Preval

Seated under a mango tree with helicopters and cargo planes thundering overhead, Haitian President Rene Preval had few answers to the many questions facing the head of a devastated country. He could not say how many people had died. He did not know when the roads would be cleared of debris. He wouldn't venture a guess on whether more survivors might still be pulled from the rubble. "We haven't ended the rescue operations, but we know that as the days pass, the chances are getting smaller and smaller," the president told The Times, speaking after a news conference held at what serves as his government's headquarters: a guarded police station behind cinder-block walls near the airport.

Who 'sexts'? And who cares, besides former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife? It turns out that a fair number of people send the cryptic and racy messages, and behavioral scientists who study issues as varied as sexual mores, shame and suicide are curious. Depending on your definition of sexting (Words only? Photos?) and what groups you're surveying, 2.5% to 25% of the population sends them and 7% to 34.5% receives them (some, accidentally). And that's just the folks who admit it. A recent report suggests that almost 40% of young people reported sending such messages, and almost 50% reported receiving them.

Which of the following TV programs depicts tobacco use most frequently? A. "Gossip Girl" B. "Heroes" C. "America’s Next Top Model" Before you guess, a little background. For the purposes of this pop quiz, a “depiction” of tobacco is defined as a single instance of a cigarette or cigar appearing onscreen. If two characters are smoking at the same time, that counts as two depictions. If a character takes a puff, moves the cigarette off-screen and then takes another puff, those count as separate depictions.

In a finding certain to put new pressure on the purveyors of sugary foods and drinks, a worldwide analysis shows that regardless of its effect on obesity, the ebb and flow of sugar in a country's diet strongly influences the diabetes rate there. The new study provides compelling evidence that obesity isn't driving the worldwide pandemic of Type 2 diabetes as much as the rising consumption of sugar - largely in the form of sweetened sodas, experts said. Increases in sugar intake account for a third of new cases of diabetes in the United States and a quarter of cases worldwide, according to calculations published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. In the 175 countries studied, a 150-calorie daily increase in the availability of sugar - about the equivalent of a can of Coke or Pepsi - raises the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes by 1.1%, a research team from Stanford University and UC San Francisco found.

For millions of people, the quietest room is never quiet enough. Even when surrounded by silence, they can hear a ringing or buzzing in their ears that drives them to distraction. The sound is called tinnitus, and sufferers — often people with hearing trouble thanks to advanced age or loud sounds — are willing to go to great lengths to stop the noise. Some plead with their doctors to cut their hearing nerves completely, but even this drastic measure won't help. The few patients who have had the procedure could still hear their tinnitus — and nothing else.

In "Haiti Elected a New President, But Can He Replace Aristide?" (Opinion, Dec. 24), J.P. Slavin completely misses the significance of Rene Preval's election to Haiti's highest office. Slavin questions whether Preval is President Aristide's "protege" or "acolyte." In fact he is neither. It was Preval who convinced a reluctant Aristide to run for the presidency in 1990 and it was Preval who as prime minister and interior minister in 1991 led efforts to eradicate the corrupting influence of the Tontons Macoutes from the governmental apparatus.

When Daniel Castin told people he was from Haiti, the response was always the same. "Isn't that the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere?" they would ask. So at some point, Castin -- who emigrated to escape poverty at home -- stopped telling people his nationality. "It's like I was drowning and you were describing the water to me," said Castin, who lives in Pasadena. "Give me a break already." Roughly 5,750 Haitian immigrants live in California, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

Thank you for your Feb. 8 article on the installation of President Rene Garcia Preval in Haiti. I was working with the OAS as an election monitor during the recent elections that brought Preval to power. Although voter turnout was no higher in these past elections than voter turnout in other democratic countries, Haiti is on the road to selecting its own leaders and securing a future based on self-determination. Why are fellow democratic countries dropping the ball now and deciding that unless Haitians follow an outside lead on how to build their country, foreign aid will be withheld?

Violence, sex and profanity in movies increased significantly between 1992 and 2003, while ratings became more lenient, according to a new Harvard study. Research by the Kids Risk Project at the Harvard School of Public Health found a "ratings creep" for movies, and suggested that the Motion Picture Assn. of America was relaxing standards in rating films.

Re "Racism -- fact or faith?" Opinion, Dec. 23 It does not follow, as Shelby Steele suggests, from the decline of white supremacy that we have become a virtually colorblind society. On the contrary, our institutions continue to be tainted by prejudice. One window on continuing discrimination is the criminal justice system. From racial profiling to judges and juries who impose the death penalty, we see indicators of biased sentiment. Our courts, law enforcement agencies and prisonindustrial complex may not intend to be white supremacist, but you wouldn't know that by the results.

WASHINGTON - Their deadline rushing closer, President Obama and the top four congressional leaders announced plans to meet Friday to try to pick up the pieces of the shattered budget talks, even as they spent Thursday positioning themselves to dodge the blame for failure. Expectations for a breakthrough at the White House huddle were low, but it was clear the president and the lawmakers felt obligated to at least appear to be pushing for a solution right up to the Dec. 31 deadline, when all taxpayers will see their income taxes rise if a deal is not reached.

NEW DELHI - Politics, an official's controversial comments about rape, and an upcoming election. This may sound like a senatorial race in Missouri, but it's all part of a scandal that's unfolded in India over the last week. The anger, introspection and frustration among women's groups and social critics, however, have echoed American reaction to recent suggestions by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) that women's bodies are able to prevent pregnancy in the event of "legitimate rape. " The issue hit the headlines here when a 16-year-old girl committed suicide in the northern state of Haryana this month after being raped.

"Head Games" isn't fooling around. It's a complex, determined look at one of the most pernicious problems facing organized sports on all levels, but because its director is Steve James, this is more than your standard problem documentary. James is not only the director of "Hoop Dreams," the consensus pick as the best sports doc ever made, he is also, as last year's "The Interrupters" demonstrated, a filmmaker with an unusually deft touch. There's more nuance in "Head Games," more space for a wider perspective, than we usually see in films that tell us in no uncertain terms that the sky is falling.

A decorated American soldier — an Iraq war hero secretly turned terrorist — falls into a reckless affair with the CIA agent who's set on exposing him on Showtime's hit drama, "Homeland. " Principal players on CBS' "The Good Wife," the CW's "Ringer," ABC's "Revenge," Starz's "Boss" and AMC's zombie drama, "The Walking Dead," have sex outside their marriages, and no one on FX's "American Horror Story" can keep his pants on. Even "New Girl," a Fox comedy, wouldn't be the "new girl" in an apartment with three strangers if her boyfriend hadn't cheated.

If we are going to rant about educational shortcomings in big-time college sports, then we also need to pump up the positives. Which brings us to Ben Howland. UCLA's basketball coach is not in a good spot right now. His team, picked to win its Pacific 12 Conference division this season, has started 0-2. Its first loss was to Loyola Marymount, which hadn't beaten the Bruins since 1941. Next came Tuesday night's 20-point loss to Middle Tennessee, a very good team, likely an NCAA tournament team, but with no history of big-time excellence.

Heart disease prevalence in the U.S. has declined over the last five years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. The agency mined results from a large national telephone survey called the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to figure out how many people 18 years or older said they had coronary heart disease. The CDC researchers analyzed the data by age, sex, education, state and race/ethnicity and published their results in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In a finding certain to put new pressure on the purveyors of sugary foods and drinks, a worldwide analysis shows that regardless of its effect on obesity, the ebb and flow of sugar in a country's diet strongly influences the diabetes rate there. The new study provides compelling evidence that obesity isn't driving the worldwide pandemic of Type 2 diabetes as much as the rising consumption of sugar - largely in the form of sweetened sodas, experts said. Increases in sugar intake account for a third of new cases of diabetes in the United States and a quarter of cases worldwide, according to calculations published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. In the 175 countries studied, a 150-calorie daily increase in the availability of sugar - about the equivalent of a can of Coke or Pepsi - raises the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes by 1.1%, a research team from Stanford University and UC San Francisco found.

Haitian President Rene Preval named a new prime minister two weeks after lawmakers fired his predecessor to quell violent protests ignited by rising food prices in the impoverished Caribbean nation. Preval named Ericq Pierre, a senior advisor with the Inter-American Development Bank, to replace former Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, lawmakers said. Alexis was dismissed April 12 in a vote by opposition senators who blamed him for failing to boost food production and reduce the cost of living.

Researchers at USC have found an increased prevalence of prostate cancer among older men exposed to certain pesticides in Central Valley neighborhoods. The authors used the state cancer registry to recruit 173 white and Latino seniors in Tulare, Fresno and Kern counties who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer between August 2005 and July 2006. They compared them with 162 men without prostate cancer, found through Medicare and tax records. Researchers then traced where the men lived and worked from 1974 to 1999 and compared those locations with state records of pesticide application.

One-fourth of the nation's children have 80% of the nation's tooth decay, and most of them are underprivileged. The simplicity of those numbers, from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, underscores the reality of dental care in this country but gives little hint at its ultimate effects. Oral infection is the No. 1 chronic disease in children — five times more prevalent than asthma — and experts estimate that more than 50% of children will have some tooth decay by age 5. "For those kids who are not getting care, the problems don't go away, they just get worse," says Dr. Paul Reggiardo, a pediatric dentist in Huntington Beach and public policy advocate for the California Society of Pediatric Dentistry.