Ivy

QUESTION: I would like to grow climbing ivy on the brick walls of my house, but I've heard that the plant could damage the wall. Is this true? ANSWER: There is a widely held misconception that climbing ivy will damage any masonry wall. If stucco or the mortar between bricks or stonework is in poor condition, then an exuberant ivy plant will undoubtedly weaken the structure as its aerial roots attempt to extract moisture from the masonry.

The Los Angeles school board Tuesday renewed the operating charter for a Woodland Hills school recently embroiled in controversy. The petition by Ivy Academia Entreprenurial Charter School was renewed with little discussion, less than two weeks after a jury convicted its founders of grand theft, embezzlement and other charges. The 4-2 vote allows the school to remain open for another five years. “Ivy has come a long way,” said Carl Raggio, a special advisor to the charter's board of directors.

Glen Ivy Hot Springs Spa: The photograph with Tuesday's Summer Hot List in Calendar about activities in Corona showed a couple taking a dip at Glen Ivy Hot Springs Spa. The caption should have said the photo was from 2004.

In a case that could have impact statewide, a Los Angeles jury Friday found the operators of a west San Fernando Valley charter school guilty of illegally taking or misappropriating more than $200,000 in public funds. Together, Yevgeny "Eugene" Selivanov, 40, and his wife, Tatyana Berkovich, 36, faced 26 felony counts for using state money in ways they insisted were legal under laws that apply to nonprofits and charter schools in California. Over several years, for example, they spent more than $34,000 on meals, entertainment and gifts that they classified as business expenses or gestures of appreciation for teachers.

Sometimes a carefully placed pinprick can stay with you longer than a heavier, clumsier blow, and so it is with Bradley Rust Gray's delicately done but indelible "The Exploding Girl." This 80-minute feature is on one level the tiniest story imaginable, a look at a quiet emotional crisis a 20-year-old college student named Ivy goes through on spring break. But writer-director Gray is so committed to his minimalist aesthetic and applies it with such craft and skill that this careful character study, so exact in its aims and execution, holds our interest almost without our noticing how it's done.

The article on the growing visual blight of graffiti (Jan. 8) was especially perceptive. Spray paint cans are not a necessity of life. They are a convenience item that I am willing to live without. If manufacturers and retailers cannot control these products, then perhaps legislation should either add a $1 clean-up tax on each can or else outlaw their sale and possession. One seldom-heard suggestion for combatting graffiti is to plant creeping fig or Boston ivy on all masonry and concrete walls.

In 1940 when I was 10 years old, my parents and I went to see our hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt, sweep by on a campaign tour. Suddenly there he was in an open car, the familiar fedora on his head, close enough to touch, with Eleanor at his side. The car pulled into the train station, the Secret Service men got out and, to our shock, picked up the president and hoisted him into the train. Like most of the American public, we hadn't known the extent of his disability. Ah, for the days when a president could ride in an open car and the status of his health was not discussed in excruciating detail on the evening news.

The Times' response to the question posed by M.B. of Glendale regarding dogs and gardening ("Planting a Garden Dogs Will Respect," Garden Q&A, June 16) fell dangerously short of providing accurate landscape information and responsibly answering the dilemmas faced by all dog-loving gardeners. While your suggestion of training the dog is an invaluable approach at damage-and-psyche control and is right on target, your suggestions for possible plant varieties was not. Pyracantha, junipers, ivy and vinca--many of the plants suggested in your answer--produce varied toxic effects if cats or other outdoor pets happen to chew or eat part of the plants.

For the former star of TV's "The Facts of Life," weekends are a godsend. The rest of the week, she's up at 4:30, heading for the set of "The Division," where she plays a recovering alcoholic police inspector on the Lifetime cable channel's No. 1 drama. Her lazy Saturday and Sunday mornings will soon be a memory, however. She and her husband, Marc Andrus, a key grip in the film industry, are expecting their first child in March.

On June 3, Slobodan Milosevic blinked. President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland offered him a deal, and, in the time it takes for lashes to fall and rise, he said OK. There have certainly been other blinks in the on-again-off-again negotiations that followed. But it was that one big blink, after 10 weeks of NATO bombardment, that brought the war in Yugoslavia back into large print on the front page. Tht's what drama's about, after all--a long, stultifying stare, and then a blink. And the short story, the most economical of one-act dramas, relies on getting that blink on cue. Richard Bausch has written many fine novels, but itis as a story writer--and particularly in his latest collection, "Someone to Watch Over Me," that he displays his supreme mastery over the blink.

Blue Ivy's mom, Beyoncé, is opening up about motherhood, her struggle to lose her baby weight, and specifically, the example she wants to set for her daughter. "I just adore being a mother, hearing her say 'Mama' and call me when she needs something, it makes me feel like I have a real purpose here," the singer said in the April issue of Shape magazine, whose cover she graces. I enjoy all the things people warned me would be tough to handle. " Queen Bey is already a role model to millions of women and proved her star power with her powerhouse performance at this year's Super Bowl.

Beyoncé is stripping down and baring it all in a refreshing way in her March interview with Vogue , in which she gushes about her baby girl Blue Ivy, childbirth, work and being Mrs. Jay-Z. Though the interview for the mag's March issue happened before the flurry of lip-synch-gate and her eye-popping Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, the 31-year-old gave candid responses to interviewer Jason Gay, who was taken by the show that has become her life and the woman in that starring role.

On Monday the New York Observer ran a sensational story about BDSM sex clubs popping up in the Ivy League. They can be found at Harvard, Columbia and Yale -- all Ivies -- as well as Tufts, MIT and the University of Chicago. The group at Harvard is called Munch. "The popularity of 50 Shades of Grey has accelerated a mainstreaming of the BDSM subculture already underway - the initials stand for bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism - and the trend has been especially pronounced in our more elite institutions of higher learning," the Observer writes . E.L. James' bestselling trilogy began as a fantasy, fan fiction written to imagine a version of "Twlight's" characters all grown up and in adult situations.

One bonus for students staying home from school during Hurricane Sandy: They'll have more time to work on their applications to Ivy League colleges. Universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Pennsylvania and Brown have extended their deadlines, according to their websites. “With the approach of Hurricane Sandy here on the East Coast of the United States, we want you to be aware of our longstanding flexibility on Early Action and Regular Action deadlines for submitting applications and supporting materials from teachers and guidance counselors,” according to a note from Harvard to prospective students.

BISBEE, Ariz. - There are "strong preliminary indications" that the shooting of two U.S. Border Patrol agents, one of whom died, was a friendly fire incident that occurred as they investigated a report of suspicious activity in rugged terrain south of Tucson, FBI officials said Friday. James L. Turgal Jr., FBI special agent in charge in Arizona, said it appeared that Agent Nicholas J. Ivie was killed and another agent wounded as "the result of an accidental shooting incident involving only the agents.

NEW YORK - The quintessential Ivy League look, born on college campuses more than a century ago and epitomized by tweed jackets, seersucker suits, khaki trousers and button-down oxford-cloth shirts, hit the peak of its popularity in the mid-1950s, had fallen out of favor by the '70s and today is invoked most often as the upscale ancestor of the preppy aesthetic. But thanks to a shelf's worth of recent and upcoming books, a new museum exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and a new clothing line from J. Press - one of the Ivy League's earliest outfitters - interest in the look seems to be growing like kudzu.

The Republican Party has been doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing since the presidential election. Half the conservative columnists and bloggers say the GOP lost because it overemphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The other half says the party didn't emphasize them enough. And everyone denounces Project ORCA, the campaign's attempt to turn out voters via technology. But I've got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.

Americans have long gone to China to adopt babies. In a twist, Chinese couples are now coming here to become parents — through surrogacy. China does not permit surrogate parenting, but that country's rising affluence has given many couples the option of coming to U.S. surrogacy clinics. California, with its large Chinese American community and its courts' liberal attitude toward surrogacy, is a prime destination. Jerry Zhu and Grace Sun of Beijing have so far saved $60,000 toward the expected $100,000 cost of surrogate birth.

He's only 11. Still, BJ Bae blended in with the thousands of people of Korean heritage who swarmed an Orange County college fair this weekend. He stopped to sign up for a concentration test so "I can know what job might be good for me. " Angela Kim, 10, headed straight for the Stanford University table, then UC Berkeley, then Columbia University. "We have lots of choices," she said confidently. The mothers of both children tagged along, stuffing handbooks into their bags, promising to review them together when they get home.

Actor-director Warren Beatty and his wife, actress Annette Bening, have listed their ivy-clad home in Beverly Hills for $6.995 million. The Mediterranean-style mansion of 10,594 square feet includes a media room, a library, a gym, an office, maid's quarters, six family bedrooms and eight bathrooms in two stories. The acre-plus site contains a separate guesthouse, a swimming pool with spa, mature trees and expansive lawns. Beatty, 75, is known for his leading roles in "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967)