Demonstrations

Security researchers Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey have discovered a seven-digit numerical code that can unlock all kinds of secrets about you. It's your phone number. Using relatively simple techniques, this duo can use your cellphone number to figure out your name, where you live and work, where you travel and when you sleep. They could even listen to your voice messages and personal phone calls — if they wanted to. "It's really interesting to watch a phone number turn into a person's life," DePetrillo said.

CAIRO - Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip remained closed Sunday as the families and colleagues of seven Egyptian soldiers who were kidnapped in the northern Sinai Peninsula last week continued a sit-in. A video was briefly posted on YouTube showing seven men identified as the abductees, imploring the government to secure their release. "Rescue us, Mr. President. We can't take it. Rescue us, people," the men plead, according to an Associated Press account. It was unclear who posted the video.

Aurora Ponce is senior class president, boasts a near-perfect A average and is UC-bound with plans to study engineering. But according to the 18-year-old and her supporters, officials at the Accelerated School, a collection of South Los Angeles charter schools, have barred Ponce from making her valedictory speech at Saturday's graduation as punishment for participating in a student sit-in to protest increased class sizes and the elimination of college prep classes.

About 300 labor union members and other activists staged a demonstration to protest the potential sale of the Los Angeles Times to the politically conservative Koch brothers. Demonstrators marched outside the downtown L.A. headquarters of Oaktree Capital Management, an investment firm that holds a roughly 20% stake in Tribune Co., which owns The Times. Protesters alleged that Charles and David Koch, billionaire siblings who fund conservative causes, want to buy The Times in order to skew the paper's coverage to favor anti-union objectives.

I hope we'll see the same worldwide demonstrations for peace on Dec. 7, the 45th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, as we did on Aug. 6. VERNE KANNIANEN JR. Diamond Bar

The months-long confrontation between Iran's budding opposition movement and a hard-line government determined to stamp it out escalated sharply over the weekend, as parts of the capital became engulfed in fiery political protest and demonstrations broke out across the country on the occasion of an important Shiite religious holiday. Opposition websites reported as many as nine people killed in Tehran and the western city of Tabriz on Sunday during Ashura, a commemoration of the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

I'm sure you'll get barraged with complaints about Chief Gates' aggressive handling of the Operation Rescue demonstrations, but for all those silently thankful, I'll say it: Thank you, Chief Gates! It's time the tail stopped wagging the dog on this issue. A woman considering an abortion is in fact considering denying the responsibility associated with rearing that child. Few women undertake such a decision lightly, and those who would force the woman to follow through and bear the child under such circumstances cannot claim to have the child's welfare at heart, gut-level sloganeering notwithstanding.

About 3,000 members of a hard-line Iranian militia demonstrated against students who have staged strikes and sit-ins calling for freedom of speech. The protest by the bearded men and chador-clad women of the Basij militia at Tehran University came as police tried to prevent hundreds of pro-reform students from rallying there. Hard-liners accuse the students of insulting Iran's supreme leader. "Our red lines are the leader and the leadership. We will not remain silent.

Several thousand demonstrators, many carrying American flags, marched through Hollywood on Sunday demanding full rights for immigrants. The peaceful crowd walked from Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street to the Kodak Theatre shouting in Spanish and English. "We just want equal rights," said Mauricio Antonio, 24, a garment worker from Guatemala. "We are here to fight for the whole family," said Maria Gutierrez, a Compton teacher.

More than 600 antiwar protesters gathered near the home of President Bush's family to call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The president was spending the weekend at the Kennebunkport estate of his parents, former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, to attend a wedding and relax. "Hey George, while you're golfing and fishing, kids are dying. Sleep well," said one protester's sign. Another placard read, "We were misled and tens of thousands are dead."

May Day protesters marched down streets across the country Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who have entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas. The crowds numbered in the thousands, not the hundreds of thousands who turned out for the historic immigration marches of 2006. But with a major immigration package being debated in Washington, reform advocates wanted their voices heard. "Listen up, Obama: We are in the fight," people chanted in Spanish in Los Angeles and Chicago.

NEW DELHI - Several hundred people protesting the rape and kidnapping of a 5-year-old girl descended on police headquarters Saturday, waving signs, overrunning barriers and calling for the resignation of the capital city's police commissioner. The angry demonstration, which spread to a hospital and the homes of two senior officials, was reminiscent of the outcry seen after a 23-year-old student was brutally raped and killed in December, a crime that shook the nation and led to tougher laws and the creation of special courts for rape cases.

Showcasing the burgeoning and dynamic culinary scene represented in Los Angeles, The Taste includes local restaurant tastings and cooking demonstrations from celebrity top chefs, wine tastings/seminars, and signature events that will prove to be the talk of the town.

If anyone needs further evidence of how much Ryan McMahon of Santa Ana Mater Dei has matured as a player in his senior baseball season, just examine what he accomplished last week when he was named the most valuable player of the Southern California Boras Classic. On the first day of the tournament, he struck out four times in four at-bats against Newhall Hart. Then, in a marvelous demonstration of possessing the much-desired "short-term memory" skill found in quarterbacks and top athletes, he proceeded to collect eight consecutive hits over the next three games.

Several dozen demonstrators led by CodePink activists were in downtown San Diego on Saturday to protest the use by the U.S. of unmanned drones to conduct surveillance and air strikes. On a patch of public property adjacent to the carrier Midway museum, demonstrators read the names of teenage civilians purportedly killed in Yemen and Pakistan by drone air strikes. Among the protest signs were those reading "Made locally, Killing globally" and "Drones Kill Children. " "San Diego is ground-zero for the production of these lethal weapons that are killing innocent people and making the U.S. hated around the world," said CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin, author of "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

WASHINGTON - As lawyers debated gay marriage inside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, activists outside delivered speeches, cranked up boom boxes and hoisted hand-made signs. "Kids do best with a mom and dad," one said; "Jesus had two dads, he turned out OK," another declared. Advocates for same-sex marriage turned out in larger numbers than supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to legally married gay couples and was before the court. But the crowd of hundreds was smaller than the raucous gathering for Tuesday's arguments on California's ban on same-sex marriage.

Arnella Sims already has witnessed the effects of broad cuts to the Los Angeles County court system: The lines in the courthouses are getting longer; the calls from the public angrier. And Sims -- who has worked as a court reporter for 37 years -- knows things could get much worse. In the coming months, the Los Angeles County Superior Court is to enact a cost-cutting plan that includes the complete closure of eight regional courthouses, consolidations of court services and layoffs of hundreds of court employees.

In the divided world of American politics, it's not easy to find an issue on which the legal affairs correspondent for the Nation and the former chairman of the American Conservative Union agree. But we've found one: the crucial importance of transparency in government, especially when the president claims the power to kill us without charges or trial, by directing the launching of a remote-control drone. As this is Sunshine Week, a national initiative to promote dialogue about the importance of open government, what better time for the president to make good on his promise to lead the most transparent administration ever and tell us what's up with the drone policy?