Motivation

WASHINGTON - President Obama forced out the head of the IRS on Wednesday, seeking to restore the public's faith in the tax agency while asserting a measure of control over a rapidly growing political problem. Making a hastily scheduled statement at the White House, Obama denounced the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service as "inexcusable" and pledged to "do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. " "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said.

A motive remains unclear in the slaying of 36-year-old Army veteran and soon-to-be college graduate Maribel Ramos, whose body was found in a remote Orange County canyon. Authorities on Friday announced that they had arrested her roommate in connection with the slaying. Police said Kwang Chol "KC" Joy, 54, voluntarily submitted to an interview with detectives after he was contacted Friday morning, and was later arrested on suspicion of killing Ramos. Police declined to release additional information, saying that the case was being submitted to the Orange County district attorney's office.

Leave it to science to take all the fun out of something as cosmically pure as love. Theories about love's purpose range from the biologically practical to the biologically complicated. Anthropologists have said it helps ensure reproduction of the species; attachment theorists maintain it's a byproduct of our relationship with our childhood caregivers. And now researchers are exploring what happens physiologically as a romantic relationship progresses. The more we understand it, they say, the better our chances of making love last and of harnessing its potential to improve our emotional and physical well-being.

Teemu Selanne was asked what most influenced the Ducks' run to the Western Conference No. 2 seeding in the Stanley Cup playoffs that probably begin Tuesday against the Detroit Red Wings. “Pride,” the Ducks' legendary, 42-year-old wing said after practice Friday. Selanne's reference was to the grisly 6-20-6 start last season that got a coach fired and sat badly with a veteran group that included members of the franchise's 2007 Stanley Cup champion team. BOX SCORE: Phoenix 5, Ducks 3 “The disappointment of last season carried over to this year,” Selanne said.

"The Actress, the Producer and Their Porn Revolution" (by Ralph Frammolino and P.J. Huffstutter, Jan. 6) tells a tale that is more revolting than revolutionary--and not because of sex and nudity. Ginger Lynn Allen may or may not be the mother of Steve Hirsch's child, but she certainly was his friend and lover, plus an instrumental partner in helping him create a financial empire that will keep him in luxury for the rest of his life. Yet this magnanimous character apparently doesn't think for a second to come to her aid as she approaches 40, seriously ill, stripping for salivating yahoos to support herself and her young son. How does this louse sleep at night?

"If I kick my dog (from the front or the back), he will move. And when I want him to move again what must I do? I must kick him again," psychologist Frederick Herzberg wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 1968. But that kind of management produces movement, not motivation, he said. Daniel Pink's new book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us," published by Riverhead, contains no mention of Herzberg, and that rings an alarm bell. Not that it has any shortage of references to psychological and other academic research.

When I was 16 and struggling with a vicious eating disorder in a hospital inpatient program, different patients had different reasons for nursing themselves back to health. Unfortunately, most anorexics don't use health itself as a motivator: The reasons ranged from going back to college or to please a boyfriend or family member. But my own personal incentive to get well was inspired by my longtime desire to have children one day. After severely weakening my body and inflicting amenorrhea on it through my best attempts to starve myself to skeletal proportions, I knew that I would need to get healthy myself before I began thinking about having a healthy child.

On Sunday, more than 24,000 people will run the 26.2 miles of the L.A. Marathon from Dodger Stadium to Santa Monica — a good chunk of them first-timers. Without knowing quite what they were getting into, they've trained for weeks and pushed their bodies to the limit. Their reasons are as varied as L.A.'s neighborhoods. Some have had the race on their bucket list; others will run in remembrance of a loved one, as a weight-loss regimen or to fulfill a bet. Does the inspiration matter?

As the president of the Crenshaw Apartment Improvement Program, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ruth Ryon for the very fine article (Dec. 1) on the apartment community infamously known as "The Jungle." This article has had a provocative impact on the community, and has served as a source of motivation to many who now want to get involved. Again, Ruth, thank you for your very fair and well-balanced reporting, and hopefully your efforts in cleaning up "The Jungle" will serve to make you proud as well.

Anyone seen actor Jonah Hill lately? We did a double-take at the newsstand the other day when we spied the current issue of New York magazine featuring Brad Pitt and some other good-looking guy. Upon closer inspection, said guy was actually Hill, minus about a million pounds. The former chubster has slimmed down considerably. He allegedly did it the old-fashioned way: diet and exercise. He follows in the footsteps of funny former male fatties such as Seth Rogan, Horatio Sanz and George Lopez, who have all noticeably trimmed their waistlines.

BOSTON - The day after the second suspect in the Boston bombings was captured, federal law enforcement officials scoured evidence searching for a motive for the brutal terrorist attack while the region tried to return to normal, aided by Red Sox and Bruins games. A high-placed FBI official said the agency had interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two suspects, and his mother in January 2011, and also checked his telephone and Internet activity at the request of the Russian government.

Police are trying to determine a motive for an attack in which a man sitting in his SUV was set on fire outside a 7-Eleven store in Long Beach. Raymond Sean Clark, 38, is accused of dousing the 62-year-old victim with a flammable substance while he was parked in front of the store at about 5 p.m. Friday, said Long Beach police Sgt. Aaron Eaton. There were reports that there had been an argument between Clark, who has been described as homeless, and the victim just before the attack, but Eaton said that had not been confirmed.

A couple of months ago, Kobe Bryant and I sat down over coffee in Minneapolis to discuss his future. I mentioned Michael Jordan, who was playing for Washington late in his career, and being there the night Kobe dropped 55 points on the old man. "There's not a chance you'll see me" like that, promised Kobe. So I guess I won't be seeing him play again. Bryant is done. He's so done I could run circles around him now, easily defeating him one-on-one. Now he's a Pau Gasol cheerleader, which has to be amusing to Gasol, given how frustrated he was to never get the ball.

Long Beach police are searching for a motive after a homeless man allegedly set a 62-year-old man on fire in his sport utility vehicle. Raymond Sean Clark, 38, is accused of dousing the victim with a flammable substance while he was parked in front of a 7-Eleven store about 5 p.m. Friday, Long Beach police Sgt. Aaron Eaton told The Times. Eaton said a detective told him that a motive had not yet been established. There were reports that there had been an argument between Clark and the victim just before the attack, but Eaton said that had not been confirmed.

Contrary to the adage, what we don't know about North Korea could hurt us. It's not known whether the intermediate-range Musudan missiles poised for imminent firing could reach U.S. bases on Guam or Japan, though at least the latter is thought to be likely. Neither do the geopolitical experts who track every inscrutable move of the hermit country know if a missile launch would be meant to salute late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung on his 101st birthday Monday or to demonstrate that Pyongyang has the power to instigate a nuclear conflagration.

The last time a prosecutor was gunned down in Kaufman County, Texas, in January, top county prosecutor Mike McLelland stood in front of reporters and vowed to carry on. "We'll still make the walk, and we'll still show up," McLelland said of the courthouse parking lot where one of his assistant district attorneys, Mark Hasse, was gunned down by an unidentified assailant Jan. 31. "And we'll still send bad guys out of Kaufman County every chance we...

A raise that's hard to justify," Opinion, Jan. 4 How can Scott Baker conclude that judges making far less than their private practice peers are nonetheless provably just as qualified? What evidence proves that lower-paid judges have the same legal quality as higher-paid judges? As judicial salaries fail to keep pace with private attorney salaries, there is an obvious financial motivation for more successful attorneys to avoid judicial service. The baseball umpire analogy is unhelpful.

Landon Donovan admitted Thursday that he nearly walked away from soccer for good after the Galaxy won last year's MLS title. But after a four-month break to alleviate physical and mental exhaustion, the former Galaxy captain returned to training this week "very motivated again" and with the hope of regaining his job with the U.S. national team by the next round of World Cup qualifiers in June. "I have a long way to go and a lot of work to do," said Donovan, the all-time leader in goals and assists for the U.S. national team.

Police were asking for the public's help Monday in finding the person who killed a 62-year-old man found dead in his apartment. An autopsy performed last week showed that Cornelius Rich, also known as Andre Dupree, died from blunt force trauma in his East Hollywood apartment. Police were called last Tuesday to check on Rich in the 500 block of Kingsley Drive and discovered his body. There was no clear motive for the slaying, police said. Anyone with information is asked to call Los Angeles Police Department West Bureau homicide detectives at (213)