1s and are on the cusp of a milestone.The women's water polo team notched UCLA's 99th NCAA team title on May 14 -- toppling USC in the championship game, no less. Albans, "people still go to the local stores because they know the owners They chitchat while they do business. They get a lot out of music, and when you add words, they absorb them."Gina Rose Weiss, now 11, celebrated her 10th birthday with a party and seeing "Wicked" with several friends in New York."It was really cool because afterward, we were, like, quoting it for three hours," says Gina, a professional actress who has appeared in television commercials and on "Law & Order." "I like Elphaba a lot because her character really grows. There are little local series, but few conductors who have national profiles or media profiles, or big audiences."One of those big-name pops conductors is film composer John Williams, who led the Boston Pops from 1980 to 1993."When Williams took over," says historian Marcus, "that influenced pops orchestras all over the country.

"Maybe it's a weird expression, but I think the older generation has to die out before you can start a new tablet."Fifty years ago, Sebestyen figured a tank, not cuts in pension programs, would do her in.She and other rebels had retreated to the basement of a house Gunfire echoed, boots scraped over the streets A tank whined and a shell struck, killing seven people She hurried out carrying a baby pocked with shrapnel. Signs have been placed near the doors to Reliant Arena: No Drugs, No Gambling, No Alcohol, No Sex.Houston police and the Harris County sheriff's department have dozens of officers at the arena complex although evacuees complain that they are not taken seriously when they report crimes such as theft or harassment.Carolyn Scantlebury, an official with the task force organized by the Harris County Housing Authority, said she is not surprised that the remaining evacuees are upset.They are going through a kind of grieving process, she said, after the damage done to their lives by Katrina.The evacuees are moving from "shock to confusion to anger," she said. Virgil's Root Beer, poured on tap at Mani's Bakery in Los Angeles, tastes like the ingredients it's made with: anise, vanilla, clove, wintergreen, sweet birch, nutmeg, pimento berry oil, balsam oil and cassia oil.You can sample American classics such as Moxie -- a gentian root-flavored elixir -- along with imports and local brands at the Refresher soda stall in the Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles. A still-unpublished study by researchers at the Marilyn and Gordon Macklin Intergenerational Institute in Findlay, Ohio, compared 100 3- and 4-year-old preschoolers who had been in intergenerational day care for at least a year, with 100 preschoolers in typical day care.

A group of Salem schoolgirls, some as young as 12, are being questioned about whether they exchanged sex for methamphetamines, and one has admitted to the swap, police said.The girls under investigation attend Waldo Middle School, officials said. The Spallinos will have to pack light because their new car has less than a third of the trunk space of a typical car.But the biggest difference is in the fuel tank. The Yankees remained half a game behind Cleveland in the wild-card race.Cleveland 4, Minnesota 2 -- The surging Indians retained the wild-card lead, beating Johan Santana for the first time behind six strong innings from Jake Westbrook (14-14) at Cleveland. In the Midwest, June housing starts rose 3%, but permits fell 1.6%.The Mortgage Bankers Assn. A Times review found that the mayor's office intervened in 2003 to help negotiate a more favorable contract for one of the companies.On Friday, after a 10-minute debate, the council rejected Villaraigosa's motion to take control of the contracts on a 6-5 vote, four short of the required 10-vote supermajority.The mayor's supporters argued that it was not necessary to wrest control of the issue from the Airport Commission.

Russell said he expected the Fed later this year to consider rate cuts, but because last week's consumer and producer price indexes showed inflation rising, "it's a little early for us to hope for this specific event," he said.Worries over the flagging housing market, particularly the sub-prime mortgage industry, have been dragging down stocks over the last month.But investors got some reassurance Tuesday from a Commerce Department report that construction of new homes rose by 9% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.525 million units, higher than the expected 1.450 million. For virtually all other diseases and disorders, whatever happened to a man, it was thought, also happened to a woman.As it turns out, the biological truth is vastly different. SUPPORTERS OF MAYOR Antonio Villaraigosa's flawed attempt to acquire a say in how Los Angeles schools are run tend to give one of two reasons. On election night, FoxNews.com will feature an election tracker that will allow viewers to monitor specific races on a customized Web page, with updated results every two minutes.For its part, MSNBC plans to devote all of its daytime programming to politics this week.