Sunnis

For those inclined to wake up really late and really hungry on the weekend, Roy Choi has launched a new brunch menu at Sunny Spot, his Caribbean-themed oasis in Venice. The space's teal hues, gold and crystal décor, gaudy mirrors and floral stools may read dainty, but the West Coast hip-hop, reggae tunes and big portions of spicy brunch eats epitomize Choi. Highlights include banana French toast with whipped rum crème, shrimp and grits with a spicy "diablo" rum sauce, mofongo -- Sunny Spot's take on the Puerto Rican mashed plantain dish -- served with sunny runny eggs, and a grilled steak sandwich with tangy pickled red onions and thick-cut yucca fries with house-made ketchup.

AL QASR, Lebanon - Each evening, Ali Jamal and other men in this border town grab their Kalashnikov assault rifles, jump on their motorbikes and ride across the irrigation canal into Syria to protect their homes. The enemies are Sunni rebel "terrorists," he says, who target Jamal and his neighbors because they are Shiite Muslims. "Imagine, these people used to be our neighbors," said the 40-year-old farmer, perplexed by the transformation. "Now they want to kidnap and kill us. " Tensions gripping the villages along the border here between northeastern Lebanon and Syria illustrate the increasingly sectarian nature of the 2-year-old Syrian conflict and the risks it poses for the entire region.

Still skeptical about solar power -- and especially about the wisdom of installing panels on your own rooftop? One can hardly be blamed, given horror stories about the difficulties in getting assistance from local utilities such as the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Yet more and more Californians are doing it anyway -- because it's paying off. The California Public Utilities Commission, which tracks solar installations statewide, on Thursday updated its ticker to show that California has now installed 1.5 gigawatts of rooftop solar, roughly equivalent to what would be generated by three medium-sized coal-fired power plants, according to clean energy expert Michelle Kinman at Environment California.

ASTORE, Pakistan - The caravan pulled away, leaving behind 19 bullet-riddled bodies in a muddy ditch. Inside the three buses, those spared quietly wept. The remaining Shiite Muslims had just survived a massacre by Sunni Muslim militants. And the Sunnis aboard had just helped save as many of the Shiites as they could. Akhtar Hussain, a 37-year-old Shiite survivor, said he turned to the Sunni passengers when he finally disembarked in this tiny mountain hamlet. "I told them, 'I am grateful to you. If you would have said I was Shiite, I wouldn't be here right now. May God be with you.'" What happened on the remote mountain road in August didn't follow the script.

San Francisco's Kronos Quartet will play musical chairs this spring. A new cellist, USC graduate Sunny Jungin Yang will replace Jeffrey Zeigler, who is leaving Kronos to pursue solo projects and will join the faculty of Mannes College the New School for Music in New York. Yang, 28, was born in Incheon, South Korea and grew up in Pretoria, South Africa. She studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Distinguished cellist Ralph Kirshbaum served as a mentor at Manchester, England's Royal Northern Conservatory of Music and USC, where Yang earned a master's degree in music.

RAMADI, Iraq - The call to prayer echoes across the quiet highway in western Iraq and a few hundred men gather along the roadside in the frigid night air. Each has a story to tell: a father whose son languishes in jail without trial; a veteran who cannot get a job; a student so terrified of the police that he avoids Baghdad. In the morning, they know the area will fill with thousands of people like them, with stories like their own. Under the flutter of tribal flags, they will shout boisterously the same words heard from protesters across the Arab world: Down with the regime.

Santa Claus is really up against it this Christmas. In conversation with parents at work and parties this holiday season, I was startled to learn that some of them are rethinking the holiday legend for their kids. And not for the usual religious and cultural reasons. A few want to spare their kids the Santa traumas they suffered: being bullied for believing, the betrayal when they found out the truth. With so many multicultural families, they don't see the point of clinging to an Anglo-centric Georgian legend.

Television's holiday season isn't just about Jimmy Stewart realizing he has a wonderful life, Charlie Brown and his fresh-faced gang learning the true meaning of Christmas and the big-hearted Whoville residents sharing their roast beast. That syrupy sweet programming is easy to find most any day, but there's also a whole treasure-trove of not-so-traditional movies, marathons and specials that favor the naughty over the nice. For fans of a slightly twisted Christmas, network and cable channels are serving up some alternatives to the Rankin-Bass catalog and the iconic department-store Santa story, "Miracle on 34th Street.

The quest for happiness sends millions of people into bookstores, doctors' offices and pharmacies - especially at this time of year, when well-being seems to be a national requirement. Of course, the pursuit of happiness is relatively new to humankind - our ancestors were much too focused on their day-to-day survival to spend much time contemplating contentment - but scientists and writers have worked to fill the void in the last few decades, flooding the marketplace with theories and checklists.

BEIRUT - The deeply divided Syrian opposition took a step toward renewed unity Sunday, forming a new coalition designed to build stronger international support for its goal of ousting the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. After more than a week of sometimes contentious discussions in the Qatari capital, Doha, Syrian dissidents said they had come together and formed an alliance with an unwieldy title: the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces.