Clock

It's only Week 2 of the high school football season, but the way Harbor City Narbonne systematically dismantled 18-time Southern Section champion Long Beach Poly on Friday night should send shock waves around the state. With 17 starters back from its City Section Division I championship team, Narbonne (2-0) has legitimate aspirations of playing a 16-game season, and the Gauchos emphatically passed their first big test, routing the Jackrabbits, 56-0. "That was domination," Narbonne Coach Manuel Douglas said.

SACRAMENTO - With just three days left in this year's legislative session, state lawmakers got a dose of the strong emotions swirling through the Capitol for and against a plan to overhaul California's century-old workers' compensation insurance program. The bill formally introduced Friday seeks to increase benefits for injured workers while cutting medical and legal costs to avoid an estimated 12.6% hike in premiums facing employers in January. At issue is a 170-page bill to revise the $17-billion system to protect injured workers that is only now beginning a fast and furious trip through the Legislature.

Are you an early-bird-gets-the-worm kind of person, or do you need a bulldozer to shove your head off the pillow each morning? Scientists in Japan say they can tell the setting of your body's circadian clock just by examining a small blood sample. In a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers said they have developed a convenient method of estimating an individual's personal body time by examining the concentration of hormones and amino acids in two blood samples taken 12 hours apart.

TAMPA, Fla. - One of the few pieces of business that transpired during Monday's 10-minute session of the Republican convention was the unveiling of a “debt clock” that will track how much the national debt will have increased by the time the delegates end their work Thursday night. It's the sort of political theater that both parties enjoy - a way of stoking the passions of activists and, perhaps, catching the attention of an undecided voter or two. In the case of the Republicans, a major campaign talking point has been President Obama's role in worsening what Mitt Romney has called a “prairie fire of debt.” But the subject is not one on which either party is pure.

Wristwatches are ticking back to life. For years, doomsayers predicted the death of the watch as clock-equipped cellphones exploded in popularity. Some said watches would eventually go the way of VCRs and the Sony Walkman. Not so fast. After a drop during the recession, watches are experiencing a renaissance. Bulky ones have shown up on red carpets and runway shows. Retro styles have popped up on TV shows such as "Mad Men" and"Boardwalk Empire. "And watch companies are rushing out with bright colors, new designs and high-tech varieties to suit every taste.

If rock critics ran the world, Monday night's show with Grandaddy would've been the equivalent of those hotly anticipated Pixies reunion shows from a few years back, or at least a new date with the freshly reconvened No Doubt. Instead, there were still a few tickets available at the Fonda as the band kicked off the last of four California dates before launching a longer run of performances on the European festival circuit. Which isn't to say Grandaddy wasn't well-received among their faithful, most of whom have aged along with the band and still echo its rustic aesthetic with plaid shirts and trucker hats while giving songs like early single "A.M.

While the attention of the world is affixed elsewhere on those trying to achieve greatness, it was Sandy Koufax Bobblehead Night at Dodger Stadium, and a good reminder of two men who found perfection here almost 47 years ago. "Three times in his sensational career has Sandy Koufax walked out to the mound to pitch a fateful ninth where he turned in a no-hitter, but tonight, September the ninth, nineteen hundred and sixty-five, he made the toughest walk...

EUGENE, Ore. - Sprinters Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh continued down an eerily parallel path at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials Friday, though their near-identical times in different semifinal heats of the women's 200 didn't cause the same headaches as their still-unresolved tie for third in the 100. Felix and Tarmoh won their respective heats in 22.30 seconds - taken to thousandths of a second Felix was timed in 22.297...

The Big Ben clock tower, one of London's best-known landmarks, has been renamed Elizabeth Tower as a diamond jubilee gift to Queen Elizabeth II. The House of Commons Commission made the decision Monday for the tower that was completed in 1859, but no official renaming has yet been scheduled, according to the British Parliament's website. Though everyone has been calling the decorative Parliament tower Big Ben, the nickname actually applies only to the Great Bell, the very one that strikes the time.

For years, you could set your watch by the courthouse clock in Santa Barbara. But the bells - well, you could barely count on them at all. From a tower atop one of the city's most visited sites, peals rang out every 15 minutes - or 14 minutes, or 17, or not at all. Sometimes they struck on the hour, sometimes not. It was as if Victor Hugo's famous hunchback had quit flinging himself from rope to rope, propped his feet on a gargoyle and started...