Breakaway

Russia sealed the border of the breakaway republic of Chechnya on Monday, and both the Chechen government and opposition leaders expressed fears of imminent Russian intervention. In neighboring North Ossetia, Russian Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev admitted that Russian warplanes attacked Chechen airfields last week. Grachev told the Itar-Tass news agency that planes that brought weapons and mercenaries to Chechnya were parked at the airfields.

The split over gay clerics within the country's largest Lutheran denomination has prompted a conservative faction to begin forming a new Lutheran church body separate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Leaders of Lutheran CORE, or Coalition for Renewal, said Wednesday that a working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by August. "There are many people within the ELCA who are very unhappy with what has happened," said the Rev. Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran CORE and a retired ELCA bishop from State College, Pa. At its annual convention in Minneapolis in August, ELCA delegates voted to lift a ban that had prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian pastors from serving as clerics.

A judge Thursday reiterated his previous rulings that the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has no legal claim on church buildings and other property owned by three conservative breakaway parishes. "The court has nothing further to add" in support of its earlier rulings, Orange County Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez wrote in response to new amendments made to complaints he had rejected in August and December. The diocese tried to seize the property of the churches -- St.

Advocates for breaking away from the Los Angeles Unified School District will hold a community forum in South-Central Los Angeles today. Considered an early test of the viability of an inner-city school district drive, the meeting will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Masjid Omar Ibn Al Khattab. The mosque is at 1025 W. Exposition Blvd. near the University of Southern California.

Heavy shelling and exchanges of small-arms fire were reported in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia late Thursday, a sharp escalation of the standoff that has accompanied Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's pledge to unite his fractured nation. Trouble has been brewing for weeks in South Ossetia, which lies in the Caucasus Mountains along Georgia's border with Russia.

Cruise fans who want to be first in line to board the Breakaway, one of Norwegian Cruise Lines' newest ships, may now buy tickets for its inaugural 2013 sailings. The ship's seven-night crossing from London to New York City in spring 2013 starts at a low $749 per person -- just a bit more than $100 a day. The deal: The Breakaway , which is still under construction in Germany, will hold 4,000 passengers and will be the largest ship to home port in New York City, according to the cruise line.

The nation's state presidency bitterly attacked the European Community's offer to recognize the country's breakaway republics and said Wednesday it will appeal to the U.N. Security Council. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic also condemned the EC agreement to recognize Croatia and Slovenia on Jan. 15 if they meet a set of conditions. He threatened to pull Serbia, the largest republic, out of an EC peace conference on Yugoslavia unless the United Nations is brought in.

Three more West Valley neighborhoods adopted the name West Hills Thursday, completing a homeowner-led movement to break away from Canoga Park and create a new identity as a residential community. At a short ceremony in his Northridge office, Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, who received signatures from 85% of the area's 2,000 homes in December, unveiled the blue-and-white street signs that will designate the area "West Hills."

Elton Brand bruised his right heel and strained his right shoulder on one play during the Clippers' victory Wednesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves. That will teach him to try to dunk on Kevin Garnett. Brand fell awkwardly to the court after Garnett was whistled for a foul midway through the third quarter, denying Brand a thunderous breakaway dunk, but giving him free throws. Later, during a friendly postgame dinner, they discussed the play.

The Detroit Lions haven't had a breakaway threat since the career-ending injury to Billy Sims. Rookie Garry James wants to remedy that. James ran for 140 yards in 20 carries in Sunday's 21-14 victory over the winless Green Bay Packers, the first Detroit running back to gain that many yards in a game since Sims did it in 1984. "We never had a guy the last three years who could do that," said veteran fullback James Jones, who added 99 yards in 29 carries. "He's got the speed.