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?

I was in Detroit preparing to give a speech last week when the news came across my Twitter feed: "Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine donate $70 million to USC to create new degree. " As one of the first university presidents from the hip-hop generation, I had to stop and read the story immediately. The two music moguls and co-founders of Beats Electronics - recognizing that they needed a new type of creative talent for their growing music technology business - are funding a four-year program that blends liberal arts, graphic and product design, business and technology.

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.

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.

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.

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.

More than 20 years after he last played pro basketball, former Lakers star Magic Johnson is ready for a whole new game: running his own TV network. The Hall of Famer, who has become a successful business mogul, is preparing to launch Aspire, a 24-hour channel with a focus on what Johnson called positive, uplifting images of African Americans. The basic cable outlet will join other channels targeting black viewers, such as BET and TV One, and will offer opportunities for blacks who have struggled to find work in mainstream Hollywood.

A top PolyGram executive has been demoted after suggesting in a court deposition that if record companies were prevented from hiring people with criminal records, no African Americans would be working in the music industry. The remark triggered a furor within the Dutch-owned entertainment conglomerate that is expected to continue today with a meeting at PolyGram's New York headquarters between company Chairman Alain Levy and civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Would-be lawyer Arletta Brimsey spent years of her life learning the law, only to discover that, no matter how many times she tried, she could not pass California's bar exam. Then she met Alfred Jenkins. A retired Los Angeles prosecutor who became Brimsey's mentor, intellectual drill instructor and uncompromising taskmaster, Jenkins tutored her until she passed in 1994, 10 years after graduating from law school. She is now a Los Angeles deputy city attorney.

It was an emotional roller-coaster at the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony Thursday night in Los Angeles, even more so than usual for the annual event. Consider disco queen Donna Summer , whose husband and three daughters accepted the award for her posthumously, 11 months after the singer and songwriter lost her battle with cancer. Or 80-year-old producer Quincy Jones -- the most nominated Grammy Award winner ever -- who said his induction into the Rock Hall made him feel “that finally, I have arrived.” Also enduring a long wait for recognition was Heart, whose founding sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson were finally admitted to what's historically been the boys' club of hard rock music after a decade of eligibility.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here's some Ozzy Osbourne news that has nothing to do with the singer's marital troubles : Black Sabbath is headed out on a full North American tour. The legendary English heavy-metal band -- or three-fourths of it, anyway -- announced Thursday that it will launch a 20-city swing through North America on July 25 in Houston. The tour is scheduled to stop Aug. 28 at Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater before wrapping at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Sept. 3. The shows are to begin not long after the scheduled June 11 release of "13," Black Sabbath's first album with Osbourne since "Never Say Die!"