Conferences

There's good and bad news when it comes to American obesity, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday at an event addressing the nation's increasingly costly and deadly weight problem.

As President Obama heads for his second economic summit in three months, lingering skepticism about U.S. leadership threatens to produce a policy stalemate that could undercut prospects for recovery at home and abroad. Behind a veil of traditional diplomatic courtesy, leaders of the other wealthy economies are all but certain to resist any major new steps to stimulate global economic activity.

One Sunday in March, a man strode down the aisle of the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill., pulled out a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and fired at the pastor. The Rev. Fred Winters deflected the first bullet with his Bible, sending bits of it into the air like confetti. But the next three rounds hit Winters, killing him.

To start their morning Sunday, about 20 Jews attended a Mechitza Minyan service in a ballroom of a Costa Mesa hotel, praying in Hebrew, with separate seating for men and women. A few doors down, a group wearing sweat pants and T-shirts began their day by breathing deeply and twisting their bodies in a class titled "My Body, My Temple: Yoga for the Jewish Soul." A couple of hours later, a third group engaged in a discussion about Israel's national security agenda.

The worldwide economic storm might ease by the end of the year, an economist told a gathering Wednesday of international shipping lines, terminal operators, retailers and trucking companies in Long Beach. "The very worst part of this particular business cycle is occurring in this quarter, but as we move forward through the rest of the year, the decreases will diminish until the fourth quarter, when we actually move into the positive range," said Joseph P.

Security is tight at investment bank Allen & Co.'s annual conference. Held at the tony Sun Valley Resort nestled in the northern Rocky Mountains, the fairly secretive gathering of media kingpins, technology geniuses, billionaire investors, politicians and even the occasional star athlete also is filled with moonlighting detectives and retired police officers watching everyone and everything like a hawk. One question: What exactly are they guarding?

A Middle East conference scheduled to be held next week at a prominent Pasadena church has sparked tensions between local Christians and Jews. But those involved say they hope to use the episode as a chance for increased dialogue and, perhaps, a deeper understanding of the sensitive issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Several Los Angeles rabbis and others in the Jewish community have criticized a decision by All Saints Episcopal Church to allow its facilities to be used Feb.

Several promising, large-scale trials trying to prevent the spread of HIV have produced sobering results, as researchers discussed at a meeting last week, but longer-term data on new treatments are proving encouraging. Much of the buzz at the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, the largest yearly scientific meeting on HIV and AIDS, centered on further analyses of a Merck & Co. vaccine trial known as STEP.

THE "post-classic" era of winemaking is dawning, according to experts at the second Climate Change & Wine conference in Barcelona, Spain, at the end of last week. And it's going to be full of nasty surprises. What might "post-classic" wine be like? Scientists told winemakers and other industry professionals at the gathering to expect natural acidity to drop, colors to fade and alcohol levels to rise. Aromas could vanish. In short, wine may gradually lose the complexity wine lovers appreciate.

Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy A. Simon solicited donations from companies he regulates to help pay for a nonprofit conference on green energy hosted last month by one of his political patrons, documents and interviews show. Two weeks after the conference, the three most generous corporate donors to the Willie L. Brown Jr.