OPINION
May 1, 2012
False equivalency Re "Student loans, abuse against women spur fights in Congress," April 26 The article says, "The looming confrontations on both issues show how hard it is for Republicans - or Democrats, for that matter - to compromise in this highly contentious environment. " Democrats, often to my dismay, are usually too willing to compromise. Republicans, at least since President Obama was elected, never do unless the public outcry is so great and they're forced to. And to imply that there is an equivalency between taking funds from public health versus a tax increase on the rich that is "off-limits" because almost all Republicans have signed a pledge not to raise taxes is laughable.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 1, 2012 | By Batsheva Sobelman, Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM — Historian Ben-Zion Netanyahu, the father of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the man said to have had the most profound influence on the conservative Israeli leader, died early Monday in his Jerusalem home. He was 102. The elder Netanyahu served as the personal secretary of Zionism's prominent Revisionist leader, Zeev Jabotinsky, in the United States during World War II, lobbying for the creation of a Jewish state. He also pursued his academic work, specializing in medieval Spanish Jewry and the roots of the Spanish Inquisition.
WORLD
April 30, 2012 | By Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
UMM AL FAHM, Israel — He's an Israeli-born Islamist whom the government considers so dangerous he's been banned from stepping foot in Jerusalem. Yet his prison stints over the last decade for allegedly funding terrorist groups, inciting violence and spitting on an Israeli security officer — all of which he denies — have only served to make Sheik Raed Saleh, 53, extremely popular and influential among Arab Israelis. After returning this month from London, where he successfully fought deportation by British immigration officials who cited his controversial views, Saleh received a hero's welcome.
NEWS
March 21, 2012 | By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times / For the Booster Shots Blog
This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. The Israeli Parliament's move to ban skinny models from appearing in that nation's media may be less momentous than its efforts to thwart Iran's bid to build nuclear weapons. But to the Israeli politicians who sponsored the measure, which won approval in Tel Aviv on Monday, and to American experts on eating disorders, the measure is a clear step toward a key goal: promoting more realistic body images among girls and women.
BUSINESS
March 7, 2012 | By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times
Israeli President Shimon Peres praised Facebook Inc. as a vehicle for social change during a visit to the social networking company's Menlo Park, Calif., campus. Peres, 88, came to Facebook on Tuesday to launch his official personal page on the site that he hopes will open a dialogue with Arabs throughout the world and to meet with Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. "The matter of peace is no longer the business of governments but the business of people," Peres told Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, in an interview streamed live on Facebook.
BUSINESS
March 6, 2012 | By Jessica Guynn
Israeli President Shimon Peres praised Facebook as a vehicle for social change during a visit to the social networking company's Menlo Park, Calif., campus. Peres, 88, came to Facebook on Tuesday to launch his official personal page on the site that he hopes will open a dialogue with Arabs throughout the world and to meet with Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. "The matter of peace is no longer the business of governments but the business of people,” Peres told Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, in an interview streamed live on Facebook . "Today the people are governing the governments.