Legged

Two drugs are now approved to combat restless legs syndrome — the dopamine boosters Mirapex and Requip. In addition, some drugs approved for other conditions can be legally prescribed for RLS. These include Neurontin, a pain and anti-seizure medication, pain relievers such as oxycodone, codeine and methadone, and anti-anxiety drugs such as the benzodiazepines. An RLS patch and a new pill are under development but in their current forms were recently rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Not since the miniskirted '60s have legs been so exuberant, with hosiery the essential accessory for this season's shorter skirts. Leggings and tights, the body-closest wrapping of fall's multilayered look, fit smoothly under anything from a big sweater or jacket to a tailored suit. They can even be worn over each other: Oscar de la Renta mixed new colors by layering three pairs of semisheer tights.

Los Angeles, 1984. Lingering images: --Gymnast Mary Lou Retton's explosive joy, and that world-class smile. --Oddball swimmer Rick Carey's implosive joy. He wins a gold medal and then mopes because he failed to break a world record. --U.S. wrestler Jeff Blatnick, a cancer patient, wins a Greco-Roman gold medal, breaks down during a TV interview and says: "I'm one happy dude." --U.S.

Minutes before post time at Santa Anita recently, nine thoroughbreds and their owners paraded to the paddock area in an entrance only slightly less grand than that of Caesar returning to Rome. While the general public queued behind white barricades, trumpets erupted, bright silk pennants flew, camera shutters crackled. Waiting for jockey Eddie Delahoussaye to saddle up for the sixth race, Diane Garber and her 27-year-old daughter Lisa stood by their horse, Command the Fire.

President Obama on Wednesday dismissed Arizona's tough new anti-immigration law as a "shortcut" that will merely inflame the debate "instead of solving the problem." In an impromptu session with reporters at the back of his plane, Obama described the law as a product of "people's frustrations about the border." Although the president sympathized in part, saying we now have "hundreds of thousands of people coming in" who are "not playing by the rules," he said Arizona had chosen the wrong approach.

From their perch on a forklift, two men wave their arms and call out to Charlie Bohnhoff as he walks into the lumberyard his family has owned for nearly a century. Getting his attention, the two workers greet their boss with a military salute. Bohnhoff, returning from a delivery, smiles in fake exasperation and yells: "That's it. You guys are out of here!" On the surface at least, Bohnhoff Lumber Co. in Vernon is returning to normal. The floral memorials are gone. The letters and condolence cards have stopped pouring in. The awkward phone calls from customers asking for people no longer there have ceased.

You can have your "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and "A Christmas Carol. " My favorite holiday reading is always the list of new state laws. Nearly 750 new ones for 2013 were passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor last year. With the Legislature in session about seven months, that's something like 100 a month. But it can hardly be said that every one was accompanied by stirring, democracy-defining debates. My favorite so far is the slam-dunk law ending the discounts for past and current state legislators and California members of Congress who order vanity plates for their cars.

An Orange County doctor featured in a Times investigative report because 16 of his patients fatally overdosed on drugs he prescribed has had another patient death, according to recently released coroner's records. Wayne Oviatt, a patient of Dr. Van Vu of Huntington Beach, fatally overdosed in January. The onetime Mammoth "ski bum," as his brother called him, suffered from chronic pain. He was known to abuse his medications and mix them with alcohol, and obtained drugs from various doctors, coroner's records state.

Tim Daggett, the United States' top gymnast at the World Gymnastics Championships, fell and broke his left leg in competition Thursday. The accident occurred while Daggett was competing in the vault event of the team competition. A loud crack sounded as he landed. He stumbled backward and crumbled to the floor. "It's a fracture of the lower left leg. But it is not a complicated fracture," a medical official said.

Many of the nation's 440 military bases were established in what were once sparsely populated hinterlands where soldiers trained without complaints from neighbors about the roar of warplanes and the sound of gunfire and explosions. Now, with urban sprawl pushing up against perimeter fences, the U.S. Department of Defense has quietly become a major protector of wilderness and ranch lands. Working with conservation organizations and local governments, its Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative has helped buy nearly $1 billion worth of land to create buffer zones around 64 military bases where development threatened to encroach on combat training.