Indians

From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A. Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago. "We were taught all the blessings of that Hebrew lineage belonged to us and that we were special people," said Loayza, now a Salt Lake City attorney. "It not only made me feel special, but it gave me a sense of transcendental identity, an identity with God."

A growing number of Indian tribes are getting into the payday loan business, saying they just want to raise revenue for their reservations while helping cash-strapped consumers nationwide. But federal officials suspect that, at least in some cases, tribes are being paid to offer their sovereign immunity to non-Indian payday lenders that are trying to dodge state regulations. So far, the tribes have prevailed over California and other states that have tried to assert authority over tribal lending operations.

In response to a letter written by Jai Somanath (Oct. 24), I would like to thank him for giving the Indians of the Americas a lot of credit. He did what the Europeans, including the Spanish, have never done--he spoke well of the accomplishments of Indian civilizations in the Americas. PANTALEON HUERTA Whittier

The bungalow where George Orwell was born, in Motihari, Bihar, India, is finally being turned into a monument , Agence France-Presse reports -- but it's a monument to Mahatma Gandhi, not the British writer. Local officials laid a foundation stone at the site over the weekend. The house, where Orwell (then named Eric Blair) was born in 1903 and lived for a year before leaving for England, has been neglected for decades. It was damaged by an earthquake in 1934, has played host to scores of stray animals and, despite a promise in 2009 by the state government to fix it up, had been left to the mercy of weather and time.

at Cleveland 5, Texas 0 : Aaron Laffey pitched effectively into the seventh inning to remain undefeated at home. Laffey did not give up an earned run for the third time in four starts since July 24. He is 4-0 with a 1.59 ERA in five home starts this season. at New York 7, Toronto 5 : Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada hit consecutive homers leading off the eighth inning and the Yankees won for the eighth time in nine games. Kansas City 14, at Minnesota 6 : Miguel Olivo homered and drove in three runs, and the Royals had their highest run total of the season.

at Detroit 4, Cleveland 3 (10 innings): Placido Polanco hit a sacrifice fly in the 10th inning to help the Tigers complete a three-game sweep and increase their lead in the AL Central to five games over Minnesota. New York 10, at Toronto 5: Jorge Posada homered and drove in four runs, Alex Rodriguez also homered and the Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays for their seventh straight victory. Seattle 7, at Oakland 4: Bill Hall, Franklin Gutierrez and Kenji Johjima each hit two-run homers to help Ian Snell win his fourth straight start.

Texas 5, at Cleveland 0 : Rookie Tommy Hunter (5-2) turned the shutout tables on the Indians, pitching into the eighth inning to lead the Rangers, who bounced back from a 5-0 loss to Cleveland on Tuesday with their league-leading eighth shutout. at New York 4, Toronto 3 (11 innings) : Robinson Cano hit a game-ending RBI single in the 11th inning. Cano also homered for the Yankees, who have won nine of 10 to move a season-best 28 games over .500. Oakland 6, at Baltimore 3 : Landon Powell homered in Oakland's four-run fourth inning, and the Athletics won a third straight series for the first time since April 2008.

While the Boston Red Sox begin the search for a new manager in the wake of the firing of Bobby Valentine, one of their old managers, Terry Francona, is trying to find a manager's job of his own. Francona, who managed the Boston Red Sox to World Series titles in 2004 and 2007, arrived in Cleveland on Friday morning to begin a daylong interview to become the new manager of the Indians. Francona, who parted ways with the Red Sox before the 2012 season and was replaced by Valentine, was a TV analyst last season.

Cleveland 6, Dodgers 3 AT THE PLATE: Manny Ramirez singled, James Loney doubled and both scored on infield outs in the second inning. Blake DeWitt doubled and scored on Rafael Furcal's single in the fifth. ON THE MOUND: Knuckleballer Charlie Haeger, named the Dodgers' fifth starter earlier in the day, gave up a solo homer to Grady Sizemore and walked six but otherwise shut down Cleveland in five innings. Relievers George Sherrill and Ramon Troncoso gave up five runs, three unearned.

Re Ray Loynd's Oct. 9 review of the American Native Theatre Company's "Mystic Voices," at the Southwest Museum: Loynd implies the program stereotypes Indians. Actually, his review is a legacy of the stereotyping of Indians. I'll bet he expected a little more out of this show, something a little more mystical or noble , or perhaps hauntingly beautiful . Well, contrary to the image portrayed in movies, of which Loynd's image appears to be a refinement, an Indian generally likes to laugh as much as the next person.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court was asked Tuesday to decide who should raise a 3 1/2-year-old girl who was given up by her single mother: the South Carolina couple who adopted her at birth or her biological father, who invoked his rights as a Cherokee Indian to claim his child. The justices spent part of the morning as family court judges, and they did not envy those who must decide such emotionally trying disputes every day. "Domestic relations pose the hardest problems for judges," said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

International cinema takes the spotlight with the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles continuing at the ArcLight Hollywood multiplex, the UCLA Film and Television Archive's celebration of Iranian cinema opening Saturday at the Billy Wilder Theater, followed by the 17th City of Lights, City of Angels French film celebration opening Monday at the Directors Guild of America with the North American premiere of Daniele Thompson's "It Happened in...

Even by his hyphenate standards, Alan Cumming has been pretty busy lately. The Tony-winner and Emmy-nominee's role as slick campaign manager Eli Gold on "The Good Wife" continues to be meaty, with the series recently picked up for a fifth season. He's set to star in a one-man "Macbeth" that opens on Broadway later this month (more on that shortly). And now he has several film projects in the works. Cumming tells The Times that he's come aboard to star in "First-Class Man," the long-developed Roger Spottiswoode film about an Indian prodigy who makes the move from his native country to Cambridge, England.

Acclaimed director Mira Nair's ("Salaam Bombay!) latest film, the political thriller "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," will be among the more than 30 features, documentary and short films screening at the upcoming 11th Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. The festival , which is celebrating the 100th year of Indian cinema, opens Tuesday at the Arclight Hollywood and continues through April 14. Festival highlights include Ashim Ahluwalia's "Miss Lovely," a look at the underbelly of Bollywood; Vasan Bala's debut film, "Peddlers," a crime thriller about young drug runners; and Kim Longinotto's "Salma," a documentary about a South Indian woman who was locked up by her family for 25 years.

For years, people who read Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novels assumed she was born in India. She wrote about swamis, social climbers, duplicitous landlords and other characters from the Indian bourgeoisie who inevitably found themselves colliding with curious visitors from the West. But Jhabvala was a Westerner herself: a German Jew displaced by war to England, who married an Indian man and settled in his country. She absorbed enough of subcontinental culture to portray it with clarity and comic sensibility in books that earned her comparisons to Jane Austen.

The Indian Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Swiss drug company cannot patent a medicine used to treat a rare form of leukemia, in a decision with global implications for generic drugs. The court ruled that Glivec, the drug developed by Novartis, was not different enough from drugs already on the market, touting an Indian law that sets stiff requirements for patenting new medicines. Activists and aid groups heralded the Monday decision as a crucial victory for impoverished patients worldwide who rely on India for affordable generic medicines.

The Indian unit of Ford Motor Co. has apologized for advertisements that were chastised as tasteless and demeaning, including one that depicted former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in a car with a trio of bound and gagged women in the trunk. The illustrated ad showed a smiling Berlusconi behind the wheel of a Ford Figo, a subcompact manufactured by  Ford India Private Limited in Chennai, India. The ad featuring the Ford logo appeared over the weekend on the website Ads of the World without approval from the automaker.

A few months ago, a colleague invited me to dinner at Newport Beach's Tamarind of London, which he considered probably the best Indian restaurant in Southern California, a full-fledged satellite of a Mayfair restaurant that had been among the first kitchens ever to win a Michelin star for its Indian cuisine. I had been to the London original about a decade ago, and while I had been more impressed by the clubby plushness of Cinnamon and the direct, vibrant flavors at Rasa and the late Kastoori, I was impressed by the Mayfair Tamarind and its frank attempt to produce Indian food with the sheen and polish of white-tablecloth European cuisine.