Google Doodle

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe receives an homage in today's Google Doodle. The German-born modernist architect would have turned 126 today. The doodle -- a drawing of a rectangular glass and steel structure with the word Google just barely visible imprinted on the building -- is based on S.R. Crown Hall  in Chicago, one of Mies' most celebrated structures. The building houses the Illinois Institute of Technology's College of Architecture and was completed in 1956, when Mies served as the head of the architectural department of the school, then called the Armour Institute of Technology.

Today's Google Doodle celebrates the first lady of song, Ella Fitzgerald, on what would have been her 96th birthday. The stylized doodle puts her in the spotlight on stage leading a quartet. Fitzgerald became the preeminent female jazz singer of her time thanks to her unflagging sense of swing, her skill at scatting and meticulous diction that always allowed lyrics to come through clearly. She recorded with most of the great bandleaders and instrumentalists of her time, including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Chick Webb and Mel Torme.

California farm labor leader Cesar Chave z was honored on Eastern Sunday with a Google doodle on the home page of the search engine.   The honor comes several months after President Obama last year visited the Tehachapi Mountains hamlet of Keene to dedicate the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument. In 2011, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar added the headquarters of the United Farm Workers and Chavez's residence from 1971 to his death in 1993 to the National Register of Historic Places.

Earth Day 2013 gets its own Google Doodle today, an honor that kicks off a day dedicated to reminding us to tread gently on this planet that we all share. The Earth Day 2013 Google Doodle unveils a scenic mountain meadow, with a babbling brook and a lake that's home to a school of fish. Click around and you'll see more: fireflies, a bear emerging out of a cave, a -- what is that? a badger? -- as well as ants, and dandelions you can "blow out. " The passing of the seasons provides a backdrop, all under the watchful, alternating eyes of the sun and the moon.

Google homepage doodle is forever changing to mark various anniversaries, holidays or great moments in history. And today, it's a tribute to "Star Trek. " It was 46 years ago Saturday that "Star Trek" first premiered on NBC. The series ran for just three seasons, to 1969. The interactive doodle reduces the "Star Trek" experience to three key moments. There's the crew assembled on the bridge of the Enterprise, the away team in the ship's transporter room, and the crew on the surface of an alien planet, complete with unpleasent alien creature and an unhappy fate for the red-shirted crewman.

Doodle 4 Google, the nationwide art contest that gives kids a shot at landing their artwork on the Google homepage, kicks off Monday. The prize is a $30,000 college scholarship for the winner and $50,000 for his or her school. Parents love that part. But aspiring young artists will probably be as impressed by the instant-gratification angle: By appearing on the Google homepage, the big winner's artwork could be seen by more people in a day...

At least four people were injured Sunday afternoon after a man crashed into a San Jose Walmart, exited the vehicle, picked up a blunt object from inside the store and began to assault customers, police said. The man drove a red two-door car between 10 and 20 feet into the store on the east side of the city about 11:15 a.m., said Officer Albert Morales, of the San Jose Police Department. Authorities have not released the identity of the man. One of the customers suffered a serious injury and was taken to a local hospital.

He was the leader of a movement that inspired the downtrodden all across the land, but not the one whom some expected to grace Easter Sunday's Google doodle. On Sunday, Google's doodle over its search bar featured a beatific portrait of Mexican American labor icon Cesar E. Chavez -- rather than a celebration of Easter, the day Jesus rose from the grave. That riled some Christians and Easter fans for what they perceived as a slight. (See a selection of tweets below.) Chavez, who died in 1993, would have been 86 on Sunday.

LA MESA, Calif. -- And there he was: the Easter Bunny riding a shiny red motorcycle westbound on Interstate 8 along this San Diego suburb. California Highway Patrol Officer Adam Griffiths spotted the bunny on Saturday. White furry suit: good. Pink ears: good. Floppy white feet: good. White gloves: good. No helmet: not good. Griffiths flicked on his red light and ordered the motorcyle rider to pull over. The bunny had an explanation: I'm on my way to an Easter charitable event and this is my costume, he said.

Julia Child would have been 100 years old today, but there's no doubt that this culinary and cultural legend has achieved immortality by the way the nation is celebrating her centennial birthday. To start with, #JuliaChild is trending on Twitter, and "Julia Child" is the single most searched-for term on Google on Wednesday morning. Then, there's the Google Doodle -- a technological nod to Child's lasting cultural significance. The Google Doodle shows her in her kitchen surrounded by many of the foods she taught Americans to cook without fear: whole chickens, fish, and chocolate layer cake, items that cleverly form the "Google" in the doodle.

Salads get a bad rap. Often the obligatory first course at a dinner, a plate of greens drenched in dressing is easy to overlook. But sometimes, if you get creative, a salad can be the real star of a meal or even a meal in itself. Monday morning's #Weekendeats chat participants went beyond the Caesars and Cobbs and got creative with their salads. Here are some highlights: Susan Orlins from the blog Confessions of a Worrywart shared a recipe for a crunchy salad made with broccoli, carrots, cabbage, jicama, bell pepper, radish, celery, pine nuts, pistachios, blue cheese and pomegranate.

A Pop Tart and ice cream concoction called the Carl's Jr. Pop Tart Ice Cream Sandwich has hit a Newport Beach location of the fast food chain. If you just did a double take and reread that last sentence because it was one of those oh-my-God-is-this-really-happening-sounds-too-good-don't-tease-me moments, you're not alone.  Spec_J posted a photo of the item on Instagram taken at an unidentified Carl's Jr. location in Newport Beach....

Leonhard Euler, a Swiss mathematician who continued to work on complex equations from memory even after he went blind, is honored in Monday's Google Doodle on the 306th anniversary of his birth. Euler, who wrote nearly 900 books over the course of his career on topics such as lunar motion, optics, acoustics, algebra, calculus, geometry and number theory, is one of the most prolific and important mathematicians of the 18th century, and possibly of all time. He was so prolific that a St. Petersburg, Russia, academy continued to publish his unpublished works for at least 30 years after his death in 1783.

I still don't think Google insulted Christians around the world when it chose to honor Cesar Chavez rather than focus on Jesus Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday, which happened to be the 86th birthday of the late civil rights icon. And I still think it was a mistake for American conservatives, at the very moment the Republican Party is desperately trying to make inroads with Latino voters, to denigrate Google's home page  design by insulting Chavez. (Dana Perino, former spokeswoman for President George W. Bush, said she thought the homage to Chavez was a “hoax.”)

Google on Tuesday is noting the 366th anniversary of Maria Sibylla Merian's birth with the gift of the Google Doodle. So what makes Merian special? Her work was a marriage of art and science in a time of few female scientists and little documentation of pupal insects. The 17th century artist and naturalist (thus, the search engine's name spelled out with curled flora, fauna and critters), was captured by butterflies and other pupal insects. PHOTOS: Google Doodles of 2013 The daughter of an engraver and publisher and stepdaughter of a botanical painter, she started studying silkworms as a child in her native Frankfurt, Germany.

Authorities continued to search late Monday for two Costa Mesa hikers who called for help from a cellphone before their battery died. About 8:25 p.m. Sunday, Nicholas Cendoya, 19, and Kyndall Jack, 18, notified authorities that they were lost while hiking in Trabuco Canyon, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department. The two thought they were about a mile from their vehicle, authorities said. Deputies searched for the man and woman on foot but were unable to find them.

Even people who know nothing about art know the works of Auguste Rodin. The French sculptor who created "The Thinker" and "The Kiss" was born on this day in 1840. Google has created a blue-tinted homage to the sculpture on the occasion of the artist's birthday. "The Thinker" (Le Penseur) was first created in 1902, though there are many other casts of the famous sculpture. Rodin's sculpture of Honore de Balzac also exists in many versions, including casts at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena.

International Women's Day is today. How are you observing it, aside from perhaps noting the Google Doodle set up in its honor? Maybe you're signing an online petition seeking gender equality in medical research. Or tweeting using the hashtag "#womensday" to honor women's progress and to renew commitments to women's rights. If you're in Kabul, Afghanistan, you might be making a stop by that city's first Internet cafe just for women. International Women's Day is not nearly as well known in the United States as it is in other parts of the globe; elsewhere, it's marked by rallies, banners and even a day off. Many people in Armenia and Mongolia get time away from the job; in China, only women have that luxury.

There's no intolerance like good conservative intolerance. On Easter Sunday, Google incurred the wrath of the conservative Twittersphere when it chose to feature on its home page a portrait of California civil rights pioneer Cesar Chavez instead of Jesus Christ. Chavez, of course, was the co-founder, with Dolores Huerta, of the United Farm Workers union. March 31, as it happens, is Cesar Chavez Day, declared in 2011 by President Obama to honor the man who did more than almost anyone else to improve the condition of migrant farmworkers in this country by leading boycotts, non-violent protests and collective bargaining.

SAN DIEGO -- A civilian supervisor on construction projects at Camp Pendleton has been charged with bribery after being caught in an FBI sting, federal officials said Monday. Natividad Lara Cervantes, 64, a civilian employee of the Department of Defense, was arrested after accepting $10,000 cash as a down payment on a $40,000 bribe in exchange for helping a contractor receive a $4-million flooring contract at the base, officials said. Cervantes, a supervisor for construction and service contracts in the  inspection branch, used his position to "extort bribes from businesses seeking to do business" at the base and referred to himself as the "Godfather at Camp Pendleton," the FBI said.