Feats

It was evidently good enough for Gilligan and Robinson Crusoe. But is coconut water a healthy choice for people who aren't stranded on a deserted island? A longstanding treat in tropical regions across the globe, coconut water hit U.S. supermarkets a few years back and is now being marketed with a vengeance. Sometimes billed as nature's sports drink, the slightly sour beverage has also acquired a reputation for being able to improve circulation, slow aging, fight viruses, boost immunity, and reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke.

If California starts building a 130-mile segment of high-speed rail late this year as planned, it will enter into a risky race against a deadline set up under federal law. The bullet train track through the Central Valley would cost $6 billion and have to be completed by September 2017, or else potentially lose some of its federal funding. It would mean spending as much as $3.5 million every calendar day, holidays and weekends included -- the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, according to industry and academic experts.

For years Chase Abrams has lived a double life: By day a popular student at Sierra Canyon School who played football and enjoyed hanging out with friends, by night an intent student of film studies at Cal State Los Angeles who organized college film festivals and held his own intellectually and socially. Today, the energetic 18-year-old can finally take a breath.

"The Avengers"are here, and resistance is futile. Even if you're frustrated by the relentless calculation of Marvel Studios' plan for world cinema domination, fed up by the shameless way the studio used several of its earlier, at times pro forma superhero movies to promote this one, even if you don't particularly like comic-book adaptations, this film just might make a believer of you. That's because, just like Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson),...

Jockey Mark Guidry dominated Friday's 10-race program at Sportsman's Park, riding six longshot winners to match the all-time track record. Guidry, a 33-year-old native of Lafayette, La., won the first race with Valkeith, who paid $22.60; the second with Maybe K.B., $14; the fifth with Bonne Blue Boy, $21; the seventh with Full Forward, $18.40; the eighth with Hesaneighborto, $19.20, and the ninth with Compodray, $12. Guidry's performance is the best by a jockey at Sportsman's Park in 42 years.

Mark Tucker was determined to conquer Mt. Everest, and if it meant serving as a cook to do it, then so be it. "I'd take whatever position was available, just to get on the team," he said. So when the Chinese government whittled back the number of Mt. Everest permits it would issue Tucker's climbing team, he volunteered for kitchen duty--a minor inconvenience, he said, for a chance to scale the 29,028-foot mountain in windy, subfreezing weather.

Chances are, if you run across a little old lady dressed in purple spandex and leading a saddled goat any time soon, she'll probably be in front of you. Sandra Johnson, a 66-year-old South Pasadena woman, is undertaking the monumental task of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, from Mexico to Canada, for the second time. A trail junkie, the grandmother of three long ago forfeited her job and home to heed the call of the wild.

Eight hours of practice and an utter lack of common sense have brought me here, poised to descend 19 steep steps to the ballroom floor of "Dancing With the Stars." I lean heavily on a backstage railing, hyperventilating, and await the cue. Outwardly, I have undergone the transformation from entertainment reporter to salsa dancer, ready to perform before a live audience in strappy heels and a zebra dress with a plunging neckline and beaded fringe that sways with every teetering step.

* Janice Bright, who had never been a tournament MVP before this season, added her second of the season when she was named MVP at the Nike Tournament of Champions. Her team, Lynwood, posted victories over three nationally ranked teams. * The line for Valerie Ogoke in St. Mary's 58-12 victory over Archer Academy: 35 points, 19 rebounds, 10 steals. * Nikole Ramos had six three-point baskets among her 21 points for Don Lugo in a 57-51 loss to El Dorado.

reporting from washington The 6-foot-10 left-hander with perhaps the most menacing sneer and imposing mound presence in baseball history had to take a few exaggerated breaths to keep from breaking down Thursday night.

It is the final hill of the mountain, golf's equivalent of the last 100 yards to the top of Everest. It is a picturesque canyon, a natural amphitheater for the viewing of hope and horror. It is the 18th hole at Riviera Country Club. There, on a Sunday afternoon filled with the usual excitement and drama of the final round of what is now known as the Northern Trust Open but is etched in the minds of local sports fans as the L.A. Open, Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley wrote a new chapter to the lore.

It begins innocently enough, with sleigh bells. On Friday at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Gustavo Dudamel will conduct Mahler's most classical, least angst-ridden symphony, the Fourth, which opens with frolicsome jingling and ends in angelic folk song. But that's just the start of a project so ambitious as to be a little crazy, to use one of Dudamel's favorite words, and the word he, himself, chose to describe the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Mahler Project during a conversation in his office at Disney Hall.

At the pre-show warm-up for "Bring It On: The Musical," performers in their 20s are stretching and assuming yoga postures, others are jumping rope or jogging softly in place. It's what you might expect from any cast of a musical. Then suddenly, downstage right, there's a complicated, unfamiliar moving shape that turns out to be a man flat on his back, doing fast, full push-ups into the air with a tiny young woman standing straight on his hands. A similar surprising amalgam of styles is being seen by audiences at the Ahmanson Theatre.

Live long enough, you'll see everything. One of America's major sports just announced a new collective bargaining agreement. It is the same one that is expanding its drug testing program to become the first to include blood testing for human growth hormone. And that sport is baseball. Where have you gone, Pete Rozelle? You too, the young David Stern? Baseball lost the 1994 World Series to civil strife between small-market clubs and large-market clubs and a 25-year war with the players union.

A series of circus vignettes depicts the experiences, memories and vision of a traveling circus performer at this installment of Circus Vargas. The animal-free extravaganza features death-defying motorcycle feats, aerial artistry, hilarious clown antics and more. Westfield Topanga, 6600 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Canoga Park. 7:30 p.m. Thu., 4:30, 7:30 p.m. Fri., 2, 5, 8 p.m. Sat., 12:30, 3:30, 6:30 p.m. Sun., 6:30 p.m. Mon. $15-$50. http://www.cirusvargas.com.

The densely packed, questioning documentary "The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby" is a remarkable feat of personalized biography. Like a case officer parsing more than just facts, filmmaker Carl Colby delves into the story of his late dad's intelligence career — World War II O.S.S. operative, stealth campaigner against Italian Communists, controversial Vietnam War strategist and finally secret-spilling CIA director during legendary 1970s congressional hearings — with a respectful yet keen eye toward the moral pitfalls of patriotic duplicity.

A three-man U.S.-British team announced plans Friday to attempt the first nonstop, around-the-world balloon flight. The team will be headed by Jacques Soukup, a South Dakotan who lives in England.

There's something about the unadulterated human body -- barely clad, muscled, in motion -- that is absolutely thrilling. Such was the case at Pepperdine University on Tuesday when Renee Jaworski and Otis Cook, two members of Pilobolus Dance Theatre, displayed astonishing feats of virtuosic balance and endurance in the 2001 duet "Symbiosis."

Ryan Alexander is a 14-year-old freshman at Lake Balboa Birmingham who is so small that he could fit in his school locker. He wears size 5 shoes, stands 4 feet 11 and weighs 85 pounds. "I don't think people stop and say, 'Boy, look at that kid. He must be an athlete,' " cross country Coach Scott King said. Underestimate Alexander if you like, but he can probably outrun any football player going three miles or longer. "When he trains, you can tell right away he's a special talent," King said.

Google Inc.'s YouTube was counting on Hollywood's love affair with sequels when it hired Robert Kyncl as its emissary to the studios. As a key architect of Netflix's popular on-demand Internet streaming service, Kyncl negotiated the deals that gave subscribers access to thousands of movies and television shows. Now he's hoping to repeat that feat as head of TV and film for Google and YouTube, the world's largest video platform, with 500 million monthly viewers. Kyncl is working to broaden the site's entertainment offerings beyond what YouTube is best known for — countless music videos, first-person accounts of natural disasters and quirky user-created productions like the recent marriage proposal shown as a trailer before the movie "Fast Five.