Boxer

Montel Williams is not your typical pot-smoking snowboarder. Best known as an Emmy-winning talk show host, the former Marine and decorated naval intelligence officer was also a champion boxer, bodybuilder and power-lifter. In 1999, Williams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and it hit him hard. After a downward slide to rock bottom, Williams decided to get his life back. Were you active in your younger years? I was extremely active. I was a martial artist.

Re "Israel's free pass from Boxer," Opinion, April 28 George Bisharat grossly misleads readers when he claims that bipartisan legislation I introduced would allow Israel to "continue racially profiling Americans of Arab and Muslim heritage who travel to Israel. " My legislation would give Israel the opportunity to join the U.S. visa waiver program, allowing Israeli citizens to travel to the United States without first obtaining a visa - a privilege extended to 37 other countries.

Featherweight boxer Orlando Cruz will fight Friday night for the first time since declaring he was gay earlier this month. Cruz, 31, a former 2000 Olympic boxer from Puerto Rico, will fight Jorge Pazos in the main event of a card in Kissimmee, Fla. “I think the reaction tonight will be good,” Cruz told his publicist Ed Keenan on Friday morning in comments relayed to The Times. “But maybe not. There may be a lot of” anti-gay people “there, yelling at me. But I don't care.

Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced legislation last month that would allow Israel to continue racially profiling Americans of Arab and Muslim heritage who travel to Israel, even as it confers new privileges on Israelis traveling to the United States. I wonder whether she understands what it's like for her Arab American constituents to enter Israel. I always bet myself how long it will take for Ben Gurion Airport's security screeners to detect my heritage. My given names are European, and my family name is an unusual pluralization of a common Arab name that sometimes throws even Arabic speakers.

WASHINGTON - Federal funds would be made available to deploy National Guard troops at schools under legislation introduced Wednesday by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in response to last week's mass slaying at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The Save Our Schools Act would leave it to governors to decide whether to call out the National Guard and how to use troops around schools. "Is it not part of the national defense to make sure that your children are safe?" Boxer said at Capitol Hill press conference.  Boxer also introduced the School Safety Enhancement Act, which would increase funding for a federal grants program, from $30 million to $50 million, to help fund school security measures, such as installation of metal detectors and surveillance cameras.

In a sign of hardening skepticism toward the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a top Senate Democrat has sent a letter to the Obama administration asking about a possible conflict of interest between the pipeline operator and a company handling the environmental impact study of the project. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week cautioning that the environmental studies must be impartial.

For us, the choice in the race between Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and her Republican opponent, Carly Fiorina, resolves itself into a simple proposition: Issues matter, especially in the United States Senate. Fiorina is intelligent, energetic and accomplished in the private sector. But on too many issues she reflects the doctrinaire conservatism that is ascendant in the Republican Party. By contrast, Boxer has been a voice ? if sometimes a strident one ? for values promoted by this editorial page: individual rights, equality, environmental protection and constructive engagement by the federal government with national economic problems, including the crisis in healthcare.

Democrat Barbara Boxer outdistanced her Republican challengers in raising money during the first quarter of the year, and her two leading GOP would-be opponents were nearly tied in income over the period, according to financial reports. Boxer, a three-term incumbent who faces no serious primary challenge but is anticipating her toughest general election battle yet, raised $2.4 million in the first three months of 2010. She now has $8.7 million on hand, and is due to raise more next week with a visit from President Obama.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is following in her colleague Dianne Feinstein's steps by calling for a federal investigation into record gas prices in California. Boxer is urging the Department of Justice's Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group to probe whether traders “colluded to manipulate and drive up gas prices.” In a letter Monday to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., Boxer raised suspicions of “market manipulation.” “Californians have too often been victimized as unscrupulous traders have created or taken advantage of supply disruptions to drive up energy prices,” she wrote.

Middleweight boxer Alfredo Angulo has had some tough fights in his career, including 17 knockouts, according to the Ring , a website that bills itself as the bible of boxing. But the Mexican pugilist may not have been prepared for his latest battle that required he spend eight months in an El Centro immigration detention facility. The big question is why Angulo was detained in the first place. He reportedly overstayed his U.S. visa, but he had no criminal record, circumstances that typically aren't supposed to land someone in detention.

WASHINGTON - Barbara Boxer has long been one of the Senate's environmental champions, racking up perfect scores for each of the last five years on the League of Conservation Voters' report card on key votes. But the Californian now finds herself on the opposite side of an issue from her usual environmental allies and some of her fellow Democrats. Environmentalists are upset because she is pushing legislation that would impose deadlines for environmental reviews of water projects, a move they see as "tilting the scales" toward rushed approvals.

Chris Arreola is a boxer who would wear his emotions on his sleeve. That is, if there were any room. The massive arms that the Riverside boxer hopes will carry him back into the heavyweight title picture are covered with tattoos. The muscles ripple and the tattoos jiggle. For lovers of tattoos and boxing, Arreola is an art form. He is also among the more interesting people in a sport that often filters out real personalities in exchange for orchestrated hype. There is nothing orchestrated about Arreola.

WASHINGTON - Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer have served longer together than any other pair of California senators - 20 years - and will soon replace Iowa's team as the current longest-serving tandem. In a chamber where the presence of spittoons and snuffboxes testifies to the power of tradition, that historically would have meant they could exert more influence on behalf of the state. For generations, seniority has aided senators in delivering federal largesse back home.

Austin Trout doesn't mind being the bad guy who spoils outcomes the fans want. He did it in December, ruining a planned comeback victory by Puerto Rico's Miguel Cotto in front of Cotto's den of supporters at Madison Square Garden. Trout also came to the Home Depot Center in Carson last year, paying no mind to a crowd jeering during his victory over Delvin Rodriguez. And Trout has gone to Mexico to beat up the older brother of unbeaten world super-welterweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.

Saying too many homes have been lost “to bank malfeasance or error,” Sen. Barbara Boxer called for federal investigations into whether banks are breaking the consumer-protection pledges they made in last year's $26-billion settlement of foreclosure-abuse investigations.  “I am extremely concerned over reports that banks continue to violate the rights of homeowners and the terms of the National Mortgage Settlement,” Boxer (D-Calif.) said in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder,  Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, and Joseph A. Smith, the official monitor for the settlement.

With Los Angeles facing the imminent possibility of having no female elected leaders at City Hall, some of California's most prominent female politicians joined forces Thursday to promote Wendy Greuel's mayoral candidacy. Democratic congressional leader Nancy Pelosi, the only woman to serve as the speaker of the House of Representatives, announced she was endorsing Greuel to become the city's first female mayor. "She's operational, she gets the job done," Pelosi (D-San Francisco)

WASHINGTON - The Senate took its turn holding a hearing on the excessive spending of the embattled General Services Administration on Wednesday, with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announcing “the party's over.” Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, began the oversight hearing on the GSA by detailing its history of misconduct stretching back to the administration of President Carter in the late 1970s. Boxer called Daniel Tangherlini, the new acting administrator of the GSA, “a no-nonsense leader” and expressed confidence that he would be able to clean up the mess left behind by former administrator Martha Johnson, who resigned soon after the scandal came to light.

  Never did we expect to find another Andreas Cantor and his trademark futbol  call: " ¡GOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL! " But it was a unexpected and fun discovery to unearth the radio call of boxer Katie Taylor's gold medal victory in the lightweight final on Thursday. It was the first gold medal for Ireland at the London Games, and unleashed a delirious celebration of giddy glory.  Not only in the arena but in Ireland. If you want an example, listen to radio announcer Seán Bán Breathnach's call, a loud and lyrical outburst even if you don't understand anything besides the words "Katie Taylor.

Hayden Panettiere and boxer Wladimir Klitschko are reportedly engaged, but shhh! It's a secret. "Very few people know, and she isn't wearing her ring publicly yet," a source told Us Weekly, which reported the news Wednesday. The mag reported that the couple might wed this summer. The "Nashville" starlet, 23, and Ukrainian heavyweight, 37, have yet to publicly confirm their relationship, let alone their engagement, despite being seen together packing in the PDA. The two were super-cuddly at a Miami Heat game in Florida, where he lives, over the weekend.

WASHINGTON - The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are in an unusual position in today's era of Washington austerity: They could soon receive more federal money. A bill sent to the Senate by a committee chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) seeks to address a long-standing California gripe: Its ports receive pennies back for every dollar raised by a tax on cargo. The measure would nearly double, to about $1.6 billion a year, funding for harbor maintenance nationwide, give priority to the busiest ports and expand the use of the money to include work that the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are eager to undertake.