Swarm

The Rat Pack lives again -- or at least Palm Springs, once the party pad of Sinatra and the boys, does. The Coachella Valley city, which had devolved into a caricature of a Hollywood playground, has reinvented itself: Its retro-chic look, striking scenery and hip hotels and restaurants are drawing a new generation of visitors. And, of course, there's always the weather, a tourist attraction on its own (in winter, anyway). The city prides itself on having 350 days of sunshine a year, a siren song that plays loudly and clearly in Canada and other frosty North America realms in the depths of winter.

An area near the potentially deadly San Andreas Fault was rattled by 117 small earthquakes last weekend, scientists said Wednesday. The quakes raised some concern among scientists because they were centered only six miles northeast of a section of the San Andreas Fault that the U.S. Geological Survey believes is most likely to produce the much-feared "Big One"--a catastrophic quake measuring magnitude 7.5 to 8.0 Seven of the 117 quakes measured magnitude 3.

The Africanized killer bees in Lost Hills caused quite an uproar among state agriculture officials. The state was ready to spray pesticides on the bees or destroy all beehives, commercial and wild, in the area. But bee experts calmed them with their surprising report that this swarm of killer bees is harmless in the long run and will crossbreed with domestic bees into docility.

If you live near the Anaheim Convention Center, don't wake up Saturday thinking you're in the movie "Apocalypse Now," because the helicopters you'll be seeing and hearing have nothing to do with the military. The International Helicopter Assn., which is made up of the owners and manufacturers of civilian copters, will hold its 48th annual convention Sunday through Tuesday at the center. About 60 helicopters will begin arriving today, but the bulk will fly in Saturday, spokesman Dan Warsley

Hundreds of Macedonian police officers converged on two villages in the Balkan country's ethnically tense northwest Monday to prevent the escape of ethnic Albanian gunmen they said had killed three officers and taken dozens of hostages. Riding armored personnel carriers and jeeps, police fanned out around Semsovo and Trebos, where the officers were killed and two others were hurt Sunday during a failed attempt to rescue hostages seized by gunmen in retaliation for their comrades' arrests.

The Simi Valley Swarm rallied from a 17-0 deficit to beat the defending Minor League Super Bowl champion Fresno Bandits, 21-17, in a Pacific Football League opener Saturday night at Simi Valley High. A fumbled punt with about six minutes left in the third quarter led to a two-yard run by Larnell Sykes to give the Swarm its first score, then Thaddeus Massey scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to help Simi Valley win.

Several thousand soccer fans converged on Koreatown early Tuesday to watch South Korea's first match in the 2006 World Cup, televised live from Germany on giant screens. They were rewarded by South Korea's first World Cup win on foreign soil with a 2-1 victory over Togo. Many in the crowd wore red T-shirts with Daehan Minguk -- the formal name for South Korea -- imprinted in hangul script.

Bob Costas, the television sports analyst widely considered one of the best in the country, was no different from many athletes, sports fans and basketball experts 20 years ago Monday when Magic Johnson held a news conference to tell the world he was HIV-positive. "I was stunned," Costas said, "and my immediate thought was, knowing what we thought we knew about HIV, we would watch Magic Johnson die a public death, that he would waste away. This was what we thought we understood about the virus, that his days were numbered.

Four is not exactly a trend. But it does seem to be more than serendipity that four Democratic officeholders whose districts are far from Orange County are staging fund-raisers here this month. "People from Orange County have been contributing to politics for a long time, and to legislators out of their area for a long time," said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda). "The only difference is, now we're coming to Orange County."

It's Monday night in the Borscht Belt, and a freak summer fog hangs over the Catskill Mountains, heavy as a potato pancake. In the nightclub of the old Granit Hotel, a pooped crowd of senior citizens waits for the King of Shtick to arrive. Suddenly, a four-piece band wakes them up with "Smile Though You're Heart Is Breaking," and Mal Z. Lawrence struts on stage like some wise guy at a bar mitzvah. "Food is a big thing here in the Catskills, isn't it?"