Tests

Re "Registry may track egg, sperm donors," Jan. 3 As a father of two healthy children who were conceived in the same way as Krystie Karl-Steiger, I think this story missed an important point: Despite the semi-anonymous donor process, the risk of genetic disease is far lower for these kids than for children conceived outside of the artificial fertility process. The number of tests our egg donor and we had to undergo before the day of conception was staggering, not only in volume but also in expense.

Human Rights Watch criticized Egypt for eight arrests prompted by a man's statement that he was HIV-positive, and said the detentions embodied "ignorance and injustice." The U.S.-based rights group said the men, all arrested since October, were given HIV tests without consent. Two were subjected to forensic tests to look for evidence of homosexual conduct, the group said. Three men, who Human Rights Watch said had reportedly tested HIV-positive, were handcuffed to hospital beds and "only unchained for an hour each day."

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency would consider running a drug testing program in which first offenders were not suspended for two years, its chief executive said Tuesday, raising the stakes as Commissioner Bud Selig returns to Congress today to testify about baseball's drug policy. Selig has rebuffed calls to outsource drug testing to a third party and has rejected the World Anti-Doping Agency standard of a two-year ban for a first positive test.

Re "SAT subject tests may be dropped by UC," March 16 Leave it to a panel from the University of California to make exactly the wrong recommendation by suggesting the university no longer require SAT II tests for applicants. The differences between the SAT I test (generally considered an aptitude test that measures potential) and the SAT II tests (achievement tests that measure what students have learned in particular subjects) are ones of fairness and perception. The advantage to maintaining the SAT II tests, rather than the SAT I, is that the SAT II tests allow students to demonstrate competencies in particular subjects without a sense that judgments are being passed on students' native intelligence.

Toni Braxton's Las Vegas shows have been canceled this week while the singer recuperates after being hospitalized with chest pain, a hotel official says. "We expect she'll return to the stage next Tuesday," Flamingo hotel-casino and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. spokeswoman Deanna Pettit said Wednesday. Pettit said the 40-year-old Grammy winner was recovering at home after her release Tuesday afternoon after precautionary tests at a Las Vegas-area hospital. The cause of Braxton's chest pain has not been made public.

A team of Navy audiologists conducted a hearing test on a rare whale, tentatively identified as a Gervais' or Sowerby's beaked whale, that is convalescing at the Marine Mammal Conservancy in Key Largo in the Florida Keys. The whale was discovered Friday in shallow waters behind a home in Islamorada. Dorian Houser, a consulting biologist with the Navy Marine Mammal Program in San Diego, and Navy staff scientist James Finneran made a trip to the conservancy to establish a hearing baseline measure for the whale -- something that has only been done once for a Gervais' and never for a Sowerby's.

A selection of posts from The Times' Ticket to Beijing blog (at latimes.com/olympics): BEIJING -- Jamaica's Asafa Powell, former world record-holder in the 100 meters, thinks the doping control folks are going overboard. "About two days ago, I got pretty upset, because since I've been here, they have tested me four times, and took blood, a lot of blood," he said at a news conference Tuesday. "I'm saying that they are taking so much blood that we are going to be very weak for the finals of the 100 meters.

Thousands of households that rely on television antennas here began receiving better-looking programming Monday, as the coastal city became the nation's first to switch to all-digital TV signals. But Vivian C. Brown didn't get the picture. The 79-year-old had heeded the barrage of announcements urging viewers like herself to receive a $40 government coupon and buy a special converter box to receive the clearer signals. But she couldn't figure out how to set it up.

The modest junior hockey arena in this small eastern Washington agricultural hub is an ideal gathering place for local families. It's also a crucial front in the Department of Homeland Security's war against suicide bombers. During the tests of crowd surveillance technology, an array of surveillance cameras, infrared cameras, and millimeter-wave radar is used to scan fans of the Western Hockey League's Tri-City Americans, who play at the town's 6,000-seat Toyota Center.

British students will have one less test to take. Education Secretary Ed Balls said the government was scrapping its national testing of 14-year-olds in math, reading and science. Like in the United States, British parents and teachers have complained that kids are over-tested and that non-tested subjects are getting squeezed out.