Signal

JERUSALEM - Evoking the Jewish people's biblical struggle for freedom, President Obama called upon Israelis Thursday to sweep aside deep skepticism and embrace a Palestinian state as the only way to guarantee their nation's future. In a soaring speech in Jerusalem that was billed as the main event of his three-day Holy Land trip, Obama said in an auditorium of cheering university students that as the generation of Israel's founding fathers fades, it falls to them to write the young nation's next chapter.

Jay Leno's ascension to the host's chair at "Tonight Show" was tumultuous. And now it's looking like his exit might be rocky too. Relations between the comic and his NBC bosses have soured in recent days, with Leno calling them "snakes" during Monday's monologue. "You know the whole legend of St. Patrick, right? St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland, and then they came into the United States and became NBC executives," Leno joked, as some in his studio audience gasped.

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon intends to add 14 interceptors to a missile defense site in Alaska by 2017 in an unusual move to beef up U.S. defenses after recent threats by North Korea's new leadership to carry out a nuclear strike, according to defense officials. The 14 ground-based interceptors would be added to 26 already in place at Fort Greeley in Alaska as defensive measures against incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. Another four interceptors are in place at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, Calif.

VATICAN CITY -- Roman Catholic cardinals signaled Wednesday that they had failed to agree on a new pope during the early session of the second day of secret voting inside the Sistine Chapel. Black smoke rose from a stovepipe above the chapel before noon as ballots from the morning's vote were burned because no single candidate had won support from at least two-thirds of the 115 cardinals gathered to choose a successor to Benedict XVI. Thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square under a sea of umbrellas and gave a shout as the smoke poured skyward.

VATICAN CITY - Black smoke rose Tuesday evening from the Sistine Chapel, signaling that the 115 cardinals gathered inside to choose a new pope failed to reach agreement after their opening few hours of deliberation. It was the prelates' first vote on a successor to Benedict XVI, who stepped down as pope late last month in an extraordinarily rare move for the head of the Roman Catholic Church. The ritualized process of choosing his replacement began Tuesday behind the closed doors of the small but famous chapel, which is covered in Michelangelo's glorious frescoes.

When I scolded deadbeat Angelenos for blowing off Tuesday's election, some of them had just enough energy to return fire. "I chose not to spit into the wind anymore," wrote Lou. "It is not an embarrassment to shun an embarrassment like L.A. 'government' and L.A. politicians," wrote Loren. Just as I was about to scold them all over again, along came Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who reminded us why there's such raging cynicism in Los Angeles. Let's go back to early February, when Villaraigosa endorsed Measure A. That was the proposal for a half-cent sales-tax increase that would have raised about $200 million a year in a city with a projected annual budget shortfall of roughly that very amount for years to come.

On the morning after he became the top vote-getter in a bruising, four-candidate contest for Los Angeles city attorney, former lawmaker Mike Feuer got up early Wednesday and hit the phones, already campaigning for the May runoff against incumbent Carmen Trutanich. "This is the time to seize this momentum and carry it forward," Feuer said after unofficial returns from Tuesday's municipal primary showed him with almost 44% of the vote to Trutanich's 30%. Two other candidates, private attorneys Greg Smith and Noel Weiss, finished with 17% and nearly 7%, respectively.

Is it just my imagination, or is California (and possibly a good part of the nation) turning a corner on same-sex marriage? Certainly, the winds have been shifting for a while. Polls have shown increasing acceptance for years. That fits with findings that younger people are far more likely to be comfortable with gay rights than older people. President Obama, who during the campaign for his first term said he did not favor same-sex marriage - the same election in which Proposition 8 passed -- had changed his mind by his second campaign.

Investors have been plowing billions of dollars into stocks this year, but new data show the torrent of money has been slowing this month  - particularly into U.S. equities.  Starting in January, investors began pouring into stocks after President Obama and Congress defused much of the so-called fiscal cliff. The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, has nudged investors into riskier assets like stocks by lowering interest rates and making safer investments less attractive. In the week ending Jan. 16, investors shoved $9.2 billion into equity mutual funds, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

Samsung Electronics Co.'s and Apple Inc.'s battle to dominate the world's smartphone markets has mostly been waged from their respective sides of the Pacific. Now the South Korean tech giant is storming rival Apple's backyard, launching an aggressive expansion into Silicon Valley. Samsung has opened a new innovation center in Menlo Park, Calif. A research and development lab is planned for San Jose. A start-up incubator is cooking in Palo Alto. And its most audacious undertaking: erecting a massive new semiconductor campus with a distinctive design destined to compete with Apple's proposed spaceship-like campus for the title of Silicon Valley's most distinctive architectural landmark.