Air

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

Two newly elected members of the Los Angeles City Council are veteran Sacramento lawmakers whose campaigns got large boosts from special interest contributions. Former state Assemblyman Gil Cedillo and state Sen. Curren Price (D-Los Angeles) won election Tuesday, beating candidates with more local experience because of their jobs as City Council aides. Cedillo and Price could be joined on the council by a third statehouse veteran if former Assemblywoman Cindy Montañez wins a runoff election July 23 against school board member Nury Martinez.

"The Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan is usually focused on rehabbing canines -- but he's now revealing some work he had to do on himself following a suicide attempt in 2010. In February of that year, he lost his top dog, Daddy, to cancer after 16 years as a team. A month later, Millan's wife told him she wanted a divorce after 16 years of marriage. The combined blow knocked him for a loop, he shares in "Cesar Millan: The Real Story," a documentary on Nat Geo Wild. In May 2010, he attempted suicide via drug overdose, winding up unconscious and hospitalized, he said.

Images showing the massive tornadoes spawned by "super cell" thunderstorms over Oklahoma, and the scars they left behind, have been released by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The images show the sudden outbreak of super-cell thunderstorms with strong, tight rotation. The storms form where air masses with different temperatures and water content collide -- a common occurrence during the spring in the lower Midwest, where warm, moist air currents originating in the Gulf of Mexico meet drier, colder air masses from the upper Plains and Canada.

It's all crossovers these days. From the polo grounds of Malibu to the campgrounds of Maine, nearly a fifth of all vehicles sold in the U.S. last year resided somewhere in this netherworld between a car and an SUV. So the stakes were high for Toyota's overdue redesign of the RAV4, a pioneer of the segment in the mid-1990s that had grown stale in comparison with competitors. Often resembling small sport utility vehicles, crossovers are truck-like vehicles built on front-drive car platforms.

Your choices in San Francisco hotels are overwhelming. The prices can be too. So during our staff visit to the City by the Bay, we looked for reasonably priced hotels that had charm, location or both. We came back with 14 ideas on places to bed down. It's not a complete list, but it is eclectic, like the city itself. Mystic Hotel. This property, which opened in April, stands on a tunnel-adjacent block of Stockton Street that you'll never see on a picture postcard, yet it has style, as do the Burritt Tavern bar and restaurant downstairs.

Sometimes it's the simplest things that are the most confounding. Last year, right before Easter, I blogged about how to make a perfect hard-boiled egg. Basic? Yes. Popular? Very. This seemingly simple task received tens of thousands of page views. And, it seemed, almost as many complaints: "But how do you peel them?" Mea culpa. while my method ensures that hard-boiled eggs are never overdone (at last: the cure for the dreaded copper-green ring!), it also can make them harder to shell, because perfectly cooked eggs turn out to be stickier than ones that have been overcooked.

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

Chevrolet has found a bit of mojo over the past 24 months in a segment of the automotive landscape that, historically, hasn't been its strong suit: small cars. The compact Cruze was a sales leader for much of 2011 and after slowing a bit for some of 2012, was the bestselling car in its class for August. Meanwhile, GM (Chevrolet's parent) says people bought almost 74,000 of its sub-compact Sonic in its first 12 months on the market. So Chevrolet is going even smaller with the Spark.

Sometimes it's hard to tell what's more annoying -- mosquitoes or mosquito repellent. If you spray yourself down with a typical repellent before a picnic, you can expect your potato chips and fried chicken to have a distinct DEET aftertaste. And the car ride home? Better roll down the windows if you value fresh air. But there's another option. As you may have seen on TV ads, SC Johnson has come out with Off! Clip-on, a product that promises to repel mosquitoes without any spray or odor.

Grouse all you want about airline baggage fees, but the numbers don't lie: You are slowly learning to accept them as a painful but necessary part of the flying experience. In fact, the overall satisfaction with air travel has increased to the highest level since 2006, according to the J.D. Power & Associates airline satisfaction study for 2013. On a 1,000-point scale, satisfaction with airlines reached 695 points, up 14 points from 2012, according to the survey of more than 11,800 airline passengers.

On a warm, Friday morning in Beverly Hills, 150 prospective television producers from around the world gathered at PitchCon 2013 at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills to try to sell their projects to 50 of Hollywood's top industry professionals. At one table in the center of the room, Charla Young, 40, of Louisville, Ky., calmly pitched a television executive the idea for her inspirational talk show "Power to Change. " Having already obtained regional syndication in her home state, Young had come to Los Angeles to find national distribution for her show.

The 149 air traffic control towers that were scheduled to close this summer because of federal sequestration will remain open until at least September, government officials said Friday. The Federal Aviation Administration said legislation approved by Congress last month allows the agency to transfer funds from other accounts to keep the towers open until the end of the fiscal year. The towers, run by contract workers, operate at small airports such as Brown Field Municipal Airport in San Diego, Riverside Municipal Airport, Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, Oxnard Airport, Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville and Fullerton Municipal Airport.

Budget cuts won't force the closure of air traffic control towers during overnight shifts, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. But the federal agency said it is still uncertain whether it will be forced this summer to close towers operated by contractors at 149 small and medium-size airports, including several in Southern California. Budget cuts called for by the federal sequestration forced the FAA in April to furlough air traffic controllers for one day every two weeks.

Area basketball coaches are seeing a lot of off-court action these days. Now that the Lakers are out of the playoffs, head coach Mike D'Antoni can turn his attention to moving into the house he and his wife, Laurel, just bought in Manhattan Beach for $6.9 million and working on his tan. Set on a walk street, the ocean-view home features a three-stop cherry-paneled elevator, which should come in handy for carting beverages from the...

It's beginning to look like there's nothing Wendy Greuel wouldn't do to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. Her boatload of big-money backers seems fond of trash-talking gibes so slimy, they're apt to backfire and turn voters off. I hope Greuel takes a lesson from what happened this week, when she castigated opponent Eric Garcetti for accepting support from their former rival. Greuel blanketed black and Latino neighborhoods with mailers blasting Garcetti for accepting the endorsement of Kevin James, a Republican who finished third in the mayoral primary.

Images showing the massive tornadoes spawned by "super cell" thunderstorms over Oklahoma, and the scars they left behind, have been released by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The images show the sudden outbreak of super-cell thunderstorms with strong, tight rotation. The storms form where air masses with different temperatures and water content collide -- a common occurrence during the spring in the lower Midwest, where warm, moist air currents originating in the Gulf of Mexico meet drier, colder air masses from the upper Plains and Canada.

NBA Commissioner David Stern and sports talk personality Jim Rome got into a heated exchange Wednesday on Rome's nationally syndicated radio show after a question regarding the integrity of the NBA draft lottery. After about a minute of small talk, Rome brought up the fact that the league-owned New Orleans Hornets received the top pick in the draft and asked Stern: "Was the fix in for the lottery?" First the commissioner got offended, telling Rome, "Shame on you for asking.

An aircraft resembling a shark-nosed missile detached from a flying B-52 bomber and then shot above the Pacific Ocean at more than 3,000 mph in a historic test flight for the Air Force - and for the future of aviation. The unmanned X-51A WaveRider sped westward for four minutes, reaching Mach 5.1, or more than five times the speed of sound, before plunging into the ocean as planned. It flew for longer than any other aircraft of its kind and traveled more than 264 miles, reigniting decades-long efforts to develop a vehicle that could travel faster than a speeding bullet.

Former UCLA basketball Coach Ben Howland has listed his home in a gated Bel-Air neighborhood for $1,899,950. Built in 1999, the stone-clad home features an elevator, a home theater, five bedrooms, four bathrooms and close to 4,700 square feet of living space. The nearly half-acre lot includes a swimming pool with spa, a covered patio and a barbecue center. During Howland's 10 years at UCLA, he won four conference titles and coached the team to three Final Fours. Jordan Cohen of Re/Max Olson & Associates is the listing agent.