Lift

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

As an economist, an immigrant and a scholar of the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy, I find that few pieces of legislation have engaged me more than the proposal for comprehensive immigration reform that the full Senate will take up this week. The most heated debates have been about the path to legal status for those undocumented immigrants who are already in the United States. But this bill does much more than that. It changes the rules regulating the future flow of immigrants and of non-immigrant, temporary foreign workers.

Chrysler Group will recall more than 200,000 of its vehicles, including its Ram pickup truck,  Dodge Challengers and Chargers and Jeep Liberty and Patriots for a variety of problems. In the biggest recall, the automaker will inspect and fix about 120,000 Chrysler 300s, and Dodge Challenger and Chargers sedans from the 2011 and 2012 model years because of an airbag problem. The wrong-sized crimps were used in building the airbag wiring harness, and that can can cause the airbag warning light to illuminate.

Brad Evans has always been something of an afterthought with the U.S. national team. He started once in 2009, played in a friendly a year later and was a late substitute in two inconsequential games in 2012. His bio doesn't even appear in U.S. Soccer's 288-page media guide. But anonymity won't be a problem from now on. Because Friday, in the waning moments of stoppage time, Evans went from forgotten man to hero by delivering a soft 10-yard shot from the edge of the box to beat Jamaica, 2-1, in a World Cup qualifier.

If you want your legs to look good from all angles, try this challenging lower-body sculptor. Called the triangle butt lift, it's a great way to tone your legs and abdominals at the same time, says fitness instructor Cassey Ho of the popular Blogilates YouTube channel and "Pop Pilates Total Body Workout" DVD. What it does This sweeping exercise tones your glutes as well as your inner and outer thighs while engaging your transverse abdominals...

Jorge Posada hit a three-run home run and the free-swinging New York Yankees defeated the Texas Rangers, 9-2, on Wednesday. The Yankees have scored at least eight runs in four of their last five games. Texas dropped five games behind the Angels in the American League West. Andy Pettitte (11-6) picked up his 189th win with the Yankees, tying Lefty Gomez for third on the club list behind Hall of Fame members Whitey Ford (236) and Red Ruffing (231). -- associated press

Mixing speeds and pitches and keeping hitters guessing, Pedro Martinez made a successful return to the majors Wednesday night. The Philadelphia Phillies gave their 37-year-old newcomer plenty of support, battering the Cubs, 12-5. Shane Victorino, Jimmy Rollins and Raul Ibanez homered as the World Series champions sent Chicago to its fourth consecutive loss. Martinez (1-0) gave up seven hits and three runs with a walk and five strikeouts during a five-inning stint that saw him throw 99 pitches.

The fire burned in Pau Gasol's eyes with an unquenchable heat Thursday, its intensity too high for him to contain it. He had just hit a short turnaround jumper to give the Lakers their first points of the fourth quarter, and in the middle of the din at Staples Center he screamed a scream that was primal, profound and instinctively understood by everyone in the jam-packed building. He would not be denied. Not in this Game 7 against the Boston Celtics. Not while he had spring in his legs and strength in his broad shoulders and that fire in his eyes.

at Dallas 96, Utah 85: Dirk Nowitzki scored a club-record 29 of his 40 points during a frantic fourth-quarter comeback to lead the Mavericks. Nowitzki broke the franchise record of 24 points in any quarter set by Mark Aguirre against Denver on March 24, 1984. at Cleveland 102, Washington 90: LeBron James scored 27 points, Shaquille O'Neal had a season-high 21. Cleveland trailed by 18 in the second quarter. Cleveland has won six in a row over Washington at home. Boston 105, at Philadelphia 74: Paul Pierce scored 21 points, Rasheed Wallace had 20 and the Celtics improved to 5-0 even without standout efforts from Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

Under pressure from lawmakers and flight attendants, the Transportation Security Administration said it would indefinitely prohibit passengers from carrying small pocket knives on planes - a ban that began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The decision is a dramatic reversal for TSA chief John Pistole. Two months ago he decided to lift the ban, saying the move would enable airport security officers to focus on bigger threats, such as explosives. Just days before the TSA planned to lift the ban April 25, Pistole said he was temporarily putting off the policy change to consider the comments and concerns of a security panel made up of pilots, flight attendants and other airline workers.

When Jered Weaver arrived for work Tuesday afternoon, the first thing he did was ask clubhouse attendant Angel Miranda to turn up the air conditioning. Getting swept by the lowly Houston Astros at home, it would seem, had made things uncomfortably warm for the Angels. Weaver generally thrives in that kind of heat, though: Ten times in the last two seasons he's taken the mound following a loss and pitched the team to victory. But turning the Angels around this time proved to be more than a one-man job. So it fell to Albert Pujols to follow a strong performance by Weaver with a long two-run home run into the left-field bleachers in the eighth inning to give the Angels a 4-3 win over the Chicago Cubs, ending a four-game losing streak.

Television's latest animated superhero sports a purple skirt and cape, pink gloves and white go-go boots. She is also a he. Meet SheZow, the star of a cartoon debuting Saturday on the Hub, a kids' cable channel co-owned by cable programming giant Discovery Communications and toy manufacturer Hasbro Inc. In "SheZow," a 12-year-old boy - named Guy - uses a magic ring to transform himself into a legendary crime fighter. When evil lurks, Guy says, "You go girl!" and becomes SheZow.

Max Willingham was delirious with joy. The 17-year-old Huntington Beach Marina second baseman delivered a two-run single in the bottom of the sixth inning Tuesday to earn himself and his best friends on the Vikings' baseball team a trip to Dodger Stadium. It was a two-strike, two-out single against Loyola's Nathan Hadley to drive in the tying and winning runs in a 6-5 victory over the Cubs in a Southern Section Division 1 semifinal game at Blair Field in Long Beach. "It was kind of nerve racking, but I tried to stay calm and hit the ball up the middle, and I got it done," Willingham said.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court gave a second chance Tuesday to prisoners who come up with strong new evidence of their innocence, but who have waited too long to file an appeal. In a 5-4 decision, the justices lifted the one-year time limit for filing such appeals in a federal court. Only the rare case will benefit from this leniency, they said. A prisoner must make a "convincing showing of actual innocence," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. The new evidence must be strong enough to persuade a judge that "no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find him guilty" at his trial had the jury known of it, she said.

LONDON - Diplomatic pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad escalated Monday, as a divided European Union agreed to relax a ban on weapons shipments to anti-Assad forces and U.S. Sen. John McCain met with insurgent commanders during a surprise visit to the country. Meanwhile, top U.S. and Russian diplomats met in Paris in a bid to solidify plans for a peace conference that both nations view as the only hope for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis, which has already left tens of thousands of people dead and threatens to spark a regional conflagration.

Re "Right Thing to Do--Lift and Strike in Bosnia," editorial, Aug. 4: The Serbs, no matter where they dwell, do remember the murderous years of the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia. Jewish and Serbian communities were slaughtered by the Croats and Bosnian Muslims, intentionally, deliberately and thoroughly. The Serbs do not want to be slaughtered again. Look at today's Croatia, a fascist, nationalistic state. Look at the Muslim government of Bosnia, at the corruption of its military leadership, at its pro-Iranian stand.

When Neil Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface and announced, "We came in peace for all mankind," it marked a fundamental break with the long history of human exploration. From the great Age of Discovery forward, men had claimed territories previously unknown for their guilds, companies and nations. The race to the moon was born of the brutal competition between the United States and the Soviet Union for preeminence in every field of endeavor, but the moment of victory transformed America's vision of its heroic triumph.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - It's a little benefit of a win streak the Angels pushed to six with a 5-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals in Kauffman Stadium on Friday night, but it's definitely one they've noticed. The veil of negativity that hovered over the club for the first seven weeks of the season seems to have finally lifted. "All the questions we got at the beginning of the year - When is this team going to turn it around? What's it going to take? What's it going to look like?

WASHINGTON - Reining back the aggressive counter-terrorism strategy he has embraced for five years, President Obama declared clear, public restrictions for the first time on using unmanned aircraft to kill terrorists, a shift likely to significantly reduce U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere. Obama also lifted a ban on sending scores of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, back to their home countries and renewed his call to move the remaining detainees onto U.S. soil for imprisonment and possible trial in civilian or military courts.