CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 11, 2014 | By Alicia Banks
Grace Southerland was an excellent student. For 20 weeks, she wasn't tardy and had only three absences. The eighth-grader took such classes as U.S. history, spelling and sewing. Her grades weren't labeled A's and Bs but "excellent" and "good. " That's because Grace's report card dates to 1900. And so do many other pieces, some later in the century, being showcased at the Los Angeles Unified School District's "Heritage House" exhibit, which opened Tuesday. Grace's barely smudged, intact report card was on display, along with a shiny 1950 decorated teapot used by girls in a home economics class.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 2, 2014 | By Thomas H. Maugh II
Tidal erosion caused by a February 1970 winter storm ate away a bank of soil on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, revealing parts of five Native American longhouses. The longhouses near Lake Ozette had been buried suddenly by a mudslide sometime around 1560, preserving their contents in such remarkable condition that the site is often referred to as the American Pompeii. Archaeologist Richard Daugherty of Washington State University had previously conducted some minor excavations at the Ozette site, but the revelation of the longhouses provided an unprecedented opportunity to learn more about the culture of the Makah civilization.
ENTERTAINMENT
January 9, 2014 | By Richard Verrier
In a move to expand beyond 3-D cinema, Beverly Hills-based RealD Inc. is touting a new technology that it says will sharply improve the image quality on movies, whether they are shown in theaters or in the home. The technology, called RealD TrueImage, eliminates blemishes and artifacts (often called noise) when film and TV images are processed, creating a sharper and more detailed picture that is closer to what the filmmaker intended. The proprietary process already has the backing of one notable director, Peter Jackson, who used it for the recent release, "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," both in 2-D and 3-D formats.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 5, 2014 | By Anthony Clark Carpio
A state coastal agency could soon decide whether Huntington Beach can rezone a site in the Bolsa Chica mesa, an area that opponents say is home to Native American artifacts and remains, to allow for a housing development. The California Coastal Commission is set to vote Wednesday on whether the city can amend its Local Coastal Program - local governments' guide to development in the coastal zone - to allow for new homes on the northwest portion of Bolsa Chica. In a report, commission staff recommends denying amendments because the changes would "eliminate a higher priority land use designation and does not assure that significant culture resources and sensitive habitats will be protected" under the California Coastal Act. The move would also violate a part of the Local Coastal Program that the commission has already approved.
NATIONAL
December 22, 2013 | By John M. Glionna
They were two veteran emissaries for a Los Angeles-based philanthropy, tasked with staging a clandestine operation to rescue a series of Native American spiritual artifacts from public sale half a world away. This month, Annenberg Foundation staffers Allison Gister and Carol Laumen found themselves making anonymous telephone bids at a Paris auction to secure rarities considered sacred by the Hopi and San Carlos Apache tribes in Arizona, including exotic mask-like visages that had been lost - some say looted - over the last century.
WORLD
December 2, 2013 | By David S. Cloud
WASHINGTON - Harold Rhode still recalls the euphoria he felt a decade ago after finding thousands of dripping, moldy artifacts of Iraq's once-vibrant Jewish community in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's intelligence service headquarters in Baghdad. "How do you describe it? An enormous elation, a deep connection, but also shock: Why would this be here?" says the 64-year-old former Pentagon official, an Orthodox Jew who discovered the purloined archive in the bombed-out building days after he arrived in the Iraqi capital with the U.S. invasion force in the spring of 2003.