Foundation

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.

It's called Lot 160, a 5-inch glass tube that's unremarkable in every way - except that it purportedly held blood drawn from President Ronald Reagan as he lay struggling for life after an assassination attempt. The vial, partially coated with a ring of a residue, is being offered for sale by a British online auction house where bids Tuesday reached nearly $15,000. A label and an accompanying document identify it as having contained a blood sample taken from Reagan at George Washington University Hospital on March 30, 1981, the day he was shot outside aWashington, D.C., hotel.

Times are tough enough for Californians; they're even tougher for Californians' teeth. "One-quarter of all adults and 28% of children in California have untreated dental caries [cavities]," says Len Finocchio, a senior program officer at the California Healthcare Foundation, a health advocacy group. "Our research tells us that many people in California have been avoiding routine care that might have cost about $100 for a checkup and cleaning, and then find themselves in the emergency room, where they get only an antibiotic, a bill that can average over $600 and instructions to see a dentist."

PHILADELPHIA - Saturday the Barnes Foundation opens its new museum here on the busy Benjamin Franklin Parkway. With hundreds of Renoirs, Cézannes, Matisses and Picassos, it's just up the street from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, whose officials were instrumental in pulling strings to make it happen. Anticipation has been running high. Eight years ago a local judge granted permission for the incomparable art installation to relocate from its unique home out on the Main Line, available to anyone who wished to visit.

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)

Want to fool merchants with a fake ID? Hack someone's text messages? Or how about tracking where your co-workers are, without their knowing it? There's an app for that. The explosion in smartphone and tablet applications that enable people to check the weather, follow their stocks and play Words With Friends has a dark side: apps that facilitate questionable if not outright illegal behavior. Apple's App Store, for example, offers Drivers License software that promises "unlimited access to realistic-looking licenses" for all 50 states.

So how many omega-3 fatty acids are enough — and how should you get them? That likely depends on your age and your specific health concerns. The United States does not yet have guidelines for DHA or EPA, and consensus among nutrition experts is elusive. But specialty groups, some governmental agencies and individual experts have started to take a stand. For healthy adults without major medical issues, the European Food Safety Agency recommends a daily dose of 250 milligrams of combined EPA and DHA, while the National Heart Foundation of Australia suggests 500 milligrams.

A foundation created to help needy students at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College paid its director tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses, membership fees at exclusive private clubs and a $1,500 monthly car allowance, according to interviews and records reviewed by The Times. The Trade-Tech Foundation paid a $5,000 initiation fee at the California Club in downtown Los Angeles for Executive Director Rhea Chung. It also paid for other membership fees for her, including the L.A. Philharmonic at $2,300 a year and the Central City Assn.

Bob Kahl slips in through a side door of the vast, abandoned hangar and looks at what's left of the assembly plant where he worked for nearly 40 years. He remembers the hum of power tools, the biting aroma of cutting oil, swarms of workers plugging away on a labyrinth of yellow scaffolding. All that's left is a few piles of broken concrete and a sea of colorless dust that coats a Palmdale factory floor the size of two football fields. "Welcome to the birthplace of America's space shuttle fleet," said Kahl, 60, smiling.

Thank you for publishing a correction on Sept. 18 stating that the Atlanta-based Children's Wish Foundation is not the organization charged with fraud and misleading advertising in California. It would be very difficult to describe what has happened since The Times misidentified us in a story regarding fraud charges made by California's attorney general. The organization actually charged is the Children's Wish Fund, based in Carson, Calif. Members of our staff, supporters and our accountants in Washington have all received calls demanding answers to the fraud charges, accusing us of not fulfilling our obligations to very ill children and threatening not to support our organization.

The California Science Center has received what officials describe as an "extraordinary" financial contribution to the new Air and Space Center that will house the space shuttle Endeavour. The gift, to be announced at a news conference Thursday, comes from a foundation chaired by Lynda Oschin, wife of the late Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist Samuel Oschin, whose name already graces the Griffith Observatory planetarium and the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center cancer institute stemming from charitable contributions there.

PHILADELPHIA - Copies of famous paintings are everywhere: on dorm-room walls, on computer screens and lately pouring forth from Chinese art factories, which can churn out a hundred passable Rembrandts in a week. Architectural copies, on the other hand, remain rare, especially at full scale. Las Vegas and the original Getty Museum aside, it's not often you see an important building, in whole or in part, rebuilt in one location to match the original in another. The Barnes Foundation, in moving its spectacularly deep collection of postimpressionist and early Modern art from suburban Merion, Pa., to the center of Philadelphia, will on May 19 open a high-culture, high-stakes experiment in the second kind of duplication.

Once again addressing the controversial issue of executive pay, a panel of the California State University Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to freeze state-funded pay for new campus presidents but allow individual college foundations to raise funds to boost those salaries. The nonprofit campus foundations would be able to augment taxpayer-funded pay for new executives up to 10% above that of their predecessor. The policy would be reviewed in 2014. Four members of the Special Committee on Presidential Selection and Compensation meeting in Long Beach voted for the change, with one member absent.

A faculty governing body at Los Angeles Trade Technical College issued a no-confidence vote in the college president and called on him to resign over a financial scandal at the college's foundation. Roland "Chip" Chapdelaine announced earlier this month that he will retire in June 2013, when his contract ends. But faculty leaders said they want him out this year. Wednesday's no-confidence vote by the Academic Senate was the first in the school's history. The final vote was 17-1, with 6 abstaining.

When Jackie Morgan MacDougall and other parents learned that their Saugus Union School District received the least state aid of any district in the county, she said they had to act. With the state contemplating deeper aid cuts, MacDougall and others began circulating petitions to create an education foundation — a nonprofit organization in which community members raise funds for teacher grants, instructional equipment, extracurricular activities...

The embattled former chairman of a foundation at Los Angeles Trade Technical College that has come under scrutiny over its executive director's lavish perks and spending resigned from the board Thursday, with parting shots blaming the college president for some of the foundation's issues. Darryl Holter had previously stepped down as chairman of the foundation board, but on Thursday resigned from the panel altogether. Holter had been criticized for allowing the foundation's executive director, Rhea Chung, to receive the perks.

Performing artists in music, dance and theater and arts organizations with budgets of as much as $150,000 may apply for grants and fellowships from the California Community Foundation's annual Brody Arts Fund Awards. Fellowships of up to $5,000 will go to individuals, and organizations will receive grants ranging from $2,500 to $5,000. Ten awards will be made in each category. Applications, which must be submitted by March 19, are available by calling the foundation at (213) 413-4042.

Parents of students at Glenoaks Elementary School have established a foundation to raise money for the school. The first goal of the foundation is to buy new playground equipment. Future goals include expansion of the word processing program, a physical educational consultant for the primary grades and foreign language instruction. The first fund-raiser will be an "Ask a Professional Day" from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 21 at the school, 2015 E. Glenoaks Blvd., Glendale.

California has struck deals to keep 11 state parks open and more reprieves are in the works, whittling the number of parks that will be closed this summer because of budget cuts, officials said Tuesday. Private donors, foundations and other government entities have come forward with funding or operating agreements to keep the 11 parks open for one to three years, said Roy Stearns, deputy director of California State Parks. The agency announced last year that the state's fiscal troubles would force it to shutter 70 of the 278 parks in the system.

Reporting from Tucson — The Dodgers sent a part of their team to the Phoenix suburb of Surprise on Friday to face the Kansas City Royals. Another group traveled more than two hours from the team's spring-training complex to Tucson, where the Chicago White Sox were waiting for them. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier were in the second group. So were fellow starters Dee Gordon, Juan Rivera, Mark Ellis and A.J. Ellis. Veteran reserves Tony Gwynn Jr. and Jerry Hairston Jr. also made the 130-mile trip.