Outsider

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Wednesday cemented his relationship with a new advocacy group set up to back his second-term agenda, underscoring the unprecedented role the nonprofit is playing as an outside arm of the White House. In his first speech to Organizing for Action since its January launch, Obama urged former campaign donors, staff and volunteers to channel their resources and energy into the new entity. "The only idea here that we're promoting is the notion that if the American people are speaking out, organized, activated, that may give space here in Washington to do the kind of work - hopefully bipartisan work - that's required," Obama said at the group's two-day "founders summit.

Masako Unoura-Tanaka fears that the world will forget the horror of March 11, 2011, when 100-foot-tall swells barreled into northeastern Japan. The tsunami, triggered by a magnitude 9 quake, killed more than 18,000 people and battered nuclear reactors in Fukushima, setting off the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl. Unoura-Tanaka had been visiting relatives in coastal Kesennuma that day and escaped by abandoning her vehicle and climbing to the top of a four-story building. "When I was on the roof, I was watching these ladies," she said.

James Harrison's snarling tenacity made the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker one of the NFL's most intimidating players for nearly a decade. Big hits - some legal, some not so much - also turned the outspoken five-time Pro Bowler into focal point for a league-wide crackdown on helmet-to-helmet contact. Harrison's outlaw image made him beloved in Pittsburgh but reviled elsewhere. His onerous contract, however, no longer worked for a team with serious salary cap issues. The Steelers released the former defensive player of the year on Saturday when the two sides could not agree on a more cap-friendly deal.

TIJUANA - From a gated yard on a gritty street in this border city, white-paneled tour buses would set out for Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and other California destinations. When the time came for Scapadas Magicas to undergo its annual U.S. inspection in January, the bus company reported that its terminal was in San Diego - at an address that did not exist. Soon afterward, Scapadas Magicas did present two buses for inspection by the California Highway Patrol, which found them to be in working order and cleared them for operation.

The common thread in Lakers' losses this season has been turnovers, poor transition defense and free-throw shooting. Currently the Lakers are the worst team in the league from the free-throw line, shooting just 68.9%. After every practice, the players routinely shoot to improve and in the team's gym.  By and large, they are accurate. A board tracking their progress was recently updated to show individual percentages through the All-Star break. Steve Nash and Jodie Meeks led the way at 97% over 1,278 and 1,340 cumulative attempts, respectively.  Kobe Bryant, Steve Blake, Earl Clark and rookie Robert Sacre also averaged at least 90% in practice.

SACRAMENTO - One of Jim Brulte's first acts Sunday as the newly elected leader of the California Republican Party was to hand-deliver a $50,000 check from a friend, with the promise of another one this week. They will only dent the state party's debt, which is in the high six figures, but Brulte's ability to tap a vast network of donors is among the reasons that the former legislative leader was elected to try to salvage the beleaguered party. "Look, wherever - wherever - there is a willing heart and a checkbook that's willing to write a $5, $10, $15, $20, $50, $100, $1,000, $10,000 check, I'll go," Brulte told reporters after the weekend's party convention ended.

Outside spending is dominating campaigns for three seats on the Los Angeles Board of Education, surpassing $4.4 million through Friday. The outcome of Tuesday's primary is expected to shape the path of improvement efforts in the nation's second-largest school system. The costliest race is in District 4, which spans the Westside and the western San Fernando Valley. There, one-term incumbent and former teacher Steve Zimmer faces parent and attorney Kate Anderson. The pro-Anderson and anti-Zimmer effort has spent more than $1.1 million.

MEXICO CITY - The reversal of fortune could not have been more striking. And for many Mexicans, the images, broadcast live on national television Wednesday, could not have been more unexpected. Here, once again, was Elba Esther Gordillo, the powerful boss of Mexico's massive, sclerotic teachers union. But instead of the image Mexicans were used to - Gordillo standing in front of adoring followers, defiantly speechifying, dressed to the nines - her famous face was now barely visible through the bars of a Mexico City jail.

It's been nearly a generation since Quentin Tarantino burst on the scene with his raucous indie film "Pulp Fiction" in 1994, and Hollywood is a very different place. The once-vibrant independent film scene that Tarantino helped shape has shrunk to a handful of players who have honed their survival skills in a harsh distribution landscape. But Tarantino is back at the Oscars this year, this time with another wonderfully incendiary piece of entertainment, "Django Unchained. " And so, as it happens, are a group of other directors from his generation of outsiders - only now they are the new Hollywood establishment.

FAIRFAX, Va. - A call by a pro-Obama advocacy group for a “Day of Action” to promote stricter gun laws drew about 30 people Friday morning to a vigil outside the headquarters of the National Rifle Assn., where they held placards denouncing the gun lobby's opposition to new regulation. The protesters, dressed mostly in black, marched silently in front of the NRA's glass-and-concrete building in a suburban Fairfax neighborhood, the quiet punctuated by the occasional honking of cars passing by. “2050 Gun Deaths Since Newtown,” read one sign.