Holes

WASHINGTON - When President Obama pledged this week to strengthen the nation's mental health system to help reduce gun violence, he also implicitly acknowledged that a gap remains in his signature effort to guarantee Americans access to healthcare. Two landmark laws - including the sweeping 2010 health law - have been enacted since 2008 to improve mental health treatment. But the Obama administration is still writing rules for both measures that will change how insurers deal with millions of Americans who suffer from mental illness and addiction.

Five questions 1 Can the Kings repeat as Stanley Cup champions? No one has won the Cup two years in a row since the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998. In the Kings' favor: The lockout gave them time to recover from the usual Cup hangover, and their roster stayed intact. Not in their favor: They'll open without center Anze Kopitar (sprained knee) and defenseman Willie Mitchell (knee surgery). They were 29th in scoring last season and need more punch on the left side to escape being a No. 8 playoff seed again.

NASA's NuSTAR X-ray telescope is providing fresh views of oddly bright black holes and breathtaking supernovae, scientists said Monday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach. NuSTAR mission scientists released high-energy X-ray images of two strangely bright black holes in the arms of spiral galaxy IC 342 about 7 million light years away and of Cassiopeia A, the shell of an exploded star, known as a supernova, just 11,000 light years away. Since its launch last summer , the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array has been snapping shots at energies up to 79 kiloelectron volts - far beyond the roughly 10 KeV limit of other X-ray telescopes such as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The fan base is howling. A star player is leaving. And some recruits are wavering. So as USC attempts to put its lost season behind and move forward, Coach Lane Kiffin said everything would be under review. The starting point is clear-cut. "You look at yourself first," Kiffin said after the Trojans' 21-7 Sun Bowl loss to Georgia Tech. Kiffin's self-examination will no doubt be aided with gusto by Athletic Director Pat Haden, who has steadfastly stood by the 37-year-old coach through a season of underachieving performances on the field and a public-relations nightmare off it. Kiffin, however, won't spend all of his time looking in the mirror.

Microsoft has released a temporary fix for its Internet Explorer browser, which the company says has a security hole that could allow hackers to take over a computer. The security hole, which Microsoft confirmed over the weekend, affects Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8, and could allow malicious code, placed on some unsuspecting websites, to be embedded in a computer system after the browser visited the site.  “An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user,” Microsoft wrote in a security advisory released Saturday.

Nick Watney maintained a slim lead midway through the second round of Tiger Woods' World Challenge on Friday, but Woods and several other players charged into contention. Watney, the first-round leader, was six under par through eight holes at soggy Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, while Graeme McDowell and Bo Van Pelt were one shot behind. Woods was two shots back at four under. So was Rickie Fowler, whose eagle on the par-five No. 2 hole and consecutive birdies at holes No. 9 through 11 left him five under on the round.

The beautiful people have a new L.A. club to call their own. Couture, with a runway in the middle of its dance floor - not for tipsy girls with catwalk fever but for actual fashion shows - is built to resemble a chic designer store. With impeccably soft lighting (think Louis Vuitton at the Wynn in Vegas), Couture aims to stitch the worlds of haute fashion, popular music and glittering celebrity into one sizzling space. Display cases are even built into the bar featuring silk scarves, pricey sunglasses and Swiss watches.

It's no surprise that Spain, the United States and the British Isles are favorites among  golfers. But Asia , particularly Thailand, is a new contender. By year's end, more than 600,000 golfers will have visited the Thai kingdom in 2012, spending an estimated $2 billion on ground arrangements alone, according to industry statistics. The double-digit growth comes despite a worldwide recessionary drop-off in travel. Asia is benefiting because golfers have a never-say-die attitude, said Mark Siegel, the president of Golfasian , one of the largest golf tourism companies in the region.  "It's counterintuitive," he said.

Astronomers on the hunt for supermassive black holes have discovered one so monstrous that its mass dominates the central hub of its galaxy in a way that defies scientists' expectations about how typical black holes behave. Described in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature, the black hole may push theorists to revamp their ideas of how these mysterious structures grow and evolve. Astrophysicists said they were scratching their heads at how thoroughly this gargantuan black hole - seated in the galaxy NGC 1277, about 220 million light-years away - hogs its galactic bed. Supermassive black holes typically account for just 0.1% of the mass in a galaxy's stellar bulge, the cluster of older stars huddled around the center.

Republicans seem to have no lack of understanding about how badly their presidential nominee, Mitt Romney,  damaged the party brand by demonizing a good chunk of the electorate as “victims” and “gift” grabbers - the slothful masses who just can't wait to take a government handout. The party faithful might also want to reconsider their recent demonization of one of their previous favorites, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, if they hope to recapture the heart of America.