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As the head of Mayor Tom Bradley’s Rebuild L.A. task force, Ueberroth last week began surveying the wreckage and feeling the heat. The city’s upheaval took a staggering toll: 54 people dead, 2,383 injured. Riot-related arrests–almost 17,000 by the weekend–overwhelmed the county legal system. Rampant looting and raging fires destroyed or seriously damaged an estimated 5,200 buildings, most of them businesses; losses will probably exceed $1 billion worth before the count is over....

President Bill Clinton signed it into existence in 1996. “We have a duty to seize the opportunity it gives us to end welfare as we know it by moving people from welfare to work, demanding responsibility and doing better by children,” he said in the run up to its passage. In fact, history shows us that while it did force people into work, the work ended up reducing the incomes of people living in poverty—a predictable outcome when people’s only options are to take a job that does not pay a living wage in order to cling to their meager government benefits....

Born to an Avar family when Dagestan was still part of the Soviet Union, Khabib - as most of the people born there - engaged from an early age in his training routine. But the young Khabib had an advantage over the other Dagestani kids - his father was the gym owner. Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov introduced his son Khabib to wrestling when he was just a child. From training with a bear to helping his father in the gym, Khabib was raised in a fighting environment....

Around this time my reserve rifle company, having just come off of a year of active duty in December, got the call for all Marines to show up for anthrax shots. It came unexpectedly and without explanation. No one said we were going to Iraq, but in his silence it was almost as if our company commander was winking his eye and nodding his head. The prospect of once again leaving our home so soon, left many of the Marines bitter and brooding....

On Louise’s conviction It’s the correct verdict. It’s a bittersweet moment. I don’t know if you can be pleased with anything that has to do with your son being dead. On worries about child care [Y]ou do whatever you can to find out about someone . . . this person has supposedly gone through a screening process with the au pair agency . . . If someone is taking care of your kid, maybe they won’t be doing the best job, but ....

The basic facts of the tragic shooting seven months ago are not in dispute. Masaichi Hattori, father of the dead boy, was in the courtroom as lawyers retold how the teenager and a friend were headed to a Halloween party on Oct. 17. The decorations on the Peairses’ door convinced them they were in the right place. When wife Bonnie saw Hattori–dressed up like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”-she was startled and told her husband to get his gun....

In all, Georges pummeled Key West for more than 24 hours. It also prompted the largest mandatory evacuation order in Florida history, affecting some 1.9 million people along the state’s west coast as far north as St. Petersburg. Then the storm veered away into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving many Floridians feeling thankful–no one died–and some with a sense of anticlimax. ““An awful lot of money was spent to get ready for this, and it’s not going to happen,’’ said Bill McKenzie, 49, who lives near Sarasota....

BEVERLY SCHAMING BRADFORD, PA. CAROL A. BRADLEY BETHLEHEM, PA.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said that 2,300 firefighters of the department’s 11,000 employees have called out sick as of Monday morning. FDNY Deputy Commissioner Frank Dwyer called the numbers “very unusual.” City officials believed the staffing shortage is in protest of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s mandate for the municipal workers, who had until 5 p.m. Friday to get at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine or be placed on unpaid leave beginning Monday....

There’s a strong possibility that Martin is indeed taking more time to change the course of events he had planned for A Song of Ice and Fire in order to make the books stand out from the show, which makes sense based on the latter’s reception toward the end. While some fans are not happy about the books taking so long to come out, it’s safe to assume they won’t face the same problem with rushed plot points or characters not having enough space for their stories to be told....

In 2009, Pandemic Studios tried to deliver a Star Wars Battlefront-like game set in Middle-earth, and while it was not great, it offered fans the chance to engross themselves in Lord of the Rings’ largest battles. Players got to serve as a soldier for multiple armies in Tolkein’s fantasy world, but the concept has not been revisited. While Lord of the Rings may never try again, perhaps it is better suited for Game of Thrones....

But he grew old. With cancer of his spine, maybe elsewhere, he was no longer interested in food and his bladder and bowels were embarrassingly out of his control. Sadly I watched the doctor shave his thin forearm, stroked his soft, vibrating side as the needle was prepared. Gov didn’t even flinch when it slid in. About five seconds, the gold eyes glazed, then half-closed and the purr stopped. No pain....

I keep thinking about the months of learning missed. The months of relationships, development and fun missed. I keep thinking about the joy and the play and the things that make life worth living taken from them. Sports, concerts, school dances, first dates, parties—all of it has been suspended. Even their spiritual lives have been disrupted, as churches, synagogues and mosques have been shuttered across America. I keep thinking about the loneliness they’re experiencing....

Restrain yourself. This is the time of year when many employers ask us to sit down and fill out all those bothersome 401(k) investment forms. As you do, remember: your job is to implement a plan, not outwit a fiendishly unpredictable market. Self-discipline will be paramount this year because the future is so cloudy. Will the economy continue to serve up that golden elixir–robust corporate profits mixed with quiescent inflation–that makes the market dance?...

New Dutch coach Darije Kalezic has been appointed to change the club’s fortunes but has to deal with a swag of experienced, quality players departing. 2016-17 finishing position: 7th Coach: Darije Kalezic INS AND OUTS Ins: Scott Galloway, Goran Paracki, Dario Vidosic, Daniel Mullen, Andrija Kaludjerovic, Ali Abbas. Outs: Roly Bonevacia, Shane Smeltz, Jacob Tratt, Glen Moss, Kosta Barbarouses, Alex Rodriguez, Vince Lia. STAR PLAYER - Dario Vidosic Wellington will be Dario Vidosic’s fourth A-League club, after stints at Brisbane Roar, Adelaide and Western Sydney, but there is definitely no doubting his quality....

An Important Book that you admit you haven’t read: “Moby-Dick.” It’s just too long. The book you cared most about sharing with your kids: I read the Iliad and the Odyssey to my daughter more than once. They say everything that can be said about human motivation.

A Certified Important Book you haven’t read: The list is so long. I’ve never read Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” I’d like to, although it’s a lot to take on. My tastes run to fiction. The book you want your kids to read: Shakespeare, especially “The Merchant of Venice,” because there’s the ethnic hook. Once you learn to decode him, you enter a realm of unbelievable wisdom and power....