Signal

For many who suffer depression, chronic pain is a frequent fellow traveler. As many as half of those with chronic pain or with neuropathic pain disorders, such as fibromyalgia, have depression as well. That the two are so often bound together suggests a complex relationship, and the brain's shared circuitry for social and physical pain may lie at its heart. Depression and chronic pain are distinct but similar disorders. But both may arise from some faulty wiring in their shared neural circuitry, researchers say. In both disorders, pain continues long after some initial insult has healed, disappeared or moved on, and the experience of social rejection or physical pain persists, feeds on itself and becomes chronic.

Shell casings and signals from one of the victim's cellphones led police to arrest two men in the slayings of two USC graduate students from China - a botched robbery that focused a harsh global spotlight on the campus that is a magnet for foreigners. At a news conference Friday evening, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck identified the suspects as Bryan Barnes, 20, of Los Angeles and Javier Bolden, 19. Barnes was taken into custody Friday afternoon by a team of LAPD SWAT officers, along with FBI and other federal agents, who raided an apartment near the USC campus.

In the car-theft capital of the United States, Los Angeles police are pinning their hopes on a homing device capable of leading them to stolen cars within minutes. "If this is a success, we can make it very uncomfortable for people to steal cars--that will make them go somewhere else," said Officer Bill Farrar, part of a team of officers studying a vehicle tracking system for the city. The system, called Lojack, has been used in Massachusetts since the summer of 1976.

Southern California's housing market showed signs of turning the corner in April as foreclosures made up the smallest share of sales in four years and the region's median home price increased for the first time since late 2010. Among other evidence of improvement, foreclosures dropped significantly in California and other Western states last month, a continuation of a trend that began last fall, according to data firm ForeclosureRadar. A separate report by the nation's mortgage bankers released Wednesday showed that national delinquencies and foreclosures hit a four-year low, driven largely by declines in states in the West.

If, as you state in your May 26 editorial, 39% of California traffic fatalities were not buckled up, then, conversely, 61% were wearing seat belts. The way to save lives is to avoid accidents. If more drivers signaled lane changes and yielded, there certainly would be a lot fewer accidents. JIM HILLIARD Irvine

Shareholders of Allied Corp. today approved a merger with California-based The Signal Cos. Inc., creating a $13.5-billion chemical and technology giant. The new Allied Signal Corp. will focus on the aerospace, automotive and chemical industries, marshaling 168,000 employees and liquid capital of $1.4 billion. Allied Chairman Edward L. Hennessy Jr., who will chair the new corporation, called the Signal acquisition "probably one of the largest non-oil company mergers in United States history."

Re "Turn Away From Selfish Behavior: Use Your Signal," Voices, Feb. 9: I share professor John Allswang's irritation over self-centered drivers who don't care enough about others to use their turn signals. Making matters worse, the antisocials are abetted by the clueless. Many left-turners waiting at a red light start to signal only after the light changes. The rest of us have been conditioned to expect this behavior and change to the right lane, blocking those who had hoped to turn right on the red light.

I think your readers would be well advised to know that there is considerable controversy within environmental indoor health circles regarding possible bioelectric interferences arising from dimmer switches. Many of these devices generate an electrical disturbance in the form of radio-frequency interference. The transmission of this "disturbed signal" can be visualized on an oscilloscope when many of these dimmers are turned on. Also using an AM radio tuned off-station (at the lowest end of the dial is best)

Rob Nilsson's "Signal 7" (Beverly Center Cineplex) takes us on a dusk-to-dawn ride into the lives and souls of two aging San Francisco cabbies. It's a stripped-down, painful trip, and by the time dawn approaches and one of them is ready for sleep, Nilsson and his cast have brought us close enough to see sweat and tears running down the skin. The two drivers, Speed (Bill Ackridge) and Marty (Dan Leegant), are 50-ish men who work as part-time stage actors.

Days after lightning struck both a transmission line and antenna, classical music station KUSC-FM (91.5) said its broadcast signal has been restored to about 95% strength. General Manager Eric DeWeese said that KUSC will not be at full strength for perhaps another 10 days, until a new 300-foot transmission line can be obtained and installed. He estimated the cost at between $38,000 and $39,000. "The remaining 5% is not as robust," he said of the station's signal. "But the fact the phone calls have stopped indicates our listeners are getting it."

President Obama's fundraiser Thursday night at George Clooney's house was marked by the glitz of celebrity attendees and jokes about the president's graying hair and wrinkled visage. But the tone of the president, less defiant than prior visits, more sober, was a reflection of the headwinds he faces going into the general election. Obama highlighted the challenge of wooing an electorate that is still struggling in the nation's slowly recovering economy. “This is going to be harder than it was the last time -- not only because I'm older and grayer and your "Hope" posters are dog-eared,” Obama said to laughter.

At the world premiere Thursday night of Anne LeBaron's darkly mysterious, troubling yet weirdly exuberant and wonderfully performed new opera "Crescent City," a young Reveler in the production frolicked a few feet from where I was sitting on a folding chair along the perimeter of the experimental art space, Atwater Crossing. She wore a skirt fashioned out of the Arts & Books section of this newspaper, and she was close enough that I could read a few crumpled lines. But she was hardly there to make me or any other Angeleno feel remotely at home.

Five years after his partnership lost a bid to buy Tribune Co.and the Los Angeles Times, billionaire businessman Eli Broad said he remains interested in joining with others to restore local ownership to The Times. The issue arose this week with the pending release of Broad's book, "The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking," in which the onetime home builder and investment services magnate speculates that the newspaper will be sold after the resolution of the bankruptcy of its owner, Tribune.

WASHINGTON - In what would be a significant concession, Obama administration officials say they could support allowing Iran to maintain a crucial element of its disputed nuclear program if Tehran took other major steps to curb its ability to develop a nuclear bomb. U.S. officials said they might agree to let Iran continue enriching uranium up to 5% purity, which is the upper end of the range for most civilian uses, if its government agrees to the unrestricted inspections, strict oversight and numerous safeguards that the United Nations has long demanded.

We briefly interrupt this Matt Kemp lovefest to wonder - just wonder, mind you - if he hasn't had a momentary relapse. That would be the Matt Kemp who leads the majors in batting average, home runs, runs, slugging percentage, total bases and on-base percentage, and is tied for first in RBIs and runs. The Matt Kemp who has been every rotisserie-league player's dream and April's most feared hitter. Also the Matt Kemp who's made at least two base-running blunders in as many games, and probably should have caught that game-winning triple Tuesday.

From the day he entered the White House, the biggest threat to Barack Obama's chances of becoming a two-term president has been the battered state of the U.S. economy. There have been new signs of trouble this spring: slower job growth, higher gasoline prices and fresh fears over the European debt crisis. Yet Obama's prospects on the economic front may be brighter than they now look. This past weekend brought encouraging signs that Europe is ready to take stronger action to confront its still-serious debt problems.

VideoCipher and some of the nation's leading television programming services said Tuesday that they have joined forces to pull the plug on more than 600,000 satellite-dish "pirates." The San Diego-based division of General Instrument Corp. of Chicago announced the development of a new generation of television signal descramblers, the boxes satellite-dish owners must use to tune in to such pay TV services as HBO and Showtime and free basic cable channels as well.

The Morris Township, N.J.-based company said it will sell the electronics businesses for $479 million to Lanesborough Corp., a privately held chemical concern. Redwood City, Calif.-based Ampex Corp., makes audio-visual equipment, systems and magnetic tape for the broadcasting industry. The sale is expected to be closed by the end of May.

CAIRO - When filmmaker and Egyptian democracy activist Amr Salama watched Hosni Mubarak's regime collapse in 2011, he couldn't have been more heartened. Salama had been making films for years and had found himself hamstrung by the government's censorship board. This was finally the opportunity he'd been waiting for. So shortly after the regime fell, Salama resubmitted a script that had been rejected under Mubarak - one whose story centered on tension between Cairo's majority Muslim population and its Coptic Christian minority.

The stock market is fluctuating between positive and negative territory today in the face of mixed economic signals that raise the specter of ebbing U.S growth. The Dow Jones industrial average is keeping a fragile hold on 13,000, declining 27.48 points, or 0.2%, to 13,005.27. The Standard & Poor's 500 is down 0.2%, while the Nasdaq composite index is down fractionally. Stocks have been hurt by discouraging reports on the job and housing markets, and by more worrisome news on the European debt crisis.