21st Century

Two of Southern California's biggest insurance companies are joining forces to create the state's largest auto insurer, at the same time throwing a financial lifeline to troubled insurance giant American International Group Inc. AIG agreed to sell its 21st Century Insurance subsidiary for $1.9 billion to Farmers Insurance Group of Los Angeles, itself a unit of Zurich Financial Services of Switzerland.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - President Obama pushed back against the idea of U.S. influence being in decline - and against Republican criticism of his stewardship - telling the Air Force Academy's graduating class that around the world "there's a new confidence in our leadership. " Republican critiques hold otherwise, suggesting that Obama has "led from behind" in international efforts, cut the military and responded weakly to the rise of contending powers. But as he set off Wednesday on a two-day western tour, Obama used the commencement address to make a forceful argument for a policy that downplays unilateral American action in favor of partnerships with other countries, one that maintains "military superiority" even as it welcomes "the rise of peaceful, responsible emerging powers.

In the remote northeastern corner of Guatemala, archaeologists have found what appears to be the 9th century workplace of a city scribe, an unusual dwelling adorned with magnificent pictures of the king and other royals and the oldest known Maya calendar. This year has been particularly controversial among some cultists because of the belief that the Maya calendar predicts a major cataclysm - perhaps the end of the world - on Dec. 21, 2012. Archaeologists know that is not true, but the new find, written on the plaster equivalent of a modern scientist's whiteboard, strongly reinforces the idea that the Maya calendar projects thousands of years into the future.

It took 15 years, but a group of hardy volunteers has completed a modern-day Doomsday survey of London's public open spaces - 2,500 gardens, parks, squares, churchyards and cemeteries. Suitably for the 21st century, the result is not a book but online in a thoroughly searchable website with potted histories, opening times and transport info. It's a terrific resource for anyone visiting London, especially this summer when you'll need some tranquil retreats from Olympic hustle and bustle.

LA JOLLA -- The story of early rock 'n' roll is a truly American tale. The music probably wouldn't have been possible if not for the proximity of people from diverse backgrounds, overhearing each other and appropriating what they liked. Yet if America in the late 1940s and early '50s was beginning to come together in music, the country, in most other ways, remained deeply divided. "Memphis" -- a musical being given an exuberant, high-gloss staging at La Jolla Playhouse -- looks back on this time and finds a message at once chilling and full of hope.

Bob Kahl slips in through a side door of the vast, abandoned hangar and looks at what's left of the assembly plant where he worked for nearly 40 years. He remembers the hum of power tools, the biting aroma of cutting oil, swarms of workers plugging away on a labyrinth of yellow scaffolding. All that's left is a few piles of broken concrete and a sea of colorless dust that coats a Palmdale factory floor the size of two football fields. "Welcome to the birthplace of America's space shuttle fleet," said Kahl, 60, smiling.

Sherlock Holmes ? you all know that guy. (And if you don't, I would very much like to speak with you; your strange case interests me.) Like Santa Claus or Peter Pan or Hamlet, he is among those ? spoiler alert! ? fictional characters who stand for a whole class of behavior and purpose and who shape the very way we think about thinking. We greet his periodic returns to the screen with excitement, but also with trepidation: As a man out of copyright, he is subject to all sorts of remaking and remodeling and speculation upon his closeted character.

No Time Like the Present A Novel Nadine Gordimer Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 423 pp., $27 With the title of this novel, her 16th, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer once again shows her preternatural capacity to take a slangy catchphrase and make it right to the point. And one that is absolutely appropriate to her novel's milieu and, beyond that, to its subject matter in general. To read "No Time Like the Present" is to plunge into the caldron that is South Africa today, a chaotic now which cannot avoid the dark shadow of a heavy past: "There was a Pleistocene Age, a Bronze Age, an Iron Age. "It seemed an Age was over.

In spite of all the celebrations a year ago, we are just now entering the 21st century. Interestingly enough, on Jan. 1, 2001, the date itself gives us a clue, if one applies a bit of mathematical analysis: 01/01/01 looks like a binary number, which is the language of computers. The decimal equivalent of the binary number 010101 is 21. Coincidence? RAY UHLER Tustin

The battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has brought back something that most people know only from history books: quarantine. Some critics tell us that quarantine -- restraining the movement of people to prevent the spread of infectious disease -- is unworkable and ineffective and deserves to be put back on the shelf. Modern medicine, civil rights and technology have made quarantine impractical and obsolete, we are told. But history suggests this assumption is mistaken.

SANFORD, Fla. - When the Rev. Al Sharpton led a rally of thousands here last month, he told city leaders that they "risked going down as the Selma or Birmingham of the 21st century" unless George Zimmerman was arrested. On Thursday, with Zimmerman behind bars, many here were wondering when they would get their reputation back. "There's not all this racialism, like everyone's saying," said Beth Rollf, who is white and owns downtown's Taste of Thyme Cafe. "There are no riots.

George Zimmerman was booked into the Seminole County Jail in Sanford, Fla., on Wednesday evening on second-degree murder charges in the death of Trayvon Martin. Special prosecutor Angela Corey announced earlier in the day that she would charge Zimmerman, who shot Martin on Feb. 26. Gov. Rick Scott had appointed her to take over after another prosecutor withdrew from the case, which became a cause celebre for civil rights activists and a flash point for race relations in the 21st century.

No Time Like the Present A Novel Nadine Gordimer Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 423 pp., $27 With the title of this novel, her 16th, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer once again shows her preternatural capacity to take a slangy catchphrase and make it right to the point. And one that is absolutely appropriate to her novel's milieu and, beyond that, to its subject matter in general. To read "No Time Like the Present" is to plunge into the caldron that is South Africa today, a chaotic now which cannot avoid the dark shadow of a heavy past: "There was a Pleistocene Age, a Bronze Age, an Iron Age. "It seemed an Age was over.

SERIES American Idol: The first batch of semifinalists is revealed on a new episode of the singing competition (8 p.m. Fox). Are You There, Chelsea? "Extra's" Mario Lopez guest stars as himself on a new episode of the sitcom (8:30 p.m. NBC). Rock Center With Brian Williams: Efforts to save endangered rhinos are examined on a new edition of the newsmagazine (9 p.m. NBC). 20/20: Robin Roberts profiles assorted 2012 Oscar nominees in this new installment (10 p.m. ABC)

Max Raabe is up to something new, which is news itself. The ever-elegant German singer and bandleader has forged a two-decade career resurrecting and performing lost or forgotten Weimar Republic-era compositions from the 1920s and '30s. However, Raabe and his Palast Orchester arrive for local concerts Wednesday and Thursday with a new album called "One Cannot Kiss Alone" that consists of songs written in the current century and largely by Raabe himself. In planning and making the record, Raabe was focused on a question that emerged during his musicology efforts.

SUNDAY It's a busy night for Ricky Gervais when the actor-comic voices a dolphin on "Family Guy" and appears as himself on "Life's Too Short," a new little-people-in-showbiz send-up starring "Harry Potter's" Warwick Davis. (Fox, 9 p.m.; HBO, 10:30 p.m.) "I Ain't Scared of You: A Tribute to Bernie Mac" salutes the late, great stand-up comic, below, who parlayed his gruff but lovable persona into a hit sitcom and scene-stealing roles in films like "Bad Santa" and "Ocean's Eleven.

Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, impatient dancers, choreographers, critics and audience members all hoped that a new breed of innovators would appear to transform theatrical dance the way that Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev radically renewed and updated classical ballet in the first decade of the 20th. We're still waiting. Where are the bold, young choreographers creating imperishable dances, the adventuresome composers and designers venturing off the middle of the road?

In a rare show of political force, House Speaker John A. Boehnertook to the House floor to criticize the Obama administration's new rules on contraceptives and vowed the GOP-led chamber will work to overturn what he characterized as an attack on religious freedoms. Boehner, a Catholic who opposes abortion in most circumstances, spoke as the chamber opened Wednesday, and said insurance plans offered by faith-based employers should not be required to provide birth control and other contraceptive services.