Adrift

For 30 long hours, ferry passenger Lita Casumlum bobbed in the churning seas. Buoyed by her life jacket, guzzling seawater for energy, her face scorched by a relentless sun, she forced herself to concentrate on her husband and son as she prayed for her rescue. Her pleas were answered on Monday as a Philippine air force helicopter plucked the 39-year-old homemaker to safety -- a day after the Super Ferry 9 with more than 1,000 passengers on board sank off the Philippine coast, killing nine.

Testing the waters for a revitalized Asian alliance Now through Saturday, April 20: Democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi's visit to Japan this week is purportedly unofficial, but the Nobel Peace Prize laureate probably has more clout than any Myanmar government delegation in charting a course for repairing business and social ties between Tokyo and her homeland. Japan's investments in Myanmar after half a century of military dictatorship pale in comparison with the billions being pumped in by China, Thailand and India.

Ibegan lusting for Nero in April of this year. I was at a regional swimming championship in Pleasanton and noticed how many competitors among my 65- to 69-year-old female peers had traded in their regular racing suits for the skintight, neoprene, high-tech swimsuit known as a Blue Seventy Nero. This glove-like body suit makes anyone faster, not just elite swimmers. But such suits are not cheap -- $400 for the Blue Nero. (The LZR high-neck suit worn by Americans during the last Olympics is $550.

At least 11 people were stabbed at a Houston-area college Tuesday, which was on lockdown after the attacks, officials said. At least four victims at the Cy-Fair campus of the Lone Star College system in a northwestern Houston suburb were taken by helicopter to local hospitals, and more were taken by ambulance, the school said in a statement. The Harris County Sheriff's Office reported that a suspect had been taken into custody after the incident at the school's Health Science Center.

Couldn't we just set Florida adrift in the Caribbean and proceed without her? EVELYN STERN Los Angeles

Re "With Money Comes a Wealth of Side Effects," Ventura County Life column, March 19. I would suggest to the poor darlings who find themselves suddenly rich and "adrift" that they go out and find a worthy cause to apply their hearts and minds to--and also some of their newfound wealth. There are plenty of them. PAULINE HUTSON Ventura

Randy Lewis' feature interview with author Gary Paulsen ("He Owes It All to Librarians and Dogs," July 31) was indeed a noteworthy piece on the struggles and accomplishments of the talented writer. Of particular worth were Paulsen's significant comment on the need to help today's youth survive, and his recognition of libraries and librarians as institutions that have great and far-reaching potential to help children and often turn around lives of those who are adrift. In current times when libraries are losing funding, we must continually be reminded of the importance of keeping our libraries alive and healthy.

At least 11 people were stabbed at a Houston-area college Tuesday, which was on lockdown after the attacks, officials said. At least four victims at the Cy-Fair campus of the Lone Star College system in a northwestern Houston suburb were taken by helicopter to local hospitals, and more were taken by ambulance, the school said in a statement. The Harris County Sheriff's Office reported that a suspect had been taken into custody after the incident at the school's Health Science Center.

Deanna Durbin, the singing starlet with the bubbly personality and the jewel-tone voice whose enormously popular movies were widely credited with saving Universal Pictures from bankruptcy during the Depression, has died. She was 91. Her popularity peaked by her late teens and by her mid-20s Durbin had left Hollywood forever, made wealthy by her relatively brief career. She died in April in France, said family friend Bob Koster, the son of Henry Koster, who directed Durbin in films early in her career.

The Walt Disney Co. is expected to begin layoffs in the coming weeks, with the cuts centering on the company's movie studio, a source with knowledge of the matter has confirmed. The cuts, first reported by trade publication Variety, are said to be the result of an internal corporate review. Layoffs are expected to affect the studio's marketing and home entertainment divisions, and possibly other areas, according to a source. Variety reported that the cuts would also be made in the production department.

SEATTLE - Since a tsunami struck Japan more than two years ago, a variety of debris has washed up on U.S. beaches -   including large boat docks and a soccer ball, found in Washington state's Olympic National Park, from the Otsuchi Soccer Club. That all got trumped recently with the discovery of six live fish, stowed away in a water-filled bait box aboard a 20-foot Japanese boat that washed up on the Long Beach Peninsula in southwestern Washington. Researchers had already seen live crabs, sea stars and algae clinging to parts of the estimated 1.5 million tons of debris unleashed by the March 2011 tsunami, but they had never encountered live fish that drifted on their own from Asia, said John Chapman, who specializes in aquatic biological invasions at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center.

Passengers stranded on a cruise ship adrift in the Gulf of Mexico say they must stand in long lines to use working bathrooms and to get hot meals. The messages from passengers on the Carnival Triumph, drifting in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine fire Sunday, came from text messages sent to family and friends. No one was injured in the fire but it left the ship without propulsion. Miami-based Carnival Cruise Line said some of the public and cabin toilets are not operating and only limited power is available to run elevators and heat food.

The Carnival Triumph cruise ship is adrift about 150 miles off Mexico 's Yucatan Peninsula after a fire in the engine room Sunday left the ship disabled, according to a Carnival Cruise Lines statement posted Monday on its Facebook page. The ship carrying 3,143 guests and 1,086 crew members will be towed to a port in Mexico by late Wednesday, Carnival says. The fire was extinguished and no one was injured in the incident. The U.S. Coast Guard sent a cutter to the site, and Carnival is sending "technical crew and guest service personnel" to the ship Monday (today)

NEW YORK - Ang Lee, the famously meticulous director of "Life of Pi," originally had planned to hire a survival consultant to infuse the allegorical tale of a boy's oceangoing raft journey with a tiger with a dose of realism. Then he read Steven Callahan's riveting 1986 memoir, "Adrift," detailing his own perilous life-raft adventure in the Atlantic. In Callahan, Ang and screenwriter David Magee saw a guide who understood and could articulate the metaphysical themes they were hoping to explore in the film.

NW A Novel Zadie Smith Penguin: 416 pp., $26.95 Zadie Smith's fourth novel, "NW," is a return of sorts to the voices and the northwest London landscape of her 2000 debut, "White Teeth. " Like that book, it is exuberant, lush with language, concerned with the relationship of people to their city, with framing not just the lives of characters but also an entire social milieu. And yet, it is more than that, a real sign of how Smith has developed and grown. "White Teeth," after all, was the work of a young writer - Smith was 24 when it was published - and it was marked by a young writer's excess, a young writer's lack of control.

SEATTLE - A 19-year-old fisherman whose boat capsized in the chilly waters of southern Alaska floated for more than 24 hours in a 4-foot plastic fish tub, singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” to keep his spirits up during an anxious night. Ryan Harris was finally rescued from his battle with 8-foot waves by a Coast Guard helicopter, which had joined a massive search of the waters around Sitka, Alaska, for Harris and his crewmate, Stonie Huffman, the Sitka Daily Sentinel reported. Huffman survived, too, though he didn't have a bin in which to float.

The misadventure of the Carnival Triumph cruise in the Gulf of Mexico has provoked several passenger lawsuits and a storm of bad publicity, including horror stories about overflowing toilets and long food lines. But if you think the debacle might lead to heavily discounted cruise rates this summer, think again. Demand for cruise vacations remains strong enough that industry experts predict no sizable fare cuts this summer and fall. However, Carnival Cruise Lines, operator of the ill-fated ship, is among firms offering deals.

For years, I walked untouched among the ranks of the surgically enhanced - all those nips and tucks, wondrously wider eyes, graceful noses and chiseled cheekbones. But all that changed when I moved to a cosmetic surgeon's dreamscape: South Korea. In that high-pressure society, where improved looks provide the edge in the elbows-out race for jobs, education and spouses, plastic surgery procedures are as common as haircuts. One reason is affordability. Doctors there charge a fraction of the rate of their American counterparts.

SEATTLE - Shell's Arctic oil ambitions ran into new problems Saturday evening when the Discoverer drilling rig, slated to begin exploratory operations in the Chukchi Sea next month, ran adrift in stiff winds in Alaska's Dutch Harbor and came perilously close to the beach. The vessel 's anchor failed to hold and the 514-foot ship began drifting, but its movement was halted when tug boats were called in to assist, Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis told the Los Angeles Times.

If "Drunkboat" understands anything, it's the louche intensity with which John Malkovich commands a frame, whether staring into space with a cigarette or teetering under the influence of Cutty Sark. In most other respects, though, this self-consciously mannered indie fails to ignite. Adapted by co-writer/director Bob Meyer from his own autobiographical play, the story drops Malkovich's reformed-drunk Vietnam vet Mort at the suburban house of his long-estranged widower sister (Dana Delany)