Heads Of State

Flying home from Michigan on Air Force One, President Obama sat in front of a television and watched Hosni Mubarak deliver a surprising speech: He would not quit. Earlier in the day, Obama had told an audience that "we are witnessing history unfold," a sign that he understood the Egyptian president would resign. Now Obama was watching a defiant Mubarak announce that he was transferring some presidential powers but would remain in office. Returning to the White House, Obama summoned Vice President Joe Biden and top foreign policy aides to the Oval Office.

Helen Chaplin, a sprightly senior executive at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel for more than 40 years who won the hearts of European royalty, heads of state, political pundits and A-list celebrities by attending to their whims as guests, has died. She was 97. FOR THE RECORD: Helen Chaplin obituary: A news obituary of hotel executive Helen Chaplin in Tuesday's LATExtra section quoted Bill Wilkinson, the former president of Ayala Hotels who hired Chaplin to work at the Checkers Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, but failed to note that Wilkinson died in July.

Ross Johnson says if he were "king"— rather than merely the state's lead campaign watchdog — he'd invoke the political death penalty for any candidates who libeled their opponents. Yank them off the campaign trail. Or, if they'd already reached office, boot them out. He'd make candidates subject to the same libel laws that apply to newspapers when they write about public officials. It's harder to libel a politician than an ordinary citizen. Basically, a public figure must prove that an article was false and was published with reckless disregard of the truth.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski was laid to rest in a centuries-old crypt Sunday alongside the remains of some of the most revered figures in this nation's often tragic history. The funeral Mass and procession to the nation's most sacred cathedral put a somber end to a week of mourning in Poland. Kaczynski and his wife were killed last weekend when the presidential plane clipped a tree and crashed while landing at a fog-shrouded provincial Russian airport. Many top Polish military officials, lawmakers and leading figures from the nation's recent history also died in the crash.

Within hours of the state funeral for Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife in Krakow, members of Los Angeles' Polish community gathered for a memorial Mass to honor Polish dignitaries killed in the April 10 plane crash in Russia. Polish scouts -- girls in gray uniforms with green scarves knotted at the neck and boys in khaki shirts with yellow ties -- silently lined the walkways leading to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown. Inside, more than 400 Angelenos of Polish descent, including members of Polish parishes in West Adams and Yorba Linda, filled pews near the altar, many holding red-and-white Polish flags.

The body of their president was finishing a long journey home Sunday, and by the tens of thousands, Poles poured into the streets of a paralyzed capital to watch it pass. It seemed as if nobody could bear to sit at home, as if they had to take some physical part in a national tragedy that happened in a place that was braided into the Polish psyche -- and yet lay distant, on the far side of a geographic border and an ideological boundary. The remains of President Lech Kaczynski were recovered from the site of the plane crash in Russia that killed 96 people Saturday, including many top Polish officials and leading figures from the nation's recent history.

Colombia's constitutional court dealt a death blow Friday to President Alvaro Uribe's hopes of running for a third term, ruling that a referendum proposed by his supporters to open the way for another candidacy would be illegal. The highly anticipated ruling comes before a presidential election scheduled for May 30, opening the way to an exciting, compressed campaign with no clear front-runner. Candidates include former Medellin Mayor Sergio Fajardo, former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, Sen. Gustavo Petro and previous presidential candidate Noemi Sanin.

President Obama will receive the Dalai Lama on Thursday in the Map Room of the White House instead of the Oval Office, not one-on-one but in a group, and then will leave town without a joint appearance before television cameras. Pointedly employing no protocol that implies head-of-state status for the Tibetan leader-in-exile, the White House is also being explicit about its invitation: Obama meets the Dalai Lama as an "internationally respected religious leader and spokesman for Tibetan rights."

Viktor Yanukovich, the former mechanic who just six years ago was shunned as a pro-Moscow stooge, declared victory in Ukraine's presidential election Sunday after early exit polls showed him leading by a slim margin. Three exit polls showed Yanukovich leading by 4 to 5 percentage points in a runoff election that threatens to deepen political instability in the contentious former Soviet state. His opponent, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, refused to concede, and the numbers were being bitterly argued into the early hours Monday.

A suspected financial swindler who allegedly boasted he was the brother of former Mexican President Vicente Fox pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of stealing more than $600,000 through bogus investment plans, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Alfredo Trujillo Fox, 66, was arrested Saturday on a felony complaint and was being held in lieu of $1-million bail, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. He was arraigned Monday on 15 counts of grand theft, 15 counts of unqualified sales of securities, 15 counts of misrepresentation in sales of securities and two counts of tax evasion.