LOS ANGELES – The nation’s top labor official flew Monday to California in an attempt to resolve a damaging contract dispute between West Coast dockworkers and their employers.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez headed for San Francisco, where months-long negotiations between the dockworkers union and a maritime association of companies have come to a halt.

So, too, has the movement of billions of dollars of cargo that is supposed to pass through 29 seaports from Southern California to Seattle. The ports are a critical trade link with Asia and the gateway not just for imports such as electronics, household goods and clothing but also U.S. exports including produce and meat.

Starting Saturday, companies locked out workers who would load or unload ships, saying they would not pay weekend or holiday wage premiums to crews they accuse of intentionally slowing work to gain bargaining leverage. Dockworkers deny slowing down and say they want to work.

Well-known journalist de Borchgrave dies

WASHINGTON – Arnaud de Borchgrave, a Belgian-born count who traded his aristocratic title for a reporter’s notebook, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 88.

De Borchgrave befriended world leaders as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek, filing dispatches from Israel’s Six Day War of 1967, Moammar Gaddafi’s barracks in Libya and European capitals during the height of the Cold War. He later led The Washington Times during its early years.

“Arnaud was a giant of journalism,” said Larry Beasley, president and CEO of The Washington Times. “His globe-trotting reporting kept America informed, and his tireless work as our editor-in-chief helped put The Washington Times on the map in its early days.”

As a journalist, de Borchgrave covered 17 wars by his count, including seven stints in Vietnam over two decades. He cultivated his connections to score interviews with world leaders, including back-to-back interviews of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1971.

Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore dies at 68

NEW YORK – Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore, who topped the charts in 1963 at age 16 with her epic song of teenage angst, “It’s My Party,” and followed it up with the hits “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” and the feminist anthem “You Don’t Own Me,” died Monday. She was 68.

Gore, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, according to her partner of 33 years, Lois Sasson.

“She was a wonderful human being – caring, giving, a great feminist, great woman, great human being, great humanitarian,” Sasson, a jewelry designer, told The Associated Press.

Brooklyn-born and New Jersey-raised, Gore was discovered by Quincy Jones as a teenager and signed to Mercury Records. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a degree in English/American literature.

Gore’s other hits include “She’s A Fool,” “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows,” which Marvin Hamlisch co-wrote, “That’s the Way Boys Are” and “Maybe I Know.” She co-wrote with her brother, Michael, the Academy Award-nominated “Out Here On My Own” from the film “Fame.”

Associated Press