Senses

SACRAMENTO - Enforce the laws already on the books. Take away the criminals' weapons, not the law-abiding citizens'. Sound familiar? It's the mantra of the gun lobby. That is, until the government actually attempts to do it. Then the lobby changes its lyrics. It seemed surreal listening to lobbyists for gun rights groups Monday, as if the ears were playing tricks. They testified at a state Senate Budget Committee hearing in opposition to legislation that would spend $24 million in surplus money to confiscate guns possessed by people who legally aren't supposed to have them.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama has been phoning Republican senators in recent days in search of what he called a “common sense" caucus on budget issues, even as House Republicans unveiled legislation Monday to lock in the "sequester" cuts for the remainder of the fiscal year. Of particular note was Obama's outreach to Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the former director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush, who is widely seen as one of the GOP's top fiscal experts in the Senate.

The frozen fields of Wyoming came first. Long before the championship trophies. Before the glitz and glamour. Jerry Buss was still a teenager, digging ditches beside his stepfather, when he dreamed of bigger things. It was youthful ambition - a hunger for excitement - that led him to Southern California, where he amassed a fortune in real estate, traded it all to buy the Lakers, then became the man who transformed pro basketball from sport into spectacle. "I really tried to create a Laker image, a distinct identity," he said years later.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services has been under much scrutiny lately, following a series of highly publicized child deaths, a disgusting case of child abuse in Palmdale and, more recently, the publication of a scathing internal report, which The Times wrote about in the Feb. 14 article, “ Report excoriates L.A. County agency in child deaths, torture .” Contrary to what some people believe, front-line social...

"Raising Adam Lanza," which premieres Tuesday as part of the PBS series "Frontline," is one of a number of programs the network is airing this week under the banner "After Newtown. " Undertaken in concert with the Hartford Courant, it focuses on Nancy Lanza, the mother of the Sandy Hook Elementary School killer and also his first victim, to try to make a senseless act more sensible. It fails, of course. There are some nuggets of new information, to be sure, which "Frontline" and the Courant had jealously guarded; reviewers were forbidden to publish these facts before the paper unveiled them in a more detailed print story last Sunday.

Jerry Buss, the longtime owner of the Lakers whose penchant for showmanship helped turn the game of basketball into “Showtime” and who led the team to 10 NBA championships, died Monday. He was 80. A self-made millionaire who built his fortune in real estate, Buss bought the Lakers in 1979. He charted his successful course with marquee players Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, Hall of Fame coaches Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, celebrities sitting courtside and Laker Girls dancing during timeouts.

Urgency was the word for the day. UCLA needs to play with it against Stanford on Saturday at Maples Pavilion, and beyond. "This is a must-win game for us," freshman guard Shabazz Muhammad said. They all are, with significance reaching several levels for the Bruins. - UCLA is one game out of first in the Pac-12 Conference and is trying to win its fourth conference title under Coach Ben Howland. - The NCAA tournament is on the horizon, and the Bruins (18-7 overall, 8-4 Pac-12)

In his first State of the Union address of his second term, President Obama delivered the most forceful defense of liberal values uttered on this occasion by any president since Lyndon Johnson. Obama argued for progress on the environment, common sense on guns, decency on immigration. On those issues, he has the support of the American people. Yes, there are problems left over from his first four years: high unemployment and slow economic growth. He rightly called on Congress to close the nation's long-term budget gap by reforming entitlements and simplifying the tax code, rather than making across-the-board reductions that only chip away at the deficit.

Karla Martinez carried the framed photographs to the growing streetside memorial in Anaheim. There they were: hugging, showing off for the camera, old friends having good times, all smiles. But the good times had been swept away: 21-year-old Sheyla Mendoza, her mother Carmen Mendoza, 56, and cousin Stephanie Henriquez, 21, were dead. The three family members were fatally injured late Saturday as they walked down Western Avenue in the heart of Anaheim after a baby shower. They were struck by a drunk driver, police say. On Monday, a memorial of candles, homemade posters and photos, placed on the sidewalk near the site where the three were hit, swelled in size.