Red Sea

Sophisticated computer calculations indicate that the biblical parting of the Red Sea, said to have allowed Moses and the Israelites to escape from bondage in Egypt, could have occurred precisely as the Bible describes it.

When Blake Griffin ran onto the court to warm up before Game 3, his senses were overcome by the spectacle of an undulating and screaming sea of red. "That was the loudest we had heard it," Griffin said of the sellout crowd of nearly 20,000 at Staples Center, many of whom had donned red Clippers T-shirts. "Just that energy throughout our whole warmup, the intros, the start of the game, and then parts of the game - it was unbelievable. " Chris Paul took it a step further.

Moses might not have parted the Red Sea, but a strong east wind that blew through the night could have pushed the waters back in the way described in biblical writings and the Koran, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. Computer simulations, part of a larger study on how winds affect water, show wind could push water back at a point where a river bent to merge with a coastal lagoon, the team at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado at Boulder said.

For nearly a decade, Scott and Jean Adam's home has been a 58-foot custom-made sloop and the ocean below. Although they docked every so often in Marina del Rey to pick up mail and see old friends, the couple spent most of their time sailing to far-flung locales like the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti and New Zealand. Posting photos and information on their website , they raved about their travels aboard the Quest. "We've decided to ... explore Fiji like petals on a flower," they wrote about their 2007 trip to the South Pacific.

When Blake Griffin ran onto the court to warm up before Game 3, his senses were overcome by the spectacle of an undulating and screaming sea of red. "That was the loudest we had heard it," Griffin said of the sellout crowd of nearly 20,000 at Staples Center, many of whom had donned red Clippers T-shirts. "Just that energy throughout our whole warmup, the intros, the start of the game, and then parts of the game - it was unbelievable. " Chris Paul took it a step further.

An overloaded wooden boat carrying Sudanese pilgrims and hashish to Saudi Arabia capsized in the Red Sea, killing 11 people.

Two small earthquakes struck the Red Sea area, shaking the Israeli coastal town of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba but causing no damage, a spokesman for Israel's seismological station said. The first tremor, which registered 4.5 on the Richter scale, hit Tuesday evening. It was followed almost three hours later by a second quake that registered 5 on the Richter scale.

The only Eritrean restaurant in the Southland stands near a corner of Culver City, not far from where the domed church collapsed during the earthquake a couple of months ago and right on the best eastbound detour to the crumbled patch of the 10.

Two Russian-made MIG-21 aircraft crashed in the Red Sea near the coastal city of Hodeida, and the two Yemeni pilots were killed, the Interior Ministry announced Monday. The two pilots were on a training mission Sunday, and it appeared that the two planes had collided.

A chartered jetliner carrying 135 people crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff early today from the resort town of Sharm el Sheik, killing all aboard, Egyptian transportation officials said. The Boeing 737 took off just before 5 a.m. and quickly disappeared from radar about seven miles south of the airport, airport officials said. The officials said 127 French tourists and eight crew members were aboard the jet, which was operated by the private Egyptian company Air Flash.

Moses might not have parted the Red Sea, but a strong east wind that blew through the night could have pushed the waters back in the way described in biblical writings and the Koran, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. Computer simulations, part of a larger study on how winds affect water, show wind could push water back at a point where a river bent to merge with a coastal lagoon, the team at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado at Boulder said.

Outdoor-gear retailing giant REI this week rolled out its first-ever TV commercials as part of its seasonal "Find Out" campaign. I think the retailer just walked off a cliff. Let me explain. Unless I crash into it with a helium balloon, I'm never going to make it to the top of Mt. Everest. I'm never going to dangle by pitons on the Great Trango Wall in Pakistan. I develop hypothermia just reaching into the back of the refrigerator. Yet I have enough pro expedition gear in the garage to mount an assault on K2. Snowshoes, ice axes, climbing helmets, plastic mountaineering boots and wicking-action underwear sufficient to dry up the Red Sea. Why?

The wealthy owner of a ferry that sank three years ago in the Red Sea, killing more than 1,000 people, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and negligence and sentenced to seven years in prison. Hundreds of victims' family members packing the courtroom in the Red Sea port city of Hurghada responded to the verdict with applause and shouts of "long live justice." Others protested what they said was an overly light sentence for Mamdouh Ismail. The ruling overturned an acquittal in July that sparked outrage from many in Egypt, who believed the businessman and former lawmaker was being protected by his political connections.

He went looking for his daughter and found bodies stacked in garbage bags. A man told him she was in bag No. 123. She wasn't. She has never been found, and that is the hardest thing, to wonder where the sea took her. In the predawn hours of Feb. 3, 2006, the ferry carrying Tareq Sharaf's family caught fire and capsized in high winds on the Red Sea between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His wife and four of his children, along with 1,029 other passengers, drowned or died in the blaze.

Worried that piracy could scare ships away from the Suez Canal, Egypt on Thursday held emergency talks with nations bordering the Red Sea on how to stop brazen Somali gunmen from hijacking oil tankers and other vessels. The Cairo meeting was called amid concerns that lawlessness was disrupting sea lanes and creating panic that might force shipping companies to avoid sailing the Red Sea region.

IN THE last couple of years, whenever I've asked studio marketing chiefs to send me trailers to show to my Summer Movie Posse (a group of teenagers who rate the summer flicks after watching their trailers), the smart marketers now say: Can we send you our red-band trailer? Always the last ones on the block to figure out the amazing viral energy of the Internet, studio marketers have finally realized that there's a huge Web audience for red-band trailers -- i.e. trailers that offer unrestricted content, meaning all the gore, drug references, bare breasts and foul language that have to be edited out of the typical trailers shown in theaters or cut down for 30-second TV spots.

On an average of three times a day, a handpicked team of armed U.S. sailors boards merchant ships in the Red Sea that might be trying to break a U.N. embargo to get supplies to Iraq. "We're the Red Sea Highway Patrol," said Gunner's Mate William Kitchens, 27, of Lakeland, Fla., a member of Boarding Team Alpha aboard the guided missile cruiser Biddle. "We should put a red and blue light atop the ship with a siren. It's more police work than anything else.

Smugglers on a boat making an illegal crossing from Somalia to Yemen forced passengers into the Red Sea at gunpoint miles from shore, leaving at least 57 dead and about 100 missing, fishermen and a diplomat said Monday. An estimated 200 Somalis and Ethiopians, including children, left Somalia's semiautonomous Puntland region in two boats Wednesday. Their ultimate destination was Saudi Arabia, said Jama Moalin Omar, a fisherman in the region who spoke by telephone.

Hind Hussein returned from the hospital after going into false labor and was nodding off early Saturday morning when the cliff above her shantytown rumbled and boulders the size of tugboats rained down, crushing scores of apartments and houses in a storm of grit and dust. Hussein and a few neighbors ran for cover in a mosque, but for many the rock slide that roared through a quiet Ramadan morning erupted too quickly. At least 24 people have been reported dead and dozens injured.