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Poetry
5:45 am
Sun October 14, 2012

'A Thousand Mornings' With Poet Mary Oliver

Credit Rachel Giese Brown
Mary Oliver has won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
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Originally published on Sun October 14, 2012 1:14 pm

Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose body of work is largely filled with imagery of the natural world — cats, opossums crossing the street, sunflowers and black oaks in the sunshine. Her most recent collection is entitled A Thousand Mornings.

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Sunday Puzzle
3:32 am
Sun October 14, 2012

Where, 'O' Where Shall I Put You?

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Originally published on Sun October 14, 2012 1:14 pm

On-air challenge: Every answer is a two-word phrase in which the letter "O" is added at the end of the first word to make the second word. For example, given the clue "pack animal owned by Thomas Jefferson's first vice president," the answer would be "Burr burro."

Last week's challenge: Draw a regular hexagon and connect every pair of vertices except one. The pair you don't connect are not on opposite sides of the hexagon but along a shorter diagonal. How many triangles of any size are in this figure?

Answer: 82 triangles

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The Two-Way
4:41 pm
Sat October 13, 2012

Throngs Follow Space Shuttle Endeavour On Its Final Journey

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Credit Jeff Gritchen / AFP/Getty Images
Space shuttle Endeavour travels through Los Angeles on Saturday.
Credit Jeff Gritchen / AFP/Getty Images
In an instant, the shuttle crossings became part of history.
Credit Wally Skalij / AFP/Getty Images
Having escaped out of Earth's atmosphere two dozen times, Endeavour's slow-speed trek Saturday to its retirement center took it through the working-class streets of southern Los Angeles.
Credit Jeff Gritchen / AP
After trundling out of the Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, Endeavour hit the pavement before dawn again on Saturday on a remote-controlled 160-wheel carrier past diamond-shaped "Shuttle Xing" signs.
Credit Chris Carlson / AP
On Friday, the shuttle made a late-morning pit stop at the Forum, where it was greeted in the arena's parking lot by a throng of cheering spectators.
Credit Wally Skalij / AP
The 170,000-pound shuttle traveled at no more than 2 mph along a 12-mile route from LAX to its final home at the California Science Center.
Credit Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images
Along the 12-mile course, people marveled at the engineering. Some rooted for Endeavour when it appeared it might clip a lightpost. Others wondered if it could just hurry up to its destination.
Credit Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images
As it wound through South Los Angeles, residents welcomed its presence. Before the move, some lamented over the loss of shade as trees were chopped down to provide clearance.
Credit Wally Skalij / AFP/Getty Images
There were bumps in the road. Several hundred Inglewood residents suffered hours-long outages when power lines were temporarily snipped.
Credit LUCY NICHOLSON / AP
It took nearly a year to plan the Endeavour's laborious shuffle through city streets.
Credit Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images
The shuttle could not be taken apart without damaging the delicate tiles. Airlifting it was out of the question, so was driving on freeways since it's too massive to fit through underpasses.
Credit Lucy Nicholson / AP
So for most of the way, Endeavour straddled wide boulevards — Manchester, Crenshaw, Martin Luther King Jr.
Credit Jae C. Hong / AP
The one exception was when the shuttle poked through a slightly curved residential street lined with apartment buildings on both sides. It was such a squeeze that its 78-foot wingspan towered over driveways.
Credit Patrick T. Fallon / AP
Such a move is not cheap. The crosstown transport was estimated at $10 million, to be paid for by the science center and private donations.
Credit Rick Loomis / AP
Endeavour was scheduled to inch into the California Science Center late Saturday to spend the rest of its years as a museum piece.
Credit Jeff Gritchen / AFP/Getty Images
At every turn of Endeavour's stop-and-go commute through urban streets, a constellation of spectators trailed along as the space shuttle ploddingly nosed past stores, schools, churches and front yards.
Credit Patrick T. Fallon / AP
The giant doughnut in Inglewood dwarfs even the space shuttle Endeavour.
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Originally published on Sun October 14, 2012 9:22 am

Update 10/14/12 10:08 a.m. ET: The Excitement Has Passed, But Not The Shuttle

The crowds that cheered the shuttle on Saturday changed their tune after a night of hassles that left the Endeavour still blocking L.A. traffic and threatening trees early Sunday morning.

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Around the Nation
4:40 pm
Sat October 13, 2012

Detroit Snob? Of Course I Am.

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Some Detroiters think their city has gotten a bad rap.
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Originally published on Tue October 23, 2012 2:22 pm

In the past few years, the news from Detroit has been fairly bleak so it's no surprise comedians like Stephen Colbert have taken shots at the downtrodden city.

"Maybe someone could attempt the unthinkable: walk through downtown Detroit."

But many positive changes are taking place. Desiree Cooper, who started a company called Detroit Snob, says residents have a lot to be snobby about.

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Sports
4:40 pm
Sat October 13, 2012

A Shifting Playing Field: Coming Out As A Gay Athlete

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Credit Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo / AP
Boxer Orlando Cruz hits a speed bag at a public gym in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 4. He said publicly that he is gay earlier this month.
Credit Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Former professional baseball player Billy Bean speaks on Variety's Gay Hollywood Panel in West Hollywood in 2004. As a pro athlete, Bean kept his sexual orientation a secret.
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Originally published on Sun October 14, 2012 10:07 am

These days, we're more likely to see professional athletes on products than protest lines. But it wasn't always this way. In the 1960s, sports stars were often as famous for what they believed as for their home runs.

Back then, many athletes spoke out about civil rights. Muhammad Ali was stripped of his heavyweight title and threatened with imprisonment for refusing to fight in Vietnam, on the grounds of racial discrimination.

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