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Hi, this is Tania Ganguli, Lakers beat writer for the Los Angeles Times with your Lakers newsletter. It would be an exaggeration to say the Lakers are firing on all cylinders right now (not to mention a cliche), but they have made the best of the early part of the season. A looming question for […]

Mike Bohn stood at the dais, an unfamiliar face in a place so profoundly predisposed to the familiar. He wasn’t a former USC football hero, nor had he won a Heisman Trophy. There were no statues or buildings or plaques which bared his name on campus. Outside of the cardinal and gold tie he wore […]

WASHINGTON —  For much of the United States, invasive grass species are making wildfires more frequent, especially in fire-prone California, a new study finds. Twelve non-native species act as “little arsonist grasses,” said study co-author Bethany Bradley, a University of Massachusetts professor of environmental conservation. Wherever the common Mediterranean grass invades, including California’s southern desert, fires […]

Every day for a year, Marsha Maus has trekked up Mulholland Highway to tend to her garden. Her yard overflows with towering sunflowers and creeping vines, so green it looks neon. Her plot looks down on the 1960s-era section of Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park, a tidy subdivision tucked high in the Santa Monica Mountains. […]

A graphic video released this week by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department shows the moment three deputies opened fire on a man after he gunned down his girlfriend in front of them. The Sheriff’s Department released video and 911 audio clips from last week’s fatal encounter. The 10-minute compilation video was released on the sheriff’s […]

KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Calif. —  Authorities say a man found dead in California’s Kings Canyon National Park matches the description of a missing hiker. The National Park Service says searchers discovered the body Thursday on a glacier at the base of Mount Darwin in the eastern Sierra Nevada. Investigators will determine whether it’s 40-year-old Alan […]

Tired aphorisms on free will and fate plunge writer-director Oliver Mann’s chaotic crime-drama “Such a Funny Life” into a humdrum groove of situations and reactions from which it never emancipates itself. Three distinct time periods in an aspiring comedian’s troubled existence come up short in their task of characterizing him as a multidimensional survivor of […]

Writer-director Josh Aronson’s moving documentary “To Be of Service” takes an intimate, respectful look at the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder on U.S. military veterans and the ways in which pairing up with specially trained service dogs dramatically improve their emotional and physical well-being. Aronson (2000’s Oscar-nominated doc “Sound and Fury”) memorably immerses us in […]

“The Tower,” an animated feature by Norwegian writer-director Mats Grorud, is both a political protest and a lament for a lost way of life, reminiscent of “Barefoot Gen,” Keiji Nakazawa’s first-person account of the bombing of Hiroshima. Wardi, a bright 11-year-old Palestinian girl, lives with her extended family in a refugee camp in Lebanon. She […]

‘Primal’ It’s usually best to approach any B-movie with lowered expectations; but it’s hard not to get excited about the premise for “Primal,” in which the ever-offbeat Nicolas Cage plays Frank Walsh, an exotic animal collector who’s escorting his latest catch on a transoceanic voyage when a rogue U.S. Marine escapes federal custody and frees […]