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Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

Moody's Investors Service raised the credit rating of Ford Motor Co. to an investment grade, giving its seal of approval to a corporate turnaround of the business that started with heavy borrowing at the end of 2006. The move Tuesday returns control of the automaker's famous "Blue Oval" logo back to Ford. The logo, with the Ford name written in distinctive script, was first seen on a Model A in 1928 and was pledged as collateral to obtain the loans. Moody's raised its assessment of the creditworthiness of Ford's automotive operations to Baa3, up from Ba2. Ford Motor Credit Co., the automaker's finance arm, now has a rating of Baa3, up from Ba1. The investment rating is an important measure of corporate health and will reduce the automaker's borrowing expenses.

In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era. It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence. A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity - and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it. Just eat your cake - or better yet, an apple - earlier.

Amid all the ballyhoo over what a bold visionary Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is, let's pause for a moment to appreciate the work of Eugene Polley, inventor of the TV remote control, who has died at age 96. Think about it. Before Polley's brainstorm, people actually had to get up out of their seats and cross the room to change TV channels. Simply put, there would be no couch potatoes without this man. I don't mean to be snarky.

Disco legend Donna Summer, 63, died Wednesday night, reportedly of lung cancer. As of press time, her family hadn't released details about her illness, so it was unknown what type of lung cancer she had, and how long she may have been ailing. According to the American Cancer Society , lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both women and men, killing more than 150,000 people per year -- more than colon, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers combined. In 2012, the group estimates, there will be about 226,000 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S. Survival rates of people with lung cancer are low. Only about half of people diagnosed with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (the more common type)

When Pink Floyd first took its concept album "The Wall" to the concert stage more than three decades ago, even lead singer and chief songwriter Roger Waters couldn't imagine a day when rock music might get any bigger. But 32 years later, his magnum opus about the battle between individual freedoms and authoritarian oppression has magnified beyond Waters' own expectations of yore. Now the man who once excoriated the voluminous expansion of the rock concert experience has helped institutionalize it. "I famously hated playing to large numbers of people and playing in stadiums," Waters, 68, said from a tour stop in Austin, Texas, earlier this month.

washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."

The most ambitious federal mortgage program to date aimed at millions of underwater homeowners is poised to take off in the coming two weeks, yet some key issues could hinder borrower participation. One of them involves something most owners know nothing about: Who was your mortgage insurer on your underwater loan? Though it was announced by the Obama administration late last year, "HARP 2.0" — the second version of the Home Affordable Refinance Program — will finally hit full stride around the middle of this month, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finish tweaking their automated underwriting systems to accept applications, and lenders and mortgage insurance companies start handling large volumes of requests.

First of three parts Tiffany Lee wanted a car. She was weary of the two-hour bus ride to her job at a UCLA Health System clinic. She hated having to ask friends to drive her 7-year-old son to his asthma treatments. But as a single mother with three children, bad credit and a $27,000-a-year salary, she couldn't find a bank or dealership willing to give her a loan. Then a friend steered her to Repossess Auto Sales in Hawthorne. Another buyer might have balked at the deal she was offered.

You look fat in that. Of course I'll be late. Your baby reminds me of Gollum's uncle. This is what the 2013 Subaru BRZ might say if it could talk. The all-new, rear-wheel-drive sports car starts at $26,265, and boy is it honest - perhaps more so than any other car on the market today, save for its mechanical twin, the Scion FR-S. The two were jointly developed by Subaru and Scion's parent company, Toyota, with both assembled by Subaru in Japan. The question about the BRZ is, can you handle the honesty?

- Ernesto Frieri's eyes lighted up. Would he like to be a closer? "For sure," Frieri said. "That's every reliever's dream. " The Angels might give Frieri that chance. If the Angels had not scored insurance runs in the top of the ninth inning Friday, Frieri would have been in line for his first major league save in the bottom of the inning. That was more about wanting left-hander Scott Downs to face the left-handers the San Diego Padres had lined up in the eighth inning, Manager Mike Scioscia said.

Los Angeles firefighters are taking longer to get to medical emergencies following steep budget cuts approved by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council, according to a much-anticipated audit of Fire Department response times released Friday by City Controller Wendy Greuel. Greuel found that "real response times" to medical calls have increased on average about 20 seconds - to seven minutes and eight seconds - since a series of department cutbacks were ordered beginning in 2009.

OK, so I recognize that guy. Of course, absolutely, that's him. Still clutch, still fearless, still talented enough to throw his aging body in front of a defeat and almost single-handedly stop it, spin it on its axis, and turn it into a victory. Yeah, Kobe Bryant is still the one. Two days after giving away a second-round playoff game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Bryant grabbed one back for the Lakers on Friday night, controlling the momentum and creating the magic that gave the Lakers a 99-96 home victory in Game 3. With memories of Bryant's fourth-quarter collapse Wednesday still fresh, Bryant scored 14 points in this fourth quarter to give the Lakers new life, if only for 24 hours.

When Lee Baca took over the L.A. County Sheriff's Department in 1998, he publicly pledged to end excessive use of force and brutality by deputies, noting that if he didn't fix the problem someone else from outside the office might well do it for him. Nearly 14 years later, however, little has changed. Baca's jails are the subject of multiple investigations. The FBI is examining allegations of deputy misconduct and violence. Internal affairs is investigating a secret clique within an elite anti-gang unit whose members allegedly sported tattoos of gun-toting skeletons.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, teetering on the brink of financial ruin, approved a controversial deal Monday to surrender day-to-day control of the historic venue to USC. The 8-to-1 vote would virtually end public stewardship of the 88-year-old stadium, a jewel of its South Los Angeles neighborhood built to honor World War I veterans and financed with public money. USC has long sought control of the Coliseum, decrying the property's outdated condition as unfit for the school's Trojan football team, which plays there.

If Monday didn't represent rock bottom for the Angels, it's going to be a very long summer. A night after getting routed by division-leading Texas, the last-place Angels slipped deeper into the abyss by suffering their major league-leading eighth shutout - a 5-0 loss to the Oakland Athletics compounded by the troubling absence of their most uplifting player. A's starter Tyson Ross, who began the night with a 7.71 earned-run average, threw six shutout innings while retiring Albert Pujols three times and allowing just one Angel to reach third base.

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years. The evidence makes it clear that oral sex practices play a key role in transmission. The new data, published online Thursday by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., are the first to assess the prevalence of oral HPV infection in the U.S. population.

Lamar Odom's voice on the phone frequently was barely above a whisper. The pain clearly registered in words that flowed in stops and starts as he delivered a soliloquy about death and the effect it has had on his psyche. The Lakers forward spoke deliberately and expressed how emotional it has been for him to deal with two recent deaths. Odom attended a funeral in New York on July 13 for his 24-year-old cousin, who Odom said was murdered. The next day, Odom was a passenger in an SUV in Queens when it collided with a motorcycle.

State authorities are investigating whether the head of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum illegally sought a job with USC even as he was responsible for protecting taxpayers in talks to surrender control of the stadium to the university. The probe is focused on whether Coliseum Interim General Manager John Sandbrook violated conflict of interest laws while negotiating a proposed lease to give USC stewardship of the public venue for at least 42 years, said Gary Winuk, enforcement chief at the Fair Political Practices Commission.

ATHENS — As it teeters on the brink of political chaos, Greece passed another day without a government after highly splintered elections that gave no party overall control of Parliament. Politicians remained deadlocked Tuesday over how to handle Greece's monumental debt crisis, fueling fear far beyond the country's borders that it could collapse into financial mayhem and wreak untold consequences on the world economy. Deepening the feeling of instability, the second-place finisher in Sunday's elections, a staunch leftist, said he would try to stitch together a coalition government with the aim of tearing up Greece's bailout agreements, a move that would spark a dangerous escalation of the euro debt crisis.