Conferences

When the NAACP's conference ended here last week, civil rights leaders left behind a portrait of black men in crisis. Too many young black men, said the civil rights group, are underemployed, alternately feared and reviled, and living at risk. Now come the men of Sigma Pi Phi, a once-secret black fraternity that celebrates the professional and material success of black men.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Uh-oh, 2-0? The San Antonio Spurs find themselves in a familiar place, having won the first two games of the Western Conference finals for a second consecutive season. This is where their season unraveled in stunning fashion last year amid a barrage of baskets by Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden. The Spurs lost four consecutive games, a season-ending slide that seemed all the more improbable considering they had won their previous 20 games.

Conservative die-hards and reformers went to war Tuesday for the hearts and minds of the Soviet Communist Party, with Yegor K. Ligachev denouncing the Gorbachev era's "reckless radicalism" and other leaders defending policies that stripped the "evil empire" label from their nation. One day after President Mikhail S.

SAN ANTONIO - Stumbling in playoff series openers is nothing new for the Memphis Grizzlies. Of course, they've never experienced the kind of fall they did against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. San Antonio may have left Memphis with a bruised psyche to go with a 105-83 defeat Sunday at the AT&T Center, the Spurs turning the Grizzlies' strengths into glaring shortcomings with the same smart, disciplined approach that has characterized their four championship runs.

If the heads-bowed, eyes-closed appeals to God seemed too bland at National Day of Prayer gatherings on Thursday, then Christians itching for a saber-rattling fight against Satan may be attracted to a May 15-17 conference in Van Nuys on what advocates call spiritual warfare. A conference brochure promises to teach how "repentance uproots the enemy" (Satan) and "how to identify and destroy strongholds" (of the demonic). One talk is titled: "You Can Be a Winner in the Invisible War." C.

Utah and Colorado officially joined the Pacific 12 Conference in July, but Kyle Whittingham , Utah's football coach, predicts more schools will soon follow. "It's inevitable that there are going to be four super-conferences in Division I football with 16, maybe even 18 teams in each conference," he said Tuesday during the weekly Pac-12 football coaches' conference call. "I'm not saying I'm in favor or against. I just think that's where it's headed, and I don't see any way around that.

Thank you for the wonderful reports from Nairobi. Hendrix's reporting made me feel I was there with her. Her insights and background information made both conferences much more intelligible and meaningful. I only regret that her articles were printed in the View section rather than on Page 1--where they really belonged. HENRIETTE SIMON Los Angeles

WASHINGTON-- Perhaps the $50,000 taxpayer-funded motivational video featuring a Gen. George S. Patton look-alike, played at the Veterans Affairs conferences, should have included a lecture on fiscal discipline. That seemed to be the message from a Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general's report released Monday spotlighting $762,000 in questionable expenses, including the Patton parody video, for two training conferences in Orlando, Fla., last year.  The report also assailed 11 VA employees for accepting improper gifts, including massages, limo rides, meals and tickets to the Rockettes.

It looks like 2012 is shaping up to be a big year for conventions and conferences. Room bookings for groups are up nearly 6% from February 2012 to January 2013 compared with the same period in 2011-12, according to data from TravelClick, a New York company that provides e-commerce products and services to the hotel industry. The good news for conference and convention goers is that daily group rates for the rest of the year are down 1.1%, according to TravelClick. So what cities will host the most meetings this year?

College football commissioners were going to end their three-day unity conference in Pasadena with a round of "Kumbaya" at the hotel's valet carport. That was before the consulting firm that dreamed up "College Football Playoff" suggested something more generic from "The White Album. " Ob - la - di, Ob - la - da. Kidding aside, it was a good week, mostly, to be the kings. The leaders from the power five conferences, led by the Southeastern Conference's Mike Slive and the Big Ten's Jim Delany, were masterfully able to convey the illusion of symbiotic overhaul.

SAN ANTONIO - Surprise, surprise, the Lakers made it to the Western Conference finals. Not really. But they did get repeatedly name-dropped Saturday by the San Antonio Spurs, which made sense considering the frontcourt duo the Spurs face in this round of the playoffs somewhat resembles the Lakers' tandem they quickly dispatched in the first round. Even one of the last names is the same. Instead of Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard, the Spurs must contend with the Memphis Grizzlies' Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph starting Sunday afternoon in Game 1 of the conference finals at AT&T Center.

2 San Antonio vs. 5 Memphis Season series: Tied, 2-2. Key stat: Memphis is averaging a league-low 11.1 turnovers a game in the playoffs, with point guard Mike Conley averaging only 1.9 turnovers in 38.5 minutes. Outlook: Both teams will have to hit the reboot button to prepare for a dramatically different opponent than they faced in the previous round. Having vanquished guard-oriented Golden State, San Antonio must deal with the interior tandem of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, who are averaging a combined 38 points and 17.2 rebounds in the playoffs.

Not that long ago, the virtual currency Bitcoin was one of the Internet's great rebel causes, a digital form of money embraced by libertarians and anti-establishment types who saw it as a way to diminish the power of big governments and big corporations. But Bitcoin's growing popularity and a recent surge in value has caught the eye of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, including some who are convinced that Bitcoin could be the biggest thing on the Internet since, well, the Internet itself changed our lives two decades ago. Now, Silicon Valley is about to perform its classic ritual to signify that a new technology, product or idea is ready to be taken seriously: It's holding a conference.

The Kings recently had a day off, a brief respite from the otherwise hectic postseason, with coaches holding an abbreviated morning skate for a dozen or so players. Drew Doughty chose to skip practice, hanging around the locker room, playing ping-pong with teammate Slava Voynov. "It's good to have a break," he said. "Make sure to get some rest. " The defenseman has earned it. During the regular season, Doughty ranked among the NHL's hardest-working players, averaging more than 26 minutes on the ice, fourth-most in the league.

San Jose winger Raffi Torres' jarring hit of Kings center Jarret Stoll on Tuesday triggered a sizable ripple effect that could alter the tone and course of the teams' Western Conference semifinal playoff series. The ripples could spread far enough for the Kings to lose a valued penalty killer for a while and for the NHL to severely punish Torres, a multiple repeat offender under the league's often murky code of justice. Torres was suspended Wednesday pending an in-person hearing scheduled Thursday in New York with the NHL's Department of Player Safety.

They rallied from a non-playoff team to the No. 2 seeding in the Western Conference, set a team record for consecutive home wins, displayed an exciting comeback nature, surprisingly emerged with dueling goalies, and locked up their two pending star free agents. Yet, the Ducks bowed out to the seventh-seeded Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. So following Sunday's 3-2, Game 7 loss that deprived Southern California of the first Ducks-Kings playoff series, the season assessments were: "Disappointment.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Even though its ubiquitous Internet search engine practically mints money, Google Inc. was widely seen as a company whose best days were behind it. It was written off as the next Microsoft Corp. - a staid high-tech giant in the shadows of Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. that had lost its sense of urgency and innovative edge. But that sentiment has shifted dramatically over the last year, and when Google swings open the doors to its annual conference for software developers Wednesday, it won't just be showcasing its latest products.

California ports are going green. In a speech at the 28th World Ports Conference on Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city's port is at the forefront of pushing for clean energy alternatives and reducing pollution. The conference, which kicked off Tuesday in Los Angeles, attracted port officials from around the world to discuss issues such as climate change, piracy and other problems affecting ships and the ports where they dock. Greening ports was at the top of many minds.