Peter Manuel Galindro, 52, was apprehended earlier this month at his mother's home by a law enforcement task force made up of Glendale and Downey police as well as the U.S. Marshal's Service.

Burbank Superior Court Judge Patrick Hegarty immediately sentenced Galindro to two years in state prison and ordered him to pay $200 in restitution to Holy Family Catholic Church in Glendale and St. Finbar's Catholic Church in Burbank.

The charges include thefts on Sept. 7 and Dec. 27, 2010. Galindro also admitted half a dozen previous offenses, including five theft convictions between February 1990 and January 2008, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Galindro, who was on parole for burglary at the time of his arrest, pleaded "open" to the court, "meaning the plea was not a negotiated settlement with the district attorney's office."

Glendale police officials said the donation boxes had been opened with a pick device. The money stolen included funds earmarked for Haiti relief efforts, said Glendale police Sgt. Tom Lorenz.

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Photo: Peter Manuel Galindro. Credit. Glendale Police Department

Los Angeles’ T-shirt-and-shorts weather is expected to continue through the weekend, the National Weather Service says.

But forecasters warned beachgoers about the potential Tuesday for “very strong currents and dangerous swimming conditions” along the Orange and San Diego county coasts. Dangerous rip-current conditions have persisted since Saturday along parts of the Pacific Coast.

Highs in the L.A. area will continue peaking in the 70s for the rest of the week, with a chance of temperatures hitting the low 80s on Thursday, forecasters said. Skies are expected to remain clear.

Daytime temperatures will remain mostly above normal, the weather service said.

Temperatures Monday were pleasant across the region, with Long Beach and Laguna Beach topping out at 69; Redondo Beach, 72; Burbank and Santa Monica, 74; downtown L.A. and Pasadena, 75; San Gabriel, 76; UCLA and Woodland Hills, 77; Northridge, 78; and Chatsworth, 80. Riverside and Fillmore recorded the highest temperatures in the nation, with the mercury hitting 82. The lowest temperature Monday was in Saranac Lake, N.Y., in the Adriondack Mountain range, with 36 degrees below zero.

The pleasant weather in Southern California is being caused by strong high pressure in the Great Basin in the Nevada area, which is pushing air into Southern California and bringing with it clear skies and warmer temperatures. Santa Ana winds are forecast to pick up beginning Wednesday night and into Thursday.

The weather is less pleasant in the Central Valley. Thick, dense fog, with visibility less than 500 feet, was expected to persist until 1 p.m. Tuesday. Known as tule fog, the pea-soup conditions are common in the Central Valley in winter months and hazardous for motorists.

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The number of passengers who used Bob Hope Airport continued to drop last year, but the rate of decline was less sharp than in 2009.

From January 2010 through November, about 4.1 million passengers traveled through Bob Hope Airport — a 2.6% drop from 2009, according to a report to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.

Passenger numbers in 2009 were the lowest in eight years, falling from 5.3 million in 2008 to 4.6 million. The volume of passengers peaked at more than 5.9 million in 2007.

“I think the overall trend has simply been one of bottoming out from the rate of decreases that commenced in 2008 going forward,” said airport spokesman Victor Gill.

Read more: "Passenger figures remain soft at Bob Hope Airport."

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Photo: Burbank Leader/Times Community News

For nearly a century, the two look-alikes have been confusing people.

"Teachers told Mother to put different-color hair ribbons on us so they could tell us apart," Inez Harries said.

"We'd switch them on the way to school," said her sister, Venice Shaw.

On Sunday, there are likely to be more double takes when some 150 friends and family members gather in San Fernando to celebrate the identical twins' 100th birthday.

"I don't feel a century old," Harries said. "I probably don't feel any older than in my 80s."

Shaw nodded in agreement. "We both eat good food," she explained.