Nose

It's all crossovers these days. From the polo grounds of Malibu to the campgrounds of Maine, nearly a fifth of all vehicles sold in the U.S. last year resided somewhere in this netherworld between a car and an SUV. So the stakes were high for Toyota's overdue redesign of the RAV4, a pioneer of the segment in the mid-1990s that had grown stale in comparison with competitors. Often resembling small sport utility vehicles, crossovers are truck-like vehicles built on front-drive car platforms.

On the final day of the 71-day Santa Anita meeting Sunday, the marathon 13/4-mile San Juan Capistrano Handicap produced a thrilling finish. When the photo showed that Interaction had beaten All Squared Away by a nose, 80-year-old Hall of Fame trainer Ron McAnally got to bask in the glow of another memorable triumph. Ridden by Joe Talamo, Interaction came charging on the inside in deep stretch to pass All Squared Away and give McAnally his third victory in the unique $150,000 race that starts at the top of the hillside turf course and was won 14 times by Hall of Fame trainer Charles Whittingham.

The 131-character dispatch arrived mournfully within two hours of sunrise May 4, at 7:58 a.m. to be exact. "When u give Give GIVE and they take Take TAKE at wat point do u draw a line in the sand?" Kobe Bryant wrote on his Twitter feed, adding the hashtags "hurt beyond measure," "gave me no warning," and finally, "love?" Bryant's career with the Lakers has often been pushed aside by internal family matters, the recent court battle over his memorabilia the latest in a string of cheerless events.

Today, 19 months after her death, we may finally have a good idea of what killed Paula Rojeski. According to a lawsuit and public autopsy records, the causes included her doing business with the 1-800-GET-THIN folks and the slicing of her aorta during weight-loss surgery at one of their affiliated surgical centers. There was also regulatory indifference on a truly majestic scale. Rojeski, 55, died Sept. 8, 2011, shortly after surgery to implant a Lap-Band at Valley Surgical Center in West Hills, which her family's lawyer says is affiliated with 1-800-GET-THIN and the two brothers behind it, Julian and Michael Omidi.

  Game stories -- The Times' John Cherwa reports that Lakers guard Kobe Bryant suffered a nasal fracture during the 2012 NBA All-Star game and would be evaluated Monday in Los Angeles by an ear, nose and throat specialist. -- The New York Times' Howard Beck focuses on the Bryant passing Michael Jordan for the most points in NBA All-Star history. -- The Orange County Register's Janis Carr noted it was a rough night for Bryant and Andrew Bynum in the 2012 NBA All-Star game.

Closeness is often regarded as an encroachment, if not an outright invasion. But it can feel pretty good when the invader is someone you love. A man hunkers down with his best friend in a larger-than-life promotional graphic applied to the side of a building along Sunset Boulevard. The hustle and bustle of LAX drift away as Raime Breight and Mark Prieve exchange a hello kiss. And L.A.

Evan Rachel Wood got her nose pierced, again, and she wants to share every moment of the squeamish experience with you. The "Mildred Pierce" actress led up to her real-life pierce Tuesday night with a few less-than-cryptic messages on Twitter with a warning that the YouTube video documenting her ordeal isn't for the faint of heart. "I may or may not have just gotten my nose pierced again.... And i may or may not have video...you see where this is going?" she tweeted . Belatedly adding , "I must warn you, do not watch that last video if you are squeamish.

Mark Trumbo's workout got cut short Friday morning when the Angels infielder took a bad-hop ground ball to the nose. Though the impact caused quite a bit of bleeding, Trumbo's injury is not believed to be serious. "I was on my 30th repetition, turning double plays; the ball hit the lip [where the grass meets the dirt], shot up and got me in the nose," said Trumbo, a first baseman who is trying to make the transition to third base this season. "But I'm not going for X-rays, and the doctor said it's not broken.

Reporting from Orlando, Fla. -- Kobe Bryant added another milestone to his career Sunday as he passed Michael Jordan to become the all-time-leading NBA All-Star game scorer. But did it come at a price? Bryant skipped a postgame media session after his 27-point performance, and was taken for further evaluation after he said he was "experiencing headaches. " The Lakers announced later that Bryant had suffered a nasal fracture and would be reevaluated Monday after he returned to Los Angeles by an ear, nose and throat specialist.

After making "Route Irish," a dark 2010 drama about private security contractors who had been in Iraq, British filmmaker Ken Loach and his partner, Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty, were searching for their next project. "Paul will go away and start writing a few characters down, and we will decide if we want to do it," explained Loach, 76, best known for his uncompromising political and sociological dramas such as 1998's "My Name Is Joe" and 2006's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

The school with the funny nickname is 40 minutes from becoming no joke. UC Irvine had a great coach once in Bill Mulligan. The school has produced a roster of star players that includes Kevin Magee, Ben McDonald and Scott Brooks. The mighty Anteaters, however, have never needled their noses into an NCAA field. Irvine is now on that special brink after Friday night's 67-60 win over top-seeded Long Beach State at the Honda Center. The victory put the Anteaters into Saturday's Big West Tournament championship game against Pacific.

Horse meat in Ikea's meatballs? Sorry, Charlie (wait, that's tuna), but apparently the Swedish furniture giant is jockeying for position with Burger King, Nestle and Tesco in the tainted-meat derby. My colleague Tiffany Hsu reported Monday that inspectors in the Czech Republic had “found equine evidence in the chain's frozen meatballs. The affected product was sold as a packaged beef and pork item in more than a dozen European countries but not in the U.S.” Nay, you say?

  I hate it when this happens to me, but at least I'm not alone. Shanteona Keys, a guard on Georgia College's women's basketball team, was fouled during a game against Columbus State last weekend. Normally, this isn't a problem. Keys is an 81.5% free-throw shooter for the season, so it looked like two easy points at the foul line. But then something unexpected happened. Keys' first attempt landed about 12 feet short of the rim. It's hard to miss a free throw that badly, so what exactly happened?

BOSTON - The Clippers' Jamal Crawford suffered a broken nose in the fourth quarter of Friday night's game against the Toronto Raptors and has been listed as a game-time decision for Sunday's game against the Boston Celtics. Crawford said that he was hit with Kyle Lowry's elbow and was bleeding after the game. Crawford got an MRI on Friday night after the game and a CT Scan on Saturday that revealed the fracture. The Clippers were trying to find a mask for Crawford to wear in the game against the Celtics.

BOSTON - The Clippers got hit by another injury. This time it was super-sub guard Jamal Crawford suffering a slightly broken nose. Crawford said he was injured in the fourth quarter of the Toronto Raptors' game Friday night when he was hit by Kyle Lowry's elbow. The Clippers are saying that Crawford will be a game-time decision for Sunday's game against the Boston Celtics. After Friday's game, Crawford said he had towel over his face when he saw blood running down. He said he got an MRI Friday night and a CT scan Saturday that revealed a fracture.

Squatting next to his quarry, the dog's eyes locked onto an athletic blond woman who was approaching cautiously. Her hand reached into her backpack and the Belgian Malinois rose slowly to his feet, his butterscotch eyes burning with intensity. As the woman brought out a length of knotted rope and leather, he lunged and snapped his powerful jaws around the tanned hide. He bared his teeth and began to pull, peddling backward. She set her heels and the two whirled around the Western Montana grassland on this crisp autumn morning in a ferocious game of tug of war. "This," said Megan Parker, "is his paycheck.

Tom Brady is often referred to as a pretty boy, and for a pro football player that's not always a compliment. Still that pretty face of his may have helped the New England Patriots quarterback land his supermodel wife, Gisele Bundchen. Anyone who was worried that Tennessee's Kamerion Wimbley messed everything up by giving Brady what may or may not be a broken nose during a sack Sunday can rest at ease. Brady says his wife is actually fond of his newly scarred facial feature. “Yeah, it's OK,” Brady said of his nose during a 12-minute media session Wednesday.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Shoqofa never liked her nose. She thought it was too wide. Her father told her not to worry; it was given to her by Allah. But when the 22-year-old started working at a beauty salon, she had the means and freedom to do something about it. Six months ago, she had rhinoplasty at one of several new private clinics offering cosmetic surgery in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. She paid for it herself, telling her father that she was seeing a doctor about a mole.

We travel, we craft bucket lists , we read about exotic destinations that will open a window on the world, but do we actually retain anything? Here's a chance to find out. Napa Valley-based freelance writer Bob Ecker created the Travel Quiz 2012 for his travel column at Examiner.com . It has 25 brain-busters that will leave you thinking, singing and maybe embarrassed about how few you can answer. The answers will be posted next week (though I've already seen them)