Meetings

A national furor over race relations paused Thursday as President Obama, in a shady spot on the White House lawn near the Rose Garden, sat down for beers with a black Harvard professor and the white police officer who arrested him two weeks ago. For the two men who raised their mugs with the president and vice president -- both guests dressed in suits and ties and sitting stiffly in what was meant to be a casual moment -- the discussion of race and policing will go on. Sgt.

In a quiet event during an otherwise well-publicized visit to Los Angeles this week, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. reached out to local Muslim American youths, calling on them to work with the government to fight violent extremism and pledging that the Justice Department would reinvigorate enforcement of civil rights and work to advance religious freedom.

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate.

Embattled Metrolink Chief Executive David Solow kept his job Friday, despite a closed session in which board directors discussed his possible termination. Upon emerging from the 90-minute session, Solow told reporters, "There is no announcement," and declined to comment further. Solow has been under fire since Sept. 12, when a Metrolink train collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, killing 25 people.

At a town hall Wednesday during which people spoke of their lost jobs and their fears of economic problems to come, President Obama painted his ambitious policy agenda as the antidote. Obama spoke to a crowd of about 1,300 during his first stop on a two-day swing through California, aiming to mobilize public support for his multi-trillion-dollar budget. In a state coping with job losses and home foreclosures, he quickly got a taste of how the sour economy had upended lives.

Ethan Lopez became an instant celebrity at his Los Angeles elementary school Friday, the day after President Obama selected the 8-year-old to ask the final question at a town hall meeting. Media crews filmed the boy and his family while the school principal and teachers gushed over his question about teacher layoffs, and classmates cheered. The moment was not lost on the third-grader. "I felt very excited," he said. "I never talked to the president of the United States before.

Fidel Castro met with three members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday, the former Cuban president's first meeting with U.S. officials since he fell ill nearly three years ago. Coming after lawmakers met with his brother Raul, the current president, the session appeared to underscore the Cuban government's desire for improved relations with the United States under President Obama. Greg Adams, a spokesman at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, said Rep.

Even as President Obama toured Europe his administration pressed its healthcare reform campaign Monday in Los Angeles with a forum co-hosted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who lost his bid in California to make many of the changes now on the table in Washington. Reform is overdue, the governor said. "No one can look at our healthcare system and say that the system is fair or a good return on what we spend, and this consensus can help us pass significant bipartisan reforms into law."

Small cities in California are facing high unemployment, drained treasuries and now what some residents see as an assault on the only sacred moment in municipal affairs: the invocation at the start of city council meetings. Turlock, Tracy, Tehachapi, Lancaster -- all have been threatened in the last few months with lawsuits claiming that prayer at meetings breaches the wall between church and state. Nowhere has the ensuing debate played out more dramatically than in Lodi, where, after a tumultuous five-hour meeting this week, the City Council voted not only to continue invocations but also to allow phrases such as "in Jesus' name."

Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby wants to bar the Sheriff's Department from handling security in the Hall of Administration after an investigator used a security camera to zoom in on Norby's notes and a colleague's BlackBerry messages during a board meeting. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors asserted control over security in the board chambers and weighed whether to hire a private firm or a local police department to provide security in the Hall of Administration.