Man Made

Like a lot of Angelenos, I like to ditch the city every once in a while and experience nature. Briefly. My last escape involved 1,000 or so Cub Scouts, a battered, borrowed tent and two days of port-a-potties and pump-station water. This time around I was looking to rough it, but rough it "lite," during a weekend getaway with my best friend and our two young children. Enter the 2010 Airstream International, whose manufacturer, like many RV companies this year, is experiencing a post-recession sales resurgence.

Citing e-mails that critics say cast doubt on global warming, congressional Republicans called on the Obama administration Wednesday to suspend efforts to combat climate change until the controversy is resolved. In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, the lawmakers requested that a pending move to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act be halted, along with plans to limit emissions from vehicles, power plants and other sources, "until the agency can demonstrate the science underlying these regulatory decisions has not been compromised."

Police shot and killed a man early Saturday in the 3100 block of Midvail Avenue at Queensland Street after he allegedly pointed a weapon at officers, said LAPD Officer Norma Eisenman. Officers had gone to the home after the man called police and said he had killed his girlfriend and was going to kill himself, Eisenman said. The man had gone in and out of the home with his weapon in his hand multiple times, Eisenman said, before officers fired at him about 3 a.m. after he allegedly pointed the gun at them.

The nation's largest business lobby wants to put the science of global warming on trial. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. Chamber officials say it would be "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" -- complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.

You wake up in the morning to find your nostrils clogged. Houses and trees have vanished beneath a choking brown smog. A hot wind blasts fine particles through doors and windows, coating everything in sight and imparting an eerie orange glow. Dust storms are a routine experience in Iraq, but lately they've become a whole lot more common.

Three children died early Sunday morning when the car they were in drove straight into a man-made lake, authorities said. Arkansas State Police investigators and sheriff's deputies questioned the children's mother about what happened just after 3:30 a.m., when she apparently drove down an old state highway that dead-ends into Brewer Lake. Conway County Sheriff Mike Smith declined to immediately identify the children, ages 2, 7 and 8, or their 26-year-old mother.

As snow continued to fall Thursday across North Dakota's frozen plains, weary volunteers and frantic residents in Fargo scrambled to bolster the 12-mile-long man-made barrier that was holding back the Red River. Officials in the city of 90,000 also were busy preparing a plan to evacuate major sections of Fargo -- which they acknowledged would be difficult given the number of roadways being blocked by the rising water.

Chris Llewellyn was staring out the window of Delta Airlines Flight 110, watching the landscape of Los Angeles rise up toward the plane, when he heard the screams of a male flight attendant: "Help me! Help me!" Turning quickly, he saw that a passenger had pushed the attendant to the floor and was trying to open the rear emergency exit. "Don't come near me," the man warned. "I have a bomb. I have a bomb." "I thought this guy was going to open the door.

Thirty years ago this week, on the morning that San Francisco Mayor George R. Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot to death, I sat at my desk in City Hall and locked eyes with the killer. My boss, the mayor, was about to make a new appointment to the Board of Supervisors, a move that would finally give him the majority he needed to push through a flurry of city reforms. But at 10:30 a.m.

For more than two centuries, the old mission cross perched on a hill above Ventura has been a highly visible beacon for travelers. The first explorers came by ship and mule. Today, motorists speed past the landmark that lies east of Highway 101. With a sweeping view of coastal Ventura and the Channel Islands beyond, it's been the site of countless weddings, anniversaries and first kisses. The landmark survived Ventura's transition from a dusty mission outpost to a bustling modern city.