Stanley A

Stanley A. Dashew, an inventor and entrepreneur who helped revolutionize the credit card industry, died of natural causes Thursday in Los Angeles, according to a family spokesman. He was 96. Dashew held 40 patents in fields as diverse as credit card processing, mining, mass transit, medical equipment and offshore oil transportation. He also was an avid sailor, writer and photographer who late in life wrote for the Christian Science Monitor and the Huffington Post. At 94, he distilled his insights about life and business in a book, "You Can Do It: Inspiration and Lessons from an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Sailor.

Stanley A. Dashew, an inventor and entrepreneur who helped revolutionize the credit card industry, died of natural causes Thursday in Los Angeles, according to a family spokesman. He was 96. Dashew held 40 patents in fields as diverse as credit card processing, mining, mass transit, medical equipment and offshore oil transportation. He also was an avid sailor, writer and photographer who late in life wrote for the Christian Science Monitor and the Huffington Post. At 94, he distilled his insights about life and business in a book, "You Can Do It: Inspiration and Lessons from an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Sailor.

The peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains create a stunning backdrop for the U.S. military's Kabul headquarters, but Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn rarely notices. Sheltering Taliban fighters and American combat outposts, the mountains symbolize the old way of fighting. Flynn was sent here to help define a new strategy for the war. In a teleconference center at the military complex, Flynn sat before a microphone, pressing his case for more Predator drones, intelligence analysts and satellites to peer beyond those peaks.

MONTREAL -- If the names of players and teams that have won the Stanley Cup were perfectly aligned on its barrel, if the task of etching those names for posterity were left to a heartless machine, the Cup would still be distinctive but it would be too perfect, more likely to be admired from afar than embraced. If neat rows of letters marched around the bands of a spotlessly gleaming trophy, eager hands might be hesitant to touch it and trace names that are both strange and familiar.

Afghanistan's security forces will need U.S. support for another 15 to 20 years, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday in the latest in a series of indications that U.S. involvement there is likely to last far into the future. Also Tuesday, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, told lawmakers in Washington that the U.S. needed to signal a long-term commitment in Afghanistan in order to reverse the momentum of the Taliban-led insurgency, a commitment that he said must continue even after combat forces begin to draw down in 2011.

Loyal viewers of "Breaking Bad"know that we bid adios to drug kingpin Gus Fring in "Face Off,"the final episode of the series' slow burn of a fourth season (and anyone not yet up to that episode should quit reading now). Series creator Vince Gilligan and his writing team had effectively, and with great reluctance, signed El Pollo Hermano's death warrant a year earlier in the Season 3 finale. Series protagonist Walter White (Bryan Cranston) had defied Gus, and with egos this big clashing, Gilligan says, "it's like the tagline from 'Highlander': There can be only one. " The chess game between the two strong-willed, controlling men played out over the course of the season's 13 episodes with the meticulous Gus (Giancarlo Esposito)

Rachel Prieur and her brother Ryan were captivated by a radio commercial flooding the airwaves in Dallas. It offered children a shot at stardom — maybe even a part on a Disney show — and all they had to do was show up for an audition. The teenagers begged their parents to take them. Crammed into a hotel ballroom with 200 other children, they took turns reading short monologues in front of a judge. Their father, Bruce Prieur, said a representative for "The," the company that staged the event, told him his children had talent and had qualified to participate in a larger showcase at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, where they would meet top talent scouts.

Among the many promises made in its just-approved takeover of NBC Universal, Comcast Corp. pledged to sustain and even add hundreds of hours to the news and public affairs programming at the 10 TV stations NBC owns around the country. As a baby step in the right direction, NBC should start by putting in the garbage-disposal all those no-calorie "news" segments about, for example, "The Biggest Loser," "Law & Order," "America's Got Talent" and movies from Universal Pictures. Convert those time slots, instead, to some meat and potatoes coverage about what's happening in our neighborhoods, our schools, our city halls.

Stanley A. Cain, 92, assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior during the Johnson Administration. A pioneer in botanical research, Cain served as president of the Ecological Society of America and helped make conservation a national concern. Cain also was one of the designers of the UC Santa Cruz campus, demanding that no redwood tree be cut without administration approval. Born in Jefferson County, Ind.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said goodbye to the Army on Friday in a poignant ceremony that paid tribute to his three decades of military service and barely mentioned his firing by President Obama for insubordination. It was McChrystal who alluded most directly to his own precipitous fall, standing at the podium and looking out at formations of soldiers and former comrades. "Service in this business is tough and often dangerous, and it extracts a price for participation, and that price can be high," McChrystal said.

Clay Stanley's 80-mph jump serve is one of the most potent weapons in international volleyball. And as a right-side hitter, he may be the best in the world. But when U.S. national team Coach Alan Knipe is asked what Stanley brings to the court, the first thing he mentions is "the stare. " "He has the ability to look right through his teammates," Knipe says. And more often than not, Knipe says, those teammates get the message. "It's time to go," Knipe says. "The guys respond to him because they know he's their leader.

The gig: A 95-year-old sailor, inventor and entrepreneur, Stanley A. Dashew is probably best known for his invention of credit card embossing and imprinting machines in the 1950s that helped give birth to the plastic credit card industry. He has also invented other devices in such fields as shipping, mining and marine recreation. He personally holds 14 U.S. patents. Dashew and his late wife, Rita, were world travelers who supported efforts to strengthen international ties and promote peace.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said goodbye to the Army on Friday in a poignant ceremony that paid tribute to his three decades of military service and barely mentioned his firing by President Obama for insubordination. It was McChrystal who alluded most directly to his own precipitous fall, standing at the podium and looking out at formations of soldiers and former comrades. "Service in this business is tough and often dangerous, and it extracts a price for participation, and that price can be high," McChrystal said.

It can be a split-second decision, or one that plays out over long and agonizing hours: to kill or not to kill. "Rules of engagement" is the dry, legalistic term for the visceral battlefield calculus of when and whether to use deadly force to counter threat, real or perceived. Across Afghanistan, these rules serve as the marching orders that govern Western troops' daily encounters with Taliban fighters and color dealings with Afghan civilians. U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who on Sunday formally took command of Western forces here, must decide in the coming weeks or months whether to recalibrate the stringent rules of engagement laid down last summer by his predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who recently resigned over remarks that laid bare a dysfunctional civilian-military relationship.

In a new magazine profile, the top commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and his advisors appear to ridicule Vice President Joe Biden and are portrayed as dismissive of civilian oversight of the war. The article, in Rolling Stone, said McChrystal's staff frequently derided top civilian leaders, including special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. The detailed report on the top command in Afghanistan could worsen tensions with the White House, which in the past has felt boxed in by military commanders anxious to get more troops for the war. The article said that only Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton received good reviews from McChrystal's inner circle.

It is tempting to compare Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's criticism of Obama administration officials to Gen. Douglas MacArthur's defiance of President Truman during the Korean War. But something important has changed over the last 60 years. Although MacArthur challenged Truman, the larger officer corps was then thoroughly committed to principles of civilian control. But today, McChrystal's actions are symptomatic of a broader politicization of the military command. During the early 20th century, strict nonpartisanship was the professional norm.

For years, prosecutors say, Lynwood council members lived large on the working-class city's dime. They allegedly billed the city for trips to far-flung places, including Beijing, Bermuda, Rio de Janeiro and Puerto Vallarta. One councilman charged his city credit card to watch Playboy channel movies at a Washington hotel. Another got a $100 daily allowance from the city to play in golf tournaments and attend a Tony Bennett concert and also used his city credit card for a $193 dinner at the House of Blues, prosecutors say. Among the most salacious bills: a $1,500 night out at a Guadalajara strip club, where dancers allegedly performed sexual favors for a council member and city manager - all charged to the city.

While gang wars raged on the streets of Los Angeles, a little noticed though violent series of attacks broke out among members of the Crips gang imprisoned on San Quentin's Death Row, prison officials say. The battle reached its height last October when Tiequon A. Cox, who was in the Rolling 60s faction of the Crips in Los Angeles, stabbed and wounded Stanley (Tookie) Williams, a body builder who helped found the gang 20 years ago. Williams has denied any continuing role in Crip activity on or off the row. And Colleen E. Butler, Cox's attorney, noted that in prison, "what appears to be the case is not always what happened."

A U.S. military investigation has harshly criticized a Nevada-based Air Force drone crew and American ground commanders in Afghanistan for misidentifying civilians as insurgents during a U.S. Army Special Forces operation in Oruzgan province in February, resulting in the deaths of as many as 23 civilians. Six U.S. officers will be punished and a sweeping review of counterinsurgency training will be undertaken, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Saturday.

The streets of this city are teeming with people from around the globe proudly displaying pride for their countries during the 2010 Olympic Games. Some are decked out head-to-toe in the colors of their nations and some wear flags draped across their shoulders. At any given time, chants of "Go (insert name of your favorite country here), go" break out. Everywhere you turn, there's evidence of the Olympic fever that has gripped the city. Unless you turn toward Stanley Park. Acting as a 1,000-acre oasis from the international madness that has overtaken downtown and the surrounding area, Stanley Park is steps from the hustle and bustle of the Games and ordinary urban life.