Sea

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

SALTON SEA STATE RECREATION AREA - During the heyday of the Salton Sea, when the Hollywood crowd and others came to play in large numbers, this strip of beaches, campsites and fishing spots along the sea's northern shore was one of California's most popular parks. But that was years ago. The popularity of the recreation area has plummeted in recent decades, and now the area is on a list of parks to be closed because of the state's financial woes. Unlike other parks slated for closure, this one may never come back, park officials said.

Sea bean salad Total time: 15 minutes Servings: 2 Note: Adapted from Joan's on Third. Sea beans may be available at select Asian markets as well as online at earthy.com and marxfoods.com ; you can also contact your local produce manager to see if the market might order them for you. If you cannot locate sea beans, an equal amount of snow peas or pea shoots can be substituted. 1/2 pound sea beans 3/4 pound yellow wax beans 1/2 pound shelled edamame beans (about 2 cups)

Had enough of life in the fast lane and looking to take it down a notch or two? You might seek guidance from a colony of deep-sea microbes harvested from the barren depths of the Pacific Ocean that are progressing so slowly, they almost appear to be dead. Just how plodding are these ancient creatures, who are buried about 100 feet deep in the seabed? Some of them haven't received any new food for 86 million years, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth. And they are using up oxygen at rates 10,000 times slower than their counterparts on the surface of the ocean floor.

As if the damage done by the earthquake wasn't enough. Now the politicians in Sacramento want to raise taxes and push California into the sea--of red ink! DAVID HENDRICKSON Newport Beach

Island Beneath the Sea A Novel Isabel Allende Harper: 458 pp., $26.99

If you can't decide between a European tour and a transatlantic cruise this year, YMT Vacations offers a fall trip that combines both. It starts with four days in Amsterdam touring the canals, the Skinny Bridge and a diamond factory.  From there it's on to the German cities of Bremen and Hamburg, before hopping a ferry to Denmark. After seeing the Little Mermaid and other landmarks in Copenhagen, the 14-day transatlantic cruise on the Norwegian Sun begins. Ports of call include Lisbon and Funchal, Madeira, before arrival in Miami.

With a spray of water, Guy Gleichmann surfaces from a 40-foot dive during which he helped set his mother's remains in their final resting place: a sunken city where brightly hued fish shimmy among fantastical architecture. "I didn't want to leave," Gleichmann says, doffing mask and mouthpiece. "It's so beautiful down there. It's so serene." The 48-year-old investment manager and diver from Pompano Beach, Fla.

If you had seen Tatiana Reyes in the water at Zuma Beach last week, gliding smoothly toward the shore, you couldn't have guessed she was nearly killed in a crippling explosion while serving in Iraq. She looked like she could have been one of the surfing instructors. If you had seen a smiling Richard Pineda stand up cleanly on wave after wave, with confidence and uncanny balance, you couldn't have imagined he needs a GPS device to remember how to get back home after an outing. The concept sounds counterintuitive at first: You take veterans recovering from brain trauma and other injuries suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan and, for therapy, you put them on surfboards for the first time in their lives, lead them into the chilly, crashing surf and wish them luck.

MUSIC The Magnetic Fields' first effort for Merge Records since 1999, the 15-track "Love at the Bottom of the Sea" reclaims the willfully dinky synth-pop sound the New York indie-pop outfit renounced in recent years in favor of fuzzed-out guitar rock and strummy chamber folk. Fans of buzz-building mid-'90s albums such as "Get Lost" and "The Charm of the Highway Strip" will instantly recognize "God Wants Us to Wait," the shimmering pro-abstinence ditty that opens the CD with a bracing spritz of big-city sarcasm.

If you can't decide between a European tour and a transatlantic cruise this year, YMT Vacations offers a fall trip that combines both. It starts with four days in Amsterdam touring the canals, the Skinny Bridge and a diamond factory.  From there it's on to the German cities of Bremen and Hamburg, before hopping a ferry to Denmark. After seeing the Little Mermaid and other landmarks in Copenhagen, the 14-day transatlantic cruise on the Norwegian Sun begins. Ports of call include Lisbon and Funchal, Madeira, before arrival in Miami.

TEL AVIV - With the acquisition this month of a sixth German-made submarine, Israel is seeking to position itself as the region's undisputed naval powerhouse. From spying on enemies to intercepting illegal arms shipments to blockading the Gaza Strip, Israel's naval capabilities are playing a more prominent role in the nation's security. The latest advanced German sub, with a price tag of more than $500 million, is Israel's most expensive piece of military equipment. The subs - which are believed to be fitted with nuclear weapons - also provide Israel with a second-strike capability designed to discourage surprise enemy offensives.

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.

For sale: An exotic, once top-secret radar-evading ship, dubbed the Sea Shadow, that was built by one of the world's largest defense contractors during the height of the Cold War. Specifications: about 68 feet wide, 164 feet long and around 563 tons. Price: $139,200 or best offer. If interested, please contact the General Services Administration at its website: gsaauctions.gov. That's the sales pitch from theU.S. Navy, which - after five years of trying and failing to donate the stealthy Sea Shadow to a museum - is now selling the ship for scrap metal in an online auction.

Re "GOP-backed bill would retain 'no-otter zone,'" April 27 I find it offensive that Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) would sponsor a bill limiting sea otters' reclaiming their historical range off Southern California. The article states, "Fishermen say their livelihood would be hurt by the unfettered expansion of sea otters into their fishing grounds. " Otters have been inhabiting "their" grounds much longer than humans have. Maybe we need a "no-fisherman zone" to protect the sea otters.

Helicopters circled, crowds gathered to gawk and worry, and traffic snarled along Pacific Coast Highway as a disoriented dolphin circled in the shallow, murky waters of the Bolsa Chica wetlands Friday. The 7-foot dolphin - nicknamed Fred by some of the spectators - apparently swam mistakenly into the wetlands with five companions earlier in the week. While the dolphin's pod mates returned to sea, the one called Fred stayed behind. "They were probably chasing fish through the Huntington Harbour and lost their way," said Dean Gomersall, animal care supervisor with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach.

Mental illness as depicted in the German road trip comedy/drama "Vincent Wants to Sea" is somewhere between a terrible affliction and a terribly funny affectation, depending on the manipulative needs of a hackneyed script. First there's twentysomething Tourette sufferer Vincent (Florian David Fitz, also the screenwriter), institutionalized by his insensitive politician dad (Heino Ferch) after his caretaker mother dies. Escaping the hospital via stolen car on a quest to throw mom's ashes into the ocean, he's joined by germphobic OCD patient Alex (Johannes Allmeyer)

The "Subway to the Sea": By now the words have an almost mythical ring to them, with the Westside extension of L.A.'s subway system so long delayed and so much desired that it has almost come to seem like the stuff of legend, akin to the Stairway to Heaven or the Low Road to Loch Lomond. Yet now that the funding to build the line is in place -- if not to get it all the way to the sea, at least to run it as far as Westwood -- and it's finally poised to become a reality, the city of Beverly Hills is putting up costly and pointless roadblocks.

Buoyed by a ship-shape cast, the Colony Theatre Company's “Dames at Sea” revival broadsides the 1930s movie musicals of Busby Berkeley with tongue firmly in cheek. It's no coincidence that the creators of this 1966 lullaby of off-off-Broadway -- George Haimsohn and Robin Miller (book and lyrics) and Jim Wise (music) -- christened their romantic leads Ruby and Dick after “42 nd Street” co-stars Keeler and Powell, and that's only the start of the similarities. This is a lightweight dinghy at best for those in search of cerebral ballast, but Todd Nielsen's breezy, energetic staging keeps the show afloat with wry self-awareness of its own paper-thin plot, and his six-member cast certainly knows how to work a crowd.