The response to a tragedy

Seventeen inches long, approximately 4 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair.

Why would -- how could -- someone toss this infant girl over a fence toward railroad tracks more than 50 feet below?

It’s a question than remains unanswered in Alhambra, where the body of the girl -- named Therese Rose by the Alhambra parish that adopted her in death -- was found in March. The incident has elicited anger, anguish and grief in the community, as well as some soul-searching.

Hundreds turned out in the rain for a candlelight vigil. Volunteers came forward to pay for a funeral. A priest at the church where it was held said community members asked themselves: “Are we going to let it slide or are we going to raise the level of involvement?” Page B1

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Learning about life on the street

Speaking of involvement....

Volunteers went to the bridges and overpasses spanning the L.A. River near downtown and handed out food, water and other daily essentials to some of the city’s estimated 85,000 homeless. Among those on the expedition were students from a Loyola High School social justice program called “Urban Plunge,” and in exchange for the supplies the students received a bracing lesson in the realities of drug addiction, violence and despair.

Which is the point of the program. “We aim to break these students out of their comfortable little bubbles, change the direction of their hearts and help them develop a social conscience,” a school official says.

One observation imparted by a man who said he was a Vietnam veteran: It’s safer along garbage-strewn underpasses than it is on skid row. Page B3

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Nagin’s plans for the Big Easy

Having won a second term as mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin says the city needs to pull together to rebuild: “This is our shot,” he says. “This is our time.”

The first order of business for Nagin: setting up three committees, two of which would focus on rebuilding and one that would evaluate his administration’s personnel. Page A4

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Palestinians to get some money back

As tensions between Palestinian factions rise to the point that some observers worry that a civil war could break out, Israel says it will allow about $11 million in Palestinian tax money to be used to help stock hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But it insists that the new Hamas-led government won’t be involved in the process.

A Palestinian government spokesman criticizes the Israeli decision. “The money is Palestinian money,” he says. “We don’t want Israel to control our priorities and direct the money where they want.” Page A11

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Stone previews his 9/11 movie

Twenty years ago, director Oliver Stone released his Vietnam War saga, “Platoon.” Now he’s making a film about the Sept. 11 attacks on New York, and at the Cannes Film Festival he compared the heroism portrayed in “World Trade Center” to that shown in “Platoon.”

Stone showed about 20 minutes of material from his movie to a packed audience at Cannes, which responded with thunderous applause. Page A12

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Coming soon to your kid’s PC

If your business is built on kids, and if kids like games, cartoons and downloading stuff, what’s the logical step?

Well, you partner up with a former Nickelodeon production executive to develop Downloadable animated games dubbed “gametoons.” And maybe hope that kids don’t become fascinated by Luddites. Page C1

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Celebrating -- but too soon?

Residents of the Balkan region of Montenegro voted on whether to break away from Serbia. But even as supporters of independence took to the streets and claimed victory, poll-watchers said the vote was too close to call. Page A11

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HEALTH

Lunch at the lab ranch

“Tissue engineered” meat sounds about as good as Soylent Green. But scientists cultivating a future main course in vitro swear they can replicate the taste and texture, improving nutrition and safety along the way. Still, skeptics say, a petri dish is not a cow. Page F3

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Easy, rider, your time has come

When the price of gas became too dear for Lisa Anne Auerbach, she dumped her car in favor of her bike for the commute from South Pasadena to Venice. With the financial and health benefits, she has come to appreciate the small town within the big city. “On the bicycle,” she says, “you feel like it’s all within reach.”

The population of bike commuters is growing in L.A., and services both civic and commercial are taking note. Whether your motivation is money or health, traffic or pollution, fewer places are better suited in terrain and climate to move you out from behind the wheel and onto the saddle. Page F1

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Eat the spinach, toss the tablet

More than half of all Americans take multivitamins, and we spend $23 billion a year on dietary supplements. So-called functional foods -- orange juice, cereal, bread and ... water? -- are nutritionally enhanced.

Enough is enough -- or maybe even too much, say health and nutrition experts. Excessive amounts of some nutrients can wreak a wide range of havoc, from liver poisoning to interactions with prescription drugs. Eater, beware. Page F3

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Gym rat channels Miss America

To a lot of people, the prototypical female bodybuilder looks like the love child of the Michelin Man and a lowland gorilla that just stepped out of the waxing salon.

Time for an upgrade, and it’s the National Physique Committee to the rescue. The bodybuilding federation promotes “figure” competitions that reward a fit, cut form, but infuse the formerly muscle-bound standards with a dose of femininity. These competitors have curves, wear makeup and can throw your car over your house. Page F11

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CALENDAR

When second becomes third

To be sure, one week is only one week. It’s but a moment in time in the never-ending survival struggle of television networks and their viewer ratings.

But when the third-ranked “CBS Evening News” squeaked past ABC’s “World News Tonight” for the first time in nearly five years, the gloom deepened at ABC.

Yes, they’ve been snake-bit the last year: first with the loss of longtime anchor Peter Jennings to cancer, then with January’s injury to Bob Woodruff, the male half of the new anchor team, while he was covering the war in Iraq.

Come August, the broadcast will temporarily lose the female half of the anchor team, when Elizabeth Vargas goes on maternity leave. Whatever happened to ABC’s interim plan? Page E1

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Here’s one for the tasteless

OK, here’s the premise of the new horror flick “See No Evil.” See, an old hotel needs a real cleanup.

Those assigned to the messy job are detention facility troublemakers. Collectively, they look like a properly assembled cast of characters.

Pretty soon, it may not surprise you to know, they start getting picked off and picked over and picked at by a grunting psycho the size of a wrestler (which fits, because the psycho is played by a WWE star).

This task of delivering a gory demise turns out to be quite a messy -- and also quite predictable and colorful -- business.

This big guy also has a hook, see, which he uses to drag around the about-to-be bodies. And, well, you get the point, if there is one. Page E4

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SPORTS

Faster, higher, stronger, smarter

Here’s a remarkable track and field stat: Five seniors on the Los Angeles Loyola High track team are going to Ivy League colleges next year, one is going to Stanford, and one is going to Loyola Marymount.

They’re good athletes -- six qualified for the Southern Section championships -- but academics got them into prestigious universities, and team members credit parental involvement for their classroom success.

One put it succinctly: “Some people don’t grow up in a home or environment conducive to learning. My mom and dad did a great job surrounding me with great people.” Page D11

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ON LATIMES.COM

How Vegas stays young

Strip secrets: Vegas blogger Richard Abowitz reveals the secret to how aging casinos maintain their edge -- by staying staffed with the young and the beautiful in the public areas of the hotels. Abowitz discusses how increasing the hottie quotient behind the bar at the Mirage Hotel helped keep it on top after the mauling of tiger-tamer Roy Horn. latimes.com/vegasblog

On the border: See a photo gallery of the cat-and-mouse game between smugglers and the U.S. Border Patrol.

latimes.com/border

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THE WEEK AHEAD

TUESDAY

Bush, Olmert meet on Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert travels to Washington to meet with President Bush. How to deal with a Palestinian government headed by Hamas, which both the Israeli and U.S. governments consider a terrorist group, will be high on the agenda. Both governments have backed international efforts to isolate Hamas, but they worry about the chaos that could result if the Palestinian Authority collapses completely.

WEDNESDAY

‘American Idol’ crowns winner

America’s favorite TV show comes down to the wire. After a four-month competition in front of an average audience of 30 million people, Katharine McPhee and Taylor Hicks will find out who is to be crowned the next “American Idol.” Local viewers can be excused for rooting for the 22-year-old McPhee: She’s a hometown girl, having grown up in Sherman Oaks. But Hicks, 29, no doubt has a big following in his home state, Alabama.

THURSDAY

Pope heads to Poland

Pope Benedict XVI leaves Rome on a four-day trip to Poland, the native land of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. The trip, planned as an homage to the late pontiff, is expected to draw millions to Masses in Warsaw and Krakow, where John Paul served as bishop. For many, the most-watched part of the trip may come on Sunday, when the German-born Benedict visits the site of the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

SUNDAY

The Indy 500 roars into action

The Indianapolis 500 might not dominate U.S. auto racing as it once did, but it’s still one of the most famous races in the world. Will David Letterman come up a winner again, as he did two years ago when Buddy Rice took the checkered flag? The team’s other driver is Danica Patrick, who could become the first female driver to win. Or will the winner be the defending champion? What was his name again? Oh, yeah, Dan Wheldon.