Summers

WASHINGTON -- Critics of Lawrence H. Summers, one of the leading candidates to be the next Federal Reserve chairman, point to his reputation for being difficult to work with.  But a former Obama administration economic aide who worked for Summers at the White House said he enjoyed the experience. Steven Rattner, a former investment banker who headed President Obama's auto task force in 2009, said in a New York Times opinion article Monday that although he had known Summers for years, he wasn't sure what it would be like to work with him. "Larry's vivid and sometimes strong personality has been well chronicled.

Like most kids growing up in Brazil, Roberto Gurgel dreamed of being on the field for a World Cup. That never happened. So this summer, Gurgel is settling for the next-best thing by helping to build five of the fields that will be used for the first World Cup in his native country in 64 years. Gurgel is executive director of research for Sod Solutions, a South Carolina-based company that develops and licenses varieties of grass. One of those varieties, a deep blue-green Bermuda called Celebration, will be used in five of the 12 World Cup venues this summer.

It's hot out there. Hotter than it would be if instead of what I see outside my sliver of window --  roads, buildings -- there was grass and vegetation. Hotter, too, than it would be if the buildings were all covered with white paint, a la a Greek island. This is the “heat island effect,” and it happens because the materials used to make roads and structures absorb a lot more heat from the sun than does vegetation.  They slowly release that heat through the night, keeping everything not-so-nicely cooking.

If the clang and clutter of summer superhero movies and action behemoths aren't for you - or even if you just want a break - there are still plenty of options in the months ahead, both at the art house and the far corners of the multiplex. Which isn't to say that even these movies don't have some of the same features as their louder, bigger cousins. There's the end credits stinger of "Calvary," which instead of teasing a sequel hauntingly shows the locations from the movie without people, or the microbudget action sequence of "Happy Christmas," when a frozen pizza forgotten in the oven sets off smoke alarms and panic.

WASHINGTON -- Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, who was the perceived front-runner to be the next Federal Reserve chief until he pulled out in the face of liberal opposition, predicted Wednesday that nominee Janet L. Yellen would be a success. "I think Janet Yellen's going to a great job at the Fed," Summers told CNBC-TV ahead of Yellen's Senate confirmation hearing Thursday. Summers expressed no ill will after losing out to Yellen in the race to replace Ben S. Bernanke, whose second term as Fed chair ends Jan. 31. QUIZ: How well do you understand the Fed stimulus?

Janet L. Yellen's got the job as next head of the Federal Reserve in the bag -- at least, that's according to Paddy Power, an online Irish bookmaker. Lawrence H. Summers, who had been widely believed to be President Obama's first-choice pick, withdrew his name from consideration Sunday, setting off speculation as to whether Obama would now tap Yellen for the post. PaddyPower.com has been tracking the odds of who would be nominated to be the next Fed chief since July.  The site calculates  the odds of a Yellen nomination at 1-8. But as my colleagues Jim Puzzanghera and Christi Parsons reported Monday, the president has other options, including  former Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn and former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.  The site pegs Kohn's odds at 5-1 and Geithner's at 14-1.

The After Wife   Gigi Levangie Grazer Ballantine, $25 A charming tale of a grieving 40-ish widow - and the wacky friends who love her - as she attempts to regain control of her life in the sometimes-surreal L.A. landscape. (July) The Age of Doubt   Andrea Camilleri Viking, $15 In the latest in the author's series, take another journey to Sicily with Inspector Montalbano, who seeks to penetrate the mystery surrounding two yachts and the discovery of a mutilated corpse.

Dr. William K. Summers, the Arcadia psychiatrist under fire from colleagues and federal regulators for his research on the experimental Alzheimer's drug THA, also known as tacrine, was delivering a paper and slides at a scientific symposium recently when he flashed a cartoon on the overhead screen. The cartoon, by Gary Larson, was a comment on Summers' position. It showed a grizzled man in a rowboat, brandishing an oar and encircled by sharks.

Regarding your review of "The Pentagonists" and "The Whistle Blowers" (Book Review, March 19): It seems to me that choosing a member of the military establishment (Col. Harry G. Summers Jr.) to review books about Pentagon corruption is a little like having Al Capone review an expose of the Mafia, and the results were just about as predictable. I'll give him this--Summers is a pretty good hatchet man. He used all the tricks: avoid the real issues, bring in a lot of irrelevant nonsense like the Trilateralists, and divert attention from the message by attacking and ridiculing the messenger.

Mexican authorities said they were conducting an extensive search for a man suspected of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old Northridge girl. Mexican police issued wanted posters for the suspect, Tobias Dustin Summers, on Friday. Police have been alerted in the Baja California cities of Tijuana, Tecate, Ensenada and Rosarito Beach. Alfredo Arenas, commander of the Baja California state police fugitive squad, said Mexican authorities are in daily contact with LAPD officials.  “We want to find the guy before he rapes a Mexican kid,” Arenas said.

With spring arrives a fresh blossoming of seasonal metaphors to suggest new birth. A sprouting of unheard music arriving after months of cultivation. Proverbial butterflies crawling out of their cocoons. Bears stretching after deep sleep. In the immortal words of Peter Sellers' character Chauncey Gardiner in “Being There”: “In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.”  So it goes in late April, with the arrival of young music throughout the marketplace, the best of which is gunning for song-of-the-summer punch, making early moves toward July ubiquity.

Michael Phelps will launch his comeback from retirement on Thursday, but the 22-time Olympic medalist won't make any promises about competing at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. "I'm doing this because I want to get back in the water," he said at a Wednesday afternoon news conference. "I'm having fun. " Phelps will compete in the Arena Grand Prix in Mesa, Ariz., this week. He is scheduled to swim in only one event Thursday morning, sticking with the 100-meter butterfly after announcing that he will skip the 100-meter freestyle.

USA Network has its eye on summer, unveiling its summer slate of premieres -- including the launch of two new dramas. June is to be the month of returns, with "Royal Pains" making its sixth-season rollout on Tuesday, June 10. The following night will see the return of "Suits" and "Graceland. " "Covert Affairs" will be waiting a bit longer, getting its start on June 24. Once the veterans warm things up, USA plans to unveil a pair of new dramas on July 17. "Rush," a medical drama with a hard-partying, bad-boy doc (Tom Ellis)

Hard Summer may have temporarily moved from its traditional Chinatown locale, but that hasn't slowed down the fest's bookings for this year. The annual electronic music blowout has announced its lineup for 2014: Headliners include the Dutch EDM titan Tiësto, recent Coachella heros Disclosure, the Diplo/Skrillex side project Jack U and the Harlem rap crew ASAP Mob. The fest, which takes place at the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area on Aug....

INDIO, Calif. - Dee Dee Penny, lead singer of the Dum Dum Girls, is no stranger to performing at giant summer musical events. At the first of the two-weekend Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival events last Friday, her retro-rock act played before thousands of ecstatic fans. She was just one of an eclectic roster of female artists who galvanized Coachella audiences. Teenage provocateur Lorde dazzled amid a howling dust storm in her summer music festival debut. R&B diva Solange got a surprise assist from her superstar sister, Beyoncé Knowles.

Beyonce and Jay Z surprised festival-goers at Coachella last weekend with a few unannounced appearances . But music's most famous couple have a bigger trick up their sleeves: a summer stadium run. The married superstars will launch their first joint tour in June, a source close to the production told The Times. Page Six first broke news of a trek that is slated to hit 20 cities in the U.S., including a possible Fourth of July appearance in New York City. PHOTOS: Unexpected musical collaborations Expected to be named, aptly, the Mr. and Mrs. Carter Tour, according to our source, the U.S. leg will launch June 13 in Atlanta and wrap Aug. 6 in San Francisco.

It was colonels like Summers with their paranoia of communism who advised U.S. leaders to squander untold billions on useless and mostly inoperative military hardware; who wasted precious lives and materiel in Vietnam, only to abandon our allies in time of trouble. Now once more he wants to be penny-wise and dollar foolish. Israel, the only democracy in the entire Middle East, is a faithful friend and ally of the U.S. It has and keeps repaying our financial assistance ten times over.

Harry G. Summers Jr.'s Column Right (June 6) parrots prevailing ideology with pretensions to insight. "Judge the War by Things That Didn't Happen," the headline instructs. Pure Orwellian sophistry. The subhead, "Was Hussein a nascent Hitler? Fortunately we'll never know," begs another question. "Would any of the countless peace proposals put forward have worked?" Unfortunately, we'll never know. He says the ratio of U.S. to Iraq battlefield casualties seems "just about right."

This summer, actor David Suchet will complete a task 25 years in the making when the final adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries are aired. However, if fans want to see Poirot's final three adventures, they'll need a good broadband Internet connection. The English actor Suchet has been playing Christie's Belgian detective creation in a series of adaptations of all 70 of her Poirot stories since 1989. This summer, the 13th series of adaptations, made up of five TV movies, will debut in America, but not all episodes will air on PBS' "Masterpiece Mystery," which has been the show's stateside home for most of its run. The first two films, "The Big Four" and "Dead Man's Folly," will air on PBS on July 27 and Aug.  3, respectively.

Reading is such an improbable idea -- a miracle, really. Yet simple squiggles on a page, arranged just so, can convey ideas that change the way we think or introduce to us characters we love for a lifetime. In celebration of reading -- and of this weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books -- we asked four readers (who also happen to be writers) to celebrate books that mattered in their lives. My grandfather's house on the New Jersey shore was a huge 1880s double-parlor Victorian with 11 bedrooms, a wraparound porch and a big green couch in the living room next to the piano.