Spree

Andre Johnson has helped the Houston Texans put together what could end up being a very special season. He's the leading receiver on a squad that has already set a franchise record for regular-season wins and is looking like the team to beat in the AFC with the playoffs not far away. Johnson has also helped a bunch of children enjoy a very special holiday season by hosting his annual Toys "R" Us shopping spree Tuesday in Houston. A group of 12 kids selected by Child Protective Services were given 80 seconds to fill their shopping carts with as many items as they could.

On busy Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, some well-kept facades conceal a secret. Behind the Mediterranean with wooden doors, the white stucco two-story with a red tile roof, the long wall obscuring a three-structure compound, hides a singular, massive wealth fueled by obsession. This is Larry Ellison territory, where a Bay Area billionaire with seemingly endless patience and resources is buying up the best spots along Malibu's 21 miles of coast. PHOTOS: Expensive things Ellison has bought The Oracle Corp.

The rare-book spending spree of former CSUN library Dean Norman Tannis makes as much sense as a welfare mother cashing in her food stamps to indulge in her collection of Baccarat crystal. CHERYL A. SCHWARTZ Toluca Lake

Re "Take guns from fired cops," Column, Feb. 11 George Skelton's argument is illogical. The ex-cop Christopher Dorner was fired for making false reports, which doesn't necessarily indicate a predisposition toward violence that would require his gun-ownership rights to be revoked. Several years had passed since his firing before he allegedly went on a killing spree. Several journalists have lied in print. I would expect Skelton to give equal accounting to them and have their guns confiscated.

A 16-year-old boy, arrested in a tagging spree that his mother attempted to stop, has been placed on three years' probation after pleading guilty to felony vandalism. The teen-ager admitted to participating in the graffiti spree last month that caused about $12,000 in damage along Pacific Coast Highway and Anaheim Street. He was arrested in front of his home three days after the March 19 incident, which his mother tried to stop by alerting police to her son's plans and driving along PCH, looking for him. Police arrested another tagger that night, Brian Davis Charley, 19, but the 16-year-old boy evaded authorities.

Modernica's 20th-anniversary sale today will include more than 1,000 new and vintage items marked down as much as 80%. Replicas of Isamu Noguchi's wire pedestal dining tables will be reduced from $895 to $299, and the Case Study daybed with bentwood hairpin legs will be reduced from $1,595 to $975. The sale runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the former Southern Pacific freight terminal at 7th and Alameda streets in Los Angeles. Select items will also be on sale from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The Dodgers made two dramatic trades Monday night to bolster their postseason chances, acquiring slugger Jim Thome from the Chicago White Sox and starting pitcher Jon Garland from the Arizona Diamondbacks. The acquisitions came just before the 9 p.m. PDT trade deadline, so both players are eligible to be on the Dodgers' postseason roster if the team makes the playoffs. As Garland sat in the Diamondbacks' dugout at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers announced the deals not long before Arizona beat the Dodgers, 5-3, with two runs in the 10th inning, denying Dodgers starter Randy Wolf his 100th victory.

While reading The Times over breakfast Friday morning I was pleased to learn that Gov. Gray Davis enjoyed himself at the Rolling Stones concert at Staples Center (Feb. 7). When I wrote out the check for my current electricity bill, which is 45% higher than last year, I understood his lament that "you can't always get what you want." However, after a record-setting spending spree on his reelection campaign, which included unfettered use of private jet aircraft, Joni Mitchell's lyric, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," seems more apropos.

Re Hidden Sex Scenes Spark Furor Over Video Game," July 21 What am I missing? Parents and retailers are outraged that "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" has hidden interactive sex scenes that minors can access? Is there anything socially acceptable or redeeming about auto theft, carjacking, cop killing and bloody mayhem in the unadulterated version? Are Wal-Mart and Best Buy to be applauded for taking a stand on a product that is clearly over the line to begin with? Am I to conclude that a 17-year-old will somehow be more damaged by having interactive sex than he will by an interactive crime spree?

Junior guard Anthony Watson scored 23 points in the second half, after scoring only two in the first half, as he led San Diego State past Cal State Long Beach, 86-69, Tuesday night in a nonconference game. San Diego State broke a 41-41 tie with an 11-1 spree with 13 minutes to play. Senior center Leonard Allen had 16 points in the second half and finished with 20 points for San Diego State, which raised its record to 19-5. Senior forward Michael Kennedy added 17 points.

Capping a record year of Chinese deal-making in the U.S., a consortium of state-owned and private investors is planning the biggest Chinese takeover of an American company: $4.2 billion for one of the world's largest aircraft leasing firms. The deal to buy 80.1% of International Lease Finance Corp., a Century City subsidiary of insurance giant American International Group Inc., followed a weekend auction in which another Chinese company bought three U.S. factories and other assets of electric-car battery maker A123 Systems Inc. Chinese companies this year also have picked up AMC Entertainment, one of the largest movie theater chains in North America, as well as stakes in energy, real estate and other companies in service industries.

Bombay born and Vienna trained, debonair enough to impress Hollywood and with a swashbuckling podium style, Zubin Mehta conducted his first concert as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic 50 years ago. On Nov. 15, 1962, he was 26, the youngest music director in the orchestra's history, but to observers inside the Philharmonic Auditorium, Mehta came off as unshakably self-confident and strikingly capable. In six more years he would make the cover of Time magazine, an extraordinary feat for a conductor of any age. Thursday night, Mehta and the L.A. Phil will celebrate that anniversary by re-creating the program of Mozart, Hindemith and Dvorák that marked the beginning of his 16 seasons with the orchestra.

Andre Johnson has helped the Houston Texans put together what could end up being a very special season. He's the leading receiver on a squad that has already set a franchise record for regular-season wins and is looking like the team to beat in the AFC with the playoffs not far away. Johnson has also helped a bunch of children enjoy a very special holiday season by hosting his annual Toys "R" Us shopping spree Tuesday in Houston. A group of 12 kids selected by Child Protective Services were given 80 seconds to fill their shopping carts with as many items as they could.

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. - A U.S. Army sergeant accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in a middle-of-the-night rampage returned halfway through the killing spree and told a friend: “Hey Mac, I just shot some people in Alkozai,” an Army prosecutor said Monday at the opening of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales' preliminary hearing on murder charges. When that fellow sergeant appeared not to believe him, telling him to “quit messing around” because he needed to go back to sleep, Bales said: “Cool, I'm going to Najiban, I'll be back at 5. " At that point, the 39-year-old sergeant left the base again and allegedly shot 11 people in that second village, south of the Army outpost near Kandahar.

Washington's election-year power struggle has spilled into two hotly contested congressional races in the Inland Empire region, where results were once as predictable as a hot summer day in Hemet. Rejiggered political districts and the GOP's declining membership have given Democrats a shot in both races next month - victories the party is counting on in its effort to pick up 25 additional seats and recapture control of the House. The high stakes have triggered millions of dollars in spending by the parties and independent groups trying to nationalize the races into a referendum on such hyper-charged Washington issues as President Obama's healthcare overhaul and the steep tax cuts proposed by GOP vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan.

A gunman in central Florida who shot four women - killing three - before turning the weapon on himself has been identified as 36-year-old Bradford Baumet of Sanford. About 11 a.m. Thursday, Baumet walked into the Las Dominicanas M&M hair salon in the Orlando suburb of Casselberry and shot his estranged girlfriend, 44-year-old Marcia Santiago, and three others. Santiago was listed in "serious condition" at a local hospital, police said. Santiago was scheduled to appear before an Orange County judge Thursday afternoon to seek a permanent restraining order against Baumet, court records show.

Re "Richard Kiley; Epitomized 'Man of La Mancha,' " obituary, March 6: My first contact with Richard Kiley was in the winter of 1969 as a graduate student on semester break visiting the Big Apple for the first time. My fiancee was meeting me in Manhattan for a pre-wedding shopping spree, the first of many in our years of marriage. A relative provided us with center circle seats to "Man of La Mancha." Dinner at Mama Leone's, a bottle of Chianti, the magic of our first time in a Broadway theater and Kiley's hypnotizing voice took these two Fairfax High School kids to heights unknown before or since.

A rare example of prudence on the part of our government is the steady build-up of the Social Security trust fund in order to cover the needs of the baby boomers when they retire. But I see that Charles Krauthammer has joined those who plan to steal this tempting stash of cash. In an attempt to disguise the magnitude of the fiscal disaster caused by the Reagan spending spree, a master stroke of dishonest bookkeeping has placed the Social Security trust fund in the general fund of the Treasury.

A day of disruptions in Wells Fargo & Co.'s electronic banking operations apparently was the latest in a series of cyber attacks that disrupted online operations at Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. A computer security expert blamed massive denial of service attacks, in which perpetrators overwhelm computer servers with communications demands, causing networks to seize up or slow down. In a posting at Pastebin.com, a group calling itself the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters claimed responsibility for last week's outages at Bank of America, Citi, and JPMorgan before hitting Wells Fargo.

ATLANTA - No statement was necessary. At the same time, Jim Furyk sure didn't mind writing down all those 3s. "To be able to write '3' on your card nine times in the first 11 holes was a lot of fun," Furyk said after Friday's six-under-par 64 propelled him to a one-stroke lead over Justin Rose at the midway point of the Tour Championship. Furyk strung together seven 3s to begin his day at East Lake Golf Club, then tossed in a pair of 4s as he made the turn in six-under 29. Heading to the back nine, the 42-year-old pro began with two more 3s before the momentum stalled.