Combat

SAN FRANCISCO - Capt. Zoe Bedell graduated at the top of her Marine Corps officer candidates class. In deployments to Afghanistan, she oversaw "female engagement teams" that accompanied male infantry units into the field - living and working in identical conditions. Yet since 1994, the Defense Department has formally excluded women from most direct ground combat positions, creating a growing disconnect with the realities of warfare. Bedell said she left active duty last year because the policy limited her potential for promotion by failing to officially recognize her combat leadership experience.

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas - Not long after a Belgian Malinois named Cora went off to war, she earned a reputation for sniffing out the buried bombs that were the enemy's weapon of choice to kill or maim U.S. troops. Cora could roam a hundred yards or more off her leash, detect an explosive and then lie down gently to signal danger. All she asked in return was a kind word or a biscuit, maybe a play session with a chew toy once the squad made it back to base. "Cora always thought everything was a big game," said Air Force Tech.

The Yellow Birds A Novel Kevin Powers Little Brown: 230 pp., $24.99 Pvt. John Bartle, the narrator of Kevin Powers' sorrowful war novel "The Yellow Birds," is a man of reason caught between the uncontrolled emotions of two men. The first is his sergeant, a severe gunslinger and molder of warriors named Sterling. Sgt. Sterling's discipline and his rage against the enemy are keeping his squad of men alive as they patrol an eerie, death-filled Iraqi landscape. Pvt. Bartle loves and hates him for this.

The Breeders' Cup comes to Santa Anita this weekend with a controversial mandate to begin eliminating race-day medication in its thoroughbreds at a time when sports organizations worldwide are cracking down on competitors who use performance-enhancing drugs. Much of the focus is on Lasix, a powerful diuretic that helps prevent bleeding and has been widely used in the U.S. since the 1970s to combat lung hemorrhaging in thoroughbreds. In California, the drug is injected four hours before post time.

DeAndre Jordan got the ball in the low post against Denver on Thursday night when suddenly the Nuggets double teamed the Clippers' young center. A few plays later, Jordan got the ball down low and was double teamed again. Jordan admitted after practice Saturday that he was startled by the attention from the Nuggets. But it was also an instructive moment for Jordan. "After the game, Chauncey [ Billups ] told me, 'I can tell you've never been double teamed in the NBA,'" Jordan said, smiling.

Signaling right off the bat that this presidential debate is going to be a more combative encounter than their first one, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama went at it almost immediately after 20-year-old college student Jeremy Epstein asked how each planned to make sure he has a job when he graduates in 2014. One of the last times Romney entertained a similar question from a student about the high cost of college - at an August 2011 town hall in New Hampshire - Romney told the student, “Either borrow a lot, or you'll have parents help you, or do it yourself.” This time, a far more gentle, supportive Romney was on display.

To fight smog, the state of California is giving out cash. It will buy your old clunker car and will pay certain motorists to fix their polluting vehicles. Here's how the programs work: • The Bureau of Automotive Repair will pay $1,000 for any running car, SUV, van or truck weighing less than 10,000 pounds. The amount is boosted to $1,500 if your income is below a certain level (a family of four earning less than $51,860, for example, would qualify). "The idea is to get older, polluting cars off the road," said bureau spokesman Russ Heimerich.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power filed a lawsuit Friday that would limit its spending on measures to stop massive dust storms at Owens Lake. The agency argues that the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District is unreasonable to order the DWP to eliminate dust on 2.9 miles of remote, geologically challenging lake bed. The DWP has already spent $1.2 billion to fulfill a 1997 agreement with the air pollution district to combat the powder-fine dust from the dry Owens Lake bed. The agency has reduced particle air pollution by 90% by introducing vegetation, gravel and flooding into vast areas of the lake bed. The 100-square-mile lake east of Sequoia National Park was transformed into dusty salt flats after 1913, when its supply of snowmelt and spring water was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

BRISTOW, Va. - Last year, Army Col. Ellen Haring thought she was finally getting her dream job. She was selected to supervise female soldiers who search and interview Afghan women in combat zones for special operations units. Haring spent three months training at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Then, just before she was to deploy to Afghanistan, she got a phone call from a staff officer. "Ma'am, we don't think you're qualified," she recalled him saying. The job went to a lower-ranking male officer.

Actor Kevin James watched the first Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view bouts live in 1993. The star of television's "The King of Queens" and films including "Zookeeper," "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and "Grown Ups" co-produced and stars in the mixed-martial-arts-themed film, "Here Comes the Boom," released Friday. James, 47, plays an apathetic biology teacher at an underperforming school that plans to ax music and its teacher, played by Henry Winkler. James' character, Scott Voss, is a former collegiate wrestler who becomes inspired to raise the money it takes to keep his friend on staff by moonlighting as a professional MMA fighter.