Blacks

Obsession of the moment: Hasami porcelain plates and bowls released in a new matte black finish by the Japanese design importer TGS, or Tortoise General Store, in Venice. The Hasami porcelain is beautiful in its spare simplicity and smart function. The pieces nest nicely for storage. Optional oak lids pair well with the stone bowls and can be used separately as serving trays. TGS co-owner Keiko Shinomoto says  the collection has a nice back story too: It's part of a project in the southern Japanese town of Hasami, where a pottery tradition that dates to 1599 is ailing because of -- can you guess?

UC Irvine's chancellor pledged Wednesday to find and discipline whoever slipped a racist note into a black female student's backpack last week. The student found the note, which read "Go back 2 Africa slave," while she was in the science library on May 7, according to UCI police. The department is investigating what it is calling a hate incident. "When apprehended, the responsible individual(s) will face appropriate sanctions," Chancellor Michael Drake said in a statement on UCI's website.

In his short life, former ABC television anchorman Max Robinson admitted having many problems: alcohol abuse, racial struggles, career disaster and three failed marriages. But he never publicly acknowledged having the disease that would end his life. Yet in his death at 49, Robinson had his family reveal that he had AIDS so that others in the black community would be alerted to the dangers of the disease and the need for treatment and education.

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon on a cluttered street in Gardena, some very big and skilled athletes are hanging out on a concrete basketball court, bouncing around underneath rusted backboards and chain nets, acting out a typical inner-city scene, with one small exception. They are playing baseball. "It's Showtime!" shouts Coach Wil Aaron, only this is a very different kind of Showtime. Aaron is using a tennis racket to whack tennis balls at close range to infielders on his Gardena Serra High baseball team, whose players are leaping and spinning out of stereotypes and perhaps into history.

In Mexico, the story of the country's black population has been largely ignored in favor of an ideology that declares that all Mexicans are "mixed race." But it's the mixture of indigenous and European heritage that most Mexicans embrace; the African legacy is overlooked.

Welland Rudd isn't a typical American. He's never eaten Thanksgiving turkey or watched fireworks on the Fourth of July. At 52, he has yet to set foot on U.S. soil. Rudd isn't a typical Russian, either. Although he speaks the language fluently and has lived his whole life in Moscow, he cuts an unusual figure here. What sets him apart is the cafe-au-lait color of his skin.

The gap in life expectancy between black and white Americans is smaller than it has ever been, thanks largely to a decline in the number of deaths resulting from heart disease and HIV infection, a new analysis has found. That's the good news. The bad news is that the gap is still large: A black baby boy born today can expect to live 5.4 fewer years, on average, than his white counterpart, and a black baby girl will die 3.7 years earlier, on average, than her white counterpart. What's more, the narrowing of the gap between 2003 and 2008 is due in part to a troubling development among whites: They are more likely than in the past to die from overdoses of powerful prescription medications like OxyContin and Vicodin, along with other unintentional poisonings.

This week I was asked to speak at an evening program at a local temple on the ever-popular topic of "Jews in Hollywood." I brought along a true Hollywood Jew, Sony Pictures' Amy Pascal, who spoke quite eloquently and insightfully about her faith and how it's sometimes tested by her job.

Tracey White's initial impression of "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's new slave-era shoot-'em-up extravaganza, could be summed up in three words: smart, funny and ugly. Sitting through a recent screening in Beverly Hills, the L.A. costume designer was mostly absorbed and found herself laughing aloud at particularly outrageous moments. But White, who is black, said her feelings evolved significantly. Two days after reflecting on the matter of slavery and Tarantino's treatment, she pronounced the movie mostly ugly.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped the ball Monday. Actually, it dropped 400,000 of them. The agency started dumping thousands of floating plastic balls into Ivanhoe Reservoir -- the dwarf sibling next door to Silver Lake Reservoir, the neighborhood's crown jewel -- to protect the drinking water supply needed for summer.

On occasion, my wife and I have taken out-of-town visitors on Sunday outings to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles to expose the uninitiated to the joy of a live gospel choir. I sometimes wonder how I stand with that power greater than myself while intruding on a house of worship solely to observe a spectacle. But we're always received so warmly that I quickly lose myself in the music and forget where I am. In that state, I've paid little notice to hats and shoes and dresses.

During the car-crazy 1950s in Southern California, Dean Jeffries was one of the first hot rodders to chop, channel and soup-up automobiles. His distinctive paint jobs and sculpted body work attracted many admirers to his auto shop, including the likes of James Dean, Steve McQueen and A.J. Foyt. A legendary car painter and customizer who made the "Monkeemobile" and the original Green Hornet's "Black Beauty," Jeffries died in his sleep Saturday at his home in Hollywood. He was 80 and had been in declining health.

The Los Angeles Police Department opened an internal investigation into its response at an off-campus house party near USC amid complaints from some students that the department showed racial bias and used heavy-handed tactics. The incident occurred early Saturday morning during an end-of-semester party at a house a few blocks from campus. A neighbor called police complaining about the noise. Officers arrived, and the situation escalated with the arrival of dozens more officers donning riot gear.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Contrary to popular perception, this will not be the first Kentucky Derby ride for jockey Kevin Krigger. Maybe his fifth or sixth. Of course, when he got his first saddle as a teenager in the Virgin Islands, he didn't have the likes of racehorse Goldencents under that saddle, as he will Saturday, in the 139th Derby. "I think I got my first saddle when I was 13," Krigger says. "So, when it was time for the Kentucky Derby, I'd put it up on the couch at home, in front of the TV set, and I'd ride the race.

The federal official in charge of healthcare in California prisons has directed that more than 3,000 inmates be moved out of state lockups that are infected with a lethal fungus known as valley fever. The Monday directive from medical receiver J. Clark Kelso requires state officials to "exclude" especially vulnerable inmates from Pleasant Valley and Avenal state prisons near Coalinga in the Central Valley. The list includes HIV-infected inmates, prisoners with chronic medical conditions, African Americans, Filipinos and others of Asian descent.

One girl gasps as the grainy black-and-white footage rolls: Women are screaming, thrusting their babies at soldiers boarding a helicopter. In the next scene, hundreds of refugees packed in the belly of a rickety boat rock in the ocean, desperately trying to flee their homeland after the fall of Saigon. Gathered in a Garden Grove office, young adults who grew up in the shadow of war watch the images, only tasting the horrors their parents and relatives endured when South Vietnam fell to Communist forces 38 years ago. For many in immigrant communities like Orange County's Little Saigon, the memory of April 30 - "Black April" to those who lived through it - has been passed on only through photographs, stories or rough video clips.

One intersection. Seven unsolved homicides. That's the tally for the cross streets of San Pedro and 84th dating to the late 1980s. The spot is typical of many in South and Central Los Angeles where extraordinary numbers of people are murdered and the killers are never caught. Unsolved homicides -- killings for which no suspect is ever arrested -- are stacked up block by block, mile by mile, in this part of Los Angeles.

His ebony skin, curly hair and facial features distinguish Mohammed Abbass as a man of African descent. But he has never set foot in Africa and knows little about the continent and its people. As long as he can recall, his forefathers have lived in Iraq, and his roots are deep in this Middle Eastern country. "Of course I consider myself to be Iraqi," said Abbass, 35, a carpenter. "I don't have any knowledge about my history."

Like many high school seniors about this time of year, Mareshia Rucker and Stephanie Sinnott ooh and aah over gowns with heart-shaped bodices and jewel-encrusted necklines. Yet the ritual of picking a prom dress is little more than an afterthought for these teens, amid all the pressure of organizing their county's first integrated prom. Rucker is black and Sinnott is white. More than 40 years after the Supreme Court ordered school integration, the two classmates are pushing one of south-central Georgia's slowest-moving counties to overturn a long-standing tradition of segregated proms.

"He said, 'C'mon, hit me a home run, I love you.' I said, 'I love you too, I'll hit you one.'" - Cincinnati Reds third baseman Todd Frazier , after fulfilling a promise to Teddy Kremer , a 30-year-old man with Down syndrome, who was serving as the Reds' batboy during a game with the Miami Marlins. --- "Chase has a lot of common sense. He knows he can't. ... Even though the last two months [of 2012], he pretty much did just that. " - San Diego Padres Manager Bud Black , on whether third baseman Chase Headley - just off the disabled list - might be inclined to try to carry the team's offense.