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On a warm July afternoon, an impish second-grader named Dunia Tasejo was running home after buying ice cream on her South Los Angeles street when a car sideswiped her. Knocked to the pavement, she screamed for help, blood pouring from her mouth. Her father bolted from the house to her side. An ambulance rushed her to the nearest hospital: Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. For Elias and Sulma Tasejo, there was no greater terror than seeing their 9-year-old daughter strapped to a gurney that day in 2000.

Yasser Arafat, guerrilla chieftain turned statesman who juggled armed resistance and political diplomacy, yet failed to achieve his lifelong dream of creating a Palestinian state, died today. He was 75. Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a top Arafat aide, confirmed to The Associated Press that Arafat died at 4:30 am Paris time. He spoke to reporters at Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Arafat, who had been a prisoner in his West Bank headquarters since 2002, died in a military hospital in a Paris suburb.

"Do I believe in elves?" Sveinki repeated my question. Tap, tap, tap, he knocked the ash from his pipe on a chunk of lava. He had done this so often during our four days of hiking together that it had become a comforting soundtrack to our trip. We were leaning against our backpacks, sipping Danish coffee and eating butter cookies in the sun on the shore of a lake within Tjarnargigur crater. "I believe they are an early form of urban legend," he said slowly in the tone of the professor that he is, "or a graphic means of passing on to the next generation local dangers, like wells that have gone bad and such.

Winds blast the bald outcropping 1,530 feet above the Atlantic as the stars melt into the creeping light of dawn. Perched on Cadillac Mountain in America's easternmost national park, I may be the first person in the country to witness this new day. Around me, there are only the crash of the waves, the cry of a seagull and a cold, numbing wind. Acadia National Park, established in 1919 as the first national park east of the Mississippi, dangles from Maine's tortuous coastline on a land formation called Mount Desert Island.

Total time: 1 hour Servings: 4 Note: Poussins are available frozen at Bristol Farms or can be ordered fresh from Bristol Farms or Whole Foods. You may substitute 8 regular garlic cloves if green garlic is not available. 1/4 cup chopped tarragon 1/4 cup chopped chives 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley 1/4 cup chopped dill 4 bulbs green garlic, minced Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened 4 poussins 1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Total time: 20 minutes Servings: 4 Note: This works best with thicker rather than spindly carrots. 4 bunches baby carrots, trimmed and scrubbed or peeled 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 teaspoon sugar 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 1/2tablespoons heavy cream White pepper to taste 1 small bunch chives, chopped 1. Place the carrots in...

POP! POP! POPCORN! Bet you can't wait to eat some. Sorry! If you're talking about small wildflowers commonly found in the Santa Monica Mountains, you can't eat them, but you can let Chloe Chais, 10, and brother Jonathan, 7, of Beverly Hills, show you how to do an art project. They first did research on popcorn flowers, then made this illustration using tissue paper and real popcorn. Jonathan and Chloe learned there are several species of popcorn flowers. They are members of what is commonly known as the fiddleneck family of plants.

Society may not be quite ready for the day when a dead person's face is recycled for the living - but that day is coming nonetheless. Such an operation would give new life to someone severely disfigured by burns, cancer or an accident, allowing the person to exist free of the stares and shock their appearances often evoke. The procedure would be more straightforward than the many reconstructive surgeries such victims usually must endure. Already, doctors at the University of Louisville in Kentucky say they hope to soon select a candidate for the operation, possibly within the year.

When it comes to immunizations, travelers may have a world of misconceptions. "It's too late (or too early) to get the vaccines I need," they think, or "I got all my shots in childhood. " Figuring out which immunizations one needs for a trip abroad isn't simple, travel medicine physicians note. It depends on several factors, including the traveler's health, previous vaccines, the destination and where the traveler plans to stay and visit. A person traveling in rural areas of a developing country, for instance, probably needs protection different from a traveler who stays in the city at a luxury hotel with little interaction with the locals, said Dr. Brian Terry, a Pasadena physician specializing in travel medicine.

Rio de Janeiro This is a city of coexisting extremes: Wealth and opulence adjoin poverty and squalor; courtesy counterbalances crime; sensuality shares space with spirituality. The topography pulls you abruptly from sea level to cloud level and beyond, as mountains burst randomly through the cityscape. At times I felt as though I were resting in the hollow of a giant's hand whose massive fingers curled protectively upward. In fact Christ the Redeemer, Cristo Redentor, Rio's signature statue, stands with arms outstretched at the top of Corcovado Mountain, almost a half a mile high.