Ages

President Obama once fretted about the prospect that girls as young as 10 or 11 could walk into a drugstore and buy emergency contraception pills as easily as "bubble gum or batteries. " With his blessing, the Department of Health and Human Services set aside the advice of medical experts and blocked efforts to allow girls younger than 17 to get the so-called morning-after pill without a prescription. That age limit is poised to disappear now that a federal judge has cleared the way Friday for girls - and boys - of any age to purchase the medication without having to notify their parents or a doctor.

Re "A 'gray divorce' boom," Opinion, March 31 Susan L. Brown picks up on the current spate of columns about the meaning of marriage in our Western societies. She writes, "Men and women who are 65 can expect to live 20 more years, a long time to spend with someone you may not like so much anymore. " It strikes me as most symptomatic of the brainless, emotionless, semi-stuporous society of babes bred in bottles in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World. " To those of this temperament, baby boomer marriages are lived through with someone you like or once liked, but "not so much anymore," as though we choose to "like" or "not like" our mates by pressing a link on a computer screen.

Los Angeles controller and mayoral hopeful Wendy Greuel said Wednesday she would consider raising the retirement age for current city workers, along with other changes to the city's pension systems, to help Los Angeles close persistent budget gaps. But Greuel, in comments at Cal State Northridge, said she would seek changes only through collective bargaining, not by forcing new rules on workers. Consulting with both business and labor would help break the "paralysis" at City Hall and is a key difference between herself and her opponent, Councilman Eric Garcetti, Greuel said during an appearance at the university's Career Center, where she was endorsed by San Fernando Valley Congressman Brad Sherman.

WASHINGTON - It is rare for a museum to lend the heart of its most prized collection to another museum, but the Albertina in Vienna has done just that by shipping almost a hundred watercolors and drawings by Albrecht Dürer to the National Gallery of Art here for an exhibition. Dürer, a German born in Nuremberg in 1471, is the great master of the Northern European Renaissance, akin to Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo of the Italian Renaissance. Dürer's greatness, according to Andrew Robison of the National Gallery, curator of the show, is based on his watercolors, drawings and prints, just as Da Vinci and Raphael are identified with painting and Michelangelo with sculpture.

HANGZHOU, China - Few cities in this vast, complex land rival Hangzhou in the hearts and minds of the Chinese. They rush in like pilgrims, more than 20 million a year, eager to drink in the classic scenery of mountains, pagodas and tea fields while reveling in the cultural grandeur of the vanished Southern Song dynasty. The Song, who believed Confucian values were best elevated through the arts, made Hangzhou their capital, appointing poets as governors who drew inspiration from the shimmering West Lake in the center of town.

Re "Court looks split on gay marriage," March 27 The issue isn't the "tradition" of marriage but rather the role of government in regulating marriage. This discussion is being confused by an inaccurate depiction of marriage as an unchanging institution. For centuries, only members of the upper classes were married in any kind of ceremonial sense. Biblical references to marriage always mean among the upper classes, while common men and women simply "lie together. " In Western society, the state's role in marriage dates only to the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther suggested that marriage was a matter for government because of property rights, inheritance and to make men responsible for their children.

The first civilian to run the military's $10-billion-a-year retail business is working to bring the enterprise into the modern age. The CEO of the Dallas-based Army & Air Force Exchange Service, Tom Shull, is the first retailer to hold the post. It had been held by military officers on a two-year basis for 117 years. Shull, 61, was named to the position last year and his tenure doesn't have a time limit. There had been many complaints about the service in the comments section of Military Times.

Elton John. Dave Grohl. Trent Reznor. Those are just a few of the guests set to appear on "...Like Clockwork," the new Queens of the Stone Age album which the California rock band announced Tuesday will arrive in June. In a statement, frontman Josh Homme described the disc, the group's first for Matador Records following a long stint on Interscope, as "an audio documentary of a manic year. " The band previously offered England's NME a more colorful description : "You're running in a dream in a codeine cabaret, then your alarm goes off and you wake up. That's kinda what our record sounds like.

After the coffee. Before packing matzo for the trip back to Los Angeles. The Skinny: Because I was celebrating Passover last night, I have no idea what absurd thing happened on Fox's "The Following. " No spoilers please. Tuesday's headlines include a couple of profiles of new Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara, a look at the CW Network's new strategy, and the ratings struggles an aging "American Idol" is having this season. Daily Dose: RBC Capital Markets is predicting that advertisers will cut their spending on broadcast TV by about 2% and increase spending on cable by as much as 6%. In June, the broadcast and cable networks will all start selling advertising for the fall TV season.

Is the audience for the CW, a network known for shows about teenage vampires and trendy high school students, getting a little long in the tooth? This season, the median age of its audience is nearly 42. That looks like trouble. The female-friendly, 7-year-old network targets the 18- to 34-year-old demographic. But CW's executives aren't running away from middle age. They are trying to attract a more diverse audience. PHOTOS: Celebrity portraits by The Times "I thought we had become too niche," said CW President Mark Pedowitz, who took the reins at the network in 2011.