United States

The federal government has become serious about virginity — at least when it comes to olive oil. Propelled by complaints about slippery food purveyors selling low-end product as high-end goods, or olive oils being doctored with cheaper canola, safflower or peanut oils, the U.S. Department of Agriculture this fall will roll out new standards to help ensure that consumers buying "100% extra virgin" olive oil get what they pay for. ...

Thirteen years ago, a biomedical engineer in Orange County had a religious awakening and began tinkering with plastic lawn chairs and bicycle wheels in his garage. Don Schoendorfer, who has a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was in search of the perfect wheelchair for the poor in the developing world — a vehicle that would be light, durable and, above all, cheap. His peers thought he had gone off the deep end. Even his wife, although supportive, soon tired of his creations cluttering the garage of their Santa Ana home.

The suspected drug overdose death of a 15-year old girl who attended a massive rave in Los Angeles last weekend has drawn attention to the drug her family was told was found in her body: Ecstasy. Officials said use of the hallucinogen and stimulant was widespread among the scores of partygoers taken by ambulance to emergency rooms from the Electric Daisy Carnival, which was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and surrounding Exposition Park, attracting 185,000 people over two days.

Like a lot of kids in the summer of 1972, I was riveted by a strange spectacle unfolding in Iceland: a chess match between Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer, the mercurial young American. The games weren't televised -- Fischer permitted no cameras -- so chess experts replayed the moves on public television using oversize boards. Through long summer days, I puzzled over poisoned pawns and bishop pairs as Fischer, after nearly walking out on the match, crushed the Russian champion.

Boeing Co. once again finds itself the front-runner as Friday's deadline approaches for submitting proposals for aerial refueling tankers, one of the largest and most controversial contests overseen by the Pentagon. Although the latest contest hasn't formally begun, Boeing and its primary competitor, EADS North America Inc., are jockeying for position and exchanging shots over which company's tanker is the superior entry for the initial $35-billion contract. Their supporters, meanwhile, are wrangling over whether a long-running trade dispute between the U.S. and European Union should influence the contest's outcome.

Farmers markets that close seasonally typically do so in the winter, when fresh produce is least abundant in most of California, but the Palm Springs farmers market shuts down from June to September, in deference to the brutal desert summers, when temperatures can easily surpass 120 degrees. In winter and early spring, by contrast, the generally balmy weather attracts a profusion of tourists and snowbirds, and the desert (mostly the less developed areas of the southern Coachella Valley and Imperial County)

Frustrated by their inability to find the notorious killer known as the Grim Sleeper, whose DNA was not in a law enforcement database, Los Angeles police this spring asked the state to look for a DNA profile similar enough to be a possible relative of the killer. In April, state computers produced a list of 200 genetic profiles of people in the database who might be related to the alleged serial killer. Among the top five ranked as the most likely relatives was a profile that shared a common genetic marker with the crime-scene DNA at each of 15 locations that the crime lab examined.

Friday's stage: A mainly flat 141.4-mile run from Montargis to Gueugnon that again favored sprinters. Winner: Britain's Mark Cavendish clinched the 12th stage Tour win of his career, and second in two days. U.S. rider Tyler Farrar was second and veteran Alessandro Petacchi of Italy was third. Yellow jersey: Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, who finished in the main pack. Defending champion Alberto Contador of Spain stayed in ninth, 1:40 back, and seven-time champion Lance Armstrong remained 18th, 2:30 back.

The Obama administration launched its long-expected legal attack on Arizona's strict new immigration law Tuesday, arguing that only Washington can set the nation's rules for arresting illegal immigrants. The government said Tuesday that its immigration enforcement policy "targets … dangerous aliens," including violent criminals, gang members, drug traffickers and others "who pose a danger to the national security and a risk to public safety," whereas the Arizona law would force federal officials to cope with a flood of illegal immigrants who pose no danger.

The only thing that could make the opening of the new "Twilight" film look less than spectacular is the last "Twilight" film. "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" opened to an estimated $175.3 million in the United States and Canada from last Wednesday through the Monday holiday, $3.6 million short of what November's "New Moon" collected in its first six days. The shortfall is a bit surprising because the new vampire romance starring Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner had the advantage of playing in the summer, when more young people are out of school on weekdays, and on Imax screens, which charge more for tickets.

Arizona's damaging new immigration law is set to take effect Thursday. If that happens, police officers will be given broad new authority to apprehend illegal immigrants, Latinos will almost certainly find themselves subject to increased racial profiling, and the state will have resorted to a harsh and unfair policy to solve a problem that requires a nuanced and comprehensive approach. The federal government has sought an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect while its lawsuit against Arizona is heard.

The most important lesson from the release of tens of thousands of pages of classified information about the war in Afghanistan seems to be getting lost: Far too much information is classified, often simply because it is embarrassing to the government. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that there "weren't any new revelations in the material,"and nothing has been identified that is likely to be damaging to national security. The question, then, must be why so much of this material was classified and kept from the public?

Canadian actor Maury Chaykin, who was perhaps best known in the United States for his startling cameo in "Dances With Wolves" and who more recently spoofed movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on HBO's "Entourage," died on Tuesday, his 61st birthday. Chaykin died at a Toronto hospital, said his manager, Paul Hemrend. The actor had been battling kidney problems, said Mark McKinney, who produced Chaykin's most recent series, the HBO Canada sitcom "Less Than Kind." "He was one of our greatest actors," McKinney said.

Four journalists with Mexican news organizations remained missing Wednesday, two days after they were kidnapped in northern Mexico after covering disturbances at a troubled prison. The seizure of the journalists, representing two broadcasters and a newspaper, appeared to have been aimed at manipulating media coverage of drug gangs that are battling in the violence-plagued states of Durango and Coahuila. It was not immediately clear who carried out the kidnappings, though journalists said it probably was a trafficking group based in the state of Sinaloa that is said to hold sway at the Durango prison.

China views the military exercises in the Sea of Japan as a threat to its territorial integrity. Beijing's indignation appears calibrated to push back at U.S. dominance in the region. As far as Beijing is concerned, the U.S.-South Korean joint air and sea military exercises that took place this week in the Sea of Japan were a direct threat to China's territorial integrity. For days now, China's state-controlled media have been beating the drums of war with editorials, each more confrontational than the last.

It was just a matter of time before the conversation wound around to Winston Churchill. Two questions, really. That's the charm of interviewing snowboarding and skateboarding star Shaun White. You can design a well-thought-out plan of chatter, but that would be predictable and boring, two words not belonging in any sentence with White's name. Option two: Let White seize the conversation and run with it, taking the talk where it needs to go. This onramp led to Churchill when talk moved to the inevitable hangover facing almost all athletes after a hugely successful turn — and in this case, a double McTwist 1260 by White in Vancouver, Canada — and resulting in a gold medal for the snowboarder in the halfpipe at the Olympics.

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked most of a controversial Arizona immigration law just hours before it was to take effect, handing the Obama administration a win in the first stage of a legal battle expected to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix issued a temporary injunction against parts of the law that would require police to determine the status of people they lawfully stopped and suspected were in the country illegally. Bolton also forbade Arizona from making it a state crime to not carry immigration documents, and struck down two other provisions as an unconstitutional attempt by Arizona to undermine the federal government's efforts to enforce immigration policy.

As a judge weighs whether to halt Arizona's controversial immigration law, hundreds of Los Angeles union members and activists are planning a bus caravan to Phoenix on Thursday — the day the law is set to take effect. More than 550 people plan to ride on 11 buses to Arizona to stage a protest and launch a partnership with Arizona groups to boost voter registration. During the one-day trip, sponsored by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, participants will meet with Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, march to the state Capitol and hold a vigil.

Even though significantly less crude is now floating on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, federal officials warned Tuesday that the region could still suffer long-term negative impacts from the spill, particularly from oil beneath the water's surface. "The sheer volume of oil that's out there has to mean there will be some very significant impacts," said Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "What we have yet to determine is the full impact that the oil will have on not just the shorelines, not just the wildlife — but beneath the surface."

Wherever there are Western troops in Afghanistan, the clatter-thump of helicopter rotors serves as the soundtrack. Choppers are the workhorses of this war, with hundreds of them moving soldiers and supplies daily across a rugged landscape. Because of the NATO force's heavy reliance on them, one of the most eye-catching revelations in a trove of classified documents posted on the Internet this week was that insurgents apparently used a portable heat-seeking surface-to-air missile to shoot down a twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook in Helmand province in May 2007, killing seven Western service members.