Sparks

For four decades, Doheny Glatt Kosher meat market has been one of California's preeminent suppliers of food that meets the requirements of Jewish law, offering not just staples like brisket and chicken but high-end fare including bison, prime steaks and grass-fed beef. But allegations that Doheny has sold meat that was not properly certified under kosher rules have suddenly divided the city's Jewish community, forcing longtime customers doing their shopping before Shabbat Friday to decide how much they trusted their butcher.

SAN JOSE -- The Ducks confront not just the problem of overcoming four consecutive losses. They could also be revealing the script opponents should follow to clinch their demise. "We have to find the crux of the problem of our starts sooner or later because every team in the NHL sees this and will say, 'Get on them in the first five minutes, they're never ready,'" Ducks Coach Bruce Boudreau said. Turning in what could be strongly argued as their worst performance of the season, the Ducks were beaten by the San Jose Sharks, 4-0, Wednesday night at HP Pavilion, giving up three goals in the first 9 minutes 20 seconds.

LONDON - It was a modest proposal to ditch the humble apostrophe. Who'd've guessed it'd cause such a fuss? Not the officials in southwestern England whose idea it was to abolish the smudgy little punctuation mark from street signs. Condensing King's Crescent to Kings Crescent and turning St. Paul's Square into St. Pauls Square would help avoid "potential confusion," they said. But the proposal has stirred up a hornets' nest here in the land of the Queen's English. Unveiled this month, the suggested ban immediately sparked highly grammatical declarations of outrage and angry vows of apostrophe defense from critics throughout Britain.

San Francisco 5, Angels 4 AT THE PLATE: Peter Bourjos sparked a three-run seventh with a triple to right-center, and Mike Trout and Josh Hamilton knocked in runs during the inning with doubles to center. Hamilton looked bad in his previous at-bat, striking out on a slow Barry Zito curve. Howie Kendrick had a run-scoring single in the fourth, and Albert Pujols and Alberto Callaspo each had two hits. ON THE MOUND: Jason Vargas gave up one earned run and five hits in six innings, striking out five and walking two, but neither Scott Downs nor Ernesto Frieri could complete their relief innings.

It's not a good omen for "The Croods," about a likable family of Paleolithic cave dwellers, when a joke about "the first joke" falls flat. I don't fault the actors. The character voices provided by Nicolas Cage as the Croods' cautious dad, Grug; Emma Stone as Eep, his rebellious teenager, desperate to get out of the cave; Ryan Reynolds as Guy, the outsider who sees the future; Catherine Keener as ever-patient mom Ugga; and Cloris Leachman as cranky Gran are spot on. But "The Croods" was primed for problems before its 3-D characters found themselves right in the middle of the first continental divide.

Sujata Bhatt uses online games to encourage her students at Grand View Boulevard Elementary School to aim higher: "Don't just play games, make them. " Now Bhatt will get the chance to teach middle school students how to launch their own businesses at a new campus approved this week by the Los Angeles school board. The Incubator School marks the latest effort in L.A. Unified to spark innovation through "pilot" schools, where district educators are given autonomy over their curriculum, budget, staffing, training and other elements.

Downtown Los Angeles has seen its share of pop-up art galleries and restaurants. On a recent afternoon, it saw its first pop-up burka fitting. "Excuse me, ma'am, I'm working on an art project," said Marie Rim, a soft-spoken 33-year-old artist from Philadelphia. She went table to table at Grand Central Market carrying a flimsy, full-length mirror from Target under one arm and a hand-painted, black-and-yellow sign in the other: "Burka Fitting. See How It Feels to Wear One. All Welcome.

Two female mannequins with more meat on their plastic bones than the standard department-store dummy are causing a social media ruckus - and not just because they're clad only in lingerie. A photo of the fuller-figured pair, rocking purple panties and matching bras, appeared last week on the Facebook page of Women's Rights News and soon went viral. “Store mannequins in Sweden,” the caption noted. “They look like real women. The US should invest in some of these.” As of Monday, more than 61,000 people liked the image and more than 3,000 visitors had commented.

Justin Timberlake is certainly making up for lost time. This week he released “The 20/20 Experience,” his first new album in six years, and christened it with a double-whammy hosting/performing stint on "Saturday Night Live" and a full week of performances on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” REVIEW: Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience" He'll conclude the week with a midnight performance in Austin, Texas, as...

Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz's "Camelia la Tejana," which will be performed  this month at Long Beach Opera, is actually three stories in one. First, there's the legend of Camelia la Tejana, a Mexican drug-smuggling queen who shot and killed her lover in a jealous fit - if, that is, she really existed. Then there's the tale of how Camelia's gruesome exploits were immortalized in the smash narcocorrido tune "Contrabando y Traición" (Contraband and Betrayal), which was written by Ángel González and definitively recorded by the superstar norteño band Los Tigres del Norte.