Gathering

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

The sleepy Central Coast town of Arroyo Grande, population 17,000, is the ideal place to shut out the mayhem of city life for a few days. There's not much to do except relax, drink wine, read your book and take sunset strolls. The bed. House of Another Tyme Bed & Breakfast (227 Le Point St.; (805) 489-6313; http://www.anothertymebnb.net ; rooms for two, $120) is a remodeled Victorian home that dates to 1916 and contains three guest rooms. The B&B is run by husband-and-wife Jack Tiedemann and Judy Zwarg.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

SAN JOSE — Wondering where to go on vacation this year, and what to do? A growing number of "social travel" start-ups offer alternatives to the trusty, dusty guidebook. Sites like Twigmore and Triptrotting help you troll your social networks for friends who have friends in new places, then hit those people up for advice from a local's perspective — or arrange meet-ups when you get there. Another new site, Trippy, helps you keep track of all those interesting places you've come across on the Web while researching travel destinations.

Conservative activists began a three-day gathering in the nation's capital Thursday with a clear mission -- defeating President Obama -- if not a clear sense of how to get there. Thousands have descended on a Washington hotel for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference at a time when the race for the Republican presidential nomination has taken yet another unexpected turn. Mitt Romney seemed to have secured his position as the front-runner with convincing victories in Florida and Nevada.

Supporters of an initiative that would crack down on illegal immigrants will have until July 9 to collect more than 2,500 additional signatures for a petition to place it on the ballot, the city clerk said Wednesday. The proposal, written by anti-illegal immigrant activist Joseph Turner, was expected to go before voters until a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge ruled Monday that the formula the city used to determine the number of signatures Turner needed was flawed.

The Scene: Hollywood book launch for Vanity Fair correspondent Dominick Dunne's latest tome, 'A Season in Purgatory." The novel from Crown revisits familiar Dunne territory--the wretched rich. Sunday night's cocktail party at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills was hosted by VF's L. A. editor, Wendy Stark. The Buzz: The gathering of the ancien regime of Hollywood society ("Richard Gully and Lee Minnelli in the same room--the old guard lives!"

Re "Races With No Winners," Commentary, Sept. 4: Ward Connerly's argument that individual Californians are being hurt by the state collection of racial and ethnic data is patently absurd. Social justice groups and health advocates view the gathering of racial and ethnic data as a positive step toward providing better public services to all communities in California. Gathering racial and ethnic data to understand how different diseases affect different communities is a good thing. Gathering racial and ethnic data to determine which kids are not receiving a sound, quality education is a good thing.

About 500 former Latvian SS soldiers who fought for the Nazis during World War II gathered in Riga for a controversial commemoration of their unit's 55th anniversary. More than 100,000 Latvians served in the Latvian Legion. The gathering has been assailed by groups that see it as an affront to those who suffered Nazi atrocities.

About 300 survivors of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau in West Germany gathered to remember the joys of liberation by U.S. troops 45 years ago and the horrors that went before. Participants said the gathering at Brive-la-Gaillarde, southwest of Paris, was the largest such reunion ever and the first to which Eastern Europeans were free to attend.

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

In 1953, Mason Gaffney and Estelle Lau got married. They were young, itinerant professors, he of economics, she of education. Because of Lau's Chinese heritage, and because the U.S. Supreme Court had not yet struck down race-based marriage restrictions, when they moved out of California, their marriage was no longer recognized. "It was unthinkable," said their son, Stuart Gaffney. And then, in 1987, it wasn't - because Stuart Gaffney moved to San Francisco and fell in love with a man named John.

Build-a-Bear Workshop was introducing a line of stuffed animals called smallfrys and wanted to reach moms through Facebook. One video used in the online promotion showed a woman pulling up to a fast-food window. Her young daughter requests "a smallfry. " When her mom suggests a fruit cup or celery sticks, the daughter says, "Mom, order me a curly-haired bunny in a purple sequined bathing suit. " The 45-second smallfrys spot came not from a traditional advertising agency but from Poptent Inc., a "crowdsourced" video production studio that has built a global community of 50,000 writers, directors, cinematographers and animators to create commercials for Build-a-Bear, American Airlines, Dell, Intel, Jaguar, General Mills and others.

SAN FRANCISCO - There may be more trouble forGoogle Inc.in Europe as privacy regulators consider reopening or broadening their investigations into the company's collection of personal data through its Street View service. The move comes after the engineer who wrote the software code seemed to suggest that the collection was not inadvertent, as the search giant had claimed. The admission from Google in 2010 that it had collected data including emails, passwords and other personal information from unprotected wireless networks set off a furor in Europe, which has more stringent privacy regulations than the United States.

NEW YORK - Yahoo Inc.staged its glitzy presentation for advertisers in a theater near Central Park, with appearances by Katie Couric, "CSI" creator Anthony E. Zuiker and, via video, Tom Hanks. AOL Inc.rented out a three-story production studio in the gentrified Meatpacking District, which it filled with pounding dance tracks as gym-sculpted servers carried trays of beverages and snacks. A series of celebrity-studded presentations concluded with 1970s TV star Marlo Thomas taking the stage as AOL awarded prizes, including a new Ford Mustang convertible.

Owners of the Glendale Galleria have launched a massive makeover intended to update the regional shopping center in downtown Glendale. Improvements to the 1.5-million-square-foot center will include the previously announced addition of a Bloomingdale's department store in the space formerly occupied by Mervyns. The Bloomingdale's store is set to open next year. Other changes will be the most comprehensive since the mall opened in 1976 and "nothing short of dramatic," General Manager Larry Martin said.

Don McLeod, 53, is a livestock consultant in Newgulf, Tex., population 250. Karen MacLeod, 19, is a music student in Los Angeles. The two have never met. If they do, they say, they will have an automatic affinity for one another. For besides a name differentiated by only one letter, they share a history, a heritage and a tradition. "The McLeod family has always been very close," said Don McLeod. That "family" has an estimated U.S. membership of 160,000.

In an unprecedented gathering expected to draw 400 participants from around the world, the ivory tower will meet the bordello at the first International Conference on Prostitution, starting tomorrow at the Airtel Plaza Hotel. Sociologists will rub elbows with porn stars. And instead of the usual coffee-and-cookies reception, the meetings will open with a self-styled "Whore Carnival: A Festival of Sexual and Social Insurrection," hosted by X-rated performers Annie Sprinkle and Scarlot Harlot.

Brett Hundley as UCLA's starting quarterback is a decision that may be in the near future. Hundley, who was a redshirt as a freshman in 2011, took a big step toward winning the job Saturday. He ran the first team almost exclusively, getting a large chunk of reps as UCLA coaches wanted to get a look at his decision-making abilities. "We wanted to see him make all the small decisions you have to make in this offense," offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone said. "We put a lot of decisions on the quarterback at the snap of the ball.

E. Richard "Rick" Brown, the founding director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research who pioneered the collection and wide dissemination of health survey data to influence public policy and was a leading advocate for healthcare reform, has died. He was 70. Brown, who lived in Santa Monica, died April 20 in a hospital in Lexington, Ky., where he suffered a stroke after moderating a panel at a conference on health communication, said his wife, Marianne Parker Brown. A professor in the Department of Health Services at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Brown founded the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research in 1994.