Tests

What would it take to get you into an electric car today? Forced by state regulators to sell more zero-emission vehicles, automakers are tripping over each other to offer consumers rock-bottom lease deals. For the first time, electric vehicles are penciling out cheaper than their gas-powered counterparts. Honda joined the price war this week by dropping the lease on its Fit EV from $389 to $259 a month. It threw in collision and vehicle theft coverage, maintenance, roadside assistance - even a charging station at your house.

WASHINGTON - On the surface, President Obama would seem to have a strong hand as he heads to the annual Group of 8 economic summit. Instead, the meetings Monday and Tuesday seem set to provide the first test of how much his administration's international agenda has been complicated by revelations of U.S. surveillance of telephone use and the Internet. The issues that dominated the last several economic summits have receded in advance of the meeting, which will be held at a gorgeous golf resort in Northern Ireland.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the supplement nitric oxide? Richard Sunland Nitric oxide is a gas naturally found in the body; its function is conveying information between cells. One of its main jobs is increasing blood flow by dilating blood vessels, and that's why it's sometimes given in supplement form to heart patients, orally and intravenously. In at least one study it's been shown to be effective for lowering blood pressure.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti campaigned for mayor for 622 days. He raised more than $8 million and secured the votes of 222,300 residents of Los Angeles. Now comes the hard part: governing. He has his skeptics. Some worry that he's too liberal to rein in spending. Some fear that he's too amiable to demand performance. Some think he's too young (at 42) or that he's too much a creature of government. And some believe that Los Angeles is so unwieldy, its problems so thorny, that the city defies repair, even by the most talented chief executive.

A man with no risk factors for prostate cancer can go his whole life without ever taking a PSA test, according to the American Urological Assn. In a new clinical guideline unveiled Friday, the urologists said that only men between the ages of 55 and 69 should even consider getting a PSA screening test if they have no signs or symptoms of prostate cancer. Men should only get tested after discussing all the pros and cons with their doctors, and if they decide to get tested, they should not get tested again for at least two years, the guideline advises.

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...

Watching Alzheimer's disease steal away the memory, talents and very selves of its victims is hard enough for the people who love them. Now, a new pill formulated by a respected pharmaceutical company and approved by the Food and Drug Administration will do little to help most patients and will bring misery to some, say two medical investigators. The drug, Aricept 23 mg, is no more effective on the whole than the disappointing ones already on the market - but is more likely to cause gastrointestinal problems, wrote Drs. Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz of Dartmouth Medical College in an article published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ. The new formulation was devised to serve commercial objectives, they say, and was approved despite a poor showing in company-sponsored tests.

Most of us consume milk. We put it on cereal and add it to coffee. We give it to our children by the glassful to build up their bones. Women are encouraged to drink it throughout adulthood to maintain those bones. We select this milk from an ever-expanding range. Milk comes in whole, reduced-fat, low-fat and no-fat versions. We have organic milk and milk labeled as coming from farms that do not use hormones. But to Northern Californian dairy farmer Ron Garthwaite, these milks aren't milk at all.

"The Inborn Talent Genetic Test" promises to help parents identify their children's "hidden talents that may not be obvious at young age … it also reveals some personality traits that the child may possess, judging from his/her genetic make-up." Ever wonder if the marketing for DNA tests is getting a little out of hand? (Uh ... is the publishing industry threatened by the Internet?) Go to The Stuff of Life blog for examples of some iffy-sounding services. One of them is "The Inborn Talent Genetic Test," which "reveals the inherited and endowed inborn talents of a child scientifically from the genetic makeup of his/her DNA. The test result will therefore help parents identify their children's hidden talents that may not be obvious at young age … it also reveals some personality traits that the child may possess, judging from his/her genetic make-up."

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Oy, camping! My backpack is the size of a Honda Fit. It has 54 pockets, 27 zippers and a functioning spleen. It weighs as much as a 9-by-12 rug with a dead Soprano rolled up inside. To shed it at the end of a long hike is the sweetest thing imaginable. We have backpacked eight miles into the wilderness, no world record but nothing to sneeze at either, eight miles straight up a broken escalator. Eight miles from the nearest bucket of ice or cheeseburger, medium rare. Me, I get too far from cheeseburgers and I start to panic a little, my breath coming in short, troubled bursts.

News Corp. has moved closer to its historic breakup that is expected to test whether investors share Chairman Rupert Murdoch's confidence that there is a solid future for newspapers. On Tuesday, shareholders approved measures that will allow Murdoch's sprawling media empire to be cleaved into two separate publicly traded companies. The most profitable assets - Fox News Channel, the Fox broadcast TV network, Fox regional sports networks, FX and the 20th Century Fox movie studio - will form 21st Century Fox Inc. The publishing assets, including the Wall Street Journal, Times of London, New York Post, the Australian, HarperCollins book publishing house and several Australian television properties, will form a separate company.

You can have Italian old school or you can have a version of it that is unlike anything someone's nonna would recognize. Chances are, you will love both and everything in between. Angelini Osteria - Hollywood has always loved Gino Angelini's osteria the most of all his restaurants, a place whose comfortable versions of pan-Italian trattoria classics like saltimbocca, pollo alla diavola, Roman tripe and his grandmother's gooey green lasagna keep the loud dining room busy, and where whatever diet you happen to be on at the time will be accommodated without a fuss.

TUMEN, China - In a concrete building on the northern edge of this city across the border from North Korea, young pony-tailed women wearing hoodies sew sportswear. The building has no flashy logo or company name on the outside, only a blue-and-red flag flickering high on a nearby pole. Across the street, a dormitory sits on a weed-strewn lot. The estimated 300 women are among an unknown number of North Korean workers in China earning cash for their country's isolated economy and providing cheap labor for Chinese businesses.

The Powerhouse fire has a dance all its own, and firefighters have struggled to keep up with the flames. When it started Thursday, the fire threatened Green Valley in San Francisquito Canyon. Then it veered west toward Castaic Lake before speeding toward Elizabeth Lake and Lake Hughes, almost overrunning the towns. More recently, it has moved north into the Lancaster area. The fire was pushed by hot winds, but also a potent combination of dense chaparral - some of which hasn't burned since 1929 - and highly flammable grasses.

Olympic sprint champion Florence Griffith Joyner died after suffering an epileptic seizure, according to autopsy results released Thursday, and her family and friends say they hope the findings will put to rest rumors that drug use contributed to her death. Griffith Joyner died last month in her sleep at age 38. Her husband, Al Joyner, bitterly criticized those who suggested that she took performance-enhancing drugs.

Re “ Doctors list overused medical procedures ,” Feb. 21 As a physician with almost 40 years experience, I completely concur with the findings. However, there are other issues. First is the expectation of patients. With instant access to the Internet, they come to see the doctor already knowing “what they need.” They want the CT, the X-ray and the antibiotic. No matter how you try to explain the correct medical reasoning, they want what they want. This leads to problem No. 2: That patient complains to the insurance company, the hospital administration and the service contract holder about your poor customer service.

What would it take to get you into an electric car today? Forced by state regulators to sell more zero-emission vehicles, automakers are tripping over each other to offer consumers rock-bottom lease deals. For the first time, electric vehicles are penciling out cheaper than their gas-powered counterparts. Honda joined the price war this week by dropping the lease on its Fit EV from $389 to $259 a month. It threw in collision and vehicle theft coverage, maintenance, roadside assistance - even a charging station at your house.

Brain teasers are games or puzzles that challenge the brain or teach people something about how their brains work. Though brain teasers are different from brain-training games in that they aren't designed to progressively strengthen specific cognitive functions, Alvaro Fernandez, chief executive of SharpBrains, says they can still be good for your mind because they bring novelty, variety and challenge to your day. Here are some links to a few...