Laura

NEW YORK — Maybe it is time. Kim Clijsters, a three-time U.S. Open champion, a sweet conqueror who seems disliked by no one, had said she would play no more singles whenever she lost here. She lost here Wednesday. Clijsters left skid marks on Arthur Ashe Stadium Court. She slid into shots in her trademark way, but suddenly those slides came a little late and her opponent, British teenager Laura Robson, would scamper to where Clijsters aimed the ball. In the end, Clijsters sent a backhand service return long, and Robson beat the former champion, 7-6 (4)

LONDON - It's not quite the fraction of a second that separates medalists from also-rans in other sports, but in modern pentathlon, where the scores accumulated are in the mid-four figures, U.S. competitor Margaux Isaksen missed out on a bronze by a mere eight points. The women's modern pentathlon, the final competition of the Summer Olympics, handed out its medals just hours before the closing ceremony Sunday night. Gold went to Laura Asadauskaite of Lithuania, who finished with 5,408 points, an Olympic record.

RIVERSIDE - For more than a decade, Laura Froehlich, an irrepressible civic dynamo known as the "Flag Mama," made it her duty to greet military personnel departing for Iraq and Afghanistan or returning from those war zones. By her own estimate, she was there for several thousand flights at nearby March Air Reserve Base, standing on the tarmac dispensing hugs, handshakes and words of affection and appreciation. She organized a reception area called Hangar 385 stocked with snacks, books, a pool table and large-screen televisions.

Even before last week's stinging reprimand from her House colleagues, Democrat Laura Richardson's reelection bid was in trouble. She had been burning through campaign strategists and congressional staffers for months. Debts were mounting. She had finished far behind rival Janice Hahn (D-San Pedro) in the June primary, under new election rules that produced several November contests between members of the same party. Hahn had also won the endorsement of California's Democratic Party, which typically furnishes money, mail ads and volunteers for its chosen candidate.

WASHINGTON — Long Beach Rep. Laura Richardson sat in a largely empty House chamber, alone and off to the side, as colleagues — Democrats and Republicans alike — told the story of misconduct that led to her embarrassing reprimand Thursday. "This unfortunate story begins in October of 2010 when the committee first began to receive complaints … that Rep. Richardson required her staff to perform campaign work," House Ethics Committee Chairman Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) said, presenting the charges.

WASHINGTON - She reportedly made congressional staffers work on her campaign into the night - and when one asked to go home at 8 p.m., she ordered that person to make more phone calls. Staffers described her as verbally abusive and intimidating. And she used taxpayer money when planning a political fundraiser called "Democratic Idol," featuring members of Congress singing karaoke. For this and her "callous disregard for her staff and the resources entrusted to her by the American people," the House Ethics Committee recommended Wednesday that Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach)

WASHINGTON -- The House on Thursday voted to reprimand Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach) for ethical misconduct.  Richardson agreed to the uncommon discipline, including paying a $10,000 fine out of her own pocket. “I do take these findings very seriously and do accept the responsibility,” she said on the House floor. The House Ethics Committee unanimously recommended the punishment, saying Richardson improperly pressured her congressional staff to work on her campaign, used taxpayer-funded resources for personal and political activities, and obstructed the investigation.

Beyond the economic and political ramifications of globalization, consider its effect on movie stories: the cross-cultural slice-and-dice, á la "Babel," that too often passes for meaning and resonance. In"360,"the new border-hopping feature from"City of God"director Fernando Mereilles, the faux profundity runs deep, infecting nearly every exchange in each vignette, whether the setting is Berlin, Bratislava or Paris. Mereilles avoids touristy shots of his multiple locations, yet any sense of realism is undone by contrivance.

WASHINGTON -- The House Ethics Committee has recommended that Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Long Beach) be reprimanded for pressuring her congressional staff to work on her political campaign, dealing a severe blow to her reelection bid . The House is expected to vote as early as Thursday on the rare punishment of one of its members for violating standards of conduct. Richardson also faces a $10,000 fine. In a scathing report issued Wednesday, the ethics panel's investigative subcommittee found Richardson improperly used House resources for campaign and personal purposes, compelled congressional staff to work on her campaign and obstructed the committee investigation "through the alteration or destruction of evidence" and "the deliberate failure to produce documents.

Seven years before she dazzled international audiences as the amoral Lulu in G.W. Pabst's 1929 German masterpiece "Pandora's Box," Louise Brooks was a willful, intelligent and beautiful 15-year-old girl living in Wichita, Kan. Summer 1922 changed Brooks' life. She left home accompanied by a provincial 36-year-old housewife named Alice Mills and traveled by train to New York City so she could attend the Denishawn school of modern dance run by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Mills returned that summer to Wichita and vanished from the life of Brooks, who would shortly become one of the icons of the silent screen.