Flood

Your coverage of the tragic flooding in Venezuela neglected an important part of the story. This latest flood is part of a global trend due to warming from greenhouse gases, mainly CO2 from the gas and oil we burn, and it is accelerating. Though we don't know where the next flood will hit, the climate is changing, and warmer air can hold more moisture. Perhaps we Americans can do something more lasting than sending humanitarian aid, by signing on to global treaties and cutting our energy usage.

Tens of thousands of cycling, hockey and basketball fans will converge at Staples Center in a weekend packed with post-season games and the final stage of the 2012 Amgen Tour of California - events that authorities are warning will close streets and delay traffic in the downtown Los Angeles area. The biggest wrench in traffic will be crowds overlapping for the Kings game and the bike race Sunday. Street closures were scheduled to begin after the Lakers game Saturday night - along Figueroa Street from Pico to Olympic boulevards and on Chick Hearn Court/11th Street from Flower Avenue to Georgia Street - when two pedestrian bridges will be erected so Kings fans can cross the bike route Sunday morning for Game 4 of the NHL Western conference finals.

Last week, at a place called Bird's Point, just below the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, the Army Corps of Engineers was busy mining a huge levee with explosives. The work was made dangerous by outbreaks of lightning, but eventually the charges were in place and corps Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh gave the order: A 2-mile-wide hole was blasted in the earthen levee, and a wall of water greater than the flow over Niagara Falls inundated 130,000 acres of prime Missouri farmland.

WASHINGTON - A hard-hitting commercial blasting President Obama's stimulus spending as a "failure" flooded television sets last week in eight swing states that will be decisive in November's presidential election. It was not the product of presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, nor of the national Republican Party. Instead, it was made by Americans for Prosperity, a Virginia-based nonprofit that for months has poured millions into anti-Obama commercials. Its latest buy totaled $6.1 million in airtime.

A record number of investors and second-home buyers flooded the Southern California real estate market in December, though not enough to give sales in the region a bump over the same month a year earlier. With the investor dominance, low-cost homes reigned. That helped push the region's median home price back down to its lowest level in 12 months, according to San Diego real estate firm DataQuick. Sales fell 1.4% from the same month a year earlier, with a total of 19,247 homes bought throughout the six-county region.

Where to check To find out if your home is in a 100-year-storm flood plain and subject to the insurance mandate, go to: msc.fema.gov

The remnants of Tropical Storm Lee threatened flooding from the Tennessee Valley to New England on Tuesday, while people in the storm's wake continued to face power outages and blocked roads. The National Weather Service issued flood and flash-flood watches and warnings from the Southern U.S. through the Appalachian Mountains and into the Northeast. Heavy rains will continue through Thursday, with 4 to 8 inches expected, though some areas could get as much as 10 inches. "These rains may cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the weather service said.

Re "Religion, Geology Collide at the Grand Canyon," Jan. 7: Creation science books make fascinating reading. Did you know that the sedimentary rock layers visible in the Grand Canyon were laid down by the Old Testament flood at the same time as the flood cut through them to form it? Amazing. Another interesting thing is that the vast amounts of water (many times the volume of all the oceans put together) required to cover the entire Earth to a depth of over five miles above the current sea level came from titanic caverns.

Hungry, sweat-soaked flood survivors stood ankle-deep in mud, beaming at the sight of bags of cooked rice and clothes being doled out by relief workers from a white van that slowly rumbled through their broken neighborhood. The help was coming from Falah-e-Insaniat, a wing of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa militant group, but that didn't matter much to the dirt-poor residents of this stretch of half-destroyed brick huts and flooded wheat fields. No government agency or international relief organization had shown up, and that made Falah-e-Insaniat their lifeline.

Directing outdoor theater is challenging, but an ambitious family musical with tricky design elements and a cast of more than 200--most of them nonprofessionals and children--well, that's just insanity. And yet, this is the task for Peter Schneider, who is directing "Norman's Ark," a spirited new musical making its West Coast premiere May 27 at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. Luckily, Schneider was the Tony Award-winning producer of "The Lion King" on Broadway.

Eight years ago, the Los Angeles Board of Education adopted an ambitious plan to have all students take college-prep classes to raise academic standards in the nation's second-largest school district. Now, that plan is about to take effect: Beginning this fall, incoming freshmen will have to pass those classes to graduate. On Tuesday, district officials backtracked, offering details of a proposal to reduce overall graduation requirements and allow students to pass those classes with a D grade.

Inside his mini-mart in the desert town of Indio, store manager John Stafford is busy stockpiling caffeinated drinks. Monster and Red Bulls mostly. He knows from experience that he'll need plenty this weekend. Tens of thousands of visitors will descend upon the desert region beginning Friday for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. "Cigarettes and energy drinks," Stafford said. "They need to stay awake out there. " Fans and bands may need an extra stamina boost this year.

Las Vegas-area home sales are on the mend as cash rules supreme. The long-suffering Las Vegas housing market last month had its strongest sales for a February in six years, according to San Diego real estate research firm DataQuick. Sales were up 5.0% from January and 8.9% from February 2011 to total 4,240 homes sold in Clark County. New home sales hit a four-year high and sales of previously owned homes were at their strongest since 2005. Cash buyers purchased 52.9% of Las Vegas-area homes last month, a sign of just how prevalent investors are in that market.

Danielle Pepers is such a fan of"The Hunger Games"that she had the book's unofficial mascot - a mockingjay - tattooed on her right arm this month. But her intrigue with the books and movie, which hit theaters Friday, didn't stop there. On a recent Wednesday, Pepers, 27, was shopping for T-shirts and jewelry at Hot Topic, a teen-oriented chain store at the Glendale Galleria that sells pop-culture ephemera. A mound of movie tie-in merchandise greeted her at the door. There were knee socks, pillowcases and nail polish.

Torrential downpours from Texas through the Mississippi River area brought flash floods Wednesday as the region coped with a slow-moving storm system bringing winds, rain and possibly some tornadoes. The National Weather Service posted flood and flash flood warnings for parts of eastern Texas, eastern Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana , Missouri and western Mississippi, where up to 10 inches of rain have fallen. “A slow-moving cold front will continue to be a focus for heavy rain and thunderstorms across this area, as well as across eastern Arkansas,” according to the weather service.

President Obama sure can pick 'em - at least as far as NCAA brackets are concerned. While most Americans and even so-called experts saw their brackets busted in the opening rounds of the college basketball tournament, Obama fared surprisingly well. He ranks in the 98th percentile in ESPN's "Tournament Challenge," with 460 out of a possible 640 points. That's good for a rank of No. 131,052 out of the millions submitted on the network's website. Obama missed on 13 of the 48 games played so far. The overall leader on ESPN missed just six games.

With floodwaters finally receding, Georgians began the unglamorous task of cleaning up Wednesday, while taking stock of the destruction from an unprecedented autumn deluge that has claimed nine lives and caused an estimated $250 million in damage. Across the state, roads opened and residents returned to view the damage to their homes. In the early hours Wednesday, work crews managed to fix much of the damage to a city of Atlanta water-treatment plant that spilled millions of gallons of water into the Chattahoochee River.

Reporting from Mohib Banda, Pakistan Standing in the rubble of what used to be his house, Gul Wali on Monday pointed to a small, green burlap bag and explained why most residents of his flood-ravaged village no longer rush to where military helicopters continue ferrying aid. The bag, one of the relief packages dropped by Pakistani government helicopters, contains a box of dried milk and a few bottles of water and Pepsi. It won't sustain a family of six, and with just $35 in his pocket, Wali says he can't fathom how he'll rebuild his home or replace the Toyota Corolla taxi that helped him make a living.

Four southern Louisiana parishes were under a state of emergency Tuesday after heavy rains poured through the region, causing flash flooding. According to the governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness , a state of emergency was declared in Acadia, St. Landry, St. Martin and Lafayette parishes. No injuries were reported, but at least 77 residents had to be rescued from high water in Carencro , a town in Lafayette Parish, the state agency said.