30d

Last of four parts Reporting from Calexico, Calif., and Badiraguato, Mexico T he towering iron gates opened onto a palm-lined driveway that led past the family church, a twisting water slide and two man-made lakes, one stocked with fish, the other with jet skis. With its soaring twin bell towers, each topped by a cross, the estate in the emerald hills outside Culiacan, Mexico, had an almost surreal grandeur. It reminded Carlos "Charlie" Cuevas of Disneyland, without the smiles.

Question: When do London and Paris go into off-season fall/winter rates? Stuart Fink Los Angeles Answer: This topic seemed easy at first, but in talking with several travel experts, I learned about exceptions to exceptions to exceptions. To begin: Off-season is generally ("generally" being the operative word) whenever these conditions occur: Kids are in school (that's probably going to be late August-early September to mid-May to late June, unless your kids are on a year-round schedule or you live in some parts of the South)

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, have separated, with Shriver moving out of their Brentwood mansion while the two determine the next step in their 25-year marriage. Shriver has been residing apart from the actor-turned-politician for the last few weeks. The former first couple confirmed the separation in a joint statement released Monday after questions from The Times. "This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us," the statement read.

Madison Richardson had no clue that Los Angeles was burning. On April 29, 1992, the head and neck surgeon was touring the Griffith Park Equestrian Center with polo-playing friends from India. A colleague paged him. Could Richardson rush to Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood to help care for a young truck driver who was near death after a beating? Oh, and, by the way, had Richardson been watching TV? No? Then find one and turn it on. What Richardson saw reminded him instantly of the chaos he witnessed during the Watts riots in 1965 and the Washington, D.C., riots in 1968.

Art Kellermann, a doctor and a vice president at Rand Health, a division of the Rand Corp., responds to Christopher J. Conover of Duke University's Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research and the American Enterprise Institute, on the issue of how much is too much money for the nation to pay for healthcare. Conover's Op Ed, " Healthcare wasn't broken ," was published March 15. If you would like to write a full-length response to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed, here are our FAQs and submission policy.

  Israel's hottest new TV show may be making many viewers feel guilty. But they can't stop watching it. It's a "Real Housewives" reality-based knockoff about six rich, materialistic women bouncing from personal training sessions in their mansions to Botox appointments to champagne-fueled shopping binges, dishing dirt about one another and generally reveling in their own fabulousness. Hardly scandalous stuff to American TV viewers. But in the land of the kibbutz - a nation founded on egalitarian ideals, where lawmakers still wear jeans in the Knesset, or parliament, and the flaunting of wealth was once considered taboo - this unapologetic celebration of the lifestyles of the rich and Israeli is hitting a raw nerve.

David Martin was in the mood for raw fish, and he liked the deal offered by a Studio City sushi restaurant: all you can eat for $28. He took a seat at the counter and started ordering. But it turned out that Martin didn't really want sushi, which includes rice; he wanted all-you-can-eat sashimi, which is just fish. He began picking the seafood off the top and leaving the rice. Restaurant owner Jay Oh told Martin that if he wanted the all-you-can-eat price, he'd have to eat the rice too and not just fill up on fish.

Earthquakes dwell deep in the Japanese imagination. No country may be better prepared for a major earthquake than Japan. Seismic standards for construction are among the strictest in the world. From a young age, Japanese learn to dive under desks to protect themselves in a quake. The nation has a state-of-the-art tsunami warning system. That preparation undoubtedly saved many lives Friday, when a magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck off Japan's main island, shaking buildings in a large swath of the country and sending a 30-foot tsunami onto a populated stretch of coast.

If you haven't seen it yet, Facebook's new facial-recognition software is a crafty feature. Pass a cursor over a photo that you just uploaded to Facebook and, voila, the person's name pops up like magic. But what if you're in the photo and you don't want Facebook to automatically identify you? As with many of the social network's features, users have to opt out, and that means navigating a complex web of settings. If you're worried about revealing too much, here are some ways to shield yourself.

John Charles Ward would take flight in the half-light before dawn, when he could race down the runway without headlights and ascend into the cloaking embrace of an overcast sky. This feature requires that JavaScript be enabled and the Flash plug-in be installed. Third of four parts J ohn Charles Ward would take flight in the half-light before dawn, when he could race down the runway without headlights and ascend into the cloaking embrace of an overcast sky. Soaring above the crowded California freeways in the single-engine aircraft, he'd relax, pour himself a whiskey and Seven and plan his hopscotch route to Pennsylvania.