Lions

After 22 movies done over 28 years, there's nothing the team of Dereck and Beverly Joubert don't know about filming the king of the jungle, so it goes without saying that their latest effort, "The Last Lions," is mightily impressive to look at. What it's like to listen to is somewhat different. Major forces in wildlife conservation, the Jouberts are so revered that Disney animators saw one of their films to get in the mood for creating "The Lion King. " The couple have lived for the last seven years on Duba Island in Botswana's Okavango Delta, the location where their latest documentary feature takes place.

In the end, the mountain lion was probably looking for a place to call his own. Scientists believe the male mountain lion roamed his way down the Santa Monica Mountains early Tuesday, likely following a runoff channel. When daylight broke, he found himself in the middle of the city and scared. The lion was 3, and experts said that was the age to carve out his own territory. "These young guys are looking for a home of their own," said Jeff Sikich, a biologist with the National Park Service.

Detroit's NFL team still starts with an L. For once Sunday, it didn't end with one. The Lions ended the second-longest losing streak in league history, winning for the first time in 20 tries with a 19-14 victory over Washington. The good people of Detroit might not believe it -- the game was blacked out on TV, and witnessed live by the team's smallest crowd in 20 years (40,896) -- but their Lions finally have something to show in the left-hand column. "No team has been in this situation before," center Dominic Raiola said.

Holy call of the wild: Can't we all just stop killing animals for a while? OK, that's one too many allusions. But it has been a bad spell for America’s predators. In Santa Monica on Tuesday, a mountain lion was killed by officers after it wandered into the courtyard of an office building.  And in Alaska this spring, a trapper caught and killed the only breeding female wolf from Denali National Park's Grant Creek pack.

The Detroit Lions are 2-1 this preseason, but just in case their fans get their hopes up, quarterback Daunte Culpepper has brought everyone back to earth. Culpepper hurt his foot by tripping over a carpet at his home, an injury that resulted in eight stitches. With the Lions' No. 3 quarterback Drew Stanton requiring an MRI exam for a swollen knee, rookie Matthew Stafford appears to be the last man standing. Not so good news for Culpepper: The turf at Ford Field is artificial.

A 23-year-old student was mauled to death by lions after leaving his car to take wildlife photographs in South Africa's Soetdoring Nature Reserve, in Orange Free State province, witnesses said Monday.

Re "Four Lion Cubs are Born Free," Oct. 6: I am delighted with and for the scientists. But then it occurred to me that soon humans will encroach upon their habitat. Then, when the lions defend it or themselves, they will be shot, not the humans who could stay in their condos and watch the Nature Channel. Pauli Peter Los Angeles

Key: Ben Roethlisberger passed for three touchdowns and James Harrison had three sacks and forced a fumble. The Lions drove to the Steelers' 21 before three sacks and an incompletion ended the threat as black-and-gold-clad road fans cheered wildly. Steelers said: "That worked in our favor. Those offensive linemen couldn't hear the snap count, so they had to watch the ball just like we do." -- LaMarr Woodley Lions said: "I still think we have a good ballclub here, but a good ballclub will look at a situation like this and use it to find a way to start winning these games."

Leo the Lion has had a makeover. The famed MGM logo feline has been digitally restored and given a new roar. The refurbished Leo will make his bow on the James Bond thriller "Quantum of Solace," which opens in the U.S. on Nov. 14. The famed logo was designed by Howard Dietz 92 years ago for the Goldwyn Pictures Corp. and first appeared on the 1917 romance "Polly of the Circus." Over the last nine decades, five different lions have been used as the logo. Slates, who was hired after the 1924 merger that created MGM, made his debut on the studio's first feature, 1924's "He Who Gets Slapped."

When the Ensemble for Early Music last appeared here (in late 1976), it did so to considerable rejoicing from connoisseurs. Frederick Renz's touring group--founded just two years before, and performing here Renz's adaptation of a medieval French theater-piece, "Roman de Fauvel"--seemed to combine authenticity and scholarship with strong musical sense, considerable accessibility and good showmanship. Finally, this week, the ensemble returns to Los Angeles.

No one is exactly sure how a mountain lion roamed into the heart of Santa Monica on Tuesday morning, coming face to face with the janitor of an office complex not far from the city's bustling shopping district. But it turned out to be an unwelcome visitor - and that generated much debate in the city. With news choppers circling overhead, Santa Monica police managed to corner the 3-year-old lion in the courtyard of the complex. Police said they made several attempts to contain what they described as an aggressive feline using tranquilizing darts, nonlethal bullets and a fire hose.

Martin Poll, 89, a veteran producer best known for "The Lion in Winter," the Oscar-winning 1968 film that starred Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, died Saturday in New York. He had pneumonia and kidney failure, according to his son, Jon. Hepburn won a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The film was also honored for best musical score and best adapted screenplay. Poll produced a remake for television in 2003 with Glenn Close in the Hepburn role. During a five-decade career, Poll produced a dozen films with stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Woody Allen.

The mountain lion hunt that put California Fish and Game Commission President Daniel W. Richards in the center of a political firestorm has him in trouble again. The enforcement chief for the state's Fair Political Practices Commission informed Richards on Thursday that he had violated the gift limits of the Political Reform Act when he went on the Idaho hunt but failed to pay the fee that the Flying B Ranch usually imposes. Richards eventually reimbursed the ranch $6,800 on March 5, but he did it after the expiration of the 30-day time period that state officials are given to pay back the value of an illegal gift, and after a complaint had already been filed with the FPPC.

PALM BEACH, Fla. — The final warning to the New Orleans Saints about bounties came in January, just before their first-round playoff game against the Detroit Lions. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell detailed the situation Monday at the conclusion of the first day of the annual meetings at the Breakers hotel. He slammed the Saints with heavy penalties last week, including a one-year suspension of Coach Sean Payton and an indefinite suspension of former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams , who was rewarding New Orleans players with $1,000 if an opponent was carted off the field, and $1,500 for delivering a knockout blow.

Actor Steve Kazee was leaving Broadway's Bernard Jacobs Theatre after a recent preview performance of "Once" when he was accosted by a woman who had just seen the show. Why didn't your character end up with the person he loved? the woman asked him. Couldn't he see they belonged together? "She was saying it to me with some anger, as though I had personally made a wrong decision," Kazee said. "She felt so strongly that these were real people. " That ability to elicit an emotional reaction is the strength - and, producers hope, the saving grace - of "Once," a modest Irish movie that has made an unlikely odyssey from the Sundance Film Festival to a Broadway stage.

LACMA's rock party Re " Mass attraction: A traveling 340-ton boulder draws thousands of fans into its orbit ," March 9, and " At journey's end ," March 11 The journey of rock art on its path to LACMA is an unbelievable example of a can-do attitude. Someone said: "I want to transport a 340-ton rock through some of the most densely populated areas in the United States," and someone responded: "I can do this. " This effort is a marvel of engineering; I am in awe of the people who could successfully accomplish this enormous endeavor.

A lion escaped from its cage during a circus performance and killed a 6-year-old girl, a Chinese newspaper reported Friday. Police arrested two people in the Feb. 2 accident, which occurred in Xingtai, about 235 miles south of Beijing.

Santa Monica-based Lions Gate Entertainment is laying off about 80 people in the wake of its acquisition of Summit Entertainment, a source familiar with the matter said. In a move to bolster its film and TV library and better compete with larger studios, Lions Gate agreed in January to acquire Santa Monica-based Summit Entertainment, producer of the hit young-adult "Twilight" franchise, for $412.5 million in cash and stock. Layoffs at both companies were anticipated as they merged their motion picture and home entertainment operations.

War without end Re " A drug war success story? ," Opinion, Feb. 29 William C. Rempel's Op-Ed article on the 1989 cocaine bust in Sylmar that ultimately strengthened the Mexican drug cartels illustrates the folly of the continuing war on drugs. This war is an arms race in which the opponent has no morals and no qualms about a scorched-earth strategy. Increasingly, the casualties are innocent people and entire economic sectors, such as Mexican tourism and trips by charitable organizations to the country.