A widespread though unverified rumor had it that President Bill Clinton did not want the newspaper-broadcast ownership rule repealed as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act because he did not want the owner of the Little Rock, Ark.

Usually, it would be best to ignore conspiracy mongers such as Alex Jones and not reward him and his angry gaggle of paranoiac followers with any sort of attention.

Revolutionary changes are coming at us at supersonic speed, bringing new challenges that are existential and global. Yet our political system seems incapable of adapting to, or even fully acknowledging, those changes.

...at last be ready to do something.Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David Horsey is a political commentator for the Los Angeles Times. Go to latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/ to see more of his work. David Horsey is distributed...

Both Republicans and Democrats say concern about the middle class is at the heart of the ongoing, vituperative debate over taxes, entitlements and fiscal discipline, but the political spat never seems to honestly address the gaping and growing class divide in the United States. As politicians in Washington, D.C., slam each other over competing budget priorities, most avoid facing up to the disturbing question behind all the numbers: Is the American Dream temporarily stalled or permanently kaput?

Virg and Jim to perform Virg and Jim will perform at 7 p.m. Thursday in the bandstand at Gregory Park as part of the Concert in the Park series. They have performed throughout the area for many years.

Seventy-one years ago this month, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and brought America into a war that had begun in Europe in 1939.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Newspapers are returning to a business strategy that served them well in the heyday of street-corner newsboys shouting the front-page news. They're enticing people with a little free online content before asking them to pay up.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Humane Society of the United States says it's under attack by a new group that's trying to starve it of funding by urging donors to send money to local animal shelters instead. The society has long been a thorn in the side of some in agriculture with its undercover investigations and campaigns against animal cruelty. It claims the new group is the brainchild of conservative public relations executive Rick Berman, who spearheaded an earlier campaign against it, and that it's supported by big agricultural interests.

"Nearly 30 percent of jobless Americans have been out of work for at least a year, according to the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative report on the first quarter," The Los Angeles Times reported. That's an astounding figure.