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Want to fool merchants with a fake ID? Hack someone's text messages? Or how about tracking where your co-workers are, without their knowing it? There's an app for that. The explosion in smartphone and tablet applications that enable people to check the weather, follow their stocks and play Words With Friends has a dark side: apps that facilitate questionable if not outright illegal behavior. Apple's App Store, for example, offers Drivers License software that promises "unlimited access to realistic-looking licenses" for all 50 states.

Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation to approve a ban on plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines, handing a hard-fought victory to environmentalists and promising to change the way Angelenos do their grocery shopping. The City Council voted 13 to 1 to phase out plastic bags over the next 16 months at an estimated 7,500 stores, meaning shoppers will need to bring reusable bags or purchase paper bags for 10 cents each. The ban came after years of campaigning by clean-water advocates who said it would reduce the amount of trash in landfills, the region's waterways and the ocean.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administrationannounced Friday that it will not ban the use of bisphenol A, also known as BPA, in food packaging. [For the record: In an earlier version of this post, the Natural Resources Defense Council was misidentified as the National Resources Defense Council. ] In a 12-page letter,David H. Dorsey, FDA acting associate commissioner for policy and planning, wrote that the the Natural Resources Defense Council, which had petitioned the agency to change its regulations on use of the chemical, had not provided sufficient scientific evidence to change the current regulations.

Attention, Los Angeles shoppers: Time to start stocking up on cheap canvas tote bags.The City Council agreed Wednesday to require supermarkets to stop using plastic bags in 10 months (for large stores) to 16 months (for smaller shops). The ban, which The Times' editorial board

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive. Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold. But that soon may change. This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green cards, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades.

San Francisco's board of supervisors has voted, by a veto-proof margin, to ban most of McDonald's Happy Meals as they are now served in the restaurants. The measure will make San Francisco the first major city in the country to forbid restaurants from offering a free toy with meals that contain more than set levels of calories, sugar and fat. The ordinance would also require restaurants to provide fruits and vegetables with all meals for children that come with toys. "We're part of a movement that is moving forward an agenda of food justice," said Supervisor Eric Mar, who sponsored the measure.

The Times' editorial board and others who support banning plastic bags are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Before the California Legislature makes any decision on this issue, let's carefully consider what the economic and scientific facts are. As the president of a plastic bag manufacturer in Los Angeles County, I know all about this issue. We make all sorts of plastic bags — reusable, recycled content and compostable. And we do it right here in the Los Angeles area.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to ban plastic grocery bags in areas of the county under its jurisdiction, endorsing a broadly worded measure that proponents hope could become a model for California. The ban, which goes beyond ordinances adopted in Malibu and San Francisco, most directly affects 1.1 million people who live outside the county's incorporated cities. But anyone shopping at stores in such areas would encounter the new rules. Opponents suggested they might go to court to try to block the ban before the first phase takes effect in July, when 67 large supermarkets and pharmacies must stop providing disposable plastic bags.

On sunny days, Xu Dongguang, a manager of a trendy cafe in downtown Beijing, arranges tables outside for patrons to while away the afternoon, reading, drinking coffee and chain-smoking. But starting Sunday, all bars, restaurants, hospitals and other public places in China are slated to become smoke-free, inside and out. A few days before the ban was set to go into effect, many places in Beijing had only heard of the restrictions from news reports, and no one had received an official notice.

Smoking electronic cigarettes would be explicitly banned on all domestic and international commercial flights in the U.S. under a new rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Current federal law prohibits passengers from smoking any tobacco product on a commercial plane but does not single out the use of electronic cigarettes. Most electronic cigarettes do not burn tobacco but use a lithium battery to heat up a liquid nicotine solution, creating a vapor that can be inhaled to deliver the chemical directly into the lungs.

A lobbyist representing a consortium of plastic bag producers was roaming the halls of Los Angeles City Hall this week, trying to torpedo Wednesday's anticipated City Council vote to ban the ubiquitous, flimsy flower that litters the urban landscape and fouls the seashore. Naturally, environmentalists were in a tizzy, fearing the worst outcome while hoping for the best. Under the proposal by Councilman Paul Koretz, paper bags would also be banned, and Los Angeles would become a national leader in the proliferation of reusable bags.

The City Council on Wednesday will consider whether to ban stores in Los Angeles from offering single-use plastic carry-out bags. A ban would take some getting used to, but examples from other jurisdictions, including the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, show that it can be done and that shoppers and stores quickly adapt. A ban is the right move. The council should adopt it. For a city with such a strong environmental ethic, Los Angeles is lagging on the plastic bag issue.

As the World Health Assembly convenes in Geneva this week, one item on the agenda will be polio, or more specifically, how to finally deliver on an epic promise made a quarter-century ago: to liberate humankind from one of the world's most deadly and debilitating diseases. The world's war on polio has been as ambitious an undertaking as the successful campaign to eradicate another great public health menace, smallpox. Slowly but surely we have advanced on that goal. Polio, a highly preventable disease, today survives in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

WASHINGTON - Wading into the gay marriage debate, the Republican-led House tacked a provision banning same-sex marriages at military chapels onto a sweeping defense bill that is now headed to the Senate. Despite the high-octane public discussion over gay marriage that has intensified since President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriages, the issue has been one that Capitol Hill has largely sought to avoid. But the GOP majority led Congress into the issue by adding the same-sex marriage prohibitions to the defense bill.

The Grove shopping center became the unlikely battleground in the debate over gay marriage after it banned boxer Manny Pacquiao from the mall in response to an interview he gave in Los Angeles. The ban led to a day of dueling statements, denunciations and backtracking. Some news organizations erroneously quoted the boxing champion as saying gay men should "be put to death. " That prompted the management of the Grove to issue a terse statement Tuesday evening that Pacquiao was persona non grata at the L.A. shopping center despite a scheduled television interview with Extra, which regularly films at the popular outdoor mall next to the Original Farmer's Market at Third Street and Fairfax Avenue.

California's tenure protections for teachers go too far, and the Legislature has been unwilling to do anything about it. So it's easy to understand why Students Matter, an organization backed by a reform-minded entrepreneur in the Bay Area, is hoping the courts will do what lawmakers haven't. On Monday, it filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking to overturn the statutes that undergird the tenure system. Those laws require schools to decide after 18 months whether a teacher deserves tenure, to lay off teachers based almost solely on seniority and go through an arcane, ridiculously lengthy and slanted appeals process before a bad teacher can be fired.

Re "L.A. seeks brakes on skateboarders' speed," May 3 Skateboarders should have been reeled in a long time ago. Their total lack of accountability should have been lawfully addressed from the start. They menace the citizenry and disturb the peace in residential neighborhoods and vandalize city property by relentlessly pounding curbs, streets and you-name-it in an endless pursuit of becoming the next Tony Hawk. Edward Golden Northridge ALSO: Letters: Taxes, again Letters: Funding L.A.'s parks Postscript: An anti-Vatican bias?

Two drugs that produce a meth-like high and are being sold under the guise of "bath salts" would be banned as federally controlled substances under a bill unveiled Sunday by Sen. Charles E. Schumer. "These so-called bath salts contain ingredients that are nothing more than legally sanctioned narcotics, and they are being sold cheaply to all comers, with no questions asked, at store counters around the country," said Schumer (D-N.Y.). Schumer said he would introduce a bill to outlaw the two synthetic drugs ?

SAN FRANCISCO - California is one step closer to becoming one of the first states to ban companies from asking job seekers and workers for their user names and passwords on Facebook and other social networking websites. The state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Nora Campos (D-San Jose) that would make anything workers designate as private on social networks off-limits to employers. The bill, which passed the Assembly without a dissenting vote, now goes to the California Senate.

Voters in North Carolina on Tuesday approved Amendment One, a fiercely debated and highly restrictive amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as the legal union of a man and a woman. The amendment not only outlaws same-sex marriage - already illegal in the state - but bans civil unions and domestic partnerships for gay or straight couples. Family law experts say it will threaten domestic partnership health benefits for local government workers and strip unmarried couples, both gay and straight, of their rights to make financial or emergency medical decisions for an incapacitated partner.