Snapshot

A snapshot of county actions Los Angeles County is one of the few that has not released inmates early under the new state law. Here are the numbers freed in some other counties: San Bernardino...648 Orange ...401 San Diego... 260 Sacramento ...250 Stanislaus ...235 Tulare... 205 Santa Clara ...111 Riverside ...150 Source: Counties

When Oscar nominations were announced last week, "Gravity" and "American Hustle" led the field, each winning 10. "12 Years a Slave" was right behind them with nine nominations. Then "Hustle" won the Screen Actors Guild Award for ensemble last Saturday, making it the favorite to win best picture - a distinction that lasted all of 24 hours until the Producers Guild of America gave "Gravity" and "12 Years a Slave" top honors in an unprecedented tie Sunday night. (We're still trying to fathom the odds on the exact same number of voters - in a group numbering nearly 6,000 - placing "12 Years" above "Gravity" and "Gravity" above "12 Years.

Venezuela's interim president, Nicolas Maduro, squares off Sunday with Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles in an election that will decide who will complete the term of Hugo Chavez, who died March 5 after designating Maduro as his political heir. Voters will be influenced by how they fared under Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution, which reduced poverty but also brought rampant inflation, soaring crime and food shortages. Here is a snapshot of Venezuala after 14 years of Chavismo. Economy: Pressing issues include a 20% inflation rate, a ballooning government deficit and a dearth of investment.

The documentary "It's Better to Jump" is a provocative, if lopsided snapshot of the ancient walled city of Acre (or Akka), located on the northwest coast of Israel. Told mostly via testimony from its large Arab populace, who denounce the so-called cultural and commercial "invasion" of their beloved town (its Old City area in particular) by Israelis, this brief film often feels like an extended gripe session instead of something more profound or game-changing. There's a strong and complex story here, one whose conflicts hark back to the 1948 birth of Israel itself.

Susan Coyle threw back her shoulders, lifted her chin and forced a crooked smile. "What I want you to think about is that grumpy patient," a photographer bellowed at the former healthcare worker from the other side of a camera. "Now you're going to give that guy a shot, and think how much fun it's gonna be!" A few seconds and a few snaps later, Coyle had a fresh portrait for her online resume. She then plunged into the fray of the job fair, joining thousands of others in hopes of finding a company to send it to. In the same week the government released statistics showing signs of economic growth, the only signs of growth here were the lines: lines that snaked like a giant scorpion's tail to get into Philadelphia's Wachovia Center; lines to thrust resumes toward potential employers, who piled them by the hundreds into plastic buckets; lines to grab business cards and other company handouts that ran dry within two hours; lines to buy $3 cups of muddy coffee and soggy $5.25 sandwiches.

Tuesday's election marks the first time voters in the newly drawn 9th and 13th City Council districts will cast their ballots. I thought it would be interesting to look at the demographics of the two. In the 13th, which stretches from Hollywood to Silver Lake and Echo Park and down through Koreatown, 12 candidates are vying for a chance to represent a district that is 55% Latino, 22% non-Hispanic white, 18% Asian/Pacific Islander and 3% percent African...

The documentary "It's Better to Jump" is a provocative, if lopsided snapshot of the ancient walled city of Acre (or Akka), located on the northwest coast of Israel. Told mostly via testimony from its large Arab populace, who denounce the so-called cultural and commercial "invasion" of their beloved town (its Old City area in particular) by Israelis, this brief film often feels like an extended gripe session instead of something more profound or game-changing. There's a strong and complex story here, one whose conflicts hark back to the 1948 birth of Israel itself.

Can't decide whether you can afford a trip abroad? Here's a site that creates a clearer picture of what costs might lie ahead. Name: PriceofTravel.com What it does: Offers a snapshot of costs for accommodations, transportation, attractions, food and drink in more than 100 cities in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America, South America, Central America and Australia/Pacific. What's hot: You might think the site is just for budget travelers, but there are also average hotel prices listed for four- and five-star hotels, when applicable.

When Robert Peters picked up Richard from preschool on that sunny-yet-cool afternoon in Michigan 37 years ago, his son's teacher told Peters, "He's been unusually quiet today." The 4-year-old, nicknamed Feather because his young sister couldn't pronounce the word "brother," handed his father a valentine. The construction-paper heart declared "I love Daddy" in a childish scrawl.

Key statistics and graphs on more than 1,700 mutual funds and most public companies are summarized in a few simple screens at The Times' Web site, LATimes.com. For fund data from Morningstar, go to http://www.latimes.com/funds. For a company snapshot from Market Guide, go to http://www.latimes.com/snapshots.

Can't decide where to stay? Compare hotel options against home and apartment rentals, B&Bs, hostels and more. Name: AllTheRooms.com What it does: Puts all your accommodation options in front of you. What's hot: When you type in your destination, a series of tabs appears across the top of your search results: All, Hotels, Homes & Apts., Rooms & Hostels, B&Bs and Amazing. You can easily see how many lodging options are in each tab. Get ready to do back-flips for the Amazing section.

The visual history of the natural and civilized world runs 125 years deep in the archives of National Geographic magazine. It's a history also of photojournalism, of social documentary and startling wildlife imagery, and is home to a vast ocean of work from some of the most daring and accomplished photographers of the era. "The Power of Photography: National Geographic 125 Years," an exhibition now at the Annenberg Space for Photography through April...

In "Someone," Alice McDermott's elegiac new novel, time and place have a dream-like fluidity. There's no doubt that we're in Brooklyn, but this is a Brooklyn of immigrants, largely Irish Catholics, whose new world is a palimpsest in which the old world still routinely peeks through. Marie, the defiantly ordinary narrator of this lyrical study of quotidian life, recalls watching the long parade of subway commuters return home from work. As a "little girl cartoon" of 7 with thick glasses and black bangs, she'd perch herself on the stoop in anticipation of her father's arrival, eager for a glimpse of his evening paper and the "high shine" of his shoes.

Any discussion of the L.A. jazz landscape for the fall begins with the Angel City Jazz Festival. A cross-pollinated cornucopia of forward-thinking presented by Angel City Arts, the Jazz Bakery and the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, the sixth-annual festival again presents a compelling snapshot of jazz in 2013 that makes as much time for honoring the genre's firmament as its vanguard. Under the theme "Metamorphosis," this year's festival could again be considered a one-stop shop for a solid season of jazz offerings.

Some brittle and warped, others as smooth and flat as the day they left the processing shop, the 35-millimeter negatives trickle in to Xiao Ma's dank recycling depot in north Beijing, collected by a network of trash pickers. Stuffed into old rice bags and sugar sacks, they pile up nearly to the ceiling, along with X-rays, compact discs and other trash. Whether it's hospital film of a broken rib or a snapshot of a baby's first steps matters not; with the help of a little chemistry, Xiao Ma can turn both into cash.

Voters in Los Angeles will cast their ballots for a new mayor, city attorney, controller, and three new council members Tuesday. Hopefully, the winners will prove themselves capable of steering the city and its 3.7 million residents toward a better future. I thought it might be interesting to consider the issues facing the incoming leadership by taking a look at some selected demographic information for the recently redrawn city council districts. Clearly, youth poverty is problem.

I believe that the picture of George Bush standing in front of his multimillion-dollar waterfront mansion telling America's unemployed that they do not deserve additional benefits because the recession is over is a much more powerful snapshot than any picture of Willie Horton could ever have been; 1992 might be an interesting election after all. GERALD W. WRIGHT Los Angeles

While most kids growing up in the 1950s and 1960s were tanning in Palm Springs, my family was hearing "paging Elmo Ellsworth" over the loudspeaker at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. My sister and I always wondered who he was and what he did there. What a treat to see his snapshot in the Travel section ["Snapshots of Sin City," March 15]. It brought back the fun times my family shared at the Riviera Hotel. Mr. Ellsworth was a top executive there, and hearing him paged was just part of the atmosphere, along with the noise of the slot machines and the dark casino.

Venezuela's interim president, Nicolas Maduro, squares off Sunday with Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles in an election that will decide who will complete the term of Hugo Chavez, who died March 5 after designating Maduro as his political heir. Voters will be influenced by how they fared under Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution, which reduced poverty but also brought rampant inflation, soaring crime and food shortages. Here is a snapshot of Venezuala after 14 years of Chavismo. Economy: Pressing issues include a 20% inflation rate, a ballooning government deficit and a dearth of investment.

Tuesday's election marks the first time voters in the newly drawn 9th and 13th City Council districts will cast their ballots. I thought it would be interesting to look at the demographics of the two. In the 13th, which stretches from Hollywood to Silver Lake and Echo Park and down through Koreatown, 12 candidates are vying for a chance to represent a district that is 55% Latino, 22% non-Hispanic white, 18% Asian/Pacific Islander and 3% percent African...