Martha Groves

Angelina Jolie, the BRCA mutation and me

latimes.com — Late Monday night, friends and colleagues started sending me Angelina Jolie 's op-ed about her decision to have a double mastectomy . Like Jolie, I have the mutation in my BRCA1 gene that pushed my lifetime risk of developing breast cancer to nearly 90%. (It also raised my risk of ovarian cancer above 50%.)

Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine give $70 million to create new USC academy

latimes.com — Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre are shown in February at Universal Music Group Chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge's annual Grammy Awards viewing party. (Jeffrey Mayer / WireImage / ) Hip-hop star Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine are donating $70 million to USC for a new academy that they say will give students the tools they need to break into the rapidly changing music industry.

UCI students vote to save campus newspaper

latimes.com — Students voted to charged themselves a quarterly fee to help keep the student newspaper in print. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times / ) The UCI campus newspaper will stay in print after students agreed to charge themselves a fee to keep the presses rolling.

As Live Talks Los Angeles Turns Three Years Old, Its Founder Explains What Makes a Great Conversation

blogs.laweekly.com — Jena Ardell Ronald Reagan may have been the Great Communicator, but Ted Habte-Gabr is obsessed with conversation. Habte-Gabr produces Live Talk Los Angeles, a series of events that pair interesting names -- often of the literary world -- for sit-down interviews in front of hundreds of people.

Vin Scully is the true voice of Los Angeles

latimes.com — My young colleague, Ben Welsh, who hails from Swisher, Iowa, by way of Columbia, Mo., and Washington, D.C., quickly caught on to what we native Angelenos know subliminally. Los Angeles has its own distinctive voice. It's not the plaintive howl of coyotes in the hills, the frightening screams of the Santa Ana winds or the somnolent lap of surf.

Will Smith Sets Sights on 'Wild Bunch' Reboot at Warner Bros. (Exclusive)

thewrap.com — Will Smith is in talks to star in and produce Warner Bros.' reboot of Sam Peckinpah's classic 1969 Western "The Wild Bunch," individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap. Smith would produce through his Overbrook Entertainment banner along with Jerry Weintraub, who recently worked with Smith on "The Karate Kid" remake.

Astronaut's viral David Bowie video a major ground control affair

latimes.com — The making of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s cover of the David Bowie classic “A Space Oddity,” which is going galactically viral Monday, was a decidedly terrestrial affair. And it centered on a Silver Lake producer and a Canadian singer who once did vocals for Bowie, say those who were involved.

My Medical Choice

nytimes.com — LOS ANGELES MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 59. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.