Energy

Quarterfinal action began with a pair of upsets Friday afternoon at the Farmers Classic at UCLA's L.A. Tennis Center. Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania defeated France's fourth-seeded Nicolas Mahut, 6-4, 6-4, to reach his first ATP tour semifinal. He is the first qualifier to reach the semifinals at the Farmers Classic since Carsten Ball in 2009. Ball advanced to the championship before losing to Sam Querrey. Rajeev Ram advanced with a 7-6, 6-3 victory over third-seeded Leonardo Mayer of Argentina.

Hedda Bolgar, a psychologist old enough to have attended Sigmund Freud's lectures in Vienna but youthful enough to have treated patients until just a few weeks ago, has died. She was 103. Her mind was sharp, her zest for work keen, and her social calendar full until shortly before her death on Monday, said Allen Yasser, her longtime friend and colleague. "It took me a month to get a dinner date with her, and we were virtually family," said Yasser, a psychologist and psychoanalyst.

Phil Jackson never liked to compare Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan. Believe me, I tried everything. Sometimes I'd ask him after random Lakers practices or before games against Charlotte, the team Jordan owned. Or after games in Chicago, where nostalgia hopefully would add to the mix. There would be a little nugget here, a tiny nibble there, but nothing that mattered. It's coming out now, though, in Jackson's 339-page memoir co-written with Hugh Delehanty and available Tuesday: "Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success.

BALTIMORE - Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet - one-tenth the size of the average new American house - and sits in his Maryland yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap - that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

You've heard about the "Wheat Belly" diet, right? Well, technically, it doesn't exist. Dr. William Davis points out that the word "diet" does not appear on either the cover of his bestselling "Wheat Belly" book published in 2011 or on the follow-up, "Wheat Belly Cookbook," which was published last month and already tops bestseller lists. And that omission is intentional, Davis said. "Wheat Belly" is about stripping your plate of a substance that contributes to heart disease, causes joint pain, inflammation, foggy thinking, bloating and much more, Davis said.

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

Four days after her April 27 breast reconstruction, the third and final surgery aimed at sparing her an early death from breast cancer, Angelina Jolie was in good spirits at home. Upon paying a house call, her surgeon, Dr. Kristi Funk of the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Beverly Hills, found two walls of the actress' home covered with "freshly assembled story boards" for her next directorial project. "All the while she spoke," the doctor later wrote on her blog, "six drains dangled from her chest, three on each side, fastened to an elastic belt around her waist.

Merry Clayton's spine-chilling vocal on the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" is one of the most famed in '60s rock. But the 1969 classic brings painful memories to Clayton: The physical strain of the intense duet with Mick Jagger resulted in a miscarriage after the session. So audiences' frequent requests for "Gimme Shelter" might sting like salt in an old wound. Clayton, who performs at the Gardenia Room on Friday, says she was buoyed by her religious upbringing in combating the loss.

On bright days, the rooftop of the Anaheim Hilton is so blindingly white that it looks like a mirror positioned directly at the sun. That dazzling glare might just be the greenest thing to happen to the top of a building since solar panels. The white coating deflects nearly 85% of the heat that hits it, reducing the surface temperature by as much as 50 degrees. That means less energy is needed to cool the hotel's interior, cutting air-conditioning costs and carbon emissions.

He was one of the creators of the iPod and the iPhone. Now former Apple executive Tony Fadell is trying to bring some of that magic to a gadget that is an afterthought in most homes. Called Nest, it's a smart thermostat geared to the iPhone generation. It's designed to learn homeowners' schedules and surroundings and keep them comfortable while saving them money on energy bills. Nest can also connect to a home Wi-Fi and be remotely controlled with a smartphone, tablet or laptop.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's nominee to lead the Energy Department won unanimous confirmation by the Senate on Thursday while two other Cabinet choices narrowly advanced out of committee, amid complaints from Democrats over Republican delaying tactics. Ernest J. Moniz, an MIT physics professor who becomes the new Energy secretary, is the fifth Cabinet appointment confirmed since Obama won a second term, and the first without any Republican dissent. By comparison, all but one of President George W. Bush's 11 initial second-term appointments were confirmed by the end of April, even though his party held no more Senate seats than Democrats control now. Republicans had delayed consideration of Thomas E. Perez, Obama's choice to lead the Labor Department, and Environmental Protection Agency nominee Gina McCarthy before Thursday's party-line committee votes to recommend them to the full Senate.

ESCONDIDO, Calif. - Lieuwe Westra, red-faced and shaking, was the winner of Sunday's first stage at the Amgen Tour of California, on a day when temperatures on the route were recorded as high as 105 degrees. James Stemper, of the 5-hour Energy/Kenda Racing team, who was awarded the title as most courageous rider for helping lead an early breakaway, said, "Heat was probably the biggest factor of the day. Eventually you could not pedal very hard. " Carter Jones, who rides for the Bissell Pro Cycling team and who earned the most points toward winning the King of the Mountain title as best uphill rider, said, "The heat was brutal.

San Francisco City Atty. Dennis Herrera has sued Monster Beverage Corp., accusing the company of pitching highly caffeinated drinks to minors as young as 6 years old. The lawsuit, filed Monday in San Francisco Superior Court, is the latest twist in a battle between Herrera and the Corona company about the caffeine content of Monster energy drinks and how the beverages are marketed. Herrera's move followed Monster's opening salvo April 29, when the company sued Herrera in federal court in Riverside, alleging that he was singling out the beverage maker and threatening to block sales of its drinks in their current form.

California energy officials are preparing for another summer without the San Onofre power station while facing the growing possibility that the nuclear plant will never return to service. The nuclear plant, one of only two in the state, was powered down more than a year ago when a small amount of radioactive mist leaked from one of the thousands of tubes in the plant's steam generators. Southern California Edison officials said in financial statements last week that if federal regulators do not agree to the utility's proposal to restart one of the plant's two units at partial power, they might elect to retire the plant completely by the end of the year.

SACRAMENTO - A "Made in USA" label has long been seen as an advantage in marketing a product. Now there are in-state manufacturers that want to see the adoption of an official label that declares Made in California. State Sen. Ellen M. Corbett (D-San Leandro) has introduced legislation to require Go-Biz, the governor's business development office, to come up with a plan - including the new label - to promote California-manufactured products. The bill, now before the Senate Appropriations Committee, would enhance California's reputation for making environmentally safe and energy efficient products, Corbett said.

Re "Sci-fi worthy of Malthus," Opinion, April 30 So, does "human imagination" to find new sources of energy apply only to fossil fuels? Doesn't it also extend to the ingenuity needed to develop clean, sustainable energy from the sun and other alternative sources? Maybe before Jonah Goldberg promotes fracking and asteroid mining (did I read that correctly?), he might first consider supporting solar energy. That's not pessimism because we think we are depleting our source of energy (fossil fuels)

Our civilization is fast approaching a tipping point. Humans will need to make the transition from nonrenewable fossil fuels as the primary source of our energy to renewable energy sources that will allow us to flourish into the future. Failure to make that transformation will doom us to the endless political machinations and economic conflicts that have plagued civilization for the last half-millennium. We need new technologies to be sure, but without evolved political and economic systems, we cannot become what we must.

Health and fitness products can make great holiday gifts. A thoughtfully chosen natural remedy or exercise device sends all of the right messages: I care about you, I want you to feel your best and I don't want to risk guessing wrong about your sweater size. But if you give a health product that doesn't live up to its claims, you end up sending a different message: I didn't do my homework, sorry for the disappointment and, hey, better luck next year. In an annual tradition, the Healthy Skeptic has gathered several items that could conceivably end up on a gift list.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - President Obama capped a three-day visit to Latin America on Saturday by urging the region's leaders to fight the drug war not with more guns or military aid but with greater investment in infrastructure, education and energy. Communicating that message, delivered Friday night to a group of Central American leaders and again Saturday at a development conference in San Jose, was the chief aim of Obama's brief visit south, which also included a stop in Mexico City.

WASHINGTON - President Obama will seek to cement relations with Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, over the next two days with vows of neighborly kinship and future cooperation. But the true test of their ability to work together may be whether they can hold their tongues. Obama's visit to Mexico City comes as the fight over border security and immigration reform has begun to consume Congress. Peña Nieto supports the effort but wants to avoid the mistakes of a predecessor, Vicente Fox, who lobbied for a 2001 immigration reform bill in Congress.