Routes

The French-born conductor Ludovic Morlot was a surprise choice to succeed Gerard Schwarz as music director of the Seattle Symphony in 2011 -  a liaison that appears to be going smoothly. Three months after arriving in Seattle, he subbed for James Levine in the Boston Symphony's California tour, proving to be a skillful driver of that luxury vehicle.   He returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall Thursday night with a typical Morlot combination, counterbalancing standard repertoire -  Beethoven's Fifth Symphony -  with something enterprising and contemporary.

The common image of an indie musician may be one of up-and-coming rock or hip-hop artists turning to self-funded videos and social media to scrape together a following, but singer Dawn Richard is bringing a rare, independent-minded approach to contemporary R&B. After flourishing in groups under the tutelage of hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, Richard released her debut solo album, "GoldenHeart," last Tuesday and it quickly soared to No. 1 on...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — No Chris Paul for the Clippers. No problem for the Clippers. What figured to be a big challenge against the Memphis Grizzlies, even before Paul was ruled out of the game because of a bruised right kneecap, turned into a 99-73 laugher Monday night at the FedEx Forum. The Clippers won this game with a strong defensive effort in which they held Memphis to an opponent season low in points. They also won because of their quality depth and a collective effort that included Eric Bledsoe's replacing Paul as the starting point guard and scoring 14 points.

Serena Williams tumbled to the court and needed a medical timeout in the first set for treatment on her right ankle. Once she got up, it was all over for Edina Gallovits-Hall. Williams routed Gallovits-Hall, 6-0, 6-0, in the first round of the Australian Open on Tuesday at Melbourne despite the scary sequence in the first part of the match. The No. 3-ranked Williams is favored to win the season's first major, rolling into Melbourne Park with 35 wins in her previous 36 matches, including titles at Wimbledon, the London Olympics and the U.S. Open.

The NBA's leading scorer has a new favorite subject. His defense. Kobe Bryant's willingness to chase Cleveland's Kyrie Irving around the court Sunday was a bigger point of emphasis afterward than the Lakers star's 23 points. Irving scored only 15 points in the Lakers' 113-93 victory, with Bryant often keeping the Cavaliers point guard from receiving the ball in his preferred spots. Irving made only seven of 15 shots and finished well short of his average of 23 points per game.

It was back to the fun times of seasons past, when the only tension in the building centered on the Lakers' winning two free tacos for each fan at Staples Center. Even then, it wasn't much of a question Sunday. The Lakers, with Dwight Howard back in the lineup, easily handled the Cleveland Cavaliers, 113-93, at Staples Center. Their six-game losing streak was punted and they were no longer the only team without a victory in 2013, allowing their fans to momentarily forget all that went wrong so far. Not that there was any celebrating.

The roadblock facing Harrison Scott and his aging band of volunteers as they try to preserve the Ridge Route north of Los Angeles isn't just the heavy steel gate across the historic paved roadway that was the first to link Northern and Southern California. As Scott tells it, it's also the U.S. Forest Service, which technically owns the two-lane road that was created by horse-drawn scrapers in 1914 across ridge tops dotting the Sierra Pelona mountain range north of Castaic. The Ridge Route's place in California history is well-documented.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. - The only quarterback in the stadium Monday night who knew how to defeat Alabama wasn't allowed to take a snap. Johnny Manziel, the Heisman Trophy winner, watched from the stands, perhaps reminiscing about his team's upset win at Tuscaloosa on Nov. 10. Manziel plays for Texas A&M, however, not Notre Dame. Notre Dame's quarterback had no clue, but neither did anyone else in the Fighting Irish traveling party. Forty-four days and nights of biblical hype for this year's Bowl Championship Series title game produced not a classic, but a football flood.

I've been trying in vain for the better part of a decade to get my family to take a road trip along Route 66. Nothing worked until my wife and daughter stepped onto the fake Route 66 in Cars Land at Disney California Adventure - and suddenly their interest piqued in the Mother Road. Photos: The real Route 66 inspirations for Disney's Cars Land In an attempt to close the deal on my dream vacation, I decided to search for the real-world inspirations behind the fictional town of Radiator Springs.

Baltasar Kormakur has had one strange career. After starting out as an actor in his native Iceland in the mid-1990s, he soon added directing to his dossier. He began with small Icelandic-language slacker films like “101 Reykjavik,” segued to slightly bigger (but still pretty small) thrillers like “The Sea” and “Jar City” and eventually made the jump to English-language Hollywood flicks like the recent action hit “Contraband,” a remake of an Icelandic movie Kormakur starred in. These days, Kormakur covers a surprising range.