Landslide

The day began perfectly -- crowd screaming, cowbells jangling -- as Manuel Osborne-Paradis stood atop the men's downhill course. "I got totally into it," he said. "It was awesome to have the Canadian crowd totally pumped." Lunging from the starter's gate, the Vancouver native rode those cheers to a quick time halfway down, looking every bit the favorite for gold. But then he bobbled and slipped, losing precious tenths of a second. The race was all but over, Osborne-Paradis reaching the bottom in 17th place.

Re "Area has great view, foggy future," Nov. 13 Dear Lord, please help developer Jim York understand that taking beautiful open space in a huge landslide complex and trying to make millions by building ugly McMansions on it, possibly reactivating the landslide complex, is wrong. Lord, we don't need any more developers to build ugly McMansions on Palos Verdes Peninsula. We are rich with ugly McMansions. Lord, we don't need any more geologists paid for by developers to claim the land is stable, only to have it slide into the ocean, and then expect the city, and the citizens, to pay for the damage.

Botswana's governing party, which has been in power for more than four decades, once again swept parliamentary elections that regional observers deemed free and fair, the country's independent electoral commission said. The overwhelming legislative majority cleared the way for President Ian Khama to continue as leader of the world's largest diamond-producing country. The commission announced that the Botswana Democratic Party had won 45 of the 57 parliamentary seats in Friday's vote, a peaceful election all but eclipsed by political struggles and violence elsewhere in Africa.

Typhoon Parma caused widespread flooding and landslides that buried at least two families in the Philippines, then hung threateningly off the coast, drenching the country's north as well as Taiwan. At least 16 people died when Parma hit the main island of Luzon on Saturday, though the capital, Manila -- still awash in floodwaters from a storm barely a week earlier -- was spared a new disaster. In Benguet province, a family of five, including a 1-year-old boy, died when their home was buried in a landslide, said police Senior Supt.

Reporting from Padang, Indonesia, and New Delhi, India -- Indonesian authorities said today at least three villages at some distance from the city of Padang, the port city hardest hit by Wednesday's massive earthquake, were wiped out by landslides, suggesting the disaster will claim significantly more lives than the 715 to date. At least 640 people died in Paranan Bananak, Pulau Air and Lubuk Lawe, a cluster of villages some 35 miles from Padang, said Jufnedi, a local police commissioner who only uses one name.

For decades, outdoor enthusiasts would trudge the nearly nine-mile climb through the craggy foothills above Pasadena, following the same worn trail that workers used to haul the large telescopes to the Mt. Wilson observatory a century ago. But rain-triggered landslides buried portions of the popular path, and the Mt. Wilson Toll Road was closed to the public in 2005. Now, after six months of construction and roadwork, the historic route is close to reopening. "It's a wide open road and you don't have to worry about poison oak or unexpectedly running into a rattlesnake," said Altadena resident Alissa Motta, who is among hikers who have already enjoyed the restored path despite the "closed" signs that remain posted at the trail head in Altadena.

Hollywood's largest actors union strongly endorsed a new film and TV contract, closing the chapter on a yearlong dispute with the major studios. The vote, which was expected to be close, drew a stronger show of support than anticipated from the membership of the Screen Actors Guild, with 78% voting for the deal and 22% opposing it. Turnout was unusually high by SAG standards, with 35% of 110,000 union members casting ballots.