Paul

Chris Paul had just finished an amazing performance. In Game 2 of the Clippers first-round playoff series against Memphis, the point guard made a four-foot buzzer-beating bank shot with one-tenth of a second remaining in the game to give his team a 93-91 win.  In the locker room afterward, Paul's teammates apparently wanted to ensure that his 3-year-old son follows in his footsteps. Grant Hill, a seven-time All-Star, gave Paul's son, Little Chris, a dunking lesson. Hill stuck out his arms and pretended to be a hoop.

Time never seems to run out on Chris Paul. Seven, six, five … He takes a pass from Jamal Crawford about five feet from half court and surveys the floor in front of him, the Clippers needing a basket with the score tied in the final seconds of Monday's playoff game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Four, three … He dribbles around Tony Allen and pauses once, then again, before continuing toward the basket. Two, one … He whirls past Allen, creating separation with a left forearm to the midsection, before elevating for a one-handed leaning jumper that banks off the glass and through the net with 0.1 of a second left.

A Mississippi man who had been accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge was set free Tuesday and charges against him were dropped as authorities converged on the home of another man. Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Miss., had been released on bond earlier in the day. The part-time Elvis impersonator had been arrested last week on suspicion of mailing three letters filled with ricin within days...

With the score tied at 91-91 and seven seconds left in the game, Chris Paul drove to the basket and shot a one-handed bank shot from four feet away over Tony Allen. The ball glided through the net with one-tenth of a second left to give the Clippers a 93-91 win in Game 2 of the Western Conference first-round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies. "He has a knack and a will and a desire to step up in those moments," Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro said. "That's what star players do. That's the best part of the game.

Chris Paul did it again, this time being that big-time closer on the biggest stage. Paul scored on a running four-foot bank shot with Tony Allen all over him with 0.1 of a second left Monday, giving the Clippers a stunning 93-91 victory over the shell-shocked Memphis Grizzlies in Game 2 of the Western Conference first-round playoff series at Staples Center. Paul scored the Clippers' final eight points, 24 in all, in helping the Clippers take a two-games-to-zero lead over the Grizzlies in the best-of-seven series.

WASHINGTON - The divide within the Republican Party over immigration reform was on full view Monday, as top party leaders made a case for overhauling the laws even as conservative senators argued that the Boston bombings showed the need to go slow. Momentum appeared to be on the side of the reformers. They have amassed an unusually robust alliance of business, labor and faith leaders that on Monday included the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who said "now is the time" to fix the immigration system.

Oh me, oh my. Finally, the payoff. And I'm not even talking about Chris Paul's exhilarating, awesome, magical, 93-91 game-winner. I begin with Lamar Odom, who is my favorite athlete, and apparently Blake Griffin's as well. Griffin has come running off the bench to throw a bear hug around Odom, and there's still much of the fourth quarter to play. OK, so Paul is a close second as my favorite athlete. Very close. And my favorite closer. But I've been waiting and waiting for Odom, the Clippers doing the same in getting someone 30 pounds overweight to start the season, and the payoff is a difference-maker.

It didn't figure to be a thing of beauty when the Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies played Game 1 of the Western Conference playoffs Saturday night at Staples Center. But beauty is what a team makes it, and the Clippers found their beauty in pulling out a 112-91 victory over the Grizzlies behind the steady play of Chris Paul. With Paul scoring 23 points on seven-for-11 shooting, six for six from the free-throw line, and handing out seven assists, the Clippers opened a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series that resumes with Game 2 here Monday night.

Paul Lagloire played high school hockey as a youngster in the Quebec town of Bromont, but he turned down an invitation to the training camp of the major junior team in Verdun because he thought he was too small to succeed, at 5 feet 10-1/2 and 130 pounds. His hockey career didn't take off until decades later, after he had moved to California and retired from his job as a chief accountant and office manager. “I was not doing any serious work. All my joints and legs and nerves were still in good shape because I was not doing heavy workloads,” said Lagloire, who lives in Glendale.

I opened this bottle, poured out a glass of the deep garnet Syrah and got a whiff of sun-baked hillside, dark berries and wild herbs. The taste is redolent of spice and blackberries, smoke and something brambly and wild. A close but less glamorous cousin of Hermitage, the 2009 Crozes Hermitage "Les Jalets" from Jaboulet is made from 25-year-old vines. The grapes come mostly from "Les Jalets" vineyard, named after the old French word for the pebbles left by Alpine glaciers. FOR THE RECORD: Wine of the Week: In the April 20 Saturday section, the Wine of the Week review of the 2009 Paul Jaboulet Aine Crozes Hermitage "Les Jalets" gave an incorrect phone number for Monopole Wine in Pasadena.