The holiday is here
A holiday weekend and summer’s unofficial start are here.
Industry surveys indicate a record number of Southern Californians are filling their fuel tanks and hitting the road, despite gas prices being nearly a dollar a gallon more this year than last.
As an incentive to counter high gas prices, many hotels and attractions around the state are offering discounts and gas giveaways. Six Flags Magic Mountain is even slashing $15 off the price of admission simply for showing a gas receipt.
Still, surveys show travel is projected to be up only marginally over last year. Page C1
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Who needs a man of the house?
Single women bought 21% of all homes sold last year. That’s 1.76 million properties.
Now they’re moving into the home improvement market, and not just on holiday weekends. Women now account for 40% of all do-it-yourself sales.
A variety of factors drive the change. Women marry later. They’re better educated and earn more. Quite a change from 30 years ago, when it was difficult for a single woman to even get her own mortgage. Page A1
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Caltech names new president
Caltech names Jean-Lou Chameau its new president.
The 53-year-old Chameau is a French-born civil engineer who is provost of Georgia Tech. He’ll become the 10th president and first foreign-born leader in the Pasadena institution’s 115-year history.
Chameau is regarded as an advocate for research crossing traditional boundaries and for promoting the role of women in science. One challenge will be increasing Caltech’s endowment, now around $1.5 billion, down from $1.57 billion in 2000. Page B1
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Chinese farmer is sentenced
The rule of law is a patchy business in China.
Huang Weizhong has been sentenced to three years in prison for gathering a crowd to disturb social order.
The 46-year-old Huang is a farmer. And what he did was lead several hundred villagers in a fight to keep their land from being seized by local government. It’s a standard move by Chinese government officials, who probably have already sold the land for a larger price. Page A31
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Researchers study quake waves
A study of how earthquake waves from the San Andreas fault move through different types of soil is a promising first step in an ambitious program to pinpoint neighborhoods susceptible to the worst shaking.
Researchers hope to duplicate the study on hundreds of other faults around Southern California. Page B1
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But can they find California?
In case you think today’s young Americans are clueless about the world around them, you’re right.
A recent survey finds 9 out of 10 cannot find Afghanistan on a world map. Thirty-three percent can’t find Louisiana and half can’t quite place Mississippi. How depressing, writes Bill Stall on the Op-Ed page. Page B19
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Doing guard duty
The Hamas-led Palestinian government has withdrawn its militia from the streets of Gaza in hopes of damping down fighting with rival Fatah forces. Above, a militia member standing guard at a mosque displays a photo of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Page A24
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THE CRITIC: ‘Enron’s scam, in particular, depended on having self-interested Wall Street analysts and lazy, distracted financial journalists happily buy into the con that the boys from Houston really were “the smartest guys in the room.” ’ Tim Rutten in Regarding Media, Calendar, E1
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BUSINESS
Not just surviving, but prospering
The ultimate winner of last fall’s reality TV series “Survivor: Guatemala -- The Mayan Empire” may turn out to be Guatemala itself.
Visits to the country are running 26% higher than last year, and Guatemalan tourism officials attribute the gain to the television program, which was viewed by an estimated 20 million North Americans.
The program was filmed in a national park in the country’s Peten state, where farmers have abandoned their plows to drive tour buses, sell crafts items and open small restaurants and hotels. Page C1
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ON LATIMES.COM
Riding bicycles in the Netherlands
Get a biker’s view of Holland with photos of canals, flower markets, pastoral scenery and stunning fields of tulips and daffodils. latimes.com/netherlands
Movie wonderland: Read reviews of all this weekend’s new releases, plus see trailers, photos and get more details about every movie, as well as where it’s playing in your neighborhood.
calendarlive.com
Week in pictures: The week’s most memorable images from photographers around the world.
latimes.com/weekinpictures
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CALENDAR
This just in ... Gray’s the new blond
Gray hair’s much more than a sign of aging these days; it’s become a statement of stylishness, not to mention naturalism and gravitas. The triumph of premature silvertop Taylor Hicks (above, right) on “American Idol” pretty much clinches it, although the grizzled ‘dos of Meryl Streep (left) in the forthcoming film “The Devil Wears Prada,” and Halle Berry (center) in “X-Men: The Last Stand” add further luster to the movement. Richard Gere and Emmylou Harris, it turns out, were real prophets. Page E1
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Walking out on ‘The Black Rider’
“The Black Rider” is bringing audience members at the Ahmanson Theatre to their feet -- and propelling unusual numbers of them right out the door during performances.
The bizarro musical that combines the nonconformist talents of writer William S. Burroughs, songster Tom Waits and director Robert Wilson has seen a high incidence of mid-show defections by the theater’s audiences, which are more accustomed to Broadway musicals and middlebrow comedies.
The show was a hit in San Francisco where it played to near sell-out audiences, and attained live theater’s holy grail -- young audience members.
Some L.A. attendees love the show, and can’t fathom the early-departers’ problem. “This is not like Podunk,” said one. “This is Los Angeles.” Page E1
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Putting the song back into dance
DJ-producer Mylo’s transformation from doctoral student in philosophy at UCLA to savior of dance music was accomplished in his bedroom, courtesy of a cheap computer and some free sampling software he’d downloaded from the Internet.
“Destroy Rock & Roll,” the debut album born in those circumstances, since has sold 300,000 copies worldwide and catapulted the 27-year-old Scot (real name Myles MacInnes) into the electronica firmament. Mylo is credited with having brought dance music back to being song-based. His creations appeal both to dance clubbers and to traditional rock audiences.
The biggest hit on the CD, “Drop the Pressure,” alas has received little radio airplay in the United States because of its repetition of a certain 12-letter curse word. Page E4
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Short shorts and long green
Girl watchers may want to bless the name of L.A. designer Kristen Johnson, who is bringing shorts up from the beach and into the office this summer.
The shorts produced by her company, Johnson, aren’t of the khaki or denim variety. They’re dressy, tailored affairs of vintage silk, cotton, wool plaid and houndstooth, cuffed and fastened with unique buttons. They combine a 1940s pin-up girl look with a punk-rock edge. The shorts range in length from short shorts to bloomers, and in price from $120 to $500.
Johnson, no stranger to cultural breakthroughs (she pioneered pairing shorts with tights in winter as an alternative to jeans), has had great success getting her wares into stores. In the past year, the number of retailers selling her shorts has grown from three to 500. Page E1
