Stimulants

There are ice plants and clusters of aloe on the roof, with views of the Hollywood sign in one direction and the San Gabriel Mountains in another. The building's engineers seem to have stars in their eyes when they talk about its high-tech components -- an irrigation system powered by rainwater; solar panels that automatically track the arc of the sun. Step back onto the street, and the familiar parade of South Los Angeles imagery -- weed-choked lots,...

When City National Corp. accepted a $400-million investment from the U.S. Treasury during last year's economic free fall, the regional bank said it was well capitalized and didn't really need the money. And as the economy stabilized this year, the parent of City National Bank raised $550 million in additional capital by selling stock and bonds, with Chief Executive Russell Goldsmith expressing eagerness to repay the debt. On Wednesday, regulators granted half of City National's wish, allowing it to repurchase $200 million of the preferred stock it had sold to the Treasury.

Aries (March 21-April 19): What you see will astound you. You will be filled with a quiet wonder at what this drama is all about. Make some small effort to solve this question and you will be amply rewarded. Taurus (April 20-May 20): You're good at thinking up places you'd like to visit. What's more difficult is making it happen. Pick one place and start making plans to go there. Gemini (May 21-June 21): Being choosy can invite the antagonisms of your friends, but they quietly wish they were as finicky as you. Having high standards is the best way to maintain quality.

As President Obama heads for his second economic summit in three months, lingering skepticism about U.S. leadership threatens to produce a policy stalemate that could undercut prospects for recovery at home and abroad. Behind a veil of traditional diplomatic courtesy, leaders of the other wealthy economies are all but certain to resist any major new steps to stimulate global economic activity.

With the publication of "Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963," Kevin Starr -- now university professor and professor of history at USC and state librarian of California emeritus -- has completed his transformation from the state's greatest historian to its indispensable one.

When Angelina Jolie attended the Cannes Film Festival this year, she caused a stir -- and not just on the red carpet. Beauty boards buzzed about her radiant skin, speculating on the recent transformation. Was it plastic surgery? A chemical peel? British magazine Grazia claimed to have the inside scoop -- derma rolling.

Under the skin, a battery is surgically implanted -- generally within the upper chest. From the battery, wires snake up to the head, to tickle different targets deep inside the brain. Such is the hardware for deep brain stimulation -- the equivalent of a cardiac pacemaker for the mind. Until recently, deep brain stimulation was approved in the U.S. only to treat certain movement disorders, primarily those of Parkinson's disease, for which it diminishes tremors and rigidity and improves mobility.

With the flurry of tests being done on deep brain stimulation for a variety of conditions, some warn that the field is moving too fast. They say it must not repeat the mistakes made during the era of lobotomy surgeries between 1939 and 1951, when thousands of patients were treated with little or no proof that lobotomies worked and with little or no follow up. "There is a very bad history in psychiatry," says Dr. Helen Mayberg, professor of psychiatry and neurology at Emory University in Atlanta.

The way Matt Kemp hits a baseball in the air reminds Dodgers Manager Joe Torre of the way Alex Rodriguez hits them. Or the way Mike Piazza, Darryl Strawberry and Dale Murphy used to. "The ball doesn't come down when he hits it," Torre said. "He's one of those guys that doesn't have to hit it on the screws." When hitting coach Don Mattingly is in the batting cages with the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Kemp, he sometimes thinks of Bo Jackson.

Three new studies show that most adults have unexpectedly large and active deposits of a calorie-burning type of fat that biologists once thought disappeared after infancy. The persistence of brown fat suggests a potential new strategy to fight obesity, which is epidemic in the United States and increasing rapidly in the developing world.