Recovery

Distancing himself from Republicans on housing issues, President Obama pitched a $5-billion to $10-billion plan to help a key segment of struggling homeowners — those still making monthly payments, but on underwater mortgages. Obama proposed Wednesday to help about 3.5 million people with good credit who are unable to refinance at historically low rates because their homes are worth less than their mortgages. He argued that those homeowners — and the country — couldn't afford to let the housing market bottom out, as many Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have advocated.

BERLIN - If it seems to German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the world is against her, she may be right. Her insistence that debt-ridden European nations cut their way out of financial crises helped cost her conservative political party two state elections this month, exposed her to criticism as an inflexible taskmaster across the Eurozone and unleashed a torrent of anti-austerity venting that has toppled like-thinking national and regional leaders...

It was evidently good enough for Gilligan and Robinson Crusoe. But is coconut water a healthy choice for people who aren't stranded on a deserted island? A longstanding treat in tropical regions across the globe, coconut water hit U.S. supermarkets a few years back and is now being marketed with a vengeance. Sometimes billed as nature's sports drink, the slightly sour beverage has also acquired a reputation for being able to improve circulation, slow aging, fight viruses, boost immunity, and reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke.

JOPLIN, Mo. - Arielle Speer started to cry. She was having a panic attack, and the movie hadn't even started. Speer is a Joplin tornado survivor, and she had come to remember. Almost a year ago, the 28-year-old was standing on the side of Connecticut Avenue looking at the pile of rubble that used to be her apartment building. It had since been cleared away, and now Speer was sitting in a local university auditorium, waiting to watch a documentary about the storm that destroyed it. A lot has happened since May 22, 2011, when a massive tornado erased nearly a third of Joplin and killed about 160 people.

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

Five more bodies were recovered Monday from the Costa Concordia, more than two months after the cruise ship struck a reef and became submerged off the Tuscan coast, the Italian Civil Protection agency reported. That brings the official death toll of the Jan. 13 disaster to 30, with two people still missing and presumed dead. The bodies were found by search crews Thursday, the statement says, but it took 34 divers and 15 vessels to retrieve them in a recovery effort that started Monday morning local time.

Most employers would balk at hiring newly sober workers or those still battling drug or alcohol abuse. Not Jon Esformes, owner of Westwood Country Market and Cafe in Los Angeles. Esformes opened the business 14 months ago, serving brioche French toast, house-made granola, grilled panini and chopped salads to neighborhood families and businesspeople. He welcomes job candidates at various stages of recovery -- as long as they are qualified, willing and able to perform the work.

A tangy, sour, fermented milk drink may not sound like a likely candidate to move from health food stores to mainstream supermarkets, but that's exactly what kefir has done. The beverage is steadily gaining fans convinced of the health benefits -- proponents tout its purported ability to help cure cancer, reduce high cholesterol and treat high blood pressure -- yet the scientific studies to support the claims are still few. Kefir's closest cousin is yogurt, also made by fermenting milk with bacteria.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney is fond of telling crowds that women have lost more jobs than men have under President Obama's economic watch. Is he correct? Kind of. But it's not like the Obama administration deliberately targeted women. Rather, women took an especially rough economic pounding because they play a disproportionately large role in our public schools. And public schools have suffered mightily in recent years. According to the National Women's Law Center, women lost 396,000 public sector jobs during the recovery, or more than two-thirds of all such jobs cut. The economy may now be on the mend, but it's not like the public sector is rushing to fill all those vacancies.

The evidence keeps piling up that the U.S. economy has reached bottom and that a recovery of some sort is in the cards for the second half of this year. But that's where the consensus ends. The shape of any recovery remains a matter of heated debate on Wall Street. As my colleague Don Lee notes in his front-page story today, the "robust recovery" camp was buoyed Friday by the government's data on second-quarter gross domestic product.

WASHINGTON - Whatever else they achieve, back-to-back summits of world leaders this weekend hosted by President Obama will showcase the perks of incumbency. An American president with sagging approval ratings on the top campaign issue - the anemic economic recovery - will stand in the spotlight as a seasoned world leader. On Friday, Obama welcomed leaders of the major industrialized nations, the so-called G-8, for an overnight economic gathering at Camp David, the presidential retreat in western Maryland.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois has released a video showing him walking with the help of a cane and a harness as he talks about his rehabilitation since suffering a stroke in January. "I'm walking again," the Republican says, seated before a camera as he narrates a three-minute video showing him walking with a cane and on a hospital treadmill while fitted in a harness. At times he speaks haltingly, and the video shows him struggling to move his left side. Kirk was released last week from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and is continuing treatment there as an outpatient.

When I knocked on a door in Torrance on Tuesday afternoon, I had just about given up on finding Fidel Lopez. Twenty years ago, at the corner of Florence and Normandie, the self-employed construction worker was dragged from his truck and viciously beaten just minutes after the same vengeance was served on Reginald Denny during the L.A. riots. Both assaults were captured on video that was played over and over, nauseating for the sheer brutality and the inhumane, triumphant swagger of the attackers.

Mitt Romney blasted a labor report Friday that found that the economy added 115,000 jobs last month and unemployment dipped to 8.1%, saying that the nation should be creating nearly five times as many jobs per month and that unemployments claims were dropping because people were giving up on looking for work. “It's a terrible and very disappointing report this morning. Clearly the American people are wondering why this recovery isn't happening faster, why it's taking years and years for the recovery to occur and we seem to be slowing down, not speeding up,” Romney said on the Fox News program "Fox and Friends.

Detroit: A Biography Scott Martelle Chicago Review Press: 288 pp., $24.95 In February 1863, Thomas Faulkner, a Detroit saloon owner of mixed-race background, was arrested on the charge of raping a 9-year-old white girl. Despite his protestations of innocence, Faulkner was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The Civil War-era incident incited a white mob to burn 35 homes, kill at least two black people and injure numerous others. It's a chilling story - all the more so because there was no rape.

California's labor market continued its slow improvement in March as employers added jobs for the eighth straight month. Payrolls grew by 18,200 jobs last month, according to figures released Friday by the California Employment Development Department. That's on top of a revised 38,600 jobs in February. The unemployment rate increased to 11% in March, up slightly from February's 10.9% rate. Still, improving job prospects have encouraged more California workers to reenter the labor force, driving the jobless rate higher, said Dennis Meyers, principal economist for the state's Department of Finance.

Eight months after wedding England's Prince William, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge (formerly Kate Middleton), has revealed she will become a patron of the British charity Action on Addiction, which supports research, prevention and treatment of addiction, support for addicts' families and the education and training of those working in the field. Action on Addiction is one of several charities to which the Duchess will lend her highly visible support: Other charities relate to Catherine's interest in the arts, including a charity that provides art therapy to children.

Admitting you have a problem, it's often said, is the first step to recovery. Brenda Wilhelmson reached that point years ago when she realized that alcohol was wrecking her life. Join a live Web chat with Wilhelmson on Monday, July 25, at 11 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. Central and 2 p.m. Eastern time) when she speaks about her book, "Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife," about her struggles with addiction and her ongoing recovery. While some addicts talk about hitting bottom before seeking help, Wilhelmson said that pivotal moment may not be the same for everyone.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney is fond of telling crowds that women have lost more jobs than men have under President Obama's economic watch. Is he correct? Kind of. But it's not like the Obama administration deliberately targeted women. Rather, women took an especially rough economic pounding because they play a disproportionately large role in our public schools. And public schools have suffered mightily in recent years. According to the National Women's Law Center, women lost 396,000 public sector jobs during the recovery, or more than two-thirds of all such jobs cut. The economy may now be on the mend, but it's not like the public sector is rushing to fill all those vacancies.

Global economies - advanced and otherwise - are looking up, according to the International Monetary Fund. But the incoming growth that the organization foresees will happen on perilous ground. Economic output worldwide will increase 3.5% in 2012 before surging 4.1% the year after, according to the IMF's forecast , which improved its outlook from January. But unemployment will stay high and the specter of rising oil prices will continue to hover, the report found. New policies implemented by established markets have “reduced the threat of a sharp global slowdown” and will help them achieve a “weak recovery,” according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook.