OPINION
May 15, 2013 | By Alison Block
Jennifer was one of my first patients as a new doctor, and she came to see me about an unintended pregnancy. A single mom to a rambunctious 5-year-old girl, Jennifer was struggling economically and battling depression. We talked about the options available to her: continuing the pregnancy and preparing to parent another child, offering the baby for adoption or having an abortion. She chose to continue with the pregnancy, and I worked with her over the following months as she struggled with the discomforts of pregnancy, excessive weight gain and the anxiety of having to raise two small children on her own. Seven months later, I delivered Jennifer's beautiful baby boy. Six weeks after that, I saw Jennifer, her new baby and her 5-year-old for a joint checkup.
WORLD
May 15, 2013 | By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO - His phone doesn't ring and his charts are gloomy. But every day Mostafa Ismail, a financial broker with a hangman's demeanor, steps into the Egyptian stock exchange hoping for positive blips. They are rare in a nation where revolution has brought two years of political instability and turned "investor confidence" into a quaint phrase from a more prosperous era. "The market has declined as far as it can go," said Ismail, his tie loosened, a string of numbers before him. "There's no one to trade or buy or sell with.
SPORTS
May 15, 2013 | By Ben Bolch
OAKLAND - Klay Thompson had just outdone himself and nearly everyone else in recent NBA playoffs. The shooting guard scored 29 points for the Golden State Warriors in the first half of a Western Conference semifinal game against San Antonio earlier this month. He finished with 34 points, 14 rebounds and three steals in a victory. Someone in the family wanted more, though, and you probably don't need two guesses if you're even vaguely familiar with the Thompson family's picky patriarch.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 14, 2013 | By Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times
An upside-down American flag is considered a signal of distress. And that's the feeling Robert Rosebrock had when he looked up and noticed the red, white and blue street-lamp banners outside the Department of Veterans Affairs' West Los Angeles Medical Center were in disarray - tattered, tangled around the poles or flapping upside-down in the breeze. "It was disgraceful," said Rosebrock, a 71-year-old U.S. Army veteran who arranged for the flags' installation 11 months ago using $12,000 donated by Metabolic Studio, a charitable arm of the Annenberg Foundation.
SPORTS
May 13, 2013 | By Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times
The family of Mickey Mantle has applied a corkscrew to Grey Flannel Auctions. On May 3, the auction house announced it would be auctioning an authentic Mantle bat at the end of May. Oh, and it said there was something special about this particular bat: It was corked. The auction announcement was accompanied by a statement from John Taube, a professional bat authenticator, which said, "During our examination of the bat, we noticed a circular area .75 inches wide in the center of the top barrel.
IMAGE
May 12, 2013 | By Melissa Magsaysay, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Gregg Renfrew wants to change the way people live, starting with their cosmetics. Sitting in her light-filled office in Santa Monica, Renfrew rattles off the statistics she finds most alarming when it comes to some of the lotions, sprays and powders we apply to our bodies on a daily basis. "Did you know that there has not been a federal law passed since 1938 governing the cosmetics industry? And there are close to 12,000 ingredients used in all personal care products, from toothpaste to shampoo, lipstick to lotion, 80% of which have never been tested for safety on human health.